Online Reporter
The shock defeat at the hands of a local rivals Wigan who were heading for relegation was bad enough and it also spelled the end of popular manager Roberto Mancini’s reign.
But is one of the most disappointing days of the Abu Dhabi era about to come back and haunt them again – 13 years on?
The Etihad giants have been found guilty of the vast majority of the charges of financial wrong-doing levelled against them by the Premier League.
And much of the top flight’s case was believed to be centred on the emails obtained by German publication Der Spiegel back in 2018.
One of the key allegations they exposed involved that infamous day at Wembley and the fall-out that followed.
Mancini was furious that stories about Manuel Pellegrini taking over from him had emerged on the morning of the final.
A couple of days after the defeat, his worst fears were realised and before long the Chilean had taken over at the helm. Yet the cost of getting rid of the current Italy international boss also caused an issue.
It is claimed that Jorge Chumillas, the club’s chief financial officer, was compiling the financial reports for the 2012-13 season. He was concerned that the cost of sacking Mancini was around £9.9million – leaving them with a sizeable shortfall to meet Uefa’s financial fair play restrictions.
According to Der Spiegel, Ferran Soriano, City’s chief exec, said this problem could be overcome if the club was paid the bonus from the sponsors for winning the FA Cup.
Yet there was no bonus as Roberto Martinez and his Latics team had won the game at Wembley – thanks to Watson’s late header.
So a compromise was reached whereby various – including Etihad Airways and Aabar Investments – would have their payments adjusted and the gap would be made up.
The publication claims that Chumillas asked if it was possible to change the date of sponsorship payments.
And long-serving board member Simon Pearce – who is also an advisor to Khaldoon Al Mubarak – is alleged to have replied: ‘Of course – we can do what we want’.
The email chain was part of the evidence when Uefa found City guilty of serious breaches of their FFP rules in 2020 – and hit them with a two-year ban.
The club took their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and successfully got the ban overturned.
City are certain to fight the Prem’s victory too and the statement from Khaldoon on Saturday suggests they remain confident of overturning it – Sun.
