Man City are the Premier League’s biggest-ever villains – proven cheats deserve Anfield’s wrath as Liverpool await shamed rivals

After all, it’s not as if City could have signed Haaland himself in 2022 had they not laid the foundations for their success via illegal means. Even Guardiola admitted that City “were not a team that has a long history with a lot of titles”. Their pulling power was purely financial – and, as former Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch pointed out, “everyone knew” where the money was coming from.

“[In the summer of 2022], us and Man City were the only teams that said we made money,” the American told The Guardian. “Us, we did make money, because we sold Raphinha, we sold Kalvin Phillips [to City]. We had a lot left over from what we bought.

“At the time, we weren’t in a position financially to not save. Our ownership didn’t have deep pockets. Whereas when Man City said [they made money] and I was literally like, ‘Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of joke?’ When they said they got Erling Haaland for £52m, it’s like: ‘Yeah, OK, sure!’”

Liverpool had also long been sceptical of City’s revenue streams. All the way back in July 2011, when City had unveiled their £400m ($528m) sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways, John Henry, the founder of Fenway Sports Group (FSG), which owns the Reds, quipped on Twitter, “How much was the losing bid?”

The size of the deal made no sense. But nothing ever did. It was always a “sham”. Everything was fake. But the consequences were real – and absolutely devastating for so many people.

“It’s done a lot of damage,” former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino said. “Many clubs followed the rules and some didn’t. So, it is a huge sadness. We get into a situation where what got celebrated wasn’t that real, what seemed good maybe wasn’t so good, what didn’t look good maybe was good but couldn’t be good because of what happened.

“If I remember being at Southampton, then Tottenham – I remember building [the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium] and not having the economic possibility of a transfer for 18 months. We went through something where sporting fairness didn’t exist… We’ve lived through a period of deception.”