It is an episode which illustrates the struggle there has been in extracting transparency and truth about Manchester City, whose relentless, bullying corporate machine has looked to shut down investigation and inquiry through years of deceit.
Eight years ago, I wrote a story, published by The Independent, whom I worked for at the time, about an obscure and puzzling company called Fordham Sports Image Rights, to which City had supposedly sold the club’s future image rights for £24.5million – a sum they needed to avoid breaching financial sustainability rules in the 2012-13 season.
City had made no secret of earning this figure. They stated it in their annual accounts. Yet Fordham’s directors, detailed in their Companies House listing, were City’s very own legal officer Simon Cliff and non-executive director John MacBeath – a qualified chartered accountant.
Fordham clearly had a very distinct link to the club. And when I made more inquiries about City selling off those image rights to such a firm, there were blank looks. Several sources confirmed to me that, contrary to this notion, City were still raking in millions from those deals.
The sources were significant people. A Spanish financier Esteve Calzada, chief executive of Saudi club Al Hilal these days, who as an adviser to City at that time had negotiated image rights deals for Kevin De Bruyne and others, said he was working for the club itself.
Calzada, a good friend of City chief executive Ferran Soriano, told me: ‘I’ve always been working on a commercial arrangement with the club. We help the club bring in deals.’
My sources on the Fordham story included an adviser to City chief executive Ferran Soriano (right, pictured with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak)
Those controlling City’s information are not the only ones you go up against when challenging the notion of Sheikh Mansour (centre) as a beneficent altruist
The detail might seem arcane and dry. The small financial details get crushed these days in the stampede for the next soundbite or headline. But it was fundamental to City’s attempts to comply with the rules set out for any teams wishing to compete in the Champions League, at a time when UEFA were investigating the club.
We published the article. ‘Manchester City earning millions from image rights after telling UEFA investigators they had sold them,’ our headline stated.
The full force of Manchester City’s lawyers came down on us in a way which I have not experienced in more than 30 years in this business. There was an immediate threat to sue. A demand from the specialist internet law firm City employed that the digital piece be removed. That an apology for it be published. And that I personally tweet out that apology. It would have been an unprecedented level of ‘contrition’.
Ours was not a big operation. As I recall, the managing editor who fielded this, Will Gore, was juggling 1001 tasks and did not have a sea of lawyers in the next office. But we were not cowed. A detailed, 1,500-word defence of the story was sent in return. We waited. And we waited. And we heard no more from Manchester City or their specialist internet lawyers.
In November 2018, a cache of documents extracted by hacker Rui Pinto, and subsequently published, suggested that we actually only had half of the story.
City’s owners, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) were in fact financing Fordham, according to the leaks – effectively paying part of the players’ wages through the shell company which had paid City the £24.5m for the ‘image rights’. Not only were City boosting their income against the rules but reducing their headline wage bill as they did so.
Of course, those controlling City’s information are not the only ones you go up against when challenging the fluffy PR notion of Sheikh Mansour as a beneficent altruist. Many’s the time that their weaponised supporters have dispensed filth on social media. They still will.
Last Friday’s revelation that City had been found guilty on all but one relatively inconsequential charge was justification for all who have seen through City’s deceit and questioned the absurd notion that they are the victims of some Manchester United and Liverpool led ‘red cartel’.
And, let it be said, justification for the staff of the Premier League, for whom this experience has not been easy. The Premier League, more than any, have refused to be intimidated.
Staff at the Premier League, including CEO Richard Masters, have remained steadfast in their pursuing of the City case despite outside pressure
But when the League’s explosive and utterly damning statement was published late on Tuesday afternoon, there, in the relatively brief summary of how the club had artificially reduced its costs by £900million over nine seasons, was the name: ‘Fordham.’
It was detailed as one of the ‘sham arrangements’, entered into to enable City to ‘record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred.’ Yes, the statement related, there had been ‘a “sham” circular arrangement with Fordham.’
This was a rather more succinct and emphatic way of putting it than we accomplished in November 2018 for an article that was never removed and is still very much there. We were right all along and despite the mess, waste and ugliness of this interminable case, there is a sweet kind of vindication about that.
