Premier League champs Manchester City were this week charged with breaches of financial fair play rules, leading to a glorious conflation of sports and legal reporting. Not to mention the resurrection of a familiar meme – a phalanx of suited and booted blokes held to represent City’s legal team.
City, who deny any wrongdoing, immediately sought to get on the front foot (as the club’s footballers generally do). ‘The club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position.’
Irrefutable or just rebuttable? We’ll see.
Not a lot is going to happen for a bit, but journalists are resourceful when it comes to finding fresh angles. One newspaper breathlessly informed us that Murray Rosen KC, chair of the independent commission that will oversee the case, is apparently an Arsenal fan. Arsenal are currently locked in what every sports desk is contractually required to call a ‘titanic battle’ with ‘Citeh’ for the league title.
Readers are presumably invited to infer that 4 New Square Chambers’ Rosen will seize the chance of giving the Gunners a leg-up by demoting City to the Ardwick Scouts Combination League Division Seven. [He definitely won’t do anything of the sort – Ed.]
City’s hiring of clinical courtroom hitman Lord Pannick KC, meanwhile, was greeted as if it were a last-minute transfer coup. Pannick wasn’t forced to don the sky blue and perform a spot of keepie-uppie for the cameras, but it was a close-run thing. It is reported that Pannick will charge £400,000 a week – about the same as star midfielder Kevin de Bruyne, another doyen of devastating attacking thrusts [yes, yes, we get the idea – Ed.].
Newspapers have grappled with how to describe Pannick. The Sun went for ‘Partygate lawyer’, but most referred to his purported fees, with The Times describing him as ‘the big-money barrister’. One City fan account cut to the chase, however, by highlighting what is surely Pannick’s biggest professional achievement – helping to ‘fend off’ a claim from former manager Joe Royle following the latter’s sacking by City 22 years ago.
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