Much as many might shudder at such spectacles, they accurately reflect the Premier League’s competitive balance, or lack of it. What was once a competition fraught with jeopardy risks becoming an entrenched duopoly.

City can claim others have spent similarly lavishly during Abu Dhabi’s 16 years of ownership, with Manchester United investing billions into trying to keep pace with the noisy neighbours and Chelsea splashing Clearlake Capital’s money on eight and nine-year player contracts. 

There is a world of difference, though, between private equity and unlimited oil wealth. Just ask the French clubs bulldozed over the past decade by Qatari-subsidised Paris St-Germain.

Entrenched duopoly could last for decades

The alarm now for City’s competitors is not just that a historic sequence of four consecutive championships could stretch to domination lasting decades, but that the club’s win will now have a crucial effect on the hearing into their 115 alleged financial breaches between 2009 and 2018. 

After all, it was the sponsorship deals funded by Abu Dhabi-linked companies that formed the centre-piece of the accusations against them, all of which they vigorously deny.

One claim, which City refute, is that they concealed payments made by Sheikh Mansour through third parties by dressing them up as sponsorship revenue. 

Long before the Premier League’s attempt, after the Saudi takeover of Newcastle, to reinforce regulation around APTs, it was an imperative under league rules that these transactions had to be of fair commercial value. But in light of City’s robust challenging of this principle, their defence of the 115 charges looks to be considerably stronger.

This explains why there is such a chill wind blowing through the corridors of power at Arsenal, Liverpool, and all the other clubs who have tried and failed to rein in the all-conquering City during the Abu Dhabi era. The fear is that they have lost not just the battle, but the war as well.