San Francisco Frontiers - Man City's meteoric rise clouded by dark shadow

In the 18 years since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, vice-president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, took charge, City have become the Premier League's dominant force and also won a Champions League crown.

Their success has been even sweeter for generations of City fans who saw the club live in the shadow of local rivals Manchester United and even sink into the third tier of English football in the late 1990s.

In their 128-year history, prior to a takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group, City had won just nine major trophies, including only two top-flight league titles.

But the billions of pounds invested into east Manchester from the Middle East have yielded eight Premier League crowns, four FA Cups, seven League Cups and the club's first Champions League title.

In November 2018, however, German news magazine Der Spiegel published a series of bombshell articles accusing City of flouting financial fair play rules.

City were found guilty by UEFA in February 2020 of breaking financial fair play (FFP) rules and given a two-year European ban and a fine. The ban was later overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

In February 2023, the Premier League charged City with 115 breaches of FFP play rules between 2009 and 2018. On Friday, reports said the club had been found guilty on all but one of the counts.

The Premier League charges included artificially inflating the value of sponsorship deals from companies in Abu Dhabi linked to City's ownership, and disguising the true salaries of some players and managers with off-the-books payments.

City were also charged with failing to cooperate with the Premier League in its investigations.

All the while, money was pouring in to make the club a global superpower.

In 2022, City topped the Deloitte Money League for the first time as the world's highest revenue-generating club and they have just splashed out a record £460 million ($609 million) on new players in one transfer window.

- 'Noisy neighbours' -

Manchester United's former manager Alex Ferguson once dismissed his new challengers as "noisy neighbours".

But City did not waste time in making waves with their newfound wealth following the takeover, even if it took some time for the on-pitch success to follow.

Robinho's arrival from Real Madrid in the final hours of the 2008 summer transfer window was the first of a flurry of superstar signings and City enjoyed some local bragging rights by snatching Carlos Tevez from United the following year.

It was the arrivals of Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero that built the bedrock of City's first title-winning side for 44 years.

In the most dramatic finale to a season the Premier League has ever seen, Aguero scored a 94th-minute goal to beat Queens Park Rangers on the final day of the 2011/12 campaign, snatching the title from United's grasp.

That sparked a run of eight Premier League titles in 13 seasons.

Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini were both title winners in Manchester but the arrival of Pep Guardiola in 2016 took City to a different level.

Guardiola had spent just four years in charge of his beloved Barcelona, before leaving citing exhaustion after winning three La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues, and three seasons at German giants Bayern Munich.

City managed to persuade Guardiola to extend his stay for a decade.

He rewarded them by overseeing arguably the most dominant period of sustained success in English football history, with six English top-flight titles in seven seasons between 2017/18 and 2023/24, including an unprecedented four in a row.

Europe was finally conquered in 2023 as City matched United's previously unique achievement as the only side to win the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in the same season.

In recent years, the financial charges have cast a shadow over the Etihad, even while trophies continued to be won.

In May, Guardiola was given a glorious send off, with a stand named in his honour.

The club's detractors, who have long argued the whole era should be qualified by an asterisk, may yet be proved right should City be found guilty.

W.Thompson--SFF