Asterisk? The Gall! Sporting Integrity? Pah!

115? Got your number

Whattafix, Itsafix and Mattafix (albeit the latter was a fine band)

115 Damnations

Here’s the thing.

Sports often have to impose what seem fairly arbitrary limits, that participants have to abide by, in the form of rules and laws.

Now, Lance Armstrong found ways to illegally enhance his physical capabilities (akin to what’s given to Obelix by Getafix). But he would also have been guilty had he used a rocket-bike.

Why, the argument might go if taken to its extreme, should Man City be limited to fielding 11 players at the start of matches?

They have more money and can afford more players, so surely it’s discrimination and restraint of trade to make them field 11 instead of 23 or 37 or 79? That seems to be the gist of their argument.

Much like having 11 players in football instead of say, 13 like rugby league or 15 like rugby union, FFP may be fairly arbitrary in terms of the final numbers involved, but it’s a rule, with a number set as a parameter.

The Premier League has the rules or laws that clubs signed up to abide by. If you don’t like the rule, fine – oppose it. But don’t then sign up to it and, rather than complain and join a vote, seek to take legal action about it.

Just as, if you sign up to play in the Premier League, you abide by the offside law, and don’t ask for exceptions because it’s discriminatory and holds back faster players.

(I mean, the offside law was clearly designed to confuse and thwart Darwin Núñez, so Liverpool need to get it removed ASAP, and have all his offside goals restored.)

If you breach limits, whether it be testosterone or spending, it’s an unfair advantage. Often the limit is the natural envelope of human ability, but team sports require balancing in different ways.

If everyone else limits themselves to the parameters – and one club (that wins everything) doesn’t – that’s as much cheating as taking EPO as a cyclist.

If, as per the rules, you shackle kids at the ankle in a three-legged race (the parameter is then set by an impediment), and then let another kid just sprint on his or her own, then that’s not a fair race anymore. You can’t bind the legs of nine pairs of kids and let one run unencumbered.

(The notion of tying up kids for sport is a bit weird, granted.)

Or have high hurdles and water jumps on the steeplechase for everyone, bar the lad from Abu Dhabi.

If City didn’t breach the rules, that’s one thing; but now they’re saying the rules are unfair.

Which seems to be a fear that, actually, they did break the rules. (Legal advice tells me to put an asterisk here, lest I be hung, drawn and quartered.)

How would you feel if someone facing 15 murder charges suddenly said, “you know, murder – is it really all that bad?”

If we’re going to appeal on unfair application of the rules or the rules just being unfair, Liverpool’s treatment by the PGMOL in the last few years (perhaps due to their utter disdain for Jürgen Klopp) should mean that Liverpool can now retrospectively have the rules changed, and have it so that penalties (which the Reds won precious few of compared to rivals) are null and void.

Indeed, according the GiveMeSport, there were 31 VAR mistakes across the top tier last season, and Liverpool were worst hit with a balance of -4, with Wolves next on -3.

“Paul Tierney and Stuart Attwell both made the most mistakes during the season with four each” – the two officials who I’ve noted do Liverpool way more than anyone else, were the most error-prone.

“Michael Salisbury was the top performer while on VAR duty, with just one error in 35 games.”

Salisbury, like three other refs, never does Liverpool games. As I’ve said, that could be seen as a kind of corruption via the constant appointment of incompetent or unhelpful refs.

But no one is going to get any compensation or sporting redress for it; not even over the Luis Díaz error that distorted the season. City had far more “luck” with officials. Liverpool have to abide by VAR and the PGMOL, and can complain, but will not be suing.

Again, sport, like life, is full of rules we don’t like, but if we sign a contract, then we have to be expected to honour that contract.

Spending rules are to stop someone with unlimited wealth from buying up everyone; spending a trillion pounds, to stockpile a super-squad (who are paid so much they can’t be too restless), and more vitally, attenuate all rivals in the process.

They could buy 200 of the best players from rivals and loan them overseas, strategically, so that they could still play football (maybe for one of your dozen co-owned clubs), while paying them fortunes to do so. You have to draw a line. Without it, it’s worse than the Wild West.

Once the difference went from millionaires to billionaires, things changed. But actual countries owning clubs? That’s a step-change, a sea-change.

We naturally defend our clubs as we would our families (either out of loyalty or cognitive dissonance), but I’d hate to be put in a position like this, by having such owners; where success sends some all the more into denial. City fans didn’t ask for this, and I’m sure the decent ones are squirming a bit right now (albeit not this wonk).

I would imagine that after this latest attack on English football and its already straining grasp on fairness, fans of more clubs will start to believe that Manchester City are ruining the game; indeed, gaming the game.

For now, they’ve escaped the greatest wrath in part due to being convenient for Spurs, Man United, Everton and other fans in stopping bitter rivals – albeit Everton got their own dose of reality this year, at what it’s like to have to face a different reality to Man City. (Just see Spurs’ “City ’til July”, which was a bit stomach-churning and sent their own manager into paroxysms of rage. Winning culture? No, banter culture.)

Alas, some people don’t understand, or care for, sport, and you should never get involved with them. They play a different game.

It’s about the prestige, not the sport. It’s about the preeminence, not competition.

Not content with winning four titles in a row and various other domestic cups to mean they dominate in a way people will surely tire of soon (if this move hasn’t achieved that), Man City want to blow the bloody doors of the Premier League’s financial fairness rules.

To have it all, and it’s still not good enough.

Reportedly, erstwhile Korean leader Kim Jong Il once shot a score of 38-under in his very first round of golf, including 11 holes-in-one, at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang. The only shock was that it wasn’t 18 holes-in-one.

His son, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un”, is apparently even better at every single sport invented. He still doesn’t seem very happy, does he? What does actual honest sport mean to that dynasty? Nothing.

They just have their own record books drawn up, and live in their own little world adrift from reality, happy in their dictatorships.

Like Competitive Dad, they will destroy the competition, and then storm off if confronted with their bullying. They set things up so that they cannot fail; they can only win, and demoralise the rest.

Like the best bullies, they cry foul, and try to accuse others of bullying them.

‘Discrimination!’ they scream, when they signed up to the rules, and aren’t exactly known for their fair treatment of others; undermining the truly discriminated against in this world.

Matthew Syed noted in the Times (some news outlets strangely don’t seem to be tackling the story other than to do City’s PR):

“But the dominant sense today is the shameless hypocrisy of the owners of City. They said that they were investing in City because they cared about regenerating the area. They now say that unless they get their own way, they are likely to stop community funding. They said that the commercial deals were within the rules; they now say that the rules are illegal. They said that competitive balance was important for English football; they now want to destroy it. They said they were happy with the democratic ethos of Premier League decision-making; now they hilariously say it’s oppressive.”

The “tyranny of the majority”, that City specifically object to, used to be called democracy, as others have noted.

What about the tyranny of the autocrat, the dictator, the potentate?

Is that what we want?

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