I’m not about to go on a naive diatribe about how there is too much money in sports, players are payed millions to play a game, the inanely overheard, “the college game is the only pure game”…etc. That’s a banal conversation you might have with someone from a one stoplight town in the middle of nowhere, of whom the world of sport has passed by. My concern is that in my lifetime, (1987-Present) the money has gotten out of control, and we almost universally keep saying yes to it in the United States.

Professional sports is a bubble of investment that has not crashed since I’ve been alive, but the amount of investment during that time has drastically increased as the teams have become commodities. Professional sports teams however, haven’t fluctuated in value as a commodity like oil might, they have only gone up in value, year after year. We keep buying the tickets, we keep paying criminal rates for cable packages to watch the teams; a sports team can be more than a purchase but a barometer for the mood of your week. It can be something so stitched into your identity, or family heritage, or social circle. Professional sports in America are a feeling we continue to believe in, despite the cost.

I want to briefly explain something to North American sports fans for context: The Treble. During the 1998-1999 season, Manchester United accomplished a feat that hadn’t been done, and in my mind still hasn’t been matched. Under manager Sir Alex Ferguson, the team won the English Premier League title, won the in season tournament for the FA Cup, and won the UEFA Champions League title, another in season tournament for the best teams in Europe. Often considered one of the best teams of all time, you could say it looked even better than the smile of David Beckham who helped collect the hardware. This was the standard until the 2022-2023 season when Manchester City matched the feat, winning the same three trophies.

In light of them being found guilty on nearly all 115 violations of the league’s financial fair play rules from 2009-2018, I thought I might dispel the notion that they were ever great. This included the team illicitly exaggerating the amount paid in sponsor relationships by having them pay a fraction of what the personal finances of majority owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, illicitly provided. In addition, they sustained triple the limit of losses allowed under the fair play rules that were also offset by the personal investment of the owner. They were burning the candle at both ends for nearly a decade, while the rest of the league played by a different financial standard. If you’re a young American and you know who Earling Haaland is, it’s likely because you found a gem of world football during the World Cup here last summer. The only reason he plays for Manchester City is because they bought the success necessary for him to ever consider playing there.

There is one thing I would like to say, as a fan of United, Manchester City’s treble wasn’t real. It was purchased.

I want to also make clear that I have a Manchester United badge on my car, more of their jerseys than can be disclosed without a little embarrassment, and I pay for a streaming service to watch the UEFA Champions league. I’m invested. I’m a fan.

Let me be clear: I see venture capital, Russian oil oligarchs, countries with sovereign wealth funds, and emirate leaders all as equal opportunity offenders when it comes to ruining leagues around the world. I don’t know where the heavenly ceiling is for all of this, and with the opportunity to sell these leagues’ television rights to an expanding Chinese middle class, it’s hard to see this train slowing down. 10 years ago Las Vegas couldn’t be inhabited by a professional team for fear of a whif of gambling association, now every league has an official gambling partner site, and Las Vegas has a team in multiple leagues.

We love sports because of what our teams mean to us, and the entertainment value of watching the greatest athletes on earth compete in the games we grew up with or came to follow. Part of that is the assumption that what we are seeing is real, a competition between two teams who are giving full effort to win, on a field of equal opportunity to achieve it. The Manchester City offenses show that there are those willing to steamroll the rules of competition to the point that we weren’t seeing two teams in a fair competition every week. If fans can’t believe what they’re watching, the faith in these athletic leagues as institutions may begin to show cracks. The recently litigated violation in the NBA with owner Steve Ballmer of the Los Angeles Clippers receiving a one year ban for paying Kawhi Leonard extra incentives in violation of the leagues’ salary rules shows both that large punishments should be given in these situations, and that sports in the United States are not immune to this kind of cheating. It almost makes me pine for the days when guys were taking performance enhancing drugs to hit more home runs, at least we got a fun summer out of that.

It is clear that no financial penalty will really have a deterrent effect on an organization like Manchester City, where the owner has nearly unlimited financial resources. I don’t know if taking the titles away does anything, but I do think that relegation makes a point. When 4 Italian teams were involved in a bribery scheme with league officiating, the result was Juventus spending the 2006-07 season in the Italian second division and the other teams facing point deductions. I feel like the flagrant and unapologetic violations made over nearly a decade by Manchester City warrant this type of a sanction. If for no other reason, than so we can believe in what our eyes see on the field.