A SILLY week in which Manchester City and the Premier League have been battling it out over some complicated financial issues – only for journalists, fans and football people in general to conclude that either City had scored a victory, or alternatively the Premier League had.

The result contrasted depending on who you were listening to at the time, so maybe we should just say they both lost and move on.

The crazy amount of time spent in courts, tribunals, legal proceedings of one sort or another pretty much sums up where the national game is at – where victories off the pitch almost seem more important than those on it. In reality, it’s just lots of clever people exchanging bundles of documents to argue out who can get the most rich from football and how.

Sadly for City, it doesn’t really matter whether they won this week or even if they successfully defend the giant 115 charges which they are still facing.

Whether they win on point 7(b) clause 15 or successfully challenge sub-section 85 of ruling F – I mean you can make up your own bullet points here and it wouldn’t be clearer – the fact remains that most people in the United Kingdom think that City’s rise to power has been synthetic. Artificial.

City fans often say that only jealousy could lead to such a conclusion, but they are mad to think so.

Are you telling us that we would all, 10 years ago, have hated the idea of the all-time Premier League king bullies Manchester United being taken down in their own city? No – it would’ve been a hilarious prospect, if, that is, City had grown through hard work, endeavour, careful scouting and sensible finances.

What we saw is a club, propped up by a politically awkward regime, thrash money all around on a grotesque scale.

Endless players were signed. Some hardly played despite huge transfer fees. More and more was spent.

Liverpool’s 1980s dominance was largely cultivated in house and with thoughtful signings. United bossed things with the home grown class of 92. Arsenal then challenged them by picking up world class players at bargain prices: Anelka, Vieira and Petit.

But it doesn’t matter how long they shout at each other in courtrooms, nor what the final result is – the normal person in the street thinks City’s achievements come with an asterisk – a soulless invention that swapped graft for a moneyed shortcut.

They can’t escape that image. Victories are hollow.