The 2024/25 campaign has turned into a disastrous one for Manchester City and manager Pep Guardiola both on a domestic and European front and football fans of all colours are waiting on the outcome of the 115 Financial Fair Play charges that have been levied at them whilst also keeping a weather eye on Chelsea’s continued illogical spending.
But as sporting integrity appears to no longer be a thing in the professional game, FIFA have now revealed that should either City or Chelsea go all the way and win this summer’s Club World Cup competition, they would help themselves to an abnormally lucrative £97 million prize pot fund.
To put that into some perspective that is just shy of the £105 million debt limit over three years under the Profit and Sustainability Rules, and if we cast our minds back to the 2023/24 campaign, Sheffield United received a total of £109.7 million in total from the Premier League for finishing in dead last place in the top flight table.
It is clearly not chicken feed from what is essentially a pointless manufactured tournament designed to benefit the bigger European clubs and to keep the money flowing in for FIFA with their usual lack of care and concern for the paying fans.
With the prize pot already weighted towards the European big boys in the expanded 32 team competition, this summer it will be held in the United States, but with the turmoil the Etihad Stadium outfit find themselves in Guardiola has recently gone on record as saying that if they do manage to lift the unlikely trophy given the season that they are having, he feels that the players and backroom staff should not be entitled to their bonus for winning it in recognition of their wider struggles.
Whether or not the players, and certainly the less well known members of the backroom staff, would be in agreement with him on that is probably a debate for another day, as is the discussion about the contractual elements at play, but Guardiola will certainly have his supporters who appreciate the thrust of what he was trying to say given how disappointing their performances have been on the pitch this year.
City fans would undoubtedly agree that they have bigger things to worry about right now than whether or not players get a bonus for winning something again, they probably just want the season to end so that they can see whether the club rectifies the playing issues during the two transfer windows we have this summer so that they can look forward again in the coming campaign.