David Bernstein interview: Former FA chief on saving Manchester City, Premier League charges, why football needs a regulator and beef with Roy Keane
Before Erling Haaland, before Pep Guardiola – before even the Abu Dhabi buyout that catapulted Manchester City to the pinnacle of the sport – there was David Bernstein.
The former chartered accountant and boss of fashion retailers French Connection and Ted Baker played his own critical role in football’s ultimate rags-to-riches tale.
It was Bernstein who in 1998 took over as chairman of his boyhood club, which had become something of a laughing stock and increasingly resembled a financial basket case.
He and colleagues helped to resurrect City, dragging them from the doldrums of the third tier back into the Premier League and leading them into a brand new stadium.
In doing so, Bernstein ultimately paved the way for their transformative 2008 takeover and elevation to their current status of English, European and world champions.
“At that time Manchester United had just won the treble. We were playing – and losing to – sides like Lincoln and Wycombe Wanderers,” he tells City A.M.
“But I said ‘my ambition is that at some stage Manchester will become the Milan of English football’, as you would have two great clubs in it. That was a dream that was a way to go.
“As I took the train into Manchester on Friday I saw the stadium and it really struck me: this is the home of the treble winners, the world champions. It’s quite incredible.
“We’ve left United behind but also Barcelona, Real Madrid, Ajax and Bayern Munich. We’re ahead of all those clubs. I couldn’t have dreamed we’d get to this position.
“I think the dramatic extent of where we came from and where we’ve got to is unprecedented. And I don’t think it will ever happen again.”
Bernstein, 80, has chronicled his City years in a new book We Were Really There, which he hopes will enlighten new generations about the rescue job that they performed.
“I think a lot of people, younger people, will really think life started when the present owners came in, and that wasn’t the case,” he adds.
Another figure who Bernstein credits with helping City’s renaissance, albeit unwittingly and eventually to the detriment of his own team, is Arsene Wenger.
Impressed with Wenger’s revival of Arsenal through modern training, recovery and nutrition techniques, he asked if he could visit the Frenchman at the London club’s training ground.
“I listened really avidly to the master, and I took a lot of these ideas back to Manchester. We incorporated a lot based on that and yeah, it definitely made a difference,” he says.
“The strange thing is, from Arsene’s point of view, about the law of unintended consequences. Little did he know this club which was so far behind would become the success they have.”
Bernstein on City charges and football regulator
More recently, the deep pockets of City’s owners have facilitated their rise, although their financial management has also attracted the scrutiny of the Premier League.
Six years after an investigation began, football is still awaiting the outcome of more than 100 charges levelled by the league against its most dominant team of the last decade.
“As a supporter, I really hope that they’re not proven. But the process has to be followed through,” Bernstein says.
“I didn’t agree with all the regulations but I think it’d be a football tragedy if the wonderful work that Pep Guardiola and that fabulous team have done gets tarnished by all this.
“I do not think they should be allowed to drag on for years and years. So I do think that whatever the situation needs to be clarified sooner rather than later.”
Bernstein is critical of current financial regulations in English and European football, which he believes are “flawed” and “anti-competitive” because they favour current big clubs too much.
But he has long been a champion of the incoming independent football regulator, insisting it is necessary to ensure the long-term health of the clubs up and down the country.
“There’s a whole load of financial issues and football has shown itself absolutely incapable of handling this. Why? Because of vested interests,” he says.
“Everybody’s got an interest, they look after themselves, and that’s the way of the world. So it needs greater independence and the only way that can be done, I think, is a regulator.”
Bernstein knows this ground better than most, having also spent two years as Football Association chairman until he turned 70 in 2013.
The government is reported to have signed off on the Football Governance Bill this week, amid a stand-off over how the Premier League shares its vast riches with lower divisions.
“To expect a reasonable dialogue between the Premier League and Football League is like expecting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate on an equal basis,” says Bernstein.
His grave concern over plans for the regulator, however, is that they will have been watered down by the time the bill is formally announced in the coming days.
“That bill needs to include, we believe, the regulator to have the authority or the power to deal with a lot of financial issues, as well as everything else,” he says.
“If I have a concern about all this, it’s that the government will compromise and the regulator will not be given sufficient power to deal with what is absolutely key: the money side of all this.
“For the government to pull back and compromise, if that’s what they do, I think is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
“You’ve got something here that’s really radical and needs to be dealt with properly. If we end up with a compromised situation, I think it’ll make the whole thing a bit of a damp squib.”
Bernstein on Ratcliffe’s Old Trafford plan and Keane
Politicians are also being asked to weigh in on the plans of City’s rivals United, now under billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, to redevelop their outdated stadium.
Ratcliffe has pitched for public funds to either renovate Old Trafford or build a new ground, with some citing City’s help in inheriting their home from the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
“We’ll put it this way. If there is any case, it definitely can’t be based upon the Manchester City precedent, because we had no income at all to speak of,” Bernstein says.
“Manchester United and the Premier League are awash with money. It’s a totally different situation. Whether in spite of that, the powers that be will look upon help, I don’t know.
“But I would think it would not be very popular across the country when we are so short of funds for health, education. I don’t think, personally, it would go down very well.”
It is difficult to imagine the affable Bernstein fuming, but one former player from his club’s crosstown rivals does still get his back up, more than 20 years on.
He has little time for Roy Keane because of his premeditated and career-shortening foul on City’s Alfie Haaland, so much so that he avoids Keane’s frequent TV appearances.
“It was the premeditation and the boasting, the lack of remorse or apology afterwards, that really got me,” he says. “I don’t get any pleasure from watching him, so I don’t watch it.”
Asked if they have tried to settle their differences, he replies: “No, he wouldn’t dare face up to me.” David Bernstein, then: saviour of Manchester City, scourge of Roy Keane.
We Were Really There, The Rebirth of Manchester City by David Bernstein, with Tim Rich, is out now from Pitch Publishing.
