Pep Guardiola won 16 major honors during his 10-year reign as Manchester City manager before he left in the summer. They all now count for nothing.
Under Guardiola, City won a Champions League-Premier League-FA Cup treble. They became the only club in English history to win four successive league titles. They were the first team to achieve a domestic treble, and the only side to win the title by amassing 100 points. All of it was built on a false premise.
To borrow a phrase from the Premier League statement that condemned the club's "systematic rule-breaking for almost a decade" following an independent commission's finding that City were guilty of more than 100 breaches of rules between 2009-2018, it was all a "sham."
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The egregious actions of City's owners -- Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan's Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) -- and executives has destroyed the reputation of a 146-year-old club. City have said they will appeal the verdict, and they maintain they are innocent, but Guardiola cannot escape the damage caused by a prolonged and systematic program of financial deception because much of it was done for his benefit.
Abu Dhabi built a club and a team fit for Guardiola, but it was a construction built by ill-gotten gains. The advantages Guardiola had at his disposal are now proved to have been unfair. As former Manchester United captain Roy Keane said this week: "[City] won it on the pitch because cheating was going on."