After a nerve-wracking wait, the 2017/18 and 2018/19 English Premier League champions Manchester City has been decided, and on appeal, the club have avoided a European football ban.

The backdrop to the decision has been one that football has never seen before.

The Coronavirus crisis has seen football placed in a lockdown that has lasted between two and three months in most European countries. Manchester City’s appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) came after they were told back in February that they would be banned from European competition for two full seasons – a potentially devastating impact on a club seen as one of Europe’s new superpowers.

Last week saw Manchester City learn the teams that stand in their way of winning the UEFA Champions League for the first time, which include the glamourous clubs of Juventus or Barcelona, and that’s after The Citizens deal with the second leg threat of Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid. But they could have been playing to win a competition that they would not be allowed to play in next season.