Football as sport can be as rudimentary as someone kicking a ball into a net, but as a business it is a complicated web.
The emotional investment so many get from watching their team play is seized on by those in this world of capitalism, with fans being used to make money for others whose attachment is usually more financial than anything else; both sides, aligned at some point on a sliding scale between love and hate, need each other and want their team to do well but for different reasons. The two are intrinsically linked yet at the same time have at least some separation given the paths of Bob from Gorton and HRH Sheikh Mansour from Abu Dhabi do not readily cross.
So it is at Manchester City, where their Champions League and Treble win is, in a business sense, an impressive achievement set up by 15 years of investment and decision-making. Unless the Premier League charges are proven to pull the rug from the legitimacy of what the club have done, City are reaping the rewards of spending heavily enough and - more importantly - cleverly enough to vastly increase their chances of winning every competition they enter.
The last bit is significant, because attempts to depict City's Treble as inevitable fall foul of being lazy and reductive. If the richest always wins, is it inevitable that Chelsea will win the Treble next year?
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Perhaps if Chelsea are successful within the next decade the £600m they spent this season will become more significant, but if there is an inevitability to it there should be written and spoken examples of people predicting this. Unless anyone who has dismissed City's success as inevitable can point to where they forecast it at the beginning of the season, they cannot be taken seriously.
Others have put down City's achievements because of the source of their money. A highly influential Emirati in the Abu Dhabi government who has, with the financial support of multiple sponsors connected to the autocratic state, backed a football club with over a billion dollars is nobody's idea of a fairytale; the fact the Champions League final was only the second game in 15 years Sheikh Mansour has attended adds to the feeling that his interest in owning City is not based around taking in matches.
Again, there is a spectrum of how comfortable City fans are with their ownership and also conflicts and contradictions. It is possible to be grateful for what Abu Dhabi has done for City without fully supporting everything else that Abu Dhabi does.
It is also, though, unfair to ask fans to temper or taint their own experiences of following their football club by being accountable for every part of it. These supporters are, after all, not involved in running anything.
If the European Super League showed how little top clubs cared for their fans, or 'legacy fans' as they were insultingly called, the Champions League final two years later provided more evidence of UEFA not caring either. The conditions supporters were expected to tolerate in getting to and from the stadium in Istanbul were completely unacceptable.
With so little power, you can excuse supporters at all clubs for concentrating more on what football means to them than what it means at a commercial or geopolitical level. To the majority, football means living the highs and lows, watching strangers you love with friends and family that you love.
Happiness was the overriding emotion across Istanbul last week. That had little to do with the result because the game wasn't until Saturday night, yet Nevidazi Street and other pockets across the Turkish capital were full of joy for days before as fans old and new mixed, enjoyed, and reminisced about everything that had got them to this point.
Some Facetimed loved ones back home, others raised a glass for loved ones that have passed away at some point in the journey of supporting City, but the love all around was pure. Winning the final completed the dream for a fanbase that still could not believe they were here.
"As soon as they did it, I thought of all the years it took to be in that position," said former City defender Nedum Onuoha. "It wasn't just the last 10, but the feeling of being at Wembley in 1999, the feeling of ballboying in the 90s as well, the history from the 80s.
"It feels like it was quite a journey to get to that point but hopefully now this is where they belong. Hopefully there are more trophies to come but if this is the last one they have, by some disaster, what a feeling it was to see them do it."
Everyone had their own journeys, and they all poured out as City fans celebrated an unbelievable reality that every fan of every club dreams of. When that whistle blew (and in the hours and days afterwards), supporters celebrated both in the way that anyone else would but also in a unique way shaped by City and their own history following them.
Obviously, there were rival fans or critics of City's money that were either indifferent to the success or so furious that they felt compelled to repeatedly tell the internet how indifferent they were. However, whatever others think or say should not stop City supporters feeling how they feel.
If anyone says that City fans are bored of winning or begrudges them their moment, show them any of the countless videos from Istanbul. And if they still say it - to borrow from the City bible - 'seriously mate no joking please football not suited to u pal no hard feelings'.
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