So, the Premier League. Are we all still having fun here?

Legal battles take centre stage once again, and it's only going to continue

The Premier League have been warring with Manchester City (GETTY IMAGES)

There’s a scene in the very silly but very funny 2010 comedy ‘The Other Guys’ where two rival police officers get into a fight at a wake.

The fight is done, for pure comedic effect, through whispering, for nobody wants to be getting involved in that kind of shenanigans when remembering the dead next to the buffet.

Mark Wahlberg and Damon Wayans Jr’s characters get into it over who gets to be the next ‘big shots’ of the NYPD after Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L Jackson’s characters jumped off a roof, before being broken up by the police captain, a very stoic Michael Keaton. They separate and both start whispering at the top of their lungs that they were the winner.

Of course, nobody was, if such a thing were to happen in the real world then everybody would be horrified, and rightly so.

Listen, I hear you, where I am going with this rather long-winded and frankly rather tenuous segway?

Well, recently, Manchester City and the Premier League got into a little legal tussle (no, not the 115 charges one), a little roll around on the floor with some sly digs thrown in.

On Monday, with the decision of the tribunal made public, both sides were quick to tell everyone they were the winner. One one hand, Manchester City landed a blow to the Premier League and some elements of APT and PSR by having their argument upheld that interest-free shareholder loans should be reviewed and market interest rates applied for PSR purposes. On the other hand, 23 of the 25 legal challenges City made were rejected.

But still, ‘I’m the winner’, proclaimed both sides.

This week’s Bottom Line isn’t about the nuances of that case, or what is to come with the allegations by the Premier League over breaches of financial regulations for a decade-long period that resulted in 115 charges and an independent commission that is currently hearing the evidence of both sides.

No, this is about whether or not the whole sideshow of City, or other issues that we’ve seen with Everton, Leicester City and others related to PSR, are all just eroding the game, and impacting the Premier League’s brand globally.