Cracks that widen to swallow empires have already appeared for Man City

There is a map of the world on which City Football Group shades its influence in blue.

As an illustration, it is not so different from those maps that show the Roman Empire’s territory — mostly around the Mediterranean, coloured red in history textbooks — or on which the extent of the British Empire — also in red — takes up about a fifth of the page.

The visual effect is not an accident.

This map, published on City Football Group’s official website, is introduced by a preamble that declares the holding company to be “the world’s leading private owner and operator of football clubs — with total or partial ownership of 12 worldwide.”

It is the self-proclaimed empire of club football. It could also be about to crumble.

Last month’s ruling that Manchester City, CFG’s flagship property, had been found in breach of more than 100 Premier League regulations has left it reeling, and while it vows to defend itself, the effects of the verdict are already shaking its domain, from the Americas to Japan.

At least initially, reaction to the battle unfolding in England has been experienced locally, and tends more to speculation than looking to one’s own defences.

In Australia, where Melbourne City flies the CFG flag, A-Leagues chief executive Steve Rosich is taking a wait-and-see approach, telling the Associated Press there remained “findings to follow in the legal process” and emphasizing that the “international football economy is intertwined.”

He should know. Melbourne City vice-chairman Simon Pearce is also a member of the Manchester City board of directors.

In Brazil, meanwhile, the response has been curiously upbeat.

Esporte Clube Bahia has been owned by CFG since 2023, and it seems a section of its fanbase has dreamed up a scenario in which Man City’s demise is accompanied by Bahia’s ascent in the company portfolio. For example, news outlets are having to debunk such theories that Phil Foden and Jérémy Doku will join the Salvador club on loan.

But at least CFG has completed construction of Bahia’s state-of-the-art training facility, not inconspicuously named City Football Academy Bahia. It’s a bit more tenuous in the United States, where New York City FC’s new stadium is still being built.

Outside England, it’s in Spain that the magnitude of the Man City scandal is being most rigorously analyzed. It’s also where the first signs of CFG’s decline were observed.

In 2023-24, just its fourth season in the Spanish top flight, Girona FC — another CFG entity — won 25 of 38 games and finished third in La Liga. Its squad included the likes of Paulo Gazzaniga, Yan Couto, Daley Blind, Yangel Herrera and Artem Dovbyk. But it was Sávio who most impressed, and what made the Brazilian winger’s story especially noteworthy was his journey through the CFG system.

In 2022, the then-18-year-old was signed by CFG for 6.5 million euros (C$10.3 million) and transferred to French outfit Troyes, another of the company’s clubs. He never played a game in France. CFG loaned him first to PSV Eindhoven and a year later to Girona, where he helped the Catalan side reach the Champions League.

That summer he joined Manchester City proper on a deal worth 40 million euros (C$63 million). He scored two Premier League goals over two seasons, after which he was sold to Tottenham Hotspur for 85 million pounds (C$160 million).

Sávio’s is the most prominent example, but it demonstrates the global scouting network shared by CFG clubs, the pipeline through the company’s system and the quite brazen inflation of transfer values.

The problem for Girona, however, was the sudden withdrawal of resources when UEFA ruled that CFG could not fully control two clubs in the Champions League simultaneously. The company had to choose between Girona and Manchester City. Its decision was never in doubt.

On Monday, Girona will face Tenerife in Spain’s second division, having been relegated from La Liga last spring. Its wage bill remains swollen, and further neglect from CFG will force a mass sell-off.

That’s the direct effect the Man City situation has on its satellites. The indirect consequences could be even more damaging.

A quite prescient column in El Español has pointed out that while City and the Premier League clash in England, CFG’s other clubs risk reputational damage and the sort of uncertainty that makes sponsors squeamish.

In other words, the cracks that widen to swallow whole empires have already appeared, threatening — as El Español puts it — “a colossus with feet of clay.”

The fall of Rome did not take place as a traceable event, and Britain’s overseas influence was severed by a series of cuts.

City Football Group’s collapse, seemingly inevitable, will happen at its own pace, perhaps best described by that Ernest Hemingway quote: “gradually, then suddenly.”

winnipegfreepress.com/jerradpeters

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