I've covered the Man City scandal from the start. This is how it has changed football

In one of many conversations I've been having aboutthe Manchester City casethis week, a contact suddenly stopped mid-rant. They remarked: "This is like the World Cup final for you, isn't it?" I initially bristled at that suggestion a bit, since the World Cup final is the World Cup final.

Covering such special occasions like that are one of the reasons you want to get into this job. It is everything around such occasions that has changed this job and the sport, however, ensuring you cover spheres well outside what you ever anticipated, such as sportswashing.

In truth, that contact wasn't the only person to say something similar this week. I have described the City casethe worst scandal in modern sport, making it probablythe biggest storyany of us will ever cover, but that's also all the more acute to me.

I have written the book on this:'States of Play: How sportswashing took over football',was itself merely an evolution of my work from almost 10 years as chief football writer of theIndependent; an attempt to bring together all of these disparate strands I'd been covering into a narrative that I felt explained the concerning place the sport I love was in; the manner in which this was being used for ill. And you couldn't have a bigger illustration than the City case.

The key details of the story are that the club have been guilty of breaching football's financial rules by creating a sophisticated scheme of industrial cheating that allowed them to disguise owner funding - restricted by football's rules - as sponsorship, giving them an almost £1bn advantage over rivals over nine years. City have sinceappealed and maintain their innocence,pointing to a "comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence" to support their position.

It is only the symptom of a far deeper ill: how state ownership of clubs and "sportswashing" has such a malign effect on the sport, while using it for their own political ends. This isn't some abstract thing, far off in the political clouds.

It has real effect, on our game and clubs and - yes - those on the other side; those directly suffering under autocratic states. It is, as is now abundantly clear, the most pressing problem football has.

You can see it in the geopolitical reaction. This is why I have been so immersed in it and driven by it.

I remember the day it really sunk in for me with City, to say nothing of the abundant other issues around world football. It was actually one of the greatest days in the club's history - or at least it used to be considered that.