Facing numerous charges of breaking financial fair play rules, Manchester City have launched a bid to relegate themselves before the Football Association is forced to do it for them.
'We didn't want to make it obvious that we know we are guilty of hundreds of counts of financial breaches over ten years, so we started the season committed to playing less well,' said a Manchester City spokesman disguised as a money counting machine. 'Unfortunately, every other top football club in the Premiership has been so hopeless this year, that we've really had to lower our game. Following three draws in a row, we really had to push in all of the stops to lose to Aston Villa.
'Everton have made it really hard for us as well this season. Their financial misconduct has led to a deduction of ten points, so it's going to make it even harder to fight for the bottom spot. Chelsea are clearly giving it a good go as well.'
The counting machine continued, 'The marvellous FA is a beacon of light in what is a filthy sport. I'd aggressively kiss the FA badge if it were sewn on to my left nipple. They are so wonderfully corrupt, that they have been banned from all forms of activity relating to football. Fortunately, their core business has always been focused on exchanging giant brown envelopes of cash with shady operations like Sky Sports and oppressing women, so they never really had anything to do with the beautiful game.
'Exploiting loyal fans by making them pay a ton for genuine replica shirts, charging children a fistful of monkeys to be match mascots, and ticket prices so ridiculous there isn't a slang word for that amount, do not breach financial fair play rules according to the FA. Accepting billions in dirty sportswashing money from murderous regimes and oligarchs, however, is not only considered perfectly acceptable, it is strongly encouraged and can get you promoted. So our primary goal will be to just carry on doing lots of all that, whatever happens. The kicking a football around bit is really just a sideshow to keep the fans quiet.'