Wednesday's Champions League meeting between Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad Stadium carries significance beyond the pitch, serving as a reminder of how differently two clubs with remarkably similar financial histories have fared in their dealings with football's governing bodies.
City and PSG, both owned by Gulf states, were among the first clubs found to have violated Uefa's financial fair play regulations back in 2014. Uefa investigators discovered that between 2011 and 2013, when clubs competing in European competitions were permitted a maximum loss of €45m (£38m), PSG had actually posted a deficit of €218m, while City's shortfall stood at €188m. Despite the scale of these breaches, both clubs escaped formal charges by entering into settlement agreements.
Those settlements, in retrospect, appear notably lenient. Each club was fined €20m and accepted tighter spending restrictions going forward, with a further €40m penalty threatened should they violate the terms. Uefa declared in April 2017 that both clubs had fully complied with these requirements, though questions about City's adherence have persisted.
In 2020, following a separate investigation by Uefa's investigatory chamber, City were banned from the Champions League for two years over allegations of inflating sponsorship income between 2012 and 2016. That ruling was later overturned on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which concluded that most of the alleged violations were either unproven or had exceeded the statute of limitations.
More recently, an independent commission established by the Premier League to review over 100 charges against City concluded last month that the club had been