It was madness. A moment of weakness. Impressed by Manchester City’s stampede through the Premier League. League, League Cup, FA Cup.

So, on May 12, I had a shout-out, on this blog, for the club and its players, and the owner back in Abu Dhabi.

Big mistake, in retrospect, especially with the publication of a story (link, below) showing malfeasance on the part of numerous clubs both large (especially) and small.

I actually do not like Manchester City. I do not like what they have done, in pouring millions and millions into the franchise. Spending until they got it right.

But I decided, back on May 12, we had to concede they had a pretty good season, with Pep Guardiola and the lads winning the FA Cup to secure the first domestic “treble” in English FA history.

And those whispers about Financial Fair Play, meant to vaguely even out competitive levels, and City perhaps tweaking the rules limiting spending, well, at the time of writing the whispers had never seemed to take a corporeal form, and City just kept trucking along, and maybe the European organizing body Uefa had given up on that.

Play on!

I guess.

A few days later came news came of Uefa finding reason to look hard at City’s financials, and see if spending was actually matched by income (a requirement of FFP) — or whether the difference was made up by hundreds of millions of cash sent from Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Mansour.

City’s case has sent to Uefa’s “adjudicatory chamber”, where City’s actions could lead to a ban from Champions League play for a season. Or perhaps more.

City have reacted with shock (shock, I tell you) at the accusations, which if they lead to a Champions League ban will be quite an ugly stain on the club and its owner. I guess the short version of it would be “cheating”.

Which brings us back to something mentioned up above: A fascinating story today in The New Yorker about an organization named Football Leaks which may have the goods on City — as well as a bunch of other unseemly actions across European soccer that harm competition levels and help decide where trophies end up.

Everyone interested in European soccer should read this story. It is fascinating, and beyond well-sourced. It goes back to a single fan, from Portugal, and now a German publication (Der Spiegel has hundreds of millions of documents pertaining to underhanded dealings in European and world soccer.

So, a moment of weakness, and I was nice to City, and now I regret it. The FFP people have been circling the club for years, and I would like to see them hit with a ban.

Uefa needs to show it means business and a Man City team, if it was not following the rules, should be punished.