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Whilst the red half of Manchester may have spent the weekend searching the internet for ever tinier violins, on the blue side, fans of Manchester City are left reeling at the breadth of the 115 breaches of rules for most of which, despite continued protestations of innocence from the club's Chair, it appears the club has been found guilty. The penalties to follow may be far more ruinous than any awarded by a referee. From the Greek Olympians and Roman gladiators onwards, sport has always required rules. Participants and spectators alike need to know what behaviours are permitted, and what sanctions apply to those who offend. When that sport is also a highly professional and commercial enterprise, financial fairness off the field is, I would argue, just as important as a correct application of the offside law on it. Indeed, among off field offences, I struggle to find any great moral difference between cheating by taking banned drugs, where both individuals and entire national sporting bodies have faced severe sanctions, and making outlawed financial deals. The interplay between sport and money cannot be left unregulated or unpoliced. To most Christians, wealth is not in itself an evil. St Paul famously remarks that it’s the love of money, not money itself, which is the root of all evil. John Wesley, in an influential 18th century sermon on the use of money, gave rise to the dictum, 'Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can', inspiring generations of philanthropists. It’s in what you do with the power and influence money provides where the moral challenges lie. When Jesus proclaims that it’s harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he is, I believe, calling his followers to recognise the demands wealth places upon them, and to apply such resources as they have to good ends. The night before this latest football scandal broke, I was speaking at the launch of a new venture by the charity Christian Aid. Their Resilient Futures Fund will invest in small and medium enterprises in poorer parts of the world. Their aim is that, by offering access to finance to people and places who have, all too often, been denied it, both wealth and jobs will flow to the communities that need them most. Those loaned the money will be responsible for using it wisely. When they pay it back from the profits of their labours, the cash will be reinvested to support other ventures. The contrast could not be clearer. Whilst the verdict against Manchester City is for using money to gain unfair advantage, what inspires me in this new fund is that it seeks to achieve the opposite, by addressing an existing imbalance. Or, as a sporting analogy would put it, to level the playing field.
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