The Premier League needed 1,545 words on Tuesday to say that Manchester City were found guilty of all charges of serious breaches of its financial regulations. Within a day, City's chief executive had a reply of three words: "Premier League conspiracy theory."

That is Ferran Soriano's phrase, per ESPN, and it is doing a lot of lifting. The verdict came from an independent commission, not from the league's front office. So the conspiracy now has to include the panel that heard the case, which is a roomy conspiracy for one club to be standing in the middle of.

Consider the sequence. A club that has spent years winning trophies is told, on every charge, that it broke the rules governing how it was allowed to pay for them. The club's first public move is to argue the referee was in on it. Every fan base knows this move. Most of them make it from a barstool, not from the chief executive's office.

Trace the capital, because the capital is why the tone is so loud. City is one of the most expensively assembled squads in English football, and the league's rulebook exists precisely to say how much a club may spend before spending becomes the offence. A guilty finding on everything hands every rival, every broadcaster and every sponsor a document to read. Soriano's phrase is aimed at the document, not at the reader.

My read is that "conspiracy theory" works as a holding statement and fails as a defence. A holding statement buys a news cycle. A defence has to survive a commission that has already heard the evidence and ruled against City on the lot.

The league spent 1,545 words. City spent three. Only one of those totals has been ruled on.