Man City FFP: A third of Cityzens to ditch club after relegation as ...

A study – of sorts – has revealed that Manchester City could be set to lose nearly a third of its fanbase if they’re relegated from the Premier League as ‘analysis’ reveals the number of ‘glory fans’.

City are currently on trial over their 115 alleged breaches of financial fair play with an independent commission set to decide whether the club is punished and what that punishment might be if they’re found guilty.

Fines, points deductions and even relegation are all in the offing with a decision to be reached before the end of the current season, though various appeals could mean any potential sanctions are kicked further down the road.

Anyway, AskGamblers have come up with an entirely valid and wholly reliable method of working out how many Man City fans would abandon their club if they were expelled from the Premier League.

‘In light of the possibility of Man City being relegated from the Premier League as a direct result of the 115 charges, AskGamblers wanted to find out how many Man City “fans” would  stop attending games as a result of this.’

Your agenda spidey senses are no doubt tingling as a result of the use of inverted commas there; it gets better.

Can’t wait to see how they’re going to work this out. A straw poll? Can’t imagine there will be too many fans outside the Etihad willing to admit to their glory hunting.

‘Analysing Man City’s attendance figures from post financial takeover to the 23/24 season, the study highlights how many “glory” fans have attended their games since the club’s success.’

Wow, really? That’s how?

‘From this, AskGamblers found that 32% of Man City’s attendance are potential ‘glory fans’ and may ditch the club if relegated to the Championship.

‘The study also highlights that glory fans attending Man City games increased by 15% over the years following their first silverware success  back in 2011.’

Hold on, so you’re telling us that more City supporters attended games to watch better footballers and then even more turned up after their club won silverware. Incredible.

Not only that, but you’ve then used those attendance figures to suggest that all of the fans who have started going to the Etihad – presumably a significant number of them children, who weren’t alive before 2006 – are bandwagon jumpers who will all p*ss off at the first sign of peril.

And then you transpose those spurious attendance assumptions to create the headline: ‘Study shows that a third of Man City “glory fans” could ditch the club if relegated’.

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First of all, it doesn’t reflect the study – a third of the “glory fans” suggests two thirds of the the plastics will remain.

Secondly, the suggestion that the “glory fans” are the ones that attend games doesn’t chime with the general view of football fandom.

Thirdly, having used attendance figures for it’s more than a tad disingenuous to suggest that a third of all City fans will up sticks, which would be a huge number according to the report which details ‘a total global audience of 786 million across all competitions for the 2022/23 season’.

A groundbreaking study made at least ten times funnier by Irene Ducic, Sports Content Editor at AskGamblers, suggesting another possible rise in the number of supporters in recent years.

She said: “Manchester City are a team that have millions of fans across the world, however the study shows an increase in fan’s attending their games since their financial takeover in 2008 and subsequent cup & league successes.

“This is particularly reflected by the club introducing a new stand back in the 2015–16 season due to demand from fans.

“However, this also could be due to a rise in ‘glory supporters’ wanting to see Manchester City in person.

“Our study wanted to not only highlight how many glory fans Manchester City potentially have, but also, it hypothetically looks at how many of these fans would maybe stop attending their games if they were to be relegated as a result of the current trial taking place.

“The main results show that a staggering 32%, (almost one third) of Manchester City’s glory fans may no longer be loyal Cityzens!”

Yeah, you were right the first time Irene, it’s the new stand that’s done it.