The facts
Jonathan Wilson writes in The Guardian that Manchester City's recent charges of financial rule breaches are unprecedented, as is the language used to describe them. Erling Haaland, after a 3-0 win, spoke of the team's 'amazing character' and a 'mental battle,' typically used for on-field issues. However, this was after an independent panel found City guilty of 'the greatest act of sustained cheating' in English football history. The club has appealed. Wilson notes City's net spending was over £1.2bn in nine years, 50% more than any other Premier League side. Manager Enzo Maresca told players to 'make our noise' by winning games, amid uncertainty over potential sanctions.
Our take
Let's get one thing straight: Manchester City is a cheating cunt of a football club. An independent panel didn't find them 'a bit naughty' or 'financially creative.' They found them guilty of 'the greatest act of sustained cheating' in the history of the fucking sport. That's the verdict. So when Erling Haaland, that giant golden child of this fraudulent enterprise, starts banging on about the squad's 'amazing character' and winning a 'mental battle' after a 3-0 win, what the fuck is he talking about? The mental battle of trying to remember which of the 115 charges you're personally not implicated in? The amazing character required to deposit a weekly wage funded by a net spend of over 1.2 billion pounds, which is 50% more than any other Premier League dickhead managed to spend? That's not character, you prick. That's the moral flexibility of a career con artist.
Manager Enzo Maresca's contribution to this festival of bullshit is to tell his players to 'make our noise' by winning games. Make what noise, you absolute clown? The deafening silence of every other club in the league who actually tried to follow the fucking rules? The pathetic squeak of a hollow trophy that everyone knows was bought with the greatest sustained cheat in history? You can't header your way out of a financial fraud case, you stupid bastard. Winning a football match doesn't answer a single one of those 115 charges. It just proves you can still win when you've allegedly rigged the entire financial system in your favor for a decade.
This is the heart of the fucking farce. A club found guilty of systematic, historic cheating is now using the language of on-field adversity - 'character,' 'battle,' 'making noise' - to describe the consequences of its own greedy, fraudulent actions. It's a bank robber praising his crew's teamwork during the getaway, while the judge reads out the verdict for armed robbery. The only 'mental battle' here is the one between City's staggering, entitled vanity and the basic concept of fair play. And their 'amazing character' is the character of a grifting, self-important institution that thinks a few wins somehow washes the stench of being the biggest cheaters in the game off its hands. It doesn't. It just makes you a winning cheater, which is somehow even more of a cunt.
