Manchester City Admit ‘Mistakes’ in Frank Lampard Deal

Chelsea legend and all-time top scorer, Frank Lampard, has become the center of a nasty controversy between Manchester City and the Premier League after the reigning league champions admitted to misleading supporters in their handling of the England international’s contract.

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City have admitted to making mistakes during the process of constructing and announcing the loan deal between them and their feeder club, New York City FC, for Super Frank’s services last summer. In a shady twist to this bizarre plot it has been revealed that Lampard never actually signed a contract with the MLS newcomers — which was supposed to begin August 1, 2014 — and, in fact, signed with the premier league club instead, making any loan deal meaningless and unnecessary.

What Frank had agreed to with NYCFC was merely a pre-contract agreement for him to join on January 1st, which has now been pushed back to July so as to accommodate the rest of the EPL season. So, simply, Lampard signed a short-term contract with City once released from his Chelsea agreement and, contrary to what was originally stated, there was never a break-clause date specified.

This is where the Manchester club has drawn the ire of the Premier League as the suggestion that the contract ran until December would be against league policy. The league have moved to dispel these rumors as stated in the Daily Mail:

"The League insist that’s not the case and have pointed out that it would have been in direct contravention of Premier League rule T11 which insist a contract must be for a minimum of 12 months."

So the contract that was agreed and that the league allowed was not the one that was announced by Man City and their MLS affiliate. It begs the question of why, but even that question only leads to new ones. It is highly likely that City will release another statement in the coming days.

The player himself has already released one on his Facebook page:

"When released from Chelsea last year at the end of my contract I signed a commitment to play in NYCFC for two years starting January 1st 2015. I was then offered the chance to train and be part of the Man City squad in the interim to keep myself in the best shape going into New York.This period has since been extended by Man City and I now will start playing for NYCFC at the end of this current Premier League season."

Throughout this whole process the City hierarchy have effectively alienated the same American supporters they were attempting to win over by bringing high caliber players like Frank to the states. If Manchester City hoped to use an MLS club as a front for player transactions then it seems to be blowing up in their face before NYCFC has even had a chance to play their first match.