Forget the points deduction for a second. The scariest line in Manchester City's week isn't anything a football tribunal can hand down. A group of MPs has pushed HMRC to examine whether the club avoided £12m in tax through a contract that's been called a sham.
That's the tax authority now, the one that prosecutes people. And the question everyone's actually shouting about is blunt: should City be forced to sell up, and should anyone face criminal charges?
If the allegation about the Mancini contract holds up, the law should treat City the same way it treats everyone else: the ordinary, ruthless version, even though the club is big and funded by a Gulf state.
Think about what £12m in allegedly avoided tax actually is. A small business owner who fiddled a fraction of that would have HMRC through the door and a court date waiting. There's no elite-club exemption on the tax form. A contract built to funnel money to Roberto Mancini while keeping it away from the Revenue, if proven, is fraud.
City have already been found guilty of serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules, with sham contracts part of the case. The "it's all been overblown" defence is running on fumes.
Nobody's proven the scale yet. One contract doesn't add up to a decade of organised fraud, and you can't sentence a club for crimes you're only assuming exist. So prove it. That's the argument for a proper HMRC criminal investigation instead of a polite letter and a shrug.
When a club is bankrolled by Abu Dhabi, the people who should be enforcing the rules keep finding reasons to tread carefully. Investment, diplomacy, jobs. The moment "geopolitical stakes" becomes an excuse to go easy on an alleged tax fraud, the law has stopped meaning anything.
Mancini, asked about the scandal with his name attached to it, said it was "not a problem that concerns me." Of course he said that. Nearly everyone with the power to stop this has treated it the same way, like something that doesn't concern them either.
So should City be forced to sell, should executives answer in a courtroom? If the facts land where the allegations point, yes, and they shouldn't expect the leniency Chelsea were shown. The only thing standing between City and that outcome is whether the people holding the file have the nerve to open it on a club this powerful.
My bet is they blink. Prove me wrong.
