FSOM: Man City's Premier League charges saga shows how blinkered fans can be when defending their club - it morphs into blind obedience and outrage at any owner criticism

Are Manchester City guilty or innocent of the114 Premier League financial regulation chargesthey face? As sure as eggs is eggs, FSOM has no idea, him not being a barrister (although he does make a decent cup of coffee) nor a forensic accountant.

But whether City will be convicted and banished to football's Land of Nod, this whole episode has highlighted one thing; how one-eyed football fans are when it comes to defending their club. and even that one eye is blinkered.

Even writing this, FSOM realises he could be subject to the sort of pile-on Sicilian families did with pillows to see off ailing ageing relatives. Let's be honest, some football clubs have pretty sketchy owners who under normal circumstances, you would not want within a country mile of your front door.

But if they take over your football club, it appears all bets are off. Football fans will forgive - or at least overlook - their owners worst shenanigans provided they start flashing the cash and writing cheques.

The majority of football fans don't give a tinker's cuss who runs their club and what they have been up to, all they want is transfer windows choc-full of multi-million pound signings, to sate their cravings like kids in a sweet shop. And if somebody has the temerity to question the source of the wealth, well be ready to have the roof cave in on your head.

Even accepting there is a degree of jealousy among fans when they see rivals buying their way to the top, the degree to which supporters will forgive and back their club and its owners, goes beyond mere loyalty. This probably began when Chelsea were bought by a Russian billionaire named Roman Abramovich.

Almost single-handedly, he changed the face of the Premier League with the vast sums he was able and willing to pump into the club. Chelsea had been backed healthily and wealthily by Matthew Harding, an English millionaire who was killed in a helicopter crash.

But Abramovich was different gravy, with the huge sums he was prepared to splash out. It made for a very skewed playing field as Chelsea dominated the Premier League for a few years.

That dominance attracted criticism, some of it fair from a genuine concern at the effect on the integrity of the Premier League, to outright jealousy. And one of the questions asked was how Abramovich made his vast fortune.