THAT'S A PREM PROBLEM: Man City's recent guilty won't impact on football's integrity - it is the Premier League whose reputation is being hammered

Right, a confession. I’m not spectacularly bothered by Manchester City’s cheating. Of course, in a professional capacity, I’m obliged to find it outrageous, abhorrent even.

In a professional capacity, I’m compelled to portray the proprietors of the club as pariahs and be sickened by the sight of its current stars carrying on with life as normal.

Personally, though, I’m not dramatically fussed. That’s the truth. Their years of impropriety had no significant impact on my club - if it had, my feelings would certainly be different - and I quite enjoyed watching their brand of football. That’s the truth.

Like anyone who values fairness in sport, I deplore and condemn City’s deception but I haven’t lost a wink of sleep over it. Of course, they should be punished severely. I hope they are. What they did was fundamentally wrong. If the punishment includes removing all the honours won during the period when the offences took place, then fine.

They probably won’t have the appetite for it, but the Premier League should be scrutinising City’s accounts from the most recent eight years.

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City absolutely deserve all that is coming to them. But the bottom line is that a competition that has prided itself on its financial might has been undermined by one of its mightiest financial institutions breaking its financial rules. There is an irony in there somewhere.

Who do we feel sorry for in this saga? The players and fans of the clubs who might have won the league had it not been for City’s fiscal chicanery. Obviously. But it doesn’t necessarily work that way. And there is no way I’m dabbing away tears for John W Henry and the owners of Liverpool, or the Glazer family and the owners of Manchester United.

We should all be outraged, the argument goes, because City’s scandalous behaviour has threatened the integrity of the game. Only it hasn’t. It has threatened the integrity of the Premier League. That is different. And for some, the Premier League is becoming hard to love. Take the champions, for instance.

Arsenal have always been a club that is easy to like. Great traditions. Do things the right way. Now, they have told staff that 60 jobs could be under threat at a time when the fanfare over Mikel Arteta’s new £20million-a-year contract has barely died down. Explain it how you like, that is a dreadful look.

So, when supporters of clubs outside the Premier League are asked about Manchester City’s misdemeanours, there is often little more than a shrug. The EFL is great, the non-league scene is great. There are wonderful storylines throughout the pyramid - and none of them involve VAR.

Last season, just under 24 million supporters went to an EFL match. And that figure will be matched or bettered this season, that is for sure.

The Premier League is also sensationally popular, there is no denying that. But the demographic status of the match-going Premier League fan is probably changing. Outside the Premier League, support comes overwhelmingly from local communities.

Sure, the State of the Game report from the Independent Regulator - published this week - paints a picture of a pyramid that is in dire financial trouble, with so many clubs on the brink of disaster. But that has always been the case. From my viewpoint, the love of the game has never been stronger on these shores.

And Manchester City’s grave misdemeanours will not change that. Of course, there will be ramifications in the Premier League. But the game will go on and will be enjoyed up and down the land, regardless.