United didn’t get investigated because there was nothing to investigate.
Keane was 1993. Ferdinand was 2002. FFP didn’t even exist until 2009. You don’t get charged for breaking a rule that hadn’t been written yet. That’s not a stitch-up. That’s just time.
And they weren’t some random club throwing oil money at the market. They were already the biggest club in the country, selling out Old Trafford, winning leagues, raking in Champions League cash and commercial deals. They spent what they were earning. Van Nistelrooy, Verón and Rio in a year and a half looks mad now, but it came off the back of a club that was already loaded because it had been successful for a decade.
City’s problem was never “they bought good players.” Lots of clubs do that. The row is whether the money they said they earned was actually earned, or whether it was the owner dressing up his own cash as sponsorship. That’s a different argument. Pretending it’s the same as Ferguson buying Rio from a broke Leeds is just lazy.
And no, the rules did not suddenly appear the day City won the league. Everton got docked points. Forest got docked points. Chelsea have been fined. None of that is a title-winning plot. If this was only about punishing City for winning, those other cases wouldn’t exist.
United spent big before the rules. City spent big after them. One is history. The other is why there’s a case.