"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Edmund Burke

What is the real secret of Manchester City's success?

Sterling, Silva and co. on the pitch or an unlimited amount of sterling and silver changing hands off it from a trillion dollar petroleum fortune in the United Arab Emirates?

Against a backdrop of illegal activity and clear flouting of Financial Fair Play rules off it, on the pitch another week, another game, another extraordinary refereeing decision or two in Manchester City's favour keeps a historic 'Quadruple' alive.

The great Man Cheaty debate roared back to life last weekend after a 0-2 deficit to Swansea City was overturned with the clear help of referee Neil Swarbrick, who gave a soft penalty to England's Raheem Sterling before his linesman awarded Sergei Aguero a winning goal that was clearly offside to gift Man City the 3-2 comeback and match.

Swansea's Liberty Stadium, a Premier League ground just last season, is equipped for VAR technology but The Emirates-sponsored FA Cup chose not to use it for the Quarter Final involving The United Arab Emirates-financed visitors versus the Welsh side - just as there is a rumoured deal for The Emirates airline to take over Man City in the offing.

Most football fans are prepared to allow the odd bad refereeing decision as part and parcel of the game yet when daylight robbery occurs before their eyes and especially when its moneybags Man City against struggling Swansea, who had fairly and squarely outplayed them now being denied their day in the sun, its just not cricket - or football.

TalkSport's Adrian Durham was so incensed at the injustice, he was moved to suggest the only fair course of action was for The Etihad-based oil billions-financed club to offer Championship Swansea a replay...

, which of course won't happen when its not just the Semi-Final of The FA Cup at stake but pole position in the global trillion dollar soccer market share race and potential global bragging rights and world domination of the beautiful game a quadruple would ensure.

The Man Cheaty Modus Operandi

Back in The Premier League title race, seven days earlier on Saturday, March 9th, 2019 and Man City were benefitting from a horrendous offside goal against Watford, a goal flagged offside by a linesman then bizarrely overruled by referee Paul Tierney.

As Jermain Jenas says: "Given the fact that Watford were heavily frustrating Man City...
Sterling is an offside position when he has a swing at it...that goal should not stand...
The biggest worry for me is this...the linesman has flagged for offside, the referee has gone to him to say well I've seen that Janmaat's hit it onto Raheem Sterling, so they've both really got the combined story but still got it wrong..."

As Gary Lineker states, the first goal in any match is important and its like a false start in a 100M race, if you get off the blocks quicker than your opponent illegally, you'll often win.

Too many times this season and previous campaigns, if a game is proving too difficult to win and an opponent's defensive resistance proving too stubborn - Man City cheat, knowing that the referees will inevitably give the decision in their favour.

The Man Cheaty modus operandi worked a few weeks earlier when former Man City boss Manuel Pellegrini - a manager who in his own time as Sky Blues manager was on the receiving end of favourable refereeing decisions - arrived at The Etihad with his West Ham side and after 59 minutes had contained Man City only for one of the softest penalties you will see this season be awarded to Pep Guardiola's side to get them out of jail:

Pep's penalty pioneers marched on but its not just this season its been a phenomenon. Opposing managers have regularly become red in the face as The Sky Blues unfairly win.

Arsene Wenger was an outspoken critic of the decisions that continually benefitted Man City in the last few years of his Arsenal career when time and again, they were given goals that they should not have been awarded in key clashes against The Gunners:

Nov 5th, 2017: "And I would say once again, the referee made the decision today with a soft penalty and an offside goal...We are used to it when you come here. Last year there were two offside goals against us."

The fix is in 100% when extraordinary decisions like referee Mike Jones' overruling a linesman to disallow Cheick Tiote's superb 25-yard volley for Newcastle at St. James' Park in Jan., 2014 show the extent of the favouritism the Sky Blues have received for years and I doubt there is a club in the land without a similar grievance against Man City.

Most tellingly of all, in the Man City - Liverpool title clash on Boxing Day, 2013, the shoe was on the other foot for Raheem Sterling, then a Liverpool player, whose carefully-timed run and goal was onside and should have made it advantage Reds yet unlike nowadays when he gets every decision at The Etihad as a Man City player, it was ruled offside to the ire of then Liverpool manager Brendan Rdogers as the title advantage was lost:

"I never go on about officials but I thought they were horrendous," he said.
"Hopefully we won't have a Greater Manchester referee with Liverpool-Manchester games in future."
"The linesman gave Raheem offside in the first half but they were not even on the same cut of grass. If you are working at this level you have got to get those right:"

Since Sterling's record-breaking £49M transfer to Man City, however, as we have seen he has no problems with officials or bad calls and is one of the Premier League players to receive the most pens and like Watford found to their horror, even clearly offside goals.

Asked about Man City's chances of winning a Quadruple of Premier League, FA Cup, Carabou Cup and Champions League, the Premier League's most decorated ever player and a man conversant with cheating, Ryan Giggs, recently spoke of the need for 'Luck':

"They’ve got a long way to go. Just like us in the Treble you need a lot of things to go for you, that bit of luck, which they had at the weekend. It will be interesting to see what they can achieve.’"

So far, so lucky for the blue half of Manchester and there is even the suggestion doing the rounds on Twitter - not without merit it must be said - that one of the richest club in the world's 'Luck' has extended to extraordinarily favourable draws in all three of the Cup competitions they are playing in this season almost to faciliatate their path to victory compared to the route and clubs Manchester United faced when winning the 1999 Treble.

“Of course, we can do what we want.” Simon Pearce, Board Member, Man City.

The above, damning statement of arrogance, rule-flouting and utter sense of entitlement that comes from having unlimited wealth at their disposal was revealed by Der Spiegel's Football Leaks and it does not take too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe that such an attitude towards bending financial rules to get around FFP extends into other areas of the football world, such is Man City's growing influence in the English, European and world game - if you'll willingly cheat to buy extra players, you'll cheat to win. Period.

The sooner Man City are brought to account from UEFA's financial men who should be looking into their books and investigating the club's extraordinary 'luck' with referees, even Cup draws, since becoming billionaire-backed the better as The UAE-financed grip tightens on England, Europe and extends from America to Australia already with India & China in sight next as global reputation laundering sportswashing continues unchecked.