The only winner of Manchester City’s 115 charges trial is already clear – and it’s bad news for the future of English football, writes OLIVER HOLT

The judgment on the 115 charges brought against Manchester City has been expected ‘imminently’ for some time. On February 8, City manager Pep Guardiola said it would come in one month. That was nearly six weeks ago.

The whole Byzantine farrago, shrouded in absurd levels of secrecy, scaffolded by threats and grandstanding and mystery, has sometimes seemed eerily similar to episodes from Franz Kafka’s The Trial. Resolution rests tantalisingly and torturously out of reach.

City’s executives and particularly their legal team, like to portray the club as the Josef K of these labyrinthine manoeuvrings, the victim of a shadowy higher power, but the truth is that it is English football fans who are Josef K, increasingly bewildered, increasingly impotent, increasingly disillusioned. 

There are some things we already know, even before we know the verdicts on the 115 charges. Or however many charges there are. Estimates seem to differ but we know that the lawyers have already won. Not just City’s lawyers or the Premier League’s lawyers. Both sides’ lawyers. All of them.

Judging by the sheer grandiosity of his pronouncements, City’s general counsel, Simon Cliff, seems to believe he actually runs English football now. Maybe he actually does run English football. He certainly seems to have Richard Masters, the Premier League’s rather beleaguered chief executive, right where he wants him.

Cliff is a faintly Musk-ish figure, who appears to be fond of shouting the odds and calling the shots. He tells the other 19 Premier League clubs what is legal and what is illegal and when to fall in line and when to disobey. The impression he gives is very much that City run English football now.

General counsel Simon Cliff appears to be fond of shouting the odds and calling the shots

Cliff certainly has Premier League chief executive Richards Masters right where he wants him

Cliff has a sweet turn of phrase, too. When Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former prime minister of Belgium, who also served as one of UEFA’s financial fair play officers, died in 2014, Cliff sent an internal email.

Leaked documents printed in German newspaper Der Spiegel quoted Cliff’s reaction to the news in that missive, as he referred to the membership of the body. ‘1 down,’ Der Spiegel quoted Cliff as writing, ‘6 to go.’ 

We will hear much more from Cliff when the judgments are announced. Much, much more. But once we’ve got past Cliff and the rest of the legal profession as they feast on the fat of the football land, who else wins? Take a wild guess. It starts with a zero and ends with a zero and has got a lot of zeroes in between.

‘Whoever “wins”,’ a Premier League chief executive told me on Monday, ‘it is the ultimate worthless victory. There can be no winners. There are only losers both ways.

‘Clarity is what everyone craves. And stability. But there is a widespread recognition that if we are not careful, we are going to kill the golden goose. We are on the edge of a precipice here.’

The Premier League has been heading for that precipice for a long time. The rush to the brink began under Richard Scudamore as the rich got richer and the fans got fleeced and the smaller clubs were squeezed until the pips squeaked.

And that trend has only got worse. I know more and more fans who can no longer bear to go to home games because the atmosphere they once loved has become so diluted by the desire to prioritise tickets for tourists, who pay more to watch, and for corporate punters who miss half the game while they get their money’s worth in prawn sandwiches in an entertainment suite.

Their own decades of loyalty seem to count for nothing.

Crystal Palace co-owner Steve Parish, pictured at Selhurst Park this month, once summed up his football philosophy by asking why supermarkets should help corner shops

Furious fans protest in the streets against the initiation of the European Super League in 2021

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There are some fantastic, well-run, responsible clubs in the Premier League but they are in a minority beside those we call the Big Six, who tried to defect to a European Super League not so long ago.

That move would have killed English football as we know it but the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen since then. 

Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace co-owner, once summed up his football philosophy by asking why supermarkets should help corner shops.

Parish is the kind of man who thinks The Over-Soul is something you pay £48 for at J Sheekey in Covent Garden after you’ve sucked back your shellfish bisque.

And there are a lot like him. That’s why fans are becoming more and more disillusioned. 

That’s why we are seeing a groundswell of fan protest at clubs such as Manchester United and Tottenham and Liverpool, as ticket prices go up and awareness of the importance of the rest of the football pyramid goes down.

And if the Premier League’s attempt to stop a spending free-for-all fails when the verdicts on the 115 charges are announced, if the league’s authority is fatally undermined, then what is left of the top flight’s competitive balance will be lost, too, as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi lavish even more money on Newcastle United and City.

‘If, say, a £25million-a-year sponsorship from an airline becomes £100m a year, if that is not fettered,’ the club chief executive said, ‘then competition in the Premier League is gone and we will lose 6-0 every week.’

On February 8, City manager Guardiola said the trial’s judgement would come in one month

If the Premier League’s authority is fatally undermined after their seismic trial against Manchester City (above), then what is left of the top flight’s competitive balance will be lost

And if City ‘lose’? Well then we are into a world of asterisks and points deductions and glee from rival fans and the staining of one of the greatest club sides we have seen in the English game and punitive lawsuits that will last for eternity.

Whenever ‘imminent’ turns into now, both sides will claim victory and neither will be able to grasp that they have lost.

Don’t point the finger at Maresca 

Chelsea’s season is stuttering, qualifying for the Champions League is starting to look uncertain and Enzo Maresca is feeling the heat. 

I happen to believe Maresca has done a half-decent job in trying to make sense of the chaos he was presented with at Stamford Bridge. Just as Mauricio Pochettino did before him. 

The problem is that, despite the geniuses in charge of recruitment at Chelsea spending more than a billion pounds on new players, most of them aren’t very good. 

Instead of the manager, maybe we should be looking a bit higher up the food chain for someone to take the fall.

Enzo Maresca is under heaps of pressure at Chelsea – but simply his players aren’t very good

Howe does not deserve a statue yet 

Eddie Howe warrants praise for his Carabao Cup heroics – but doesn’t deserve a statue just yet

From the start of his time in charge at Newcastle all the way through to Wembley on Sunday, Eddie Howe has done a brilliant job at St James’ Park. 

Good luck to him for all that and I’m with all of my colleagues who have lavished him with praise over the last 48 hours and the last few years. 

But let’s get one thing straight: any talk of building a statue of him in Newcastle is emotional incontinence, pure and simple. 

If he wins a Premier League title or the Champions League, or builds a body of work in our game, as Sir Bobby Robson did, then maybe. But not now.