Manchester City finding motivation from their years of systemic cheating

In the Premier League, it appears that euphemism is the new hype. Sky interviewer Patrick Davidson plumped a few verbal cushions in his interviews with Manchester City players and coach Enzo Maresca after the 3-0 win over Liverpool, asking the players how they played in “very difficult circumstances” while referencing the “off-field situation” when speaking with Maresca. “The Situation”, “The Circumstances” ... this is a jarring bit of restraint from a broadcaster who will sell you, with a straight face, Hull v Sunderland as the stuff of a Super Sunday.In fairness, Davidson and every other Premier League broadcaster is in a deeply invidious position at the moment, forced as they are to continue covering Manchester City matches in this limbo between guilty verdict and sentencing. READ MOREDavidson’s job is to question managers and players and elicit answers to feed the talking points and narrative that sells games, and he is terrific at it. But this is not a normal situation, and City are using their pre-appeal and pre-sentencing pulpit to downplay their transgressions. The club set this tone from the moment the commission’s verdict was published by the Premier League, referring to it in a statement as an “opinion”. It wasn’t a mere opinion. It was the verdict of an independent commission published 22 months after a 42-day hearing, the transcripts of which run to around 7,000 pages. The party line among players and coaching staff has been, meanwhile, to dismiss the club’s cheating as “noise”. Here, for example, is Enzo Maresca to Sky after the Liverpool win: “We need to learn how to deal with the noise because the noise will be with us. In all the away games, there will be noise for the situation, we know. And we need to make our noise, and our noise is to win games ... at the end of the game [it] was just our fans and our noise, and not different noise.” Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca celebrates victory after the final whistle following the Premier League match against Liverpool at Anfield. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA Wire Maresca is entitled to speak how he likes, but here’s an accurate, alternate version of his comments: “We need to learn how to deal with the consequences of our club’s cheating, because the consequences of our club’s cheating will be with us. In all the away games, we know there will be consequences of our club’s cheating; we know. And we need to make our noise, and our noise is to win games ... at the end of the game it was just our fans and our noise, and not the consequences of our club’s cheating.” Maresca has already allowed the mask to slip on this act to some extent, saying on Tuesday: “If I am an Arsenal fan or a United fan and you are a City fan, I can tell you: ‘Hey, my friend, you cheat.’” [ Enzo Maresca says he would describe Manchester City as ‘cheats’ if he was a United fanOpens in new window ]But City’s cheating is not a matter of differing partisan perspectives: it’s a fact established by the independent commission. While City are motivated to polish the truth, nobody else has to join with them in doing so. The club continue to insist upon their innocence and have lodged their appeal, but the fact of the appeal does not make invalid or provisional the verdict of the independent commission. They were innocent until found guilty, and now they have been found guilty. They will remain so unless an appeal tells us otherwise in the future. The process of the appeal should be respected, but the findings of the verdict should not be ignored, as Micah Richards did on Sky last Sunday when he said “if Manchester City are found guilty”.Jamie Carragher righted him on things: “They’re guilty now. Right now, they’re guilty.”It’s important to repeat the plain truth that Manchester City have been found to have systematically cheated financial rules by which their rivals have played, because it is important to be continually outraged by cheating. It’s not pearl-clutching to say everyone in sport must play by the same set of agreed rules, because sport ceases to have any purpose whatsoever if someone refuses to do so. Whataboutery as to the fairness of the financial rules City broke is exactly that: the only relevant detail here is City signed up to the rules and then stomped all over them. A City fan displays a flag with a slogan in support of Manchester City's Emirati chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images Gary Neville has said he is uncomfortable with using the word “cheats” and chafed at Liverpool fans’ chanting the word at City players in the closing stages of Sunday’s game, saying it is the worst thing a player can be called. Yes, it may be unfair on the City players to be tainted by their employers’ cheating, but here’s the thing about cheating: it isn’t fair on anybody. Ludicrously, City continue to play matches, and the narrative now taking hold around them is one of defiance against the “noise”. City fans gloried in it all at Anfield, and the atmosphere at the midweek Champions League game against PSG was crackling as fans held up a tifo reading City Til I Die. [ Roy Keane and Jamie Carragher unmoved by ‘devastated’ Micah Richards on Sky SportsOpens in new window ]Pep Guardiola, embarrassingly, made a point of showing up in wrong-headed solidarity. The City players have spoken all week about sticking together, and Davidson lamentably asked Maresca on Sunday about a “siege mentality”, and whether all of this could make City stronger. Speaking in euphemism allows this storyline to develop, as if the players were reacting to some quotidian setback like a manager’s sacking. Speaking plainly acknowledges this for what it is: Manchester City finding motivation from their own systemic, years-long cheating. Think of it like that, and you’ll quickly realise it’s time to find something else to watch.