A Manchester City fan's survival guide to the longest appeal in human history

This is satire. The jokes are invented; the underlying facts are taken only from the sourced news report linked at the end. No real person quoted below said these words, because nobody is quoted.

Congratulations. Your team is playing the best football in the country, and you have been told that the best football in the country is currently in a private, confidential process with no published timetable. Think of it as Schrödinger's title race: every win is simultaneously a famous victory and a future footnote.

Step one: learn the vocabulary

You will need to say 'independent Commission', 'Appeal Board' and 'Judicial Panel' with total confidence at the pub. Nobody else knows the difference either, but saying them slowly makes you sound like you've read the documents. You haven't. Nobody has. The hearing is private.

Step two: plan your celebrations in pencil

Buy the scarf. Keep the receipt. Celebrate every goal, then quietly add an asterisk in your head. Away fans will help by singing about it, loudly, all season, which is at least free accountability.

Step three: remember who isn't in the dock

You didn't sign any sponsorship contracts. You bought a season ticket. Whatever the Appeal Board eventually decides, the people paying for it in nervous energy are in the stands, not the boardroom. As ever, the fans get the stress and the owners get the lawyers.

The facts behind this piece are in our sourced news report.