Football conspiracy theories are the refuge of the paranoid, peddled by fans who feel that everyone has it in for their club … the media, Fifa, Uefa and possibly an alien race of shape-shifting lizards.

But there comes a time when it looks - as the goalposts shift once again - that persecution is not just imaginary.

City fans who feel financial fair play was designed to smash the nouveau riche and preserve the elite, have a point.

We are not privy to conversations going on between the Blues and Uefa – and it could be that in three weeks’ time we find that current restrictions on wages and spending are lifted.

But even then, City will not be allowed to take advantage of the new relaxed rules, which will allow spending within limits agreed by the governing body.

Uefa have relaxed the old rules, which held a hard line on the amount clubs are allowed to spend beyond their means.

The idea was ostensibly to stop the kind of carnage we saw at Leeds and Rangers, with clubs spending beyond their means.

But it became clear that it was aimed more at clubs who benefited from heavy investment from rich owners – principally City and Paris St Germain.

Europe’s traditional elite started to squeal about the unfairness of these new clubs, elbowing their way to the top table. Uefa jumped, and reined in the spending.

Then the climate changed. English clubs received a major new boost from bumper TV rights deals, and powerful Continental clubs in countries with poor economies, were in danger of being left behind.

Cue more squealing, about the unfairness that FFP did not allow owners to invest their own money to compete with English – a complete about-turn, now it suited them.

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So Uefa, always willing to dance to the tune of the powerful, have changed the rules, allowing clubs to make proposals for spending above the FFP limits. If you can show you have a viable business plan, Uefa will agree to their spending plan, and they can splurge the cash.

In other words, FFP has been relaxed to allow clubs to do exactly what City have done.

But City won’t be allowed, because they are still being punished for doing it in the first place.

Alice in Wonderland comes to mind, with Uefa president Michel Platini starring as the Mad Hatter.

How this will impact City will become clear in the next few weeks.

It is hard to believe that the Blues are pursuing a summer transfer spending spree with reckless abandon, or a blissful unawareness of their true position.

For the sake of City fans, let us hope so.