'We're bang to rights': Man City fans brace for relegation and stripped trophies as reckoning arrives
For Manchester City supporters, the song has been prophetic all along. Back in 2008 — long before the Premier League's financial fraud charges landed — fans were already singing "City's going down with a billion in the bank" to the tune of Yellow Submarine. The chant began when Thaksin Shinawatra's turbulent 15-month ownership collapsed after more than £1bn of the former Thai president's assets were frozen, and although Sheikh Mansour of the UAE stepped in to rescue the club, by December City were in the relegation zone.
That paradox — a club of untold riches forever capable of self-destruction — has a name among City fans: Cityitis.
"It's simply an acceptance that one way or another we'll always be City, always suffer from Cityitis, and come the day, despite our endless UAE riches, we'll do a City," writes one lifelong fan in a candid column for the Guardian. "And that day has come."
The chant that grew louder
The defiant chant has tracked the club's financial saga from the start. When the financial fair play investigation was launched in 2018, it got louder. When more than 100 charges were revealed in 2023, it became "even louder and more cavalier". Now, with the reckoning finally arriving, supporters expect the singing to reach new heights. "After all, this is a club that believes schadenfreude starts at home. We brag about our failings," the columnist writes.
Other self-mocking favourites include "Empty seats at home" (to the tune of the Beautiful South's Rotterdam) — a jab at the club's struggles to sell out tickets despite the trophy haul — and "Is This the Etihad?" (to Verdi's La donna è mobile), sung at deathly quiet away grounds.
Bang to rights
While City's lawyers and many fans will argue the verdict is unjust — with the club reportedly intent on appealing — this supporter believes the club is guilty. "Some of us believe we're bang to rights," the column states. "Everton and Nottingham Forest have been docked points for lesser offences, so it would be embarrassing if City had got away with it; an undeniable case of one rule for the rich."
The charge sheet makes grim reading: failing to provide accurate and up-to-date financial reports, concealing salary details and bonuses, inflating sponsorship revenues, and failing to cooperate or supply requested documents during the investigation. "We used lawyers to royally take the piss," the fan writes. "And when it comes down to it, that is not very City."
Indeed, the columnist points to the club's roots — founded in 1880 as St Mark's (West Gorton) by members of a Church of England parish for humanitarian and social rescue purposes in deprived east Manchester — as a reminder of what the club was meant to be.
What fate awaits?
The unknown is the sentence itself. Wayne Rooney, in a recent interview with the columnist, suggested City could be docked 60 points — a punishment that would make avoiding relegation virtually impossible. It could be worse: the club could lose all eight trophies won in the charged period of 2009-10 to 2017-18, including three Premier League titles and the record-breaking "centurions" season of 2017-18, when City won the league with 100 points.
"To me, that would be disproportionate and would in effect mean the Premier League eating itself," the columnist argues. "But is the verdict itself unjust? City will say yes because they don't want anything as petty as fair-play rules thwarting their bid for global domination. The lawyers will say yes because they're paid to do so. Many fans will say yes because they're fans."
Life after the fall
So what happens next? Relegation, almost certainly. The departure of the club's best players — including Erling Haaland, the "great Nordic God of goalscoring", though the columnist jokes he might stay just to see how many goals he could score in a Championship season. And then, rebuilding.
Even the worst-case scenario has silver linings, the fan insists. City would still have their anni mirabiles — the unprecedented domestic quadruple of 2018-19 and the treble including the Champions League in 2022-23, seasons with "barely a whiff of scandal" when the club was "simply obscenely wealthy, brilliantly run and managed by the world's numero uno Pep Guardiola".
And there are positives to come from disgrace: justice being done; ticket prices falling so "regular civilians" fill the Etihad again; fans learning to treasure Wembley visits and trophies; humility replacing sullenness when a season yields "only" the League Cup and FA Cup; and perhaps most importantly, learning to think imaginatively rather than simply pulling out the chequebook.
For supporters of a certain vintage, lower divisions hold fond memories too — the Kevin Keegan era chant of "We've got Kevin Keegan 100 goals a season", and beating Gillingham in the playoffs, remembered as "our top footballing memory".
"The only way is up," the column concludes — signed off with a typical City joke about recruiting former cult hero Shaun Goater, the "God of Bermudan goalscoring", who is reportedly a free agent after leaving his coaching role at Aston Villa Women.