The Outrage of Arsene Wenger, Part 183589020782

Wenger's suggestion that City are being disingenuous with FFP is naïve and ignores the issue of football clubs behaving more like businesses

Frank Lampard with Manchester City, where he will play before moving to New York 

When Arsene Wenger called out Manchester City last week for what saw as dangerous flouting of FFP, it was tempting to suggest the kidology had already begun, prior to today's game.

'Is it a way to get around Fair Play? I don't know,' mused Wenger when questioned on the signing and subsequent loan of Frank Lampard from one City to another. His dead-bat response to his own rhetorical question suggests his mind's already made up - and as we all know Arsene Wenger is the only manager in the league with an economics degree.

Whilst that last point appears sarcastic, it's pertinent. Wenger will know what businesses are capable of, and have been since time immemorial, with regard to managing large capital assets in an environment where the game suddenly changes. They get creative.

In fact you don't even need a degree to know this. There's a broad parallel in the story with the UK's banks for the best part of seven years, as the British government - first Brown and Darling, then Cameron and Osborne - tried to get national GDP to grow by getting state-owned banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland to lend to SMEs and the like, mainly by ploughing them with cash. 

The problem was that banks to recapitalise for a variety of reasons - to prepare for impending regulatory fines, administer bad investments in capital restructuring, and make inroads on re-balancing the core tier ratio (deposits to lending) to buttress against a queasy economy and impending ECB stress tests. So the banks smiled sweetly and stockpiled the cash. Cue media frenzy. A bad public relations story for banks, but they got what they needed: more money.

What's happening over at City is just another example of what's been going on for years in the Premier League: by massive movement of large, liquid assets (Glazer) multi-tiered international businesses (any number of Premier League clubs, judging by their summer tours) and a 'dynamic' (no) regulatory environment, shall we say. Wenger's problem isn't Man City but the whole system, but he won't say so because Arsenal benefit from it too and he's got a match on Sunday.

And if you're going to look at the New York deal in detail, from City's perspective it's a smart move. Platini wants clubs to act responsibly with their finances - so City have, by buying or creating other clubs (Melbourne Heart in Australia are City's other 'sister' club) and using that base as a means of managing their players. It's just a surprise David Villa, newly signed for Melbourne, didn't show up at Carrington as well.

New York City FC also allows (Manchester) City to get close to young American talents very quickly and have the means to sign them up without asking them to travel half the world to do so. FFP is meant to exercise club youth policies to give younger players a chance. In 1974 the number of American kids playing soccer was 103,432. In 2012 it was over three million, with a large number playing in Eastern states. The American project appears mutually beneficial.

So Lampard's signing is a great footballing one for both Citys, and also a neat metaphor in football's transition from sport to entertainment commodity. That his final destination is America, where the top five Premier League clubs last season found themselves this summer, is particularly ironic. And whatever Wenger's complaints, it's difficult to criticise City for behaving like a business when UEFA have made it pretty clear that's what they want to see.