Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the Emirati government official and Manchester City chairman, has released a letter on Man City website, addressed to City fans and devotees. In the brief missive, he tries to calm and give assurance to the club faithfuls amidst the legal troubles the club has since yesterday found itself embroiled in: “We have faced challenges together before and have prevailed. There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our Club. We will not give them that opportunity.”
Attached to the letter are two statements from February 2023 (when the case was first publicised in the media) and yesterday (when the guilty verdict was declared and caused a strom in the media).
Here is an extract from the letter:
I have been part of this Club for 18 years. I have had the privilege to stand with you in the Etihad, at Wembley, and in Istanbul. This Club matters to me, and you have shown and told me — time and time again — how much Manchester City matters to you. This is why I am writing to you today.
Following Friday’s media reporting, many of you will have spent your evening answering questions and responding to messages from friends, family and colleagues. So have I. Here’s what I said to my family: The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.
There are so many things that I would like to be able to share with you to help you understand why we feel so confident in our position. But the strict confidentiality of the legal process and our determination to respect it means I cannot do that at the moment. Even this letter underwent several legal checks to make sure it complies.
I ask you to please carefully read the statement below, which we gave on Friday, and the statement we issued in February 2023 (also below). Every word matters and holds true.
While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions, and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed. We have faced challenges together before and have prevailed. There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our Club. We will not give them that opportunity.
We have some exciting moments to look forward to after this international break. We travel to Anfield in a fortnight, and then host Paris St Germain in the Champions League back at Etihad Stadium – moments that give us an opportunity to celebrate the strength of the Manchester City family.
Read the letter in full here.
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