Five months on from the bombshell charges dropped on Manchester City by the Premier League, there is little sign of their impact across the football club.
Not that you’d expect Jack Grealish to get off the team bus with a legal textbook or Pep Guardiola to rock up to a press conference wearing a ‘115’ hoodie, but considering the grave nature of the allegations against the club life at the Etihad Campus looks remarkably normal. There has been no mass exodus of players keen to find a more stable future elsewhere, and no list of transfer targets suddenly unwilling to move over concerns of the repercussions if evidence were to be proven against City.
Elsewhere in the business, the cloud hanging over City has not stopped them from expect ed revenues that will surpass £700m for the 2022/23 season, smashing any previous total from a British club by over £50m.
And while news that the club could face expulsion from the Premier League over these incredibly serious charges should have made sponsors reflect, two of City’s biggest have signed on to give even more money this summer.
Before there is any lazy commentary about all of City’s sponsors being from Abu Dhabi, those two partners are cryptocurrency firm OKX and Japanese beer giant Asahi, who are now the new sleeve and training kit partner respectively. Given City are facing these allegations on an unprecedented scale, why are businesses more keen than ever to do business with them?
