00:00Who are the biggest victims of Man City's cheating?
00:02Before going into specifics, I'd like to make one thing clear,
00:05that it's somehow being disputed by City fans and non-City fans alike.
00:09We are all victims of Man City's cheating.
00:12It doesn't matter if you support Liverpool, United, Palace,
00:15Accrington Stanley or Real Betis.
00:17If you are a fan of elite football, you have suffered from this.
00:20Modern football has been changed irreversibly.
00:23Titles won, heartbroken, prices inflated, all at the hands of Manchester City.
00:27Anyway, enough doom and gloom.
00:30Who has suffered the most?
00:32Who are the biggest victims of Man City's cheating?
00:34Let's go back to the very start.
00:39Number five, Stoke City.
00:41It's only one game that they will point to,
00:42but it possibly would have meant more to them than any of the others combined.
00:46The 14th of May, 2011, Man City won Stoke nil in the FA Cup final at Wembley.
00:51Days like this don't come around very often for clubs like Stoke.
00:55Incredibly, City have lost two finals to teams of a similar size,
00:58Wigan in 2013 and Palace in 2025, since the financial cheating began,
01:02but Stoke were unable to get over the line.
01:05They last won a major trophy 39 years prior to that, the League Cup in 1972,
01:10and that was in fact their only major trophy.
01:12It was their first FA Cup final too,
01:14and they lost by one goal to a team of City superstars.
01:18There are some teams who lost to City in this period,
01:20like Man United in 2021 or 2018's title races,
01:23where you can say, yeah, but Man City was so much better than them.
01:27Couldn't they really feel that hard done by?
01:29Stoke were as close as you can get,
01:32just a couple of years into City's controversial reign as kings of English football.
01:36That extra few million quid could have made all the difference.
01:40Number four, Arsenal.
01:41Now, before you say it, yes,
01:42I'm aware that Arsenal's title races came four years after the final season included in the investigation,
01:48although their fans will point out that a farewell League Cup trophy in Arsene Wenger's last season
01:52would have been nice.
01:53They lost to City in the final in 2018.
01:55But City's years of financial book cooking set up the Pep Guardiola era,
01:59which, in turn, took two historic Arsenal title wins out of their hands.
02:03Their 2022-23 season was exceptional,
02:06and they were pipped to the title by City's treble winners.
02:08They were even better the following year,
02:10taking City to the final day, only to lose again.
02:13Without the initial growth from City,
02:16Pep Guardiola doesn't take the job.
02:17Who knows where he would have ended up,
02:19and perhaps his second choice, whoever they may be,
02:22belongs somewhere on his list too.
02:23Alas, we will never know.
02:24Arsenal, thankfully for them and for the justice of football,
02:27won the league in 2026.
02:29Their golden era have got their hands on the Premier League trophy
02:32in spite of Pep's best efforts,
02:34and they can say they beat City fair and square in a title race before they were found guilty.
02:38That will mean a lot to them.
02:41Number three, Italian football in general.
02:43Inter Milan are the face of this victim,
02:45losing the Champions League final in 2023 to City as they completed the treble.
02:49But just how different could Italian football look if Inter had won Europe's premium prize?
02:54That summer, after losing the final,
02:56Inter Milan lost Handanovic,
02:57Skriniar,
02:58Dzeko,
02:59Brozovic,
02:59Lukaku,
03:00Onana,
03:00and Gersens.
03:02They went through a big rebuild,
03:03which, yes,
03:04still resulted in a Serie A title,
03:06but saw them get dumped out of the last 16 of the Champions League the following year,
03:09then losing another final the year after that to PSG.
03:13But what if they had won the 2023 UEFA Champions League?
03:16Would their core have still looked to leave?
03:18Inter beat their rivals AC Milan in the semi-finals that year too.
03:21Would fans and players alike have sensed a shift in the momentum of European football?
03:24The Champions League has been dominated by the biggest teams,
03:27Real Madrid,
03:28Barcelona,
03:28Liverpool,
03:29and the richest teams,
03:30Man City,
03:30PSG,
03:31Chelsea,
03:31since about 2013.
03:33Inter Milan winning it would have been the official awakening of a sleeping giant.
03:37The San Siro becomes one of the hottest tickets in Europe again,
03:40and Inter's strength encourages Milan and Juve to seize the moment too.
03:44International fans tune into Serie A again to watch the European champions battle it out
03:48against their resurgent rivals.
03:49Alas, that did not happen.
03:51Other than Inter under Inzaghi,
03:53we've only had one Italian team in the semi-finals of the Champions League since 2020.
03:57The Italian national team hasn't played in a World Cup since 2014.
04:00This is ignoring the financial impact of Man City and the financial struggles of Italian football too.
04:05What was once a great footballing nation is floundering,
04:08and the purists of a certain demographic will feel genuine sadness at the downward trajectory
04:12of Italy's footballing legacy, as modern football has outgrown and outspent the country.
04:17Inter winning a Champions League from nowhere would not have done Italy any harm at all.
04:21As it happened, City completed a tainted treble,
04:24and Inter are left to wonder what might have happened on a more level playing field.
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05:01Right, back to the video.
05:03Number two, Man City fans.
05:04Now, this may seem a weird inclusion.
05:06Of course, City's fans are defensive for their club right now.
05:09They will say they don't care, that those memories still happened,
05:12that nothing can take away the feeling of those moments from them.
05:15And I hear it.
05:16City are the centre of the footballing world right now,
05:18and we would all do anything and everything to defend our team.
05:22I would do the same.
05:23They will cling to the chances of a successful appeal,
05:26believe their owners when they insist they're innocent,
05:28and may never publicly accept this verdict at all.
05:30But deep down, this will change things.
05:33Of course it will.
05:34They may not know or feel that right now,
05:36but in 10 years' time, when looking back at what should have been a golden era of City,
05:40the cloud will be there.
05:42The knowledge of that, in reality, it wasn't quite what it was.
05:45They will never live this down as a fanbase.
05:47This will be brought up every time City do anything good for the rest of their life.
05:52Because this period built the foundations.
05:54This period has and will define City forever.
05:57It may turn some fans off, it will probably turn some players off,
06:00and it will definitely turn neutrals off.
06:03Caring in football is viewed as uncool, obsessed, rattled.
06:06Of course, no football fan would ever admit that they care what others think about their team.
06:10But they do.
06:11We do.
06:12We all do.
06:13It's human nature.
06:14And Manchester City fans will have the caveat of,
06:16but you cheated, but what about the charges, but it all means nothing,
06:20repeated to them every single weekend for the rest of their lives.
06:23It is not their fault.
06:25That is one thing to make clear.
06:26They are not complicit.
06:27They may be in denial, but they are nearly the biggest victims of anyone here.
06:31But of course, no one has suffered more than number one, Liverpool.
06:36This is actually a two-parter, both of which are possibly as sad as each other.
06:40Firstly, 13-14, a season slap-bang in the middle of City's financial terrors.
06:45What if Liverpool had won the league that year?
06:48Their swashbuckling front three, Brendan Rodgers, and most importantly,
06:53Steven Gerrard would have been Premier League winners.
06:55Would Luis Suarez have left to go to Barcelona?
06:57Would Raheem Sterling be a Liverpool legend?
07:00Would Gerrard be in any different all-time Premier League conversations?
07:03Would his slip versus Chelsea even have mattered if happened at all?
07:07As a neutral, there was a special feeling around Liverpool that year.
07:10It came from nowhere, it was exciting, it was attacking, and it was organic.
07:14They deserved a Premier League title, and it was sad enough when they lost out to City,
07:17even before we discovered it was, to use the Premier League's favourite word, a sham.
07:22Then came part two, Jurgen Klopp.
07:24In 1819, Liverpool came second on 97 points.
07:28They lost one game that season to Man City.
07:31They lost the league that season to Man City.
07:33What if they won the league on 102 points and went invincible?
07:37It would be the undisputed greatest season in Premier League history.
07:40It probably goes down as the best Premier League team ever, and Jurgen Klopp as the mastermind.
07:45They get to lift their first league title in front of a packed-out Anfield,
07:49as opposed to behind closed doors.
07:50They had another title in 21-22, again with 90-plus points,
07:53making it a nearly unprecedented period of complete and utter dominance.
07:58Jurgen Klopp replaces Pep in all-time Premier League manager conversations,
08:01finally getting the credit he deserves.
08:02Does he even leave Liverpool in 2024 if Pep is not City manager?
08:06I imagine he would have been a lot less tired fighting against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer,
08:10Frank Lampard and Mikel Arteta for a few years instead.
08:13Liverpool have been starved of Premier League success,
08:15and despite breaking that curse in 2020,
08:18they could have had their golden era of clock ball with a trophy cabinet to match.
08:22Instead, the team is something of a what-if,
08:25and certainly doesn't get the respect it deserves today.
08:27A word on the City players who, despite this backdrop of cheating,
08:30should and will still go down as legends.
08:32De Bruyne, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Aguero, David Silva,
08:36these guys all still had to do it on the pitch,
08:39and having unlimited money does not necessarily mean success.
08:42City's footballing decisions were a big factor in their dominance,
08:45and that will not be forgotten,
08:47but having an unfairly big margin for error certainly helps.
08:51Whatever punishment will befall City will not be enough.
08:54They are an established international giant.
08:56Those leagues are gone.
08:58The Champions League is gone.
08:59The memories and moments cannot retrospectively be shared around.
09:03Manchester City robbed millions of people of some of the best days of their lives,
09:07and they did so while simultaneously disrespecting the game
09:10and pulling the wool over our eyes.
09:13You know what it is.
