If the world is fallen, then the world of soccer is deep underground, somewhere near the earth’s core. It is gauche, it is stinkingly rich, and it is detached from reality.
The deplorable moral state of soccer in the United Kingdom was thrown into greater relief this week, after the Premier League announced on Tuesday that Manchester City have been found guilty by an independent commission of breaking a slew of financial rules between 2009 and 2018.
The scandal has sent the soccer world into Armageddon, and thrown the very integrity of the English game into doubt.
Even the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has chimed in. His intervention highlighted the geopolitical ramifications, because City are owned by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Burnham said he would be “really concerned” to lose City’s owners from the English game.
When Burnham was mayor of Manchester, the City ownership pumped millions of pounds into the city. Critics have said this is a cynical aspect of the “sportswashing” project the UAE were running, the idea that autocratic governments launder their reputation in Western countries through sport.
“They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester, and the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is,” Burnham said.
“I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it but also into the city,” he added.
City maintain their innocence and say that they have “irrefutable evidence” that proves it. They said they will appeal the independent commission’s findings. They have until Friday to appeal.
The hearing, which took place over 42 days, found them guilty of artificially inflating revenue with “sham” contracts, estimated to be over £900 million in the period of the investigation; paying a manager off the books to reduce losses; and failing to cooperate with the investigation.
The financial rules, to which City agreed, in effect mean that rich owners can’t pump money indiscriminately into their club, hoover up all the best players by offering transfer fees and wages no-one else can match, and blow their competitors out of the water.
Under the rules, spending has to be proportionate to revenue, and there is a limit to how much losses a club can record. Further, they are designed to promote self-sustainable clubs to avoid any other clubs going into financial administration like happened to Portsmouth and Leeds United in recent memory.
According to the Premier League, if City had not have inflated their revenue with the “sham” contracts, they would have breached the financial rules.
“I imagined that no wealthy, successful club would be foolish enough to hope to get away with dishonesty greedily aiming for even greater success and wealth,” Father Vladimir Felzmann, a priest from London known for his strong emphasis on sport, told Crux Now.
“As Christians, Catholics should forgive but learn, so as to avoid dishonesty in their own lives,” added Felzmann, who was a chaplain during the 2012 London Olympics.
Supporters of City have long contended that the rules were instituted by the traditional powerhouses such as Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, to restrict competition and keep them ascendant. City also insist that they followed the rules stringently.
City have won eight league title since the 2009-10 season, where the investigation began. Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United together have won five in that period.
But it is not just the big teams, who have missed out on trophies to City, who are angry. The ramifications are felt all through the soccer pyramid.
For example, Leicester City, league champions in 2015-16, are now in the third division in part because of their desperate attempts to not fall foul of the financial rules.
Four Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Tottenham Hotspurs — have even indicated they would like to sue City.
Think of the children
Legendary former Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, once said that soccer is “the most important of the least important things in life.”
Bill Shankly, another legendary former Liverpool manager, went a step further. “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that,” he said.
For Felzmann, when it comes to children, the importance of soccer is unequivocal, and therefore people in the field have a responsibility to behave correctly.
“Every intelligent person active in sport – especially elite sport – knows that players and athletes are seen by the young as their role models. Popularity brings with it responsibility,” he said.
“Acting dishonestly can all too easily encourage young people to be dishonest – and thus they are more likely to end up, not only as unpleasant characters, but find themselves in the courts as criminals,” he added.
The Church has long extolled the positive benefits of sports and exercise, and often drawn the comparison between the spiritual life and the life of an athlete.
The late Pope Francis, who was a lifelong fan of Argentine team San Lorenzo, once said in a 2013 address to players from the national teams of Argentina and Italy that they have a “social responsibility.”
“You, dear players, are very popular: people follow you very closely and not only on the field but also off it. This is a social responsibility,” he said.
“Sports are important but they must be true sports! Football, like some other disciplines, has become big business! Work to prevent it losing its character as a sport,” he added.
Soccer has always been a working-class sport. Clubs are a pillar of the local community, providing jobs, meaning, and a sense of belonging to locals.
It would be interesting to hear Francis’ thoughts on what soccer has become since then.
Pope Leo XIV made headlines on the way to Spain when he admitted to former Crux Now’s Elise Ann Allen that he preferred Real Madrid to Barcelona.
He, like his predecessor, has spoken positively of sport. Last year, on the Jubilee of Sport, Leo said that “Every good and worthwhile human activity is in some way a reflection of God’s infinite beauty, and sport is certainly one of these.”
Sometimes it is easy to see God’s infinite beauty reflected in the every day. Other times it is hard.
With this latest news, it is fair to say that finding God’s infinite beauty in the world of soccer will be made that bit more difficult.
