With the Champions League draw now having taken place and everyone set up, the fun and games of previews begins, and for Manchester City, that means criticism and sly remarks.
Regardless of the football they play, the records they break and the efforts they make to be liked, there’s just something about City that some people don’t like.
Most of it is to do with the money and finances available at the club, with fans and football journalists alike believing that they’ve somehow ‘cheated’ their way to success.
That, of course, is an opinion that can be debated until the cows come home, but it is very much the stance being taken by Ruhr Nachrichten as they preview their clash with Borussia Dortmund.
In a piece titled, BVB opponents Manchester City: Gündogan, Guardiola and the ‘Cheat Sheikh’, they explain how, for the past 15 years, City have been ‘dreaming’ of winning the Champions League.
Despite all the trophies elsewhere, Europe’s top prize has so far eluded them, and that is something they have a chance to put right this season.
That, though, is only possible thanks to the help of their ‘great patron’ Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, whom the newspaper label the ‘cheat Sheikh.’
This is a title the Manchester City supremo has apparently earned after ‘recurring violations of financial fair play’.
They detail how Sheikh Mansour has poured billions into the club since arriving in 2008 and won 14 titles for his money, but the one that has constantly been out of his grasp is the Champions League.
This is why spending has always been high, in an attempt to end that wrong, but last year it appeared they would have to wait a little longer when they were banned by UEFA last year due to ‘opaque financial transactions’.
At that point, it was claimed the Sheikh had ‘secretly transferred amounts’ and ‘topped up missing sums’ from sponsors to cover it on the books
This was later overturned by CAS, despite Manchester City having been punished in 2014 as well, with the two-year ban and €30m fine reduced to a €10m fine.
That, the newspaper argues, was a ‘humiliation’ for UEFA, the ‘de-facto end of financial fair play’ and ‘carte blanche’ for major investors in international football.
In other words, Manchester City are the bad guys of European football run by the ‘cheat sheikh’, and anyone expecting a warm welcome in Germany would be wise to look elsewhere.
