Manchester City Fans and the Curious case of UEFA

UEFA’s core mission is “to promote, protect and develop European football” (UEFA Strategy: Vision Europe 2005) but sometimes that is hard to believe if you are a Manchester City fan.

To all intents and purposes, UEFA have seemed to be on a mission to limit and restrict the development of Manchester City by introducing rules designed to prevent any Club catching up the established European elite through investment.

UEFA have presided over the elite European Clubs and for many it has seemed like they are running a posh housing estate, where they do everything they can to prevent brash new lottery winners moving into the area. You may have the money to buy a house here – but unless you have history we don’t want you as neighbours.

To add to that, City have struggled to achieve any recent success in European competition, often as a result of strange sporting decisions – goals wrongly disallowed, goals wrongly given, peculiar decisions. As recently as last Wednesday City were on the receiving end of consistent bad decisions from the UEFA referee against Hoffenheim. Leroy Sane was denied a crystal clear penalty – which would have given Manchester City a clear initiative in the game.

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Another incident stood out – David Silva attempted to take a quick throw in to catch Hoffenheim on the back foot which would have released Leroy Sane on goal – the referee pulled the play back and ordered the throw in to be retaken, allowing defenders back in position. Despite repeated viewings it is impossible to identify and reason for the referees decision.

All of these type of incidents have culminated over the last 5 or 6 years in a belief by Manchester City that UEFA competitions are tainted in some way – that despite the professed core values of UEFA – their real aim is to preserve and retain the money in football amongst an established elite.

Given the paranoia Manchester City fans feel about UEFA I thought it may be useful to look at some of the recent fines imposed by UEFA to see if they shed any light on the principles UEFA are trying to enforce.

€20000 fine for Liverpool after the behaviour of their fans during the Champions League Quarter Final in 2017/18 against Manchester City including the coordinated attack on the Manchester City team bus.
€50000 fine for Roma after the behaviour of their fans during the Champions League Semi Final in 2017/18 against Liverpool.
€25000 fine for Besiktas for allowing a cat to invade the field of play and disrupt the match against Bayern Munich.
€25600 fine for PAOK of Greece for the use of a laser pointer by fans during their Champions League qualifier against Spartak Moscow.
€53000 fine for CSKA Moscow fans firing a rocket at the referee during a game against Maribor.
€79000 fine for CSKA Moscow for racist behaviour of their fans during their Champions League tie against Roma in 2014/15.
€20000 fine for Manchester City for 3 offences committed during the Champions League against Monaco in 2016/17 – a pitch invasion by 1 fan/kick off being delayed by seconds/objects thrown by the crowd.
€20000 fine for Porto in respect of their fans racially abusing Mario Balotelli of Manchester City during a match against Manchester City. This fine really started the problems Manchester City had with UEFA because of what happened next at no.9.
€30000 Manchester City were fined for being 1 minute late back onto the pitch in a game against Sporting Lisbon in 2011/12. Clearly UEFA considered this a greater offence than the crowd offering racist abuse.
€3000 fine for Udinese for having their ballboys deliberately waste time in their 2:0 win over Empoli in 2016/17.

So – are their any patterns in the fines UEFA has imposed on Clubs? It seems UEFA values the start times of football games – which are a critical feature of the TV coverage planning – more highly than many offences committed by fans.

Manchester City have been fined €50000 for being late onto the field of play twice, Besiktas have been fined €25000 for having a cat on the pitch but Liverpool were only fined €20000 last year for the behaviour of their fans last year including the destruction of the Manchester City Team bus on its way into the ground with the Manchester City Team onboard.

Whilst it has been galling to Manchester City fans ever since – UEFA fined Porto €20000 for the racism directed at Balotelli yet fined City €30000 for being late on the pitch. Thankfully UEFA seems to have started to view racism more seriously in the last season or so – €79000 fine for CSKA Moscow for repeated racist offences by fans.

But in their attempt to counter racism through relatively small fines don’t think they hold match going fans in anything other than contempt. Imposing a ground closure on CSKA Moscow back in October 2014, UEFA did so with 3 weeks notice to the match against Manchester City.

Whilst CSKA Moscow were being sanctioned for the behaviour of their fans in a previous game against Roma, the impact on the sudden ground closure was most felt by Manchester City fans who had already paid for hotel accommodation and flights – none of which was ever refunded by UEFA. The costs of the ground closure amounted to around £1000 for each City fan. To add further insult to injury, the ground was not closed but was played in front of a crowd of around 1000 fans who cheered for CSKA Moscow. CSKA denied the crowd were fans and insisted they were simply stewards!

Of course another reason why Manchester City view UEFA with suspicion is they have been subject to the biggest fine in history – €49 million for breaching Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFP). Again Manchester City fans view the FFP debacle with distaste – the whole process did not feel fair or equal.

The story goes that when Platini was in charge of UEFA he was lobbied heavily by the established elite of European clubs – Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester United – to introduce a way of limiting new investment in clubs to protect the existing elite. Don’t forget it was lobbying by these same clubs which created the whole cash cow of the Champions League and the seedings system to guarantee shared payouts are weighted towards the elite.

Manchester City realised with the scrutiny and development of FFP they would potentially fall foul of UEFA so invited UEFA into the club to advise Manchester City how they could comply. With this assistance Manchester City published their accounts which complied with the FFP guidelines. In the weeks which followed UEFA changed the rules behind FFP to ensure Manchester City’s published accounts no longer complied with FFP and were fined.

Behind the scenes Manchester City were reportedly furious and considered a range of options including legal action before deciding to play a longer term game with UEFA. Its interesting to note Manchester City have not fallen foul of any FFP since – and given the continued growth of the Club will no longer find themselves vulnerable to such approaches.

Its hard when confronted with the evidence to view UEFA as some kind of benevolent organisation. The evidence from their disciplinary fines system and FFP – let alone the strange refereeing decisions – seems to underline their primary function is to maximise revenue and to preserve the elite. Frankly, its no surprise Manchester City fans boo the UEFA anthem – the surprise is they are the only fans which do so.

Squaring that uncomfortable history with having one of the best assembled squads of players under the tutelage of the Worlds best coach striving to achieve the impossible and win UEFA’s Champions League is a conundrum. Its not lost on Pep Guardiola who has sought to explain to the fans why on a sporting level he wants Manchester City to compete in the premier competitions and in order to achieve success he wants to feel supporters are supporting the team and not distracting them through booing.

Its my view that many fans are ready to move on – ready to forgive the past and stop the booing, but in order to do so need to hear some acknowledgement from Manchester City about the injustices the fans have felt. If Guardiola wants the booing to stop he may need to address it directly. Of course at the end of the day people pay their money and can do what they want, but acknowledging the injustices is an important step on the way to recovery.

Right now most City fans seem to view the premier UEFA competition as the third or fourth most important trophy Manchester City are striving to win. That will only change by the fans falling back in love with European football – the glamour and the glory – and being free from tainted decisions and irrational refereeing.

The people of Manchester have long stood for what is right, indeed it is that very spirit and dogged determination from which this great City was founded. If the behaviour of UEFA is not acknowledged and a line drawn under it, quite frankly the fans will never forget and our children will be singing songs about UEFA corruption to their children.

For what it is worth, given all the injustices we have felt from UEFA, the biggest way to stick it to them and to abolish our paranoia is to win the damned competition. That is what I want to see and I want to be there cheering when it happens.

Winning it by playing the best football and scoring despite the goals we have wrongly disallowed, despite the strange decisions, despite UEFA – will feel brilliant. If that happens City will have come of age and UEFA will probably have been changed forever.