The trial on the 115 positions presented against Manchester City has been expected 'imminently' for some time. On February 8, the city administrator, Pep Guardiola, said it would come in a month. That was almost six weeks ago.
The entire Byzantine farra, wrapped in absurd levels of secret, scaffolding for threats and great and mysteries, has sometimes seemed disturbingly similar to the episodes of The Trial of Franz Kafka. The resolution rests tantalizingly and torturedly out of reach.
The executives of the city and particularly their legal team, like to portray the club like the Josef K of these labyrinthine maniovringes, victim of a superior superior power, but the truth is that it is the English football fans who are Josef K, increasingly bewildered, increasingly impotent, increasingly disappointed.
There are some things that we already know, even before knowing the verdicts of the 115 positions. Or for many positions that exist. Estimates seem to differ, but we know that lawyers have already won. Not only the city's lawyers or the lawyers of the Premier League. The lawyers of both parties. All.
Judging by the pure grandeur of his pronouncements, the city general lawyer, Simon Cliff, seems to believe that he actually directs English football now. Maybe English football really runs. He certainly seems to have Richard Masters, the quite besieged executive director of the Premier League, just where he wants it.
Cliff is a slightly musk figure, which seems to be fond of shouting probabilities and calling decisions. He tells the other 19 Premier League clubs what is legal and what is illegal and when to align and when to disobey. The impression it gives is to a large extent that the city manages English football now.
The trial on the 115 positions presented against Man City has been expected 'imminently' for some time (in the photo: Pep Guardiola, to the right, with the president of the Khaldoon Club al Mubarak, left)
The general lawyer Simon Cliff seems to be fond of shouting the chances and calling decisions
Cliff certainly has the executive president of the Premier League, Richards Masters, just where he wants it
Cliff also has a sweet twist. When Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former Prime Minister of Belgium, who also served as one of the UEFA Financial Fair Games officers, died in 2014, Cliff sent an internal email.
Filrated documents printed in the German newspaper Der Spiegel cited Cliff's reaction to the news in that letter, while referring to body membership. '1 Down', Der Spiegel cited Cliff as a writing, '6 to go'.
We will hear much more from Cliff when the trials are announced. Much, much more. But once we have passed to Cliff and the rest of the legal profession while delighting the fat of the football land, who more wins? Take a wild assumption. It starts with a zero and ends with a zero and has many zeros in the middle.
“Who” wins “,” an executive director of the Premier League told me on Monday: “It is the best victory without value. There can be no winners. There are only losers in both directions.
'Clarity is what everyone longs for. And stability. But there is a general recognition that if we are not careful, we will kill the golden goose. We are on the edge of a cliff here.
The Premier League has addressed that cliff for a long time. The trouble to Brink began under Richard Scudamore when the rich became richer and fans were and the smallest clubs were squeezed until the Pips were placed.
And that trend has only worsened. I know that more and more fans who can no longer bear to go to games at home because the atmosphere that he ever loved has been diluted so much because of the desire to prioritize tickets for tourists, who pay more to see and for the corporate traigators who lose half of the game while obtaining the value of their money in prawns of prawns in an entertainment suite.
His own decades of loyalty seem to count at all.
The co -owner of Crystal Palace, Steve Parish, in the photo in Selhurst Park this month, once summarized his football philosophy asking why supermarkets should help the corners stores
Furious fans protest on the streets against the beginning of the European Super League in 2021
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There are some fantastic clubs, well -administered and responsible in the Premier League, but they are minority in addition to those that we call the six greats, which tried to desert a European Super League not long ago.
That movement would have killed English football as we know it, but the gap between rich and poor has continued to expand since then.
Steve Parish, Crystal Palace's co -owner, once summarized his football philosophy by asking why supermarkets should help corners stores.
The parish is the type of man who thinks that the excess of soul is something for which you pay £ 48 in J Sheekey in Covent Garden after you have sucked your seafood bisque.
And there is a lot like him. That is why fans are getting more and more disappointed.
That is why we are seeing a land protest land in clubs such as Manchester United and Tottenham and Liverpool, as ticket prices increase and the importance of the rest of the football pyramid decreases.
And if the Premier League attempt to stop a free expense does not fail when the verdicts of the 115 charges are announced, if the authority of the league is fatally undermined, then what remains of the competitive balance of the highest category will also be lost, since Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi prodigate even more money in Newcastle United and the city.
“If, for example, a sponsorship of £ 25 million a year of an airline becomes £ 100 million a year, if that is not full,” said the club's executive director, “the competition in the Premier League has gone and we will lose 6-0 every week.”
On February 8, the Guardiola city administrator said the trial trial would arrive in a month
If the Premier League authority looks minimal after its seismic judgment against Manchester City (above), then what remains of the high -flying competitive balance will be lost
What if the city 'losing'? Well, then we are in a world of asterisks and deductions of points and joy of rival fans and the spots of one of the best sides of the club that we have seen in the English game and the punitive demands that will last eternity.
Every time 'imminent' becomes now, both parties will claim victory and neither can understand that they have lost.
Do not point to Maresca
Chelsea's season is stuttering, the classification for the Champions League is beginning to seem uncertain and Enzo Maresca is feeling heat.
I think Maresca has done a decent job in trying to make sense of the chaos that was presented in Stamford Bridge. Just like Mauricio Pochettino did it before him.
The problem is that, despite the geniuses in charge of recruitment in Chelsea spending more than one billion pounds in new players, most of them are not very good.
Instead of the manager, perhaps we should be a little higher in the food chain for someone to fall.
Enzo Maresca is under pressure in Chelsea, but simply his players are not very good
Howe does not deserve a statue
Eddie Howe guarantees praise for her heroic of the Carabao Cup, but still does not deserve a statue
From the beginning of his time in Newcastle to Wembley on Sunday, Eddie Howe has done a brilliant job at St James' Park.
Good luck for all that and I am with all my colleagues who have lavished him with praise in the last 48 hours and recent years.
But we are going to clarify one thing: any talk about the construction of a statue in Newcastle is emotional, pure and simple incontinence.
If you win a Premier League title or the Champions League, or build a body in our game, as did Sir Bobby Robson, then maybe. But not now.