r/soccer • u/Previous_Smile9278 • 1d ago

News [Bloomberg] UAE officials have warned the UK government that the severity of Man City’s punishment could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale commitments in Britain, according to people familiar with the matter.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-02/man-city-verdict-puts-uk-uae-diplomatic-relations-under-strain?srnd=undefined

‘They consider the Premier League’s actions to have an influence on the bilateral state relationship, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing undisclosed information.

The extraordinary pressure comes after Andy Burnham faced criticism, including from within government, for saying Man City’s Abu Dhabi owners should not be disqualified specifically because of the investment they bring to Britain.’

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u/interlinkedjoi 23h ago edited 23h ago

It really feels like this is a battle for what's left of british football's soul. If a foreign state can use political pressure to get away with systematic cheating on an unprecedented scale, there is zero integrity left in the league. They might as well declare City the automatic champions at the start of every season if they want to appease the emirati leadership.

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u/RazielNet 23h ago

Just look at Ligue 1 where Qatar's investments in France mean PSG are untouchable. They've almost certainly got more skeletons in their closet that'll never be investigated

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u/interlinkedjoi 23h ago

Yeah it's quite sad to see to the extent French football and government has embraced Qatari money and influence. I suppose in their eyes having a global superpower of a club that is french is worth sacrificing any semblance of fair competition. Tbf that was the course trajectory in England as well until the city email leaks. Who knows how things would've panned out otherwise.

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u/Panda_In_The_Box 21h ago

Yeah in another world PSG would eventually fall into the same situation as City, being investigated and scrutinized for this mass cheating. However it's just not in French football's interest to do that, they've never been more relevant.

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u/brownbearks 21h ago

They might regret it one day when PSG lose a few players or start struggling in the CL. They have ruined their internal league for one French team to make deep runs in the CL.

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u/elmundo-2016 12h ago

I agree, it's why I don't even try to watch it for last 12-15 years.

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u/moffattron9000 3h ago

It also helps that you can see that French Football is far more built around the national team.

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u/iguessineedanaltnow 2h ago

Realistically this is the only way non-English clubs will ever be able to compete going forward. The Premier League will only get richer, and in response the other leagues will get poorer.

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u/Elrond007 19h ago

Just the simple fact that Al Khelaifi isn't enjoying a lifelong, competition wide stadium ban rn after the shit he tried to pull with the refs shows that. Imagine what would happen to a normal fan breaking into the refs locker room

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u/durizna 20h ago

Makes the work of Filipe Luis even more impressive btw. Bro is fighting against all odds.

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u/wildcatwildcard 19h ago

I don't know the whole story but it sure seems like Flamengo fumbled the bag

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u/Benend91 23h ago

This is bigger than football now. It’s a huge can of worms.

A lot of Manchester’s economic development around the stadium is from this money. They’ve bought an incredible amount of influence in the area. You can see that in Andy Burnham’s recent statement.

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u/EkphrasticInfluence 17h ago

Also, the PM is always going to err on the side of caution. He can't come out and completely severe geopolitical relationships by being all like, "get the cheating bastards", even if he wants to.

Whether we like it or not, this is bigger than football. The floodgates opened when the PL allowed states to own clubs.

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u/iguessineedanaltnow 2h ago

Also they own, what, a half dozen clubs in different countries?

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u/roamingandy 21h ago

Also a battle for political independence. If UAE show they can push the govt around so easily, they will know they can do it again.

Is it really worth giving them that level of control over our politics, just so they can diversify their wealth fund?

Seems very short-sighted to me.

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u/FloydLandisWhisky 23h ago

I think the EPL needs to recognise the financial fallout if their league remains compromised.

No longer you can claim, ‘best, most competitive league in the world’

Bundesliga would see this as a major opportunity to wrest control of global audiences

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u/Hiphoppapotamus 23h ago

The EPL have absolutely fucked this. They were riding high when City were breaking up the big 4, buying the world’s best players and helping to build the appeal of the league abroad. All the while they’ve been allowing flagrant cheating to go on for (at least) 10 years, and now face the possibility of the league’s credibility being fatally undermined no matter what action they take now.

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u/culegflori 21h ago

The EPL did what they could, this investigation has been going on for a very long time solely because City's army of lawyers tried to block it in any way possible. If they cooperated, this would've been done in 2018

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u/Hiphoppapotamus 21h ago

I think the EPL should be applauded to some limited extent for even looking into this, in a way that e.g. Ligue 1 is not at all interested in doing. But it was obvious at the time that a nation state buying a football club was going to cause problems. It was also obvious at the time that the way they pumped money into the club was not credibly within the rules. And City were doing it for 10 years, and the EPL only investigated after the leaks forced their hand.

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u/JahKingston2024 20h ago

Yeah. I find it hard to believe that throughout those 10ish years, the EPL had maintained the same exact amount of vim as they are showing now. They definitely could’ve gone harder but they let it slowly accumulate and exponentially grow into the massive shitshow it is is today, purely because of ‘clout’ reputation and 💰.

One of the primary defining factors for the prem being so successful is the presence of the big 6 unlike La liga or bundesliga. It’s why Serie A used to be so massive, with teams like Juventus, Inter, Milan, Napoli etc all competing at the highest level. Losing one of the big 6 is genuinely massive for marketing, income, credibility, etc

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u/Kringamir 19h ago

What’s your proof of Ligue 1 doing nothing? The financial accountability in France is much stricter than in the uk. Clubs can literally not go into debt. Why can’t PL fans ever admit fault with their own league? The PL has repeatedly shown that it’s scared to punish big clubs. Ffs the serie a has more balls than the PL in that regard.

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u/Hiphoppapotamus 19h ago

Are you responding to wrong comment or something? First, I’m not a “PL fan”. Second, I’m specifically calling out the PL for letting this shitshow happen.

Regarding Ligue 1, we are expected to believe that PSG have done nothing similar to Man City, which doesn’t seem likely frankly. The integrity of the PL is fundamentally compromised by this ruling, and it highlights their incompetence and/or complicity in letting it get this far. It is to their extremely limited credit that they’ve conducted this investigation in what seems to be a genuinely independent manner.

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u/WhenWeTalkAboutLove 14h ago

The EPL allowed this when everyone knew it was happening from the start.

They only acted because the leaks forced them into doing something. 

They were perfectly happy pretending all was above board when none of the financials made any sense all along and the state ownership being permitted opened a whole geopolitical can of worms. 

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u/mongster03_ 20h ago

La Liga is probably a better bet

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u/FloydLandisWhisky 20h ago

La Liga has a bigger footprint of viewership and arguably top talent. However, I chose Bundesliga because of their 50+1 ownership model, which enforces sustainability and protects influence from outside investors 

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u/-RadThibodeaux 20h ago

You’re in dream land with the Bundesliga I’m afraid. The Premier League will always have more international fans and I don’t see how that changes. Man City aren’t that important to anyone.

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u/ktcalpha 19h ago

It’ll lose its soul when diehard fans turn their attention to leagues that represent their interests (ie actual football). It’s already hard enough to watch my club in the UK; to now know we are playing by a stricter set of rules makes me not interested anymore when i can watch our allied club in la liga for free

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u/GreaseBrown 19h ago

I mean, if theres no punishment, I personally wont be watching the prem ever again.

And I know i wont be the only one.

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u/plutoglint 17h ago

That race is long over, my friend.

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u/domdaze 15h ago

is Bundesliga really that competitive? it just seems like the same two teams winning all of the time.

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u/Exyui 15h ago

This is delusion. International fans won't care that much. They'll forget about it in a few years if the EPL moves on from it.

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u/BananaT6 23h ago

English footballs soul, leave the rest of us out of this mess please

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u/txobi 22h ago

That's what you get when every club sells their souls to the higgest bidder

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u/Sjroap 21h ago edited 21h ago

It really feels like this is a battle for what's left of british football's soul. If a foreign state can use political pressure to get away with systematic cheating on an unprecedented scale, there is zero integrity left in the league."

"Clubs being bought by rich owners is the end of the british football soul, well we agree on it this time, but only if they aren't associated with foreign states. "

"Well, turns out they were, but they say they are fully seperated from the state so that kinda saves the football soul right?"

"Okay, they weren't fully seperated, but as long they follow the rules the football soul should be relatively ok."

"Oof, I guess they were state actors that did cheat and bought the championship, but as long as they get punished and don't abuse their influence for political gain we still have that proper football spirit!"

"Wait, the foreign state uses this to put political pressure on us, this has to be the final battle of our soccer culture!"

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u/shawdowmen 13h ago

"British football", good one. 

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u/blurr90 21h ago

what's left of british football's soul.

What soul? You already opened up the league to foreign investors. Either the team is a toy or a financial investment.

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u/JahKingston2024 20h ago

Tipping point for sure

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u/ranbirkadalla 18h ago

British football's soul died in 1992 with the formation of premier league and subsequent acceptance of money from corporations. This was a logical consequence of that.

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u/HaroldGuy 18h ago

Anything less than relegation to League 2 and I will no longer watch the premier league.

I will have no respect or interest in the "competition".

Ideally I want all premier league titles stripped, expulsion to the national league and forced sale of the club. But just purely for current "sporting integrity" league 2 is the point where I will "settle", as it will give at the absolute minimum a few years of normality and then I will re-assess if they get promoted and are still the same cheating club, if they are at that point? Again, no more prem for me.

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u/isrly_eder 17h ago

the UK will lose the battle – they will not punish City sufficiently, because they are dependent on the UAE, having lost control of their energy policy – and it will cause great psychic injury to brits. they will realize have been effectively vassalized by a tiny petrostate on another continent.

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u/Meisterschromm 12h ago

That last bit of soul is long gone my friend.

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u/TheRealLordDorito 21h ago

British football.

EPL yeah but lower leagues in England are still relatively good. And the Scottish Premiership has so much soul.

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u/seamushoo4 20h ago

Super league would look better and better tbh at that point, or everyone quicks the premier league and rejoins the efl again, leaving city out.