One of the overlooked byproducts of Manchester City cheating their way to dominance is the degree to which their 114 breaches have lowered the bar for what we will now see as acceptable ownership of a Premier League club.
The Glazers have pocketed £1.3bn from Manchester United while co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe parrots lines directly from right-wing manifestos.
BlueCo are now being heralded as upstanding, reputable club chiefs for turning Chelsea in for rule breaches under their predecessor while spending nearly £2bn to transform the Blues from European champions into mid-table also-rans.
And the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, are using Newcastle as a means to rehabilitate an image of the state’s intolerance, its human rights abuses and the lack of a free press to hold an iron-fist ruling government to account.
But that’s all fine, isn’t it? Because what none of them have done is irreparably damage the integrity of the Premier League by cooking their books to the tune of £900m so they could sign players they had no right to sign, win titles they had no business winning, steal trophies and European football from their rival clubs, medals and life chances from rival players and moments of joy from rival fans. Donald Trump could buy Liverpool tomorrow and be the lesser evil.
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PIF are particularly Great Guys as they have the funds to do what the Abu Dhabi cheats have done and then some, but have kicked and screamed at their relative inability to sportswash while sticking to the establishment-guarding rules.
The cost of adhering to those financial fair play regulations – first the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and now the Squad Cost Ratio (SR) rules – was made plain in the summer as they were forced into selling Anthony Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali, their three most valuable players, a year on from selling their most valuable asset, Alexander Isak.
Newcastle insist this is the way they have to model themselves in light of UEFA and the Premier League’s financial rules.
“We’re working on a regulatory framework that isn’t for Newcastle United, it’s for everyone,” Ross Wilson, the club’s third sporting director since the takeover, said. “This isn’t a choice. This is what we’ve got to do. If you want to be a successful club in the Premier League you have to trade players and if you don’t the chances are you won’t be a successful club.”
It’s a fanciful scenario, not least because Manchester City wouldn’t have this squad or these star players without their nine years of cheating, but imagine them heading into this season without their four most valuable players from 2025/26. No Erling Haaland, no Rayan Cherki, no Antoine Semenyo and no Jeremy Doku. They would be nowhere and may soon be punished into experiencing that footballing hinterland.
Newcastle are still about. They would have gone fourth in the Premier League with victory over Coventry and they’ve got some very good players.
Nico Gonzalez, signed from Manchester City for £52m this summer, looks like a class act at the base of their midfield. Lewis Hall is arguably the best left-back in the Premier League. Harvey Barnes will get a bundle of assists from the left wing this season.
But they’ve just been battered 4-1 by a newly-promoted side thanks largely to a lack of bite in a midfield that until this season was widely heralded as one of the best, if not the best, in the Premier League, and poor finishing, which was rarely a criticism aimed their way while Isak led the line.
Matias Fernandez-Pardo had another game to forget, selfish in the first instance when he should have passed to Barnes, bizarrely unselfish in the second as he stepped over a ball in the six-yard box and indecisive in a third as he took too long to get a shot away while rounding the goalkeeper.
Joelinton confirmed himself as the midfielder of the three Newcastle would rather have lost as he ran into trouble on the edge of the box to gift Ellis Simms a goal off the bench. Lukas Hornicek made two errors in quick succession to concede the early penalty.
Matthias Jaissle will wonder quite how his side – who ended the game with an xG of 1.84 to Coventry’s 1.43 – were quite so soundly beaten. A couple of extraordinary finishes from Sidiki Cherif and Stephen Mfuni go some way to explaining it.
But a much more convincing explanation for losing 4-1 to a side that will be fighting relegation this season is an understandable lack of cohesion in a squad with eight new signings, brought in to replace their pilfered top performers, whose absence explains the distinct absence of a cutting edge.
We should never have been put in a position where we feel the need to praise a sportswashing nation state simply for not breaking the rules; nor will we. But we can and do have sympathy for Newcastle fans. They can’t compete with the Premier League elite and can’t hope ever to do so with the rules as they are.
And the fans, like PIF themselves, may well be looking at this team and wondering just what difference five years of ownership has made. They’ve won a trophy at long last and enjoyed a few European nights, but it does feel like they’re not far off being back to square one.
We won’t shed a tear if PIF up sticks. Frankly we’ll take great joy in what would be a failed attempt to use English football to scrub their image.
But we do need the Premier League and UEFA to strike a balance – and maybe we can have Man City to thank for this in future – where fitter and more proper owners than PIF can buy a Premier League club and have genuine hope of levelling a playing field which remains overwhelming balanced in favour of the established, legacy clubs.
