Manchester City showed the FA Cup badge on its jersey

The 8-0 victory of Manchester City over Salford in the third round of the FA Cup marked a stylistic shift for the team coached by Pep Guardiola. Indeed, City has returned to apply the FA Cup badge on their jersey. More specifically, a revised version of the competition's badge was applied: a red shield featuring a white silhouette of the trophy and the "FA Cup" name. At the top, a white appendage was added, with the number 7 printed in red, referring to the editions of the trophy won by Manchester City. However, it is not this detail that differentiates the badge worn by Manchester City from those worn by other teams. The real difference lies in the absence of the competition's title sponsor on Manchester City's badge. Since the 2015/16 season, the airline Emirates has been the title sponsor of the FA Cup, and for this reason, its name appears in every official reproduction of the competition's name, including the badge that is applied to the left sleeve of the jerseys of all teams involved in the competition.

In the case of Manchester City, this title sponsor creates a conflict of interest. Emirates is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, based in Dubai, and a direct competitor to Etihad Airways, another UAE national airline, but based in Abu Dhabi. Etihad is the main sponsor of Manchester City and holds the naming rights to the Citizens' stadium. Looking at the numbers alone, the partnership between Etihad and Manchester City is one of the richest in football history: in 2010, the two parties signed a ten-year deal worth £400 million, a deal later renewed and which, according to Swiss Ramble estimates, had a total value of £80 million for the 2023/24 season (although officially this agreement covers all the teams of the City Football Group). At the same time, the deal with Etihad is the reason why City was initially banned for two years from UEFA competitions in 2020, a sentence later overturned by the CAS in Lausanne, and is the reason why they are currently under investigation in England for 115 breaches of financial regulations. The accusation is that this money does not come from Etihad or third parties but directly from the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates, the family behind the ownership of Manchester City.

Regardless of the legal aspect, there's a lot of money at stake. Hundreds of millions of pounds, and for this reason, Manchester City has decided to block the Emirates sponsorship on their shirts. In recent seasons, the boycott was even more obvious, as City had opted for a complete omission of the badge, with the Football Association surprisingly deciding not to fine the club. In this regard, the images from the 2022/23 season are emblematic: for example, when City won the FA Cup, the competition logo was nowhere to be found on the players' kits throughout the entire tournament, including during celebrations. Now, it seems that some sort of truce between the parties has been reached. As mentioned, City has partially aligned itself by applying a revised version of the badge in order to honor the history and tradition of the FA Cup, the most beloved tournament by English fans. At the same time, they haven't taken a step back, continuing to defend the commercial interests of the club and its ownership.