Devil's diary: the sham neighbours' cheating leaves United in a precarious position
Berrada's dabs are all over the City scandal, but Wilcox can sit this one out
It would hardly be a stretch to say that we are bearing witness to the biggest scandal in the history of English football.
United’s now particularly noisy neighbours have been found guilty of all but one of their 115 charges. Barring a last-gasp appeal in desperation, all of their recent-ish success will be tarnished forever. The Premier League’s statement used the word sham five times to describe City’s actions. Sham contracts. Sham agreements. Sham commercial deals. Further sham arrangements. A sham circular agreement. You get the point. The independent commission also found that between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, City artificially inflated their revenues and reduced their costs by close to £1 billion.
It goes without saying that the book should be thrown at them.
There are likely to be consequences on our side of town too. People have understandably been speculating on the sanctions that City may face, with the stripping and reassigning of titles one of the more prominent ideas. If that were to happen, United would gain the title for the infamous 2011-12 Agüero season, as well as the 2017-18 title when José Mourinho was in charge. Personally, that scenario would be of little interest to me. I mean, how can you possibly celebrate titles that weren’t won on the pitch and lifted at Old Trafford. Yes, City broke just about every financial rule in the book to assemble those title-winning teams, and so I would very much like to see those seasons voided.
The suits at City behind all of this really do seem like a very shady bunch. Their chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak has spent years banging on about the “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” City supposedly possessed. After a 42-day hearing, the commission evidently found it rather more refutable than he did. Ferran Soriano, City's CEO, repeated the sentiment in a suspicious, AI-looking three-and-a-half-minute staff video in which he managed to not blink a single time.
You would never guess who worked alongside these fine gentlemen. That’s right. Omar Berrada, United’s very own CEO. He was there for all but a couple of the seasons that the breaches took place. He started as head of international business development in 2011 and rose to chief operating officer by 2016. We can’t know for certain if he was involved in all the dodgy dealings, but it does seem plausible seeing as he was never too far from the commercial and executive machinery that fuelled sponsorships and revenues.
The investigation into City started in 2018. Berrada was still at City throughout that, until joining United in 2024. United knew about the investigation and still hired him. Now that there is a verdict, surely Sir Jim will swing his mighty axe of righteousness to remove Berrada from his post. There’s Jason Wilcox too, who has somehow risen to director of football at United. He also has a past on the blue side, but was only ever involved with City’s academy, away from the money men. The man has many flaws, but we can spare him on this one.
International Devils
We still have more than two weeks until United come back to torment us, but some of the lads are kicking the ball around for their countries in glorified friendlies. Of course, in true United fashion, it has largely been a worrying break. Bruno Fernandes missed Portugal’s 2-1 win against Norway through an injury he was reported to be carrying for three weeks. In true Bruno fashion, he has made himself available for their next match. I wonder if his body will ever falter. Patrick Dorgu is already back at United after being taken off with a suspected hamstring injury in Denmark’s 2-0 win over Wales. Noussair Mazraoui suffered a similar fate, although his problem was in his lower back.
It hasn’t been all doom and gloom though, as Senne Lammens is establishing himself in the Belgium squad having started both of their matches and keeping a clean sheet against Italy. Bryan Mbeumo scored for Cameroon against Comoros, while Leny Yoro got his first senior France call-up.
They will all return to welcome Spurs at Old Trafford in 10 days’ time. Who knows - we may be two Premier Leagues richer then.
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