Money always wins, they say. Well, not always, but it soon bounces back.

A fortnight after “money” suffered a rare and humiliating defeat in football, we have a Champions League final between a club owned by an oligarch and one owned by a sheikh.

Yes, two of the “Dirty Dozen” clubs that signed up for the breakaway European Super League (ESL) will meet in Istanbul on May 29 for the most prestigious prize in club football.

Chelsea and Manchester City were prepared to ditch this storied event for some Mickey Mouse franchised closed shop! Yet you would never think so the way they celebrated.

But what we saw was the players, managers and coaching staff: you wonder if the joy was a little more confined in the boardrooms.

Besides feeling that they made a catastrophic misjudgment, both clubs still have to face the music.

Already dropped from official roles and cold shouldered by their peers, they are awaiting punishment from both UEFA and the English Premier League (EPL) for their part in the failed heist.

They also know that they will never be trusted again as the game seeks legal ways to ensure such treachery cannot be repeated.

That said, you feel Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, will be as happy as those on the field for this is why he bought the club in the first place – the glory.

But we can’t be too sure about Manchester City. Principal owner Sheikh Mansour has bothered to attend just one game since his 2008 takeover – even Arsenal’s “Silent Stan” Kroenke has been to two or three.

For his part, CEO Ferran Soriano is the mastermind of City Football Group, a conglomerate of 11 clubs around the world, and authored a book titled, Goal: The Ball Doesn’t Go in By Chance.

The Catalan’s subsequent career has been spent trying to justify the title and he had to leave Barcelona, then still a people’s club, to further his ambitions.

It’s a measure of how far Barca, who once eschewed lucrative shirt sponsorship in favour of UNICEF, have fallen in recent times that they joined the bad guys.

At least the final should be an intriguing contest on the field. City will be favourites, but not by much.

Chelsea wrecked City’s quadruple hopes by knocking them out of the FA Cup and now aim for a double of their own – Cup and Champions League.

If they secure a top four place, it will almost count as a treble and would be a great achievement for new boss, Thomas Tuchel.

And further justification for Abramovich’s shoot-from-the-hip policy with managers.

The German is the 15th in the Russian’s 18-year reign whereas Pep Guardiola is only the fourth in the sheikh’s 13-year tenure.

Whichever method is preferable, the billions injected by both owners have totally transformed their clubs.

City were going nowhere, Chelsea were known as a Cup team but not title contenders. But now they will joust for the supreme honour with the traditional giants all vanquished. And, yes, it’s all down to money.

By a quirk of the fixtures, the two clubs meet this weekend in a rehearsal that is sure to be taken seriously.

If City win, they will be EPL champions while Chelsea need the points to ensure Champions League football next season.

As for this week’s losers, money played a part, too. Real Madrid looked an old side, badly in need of new blood against the sprightly Blues.

And although they have a couple of tasty young prospects, they can no longer rejuvenate by cherry picking Europe’s finest every season.

Such has been the tilt in the balance of power thanks to the EPL’s huge broadcasting deal.

As for Paris St Germain (PSG), you almost felt sorry for the owners this week. Almost.

Blatant sports-washers though they are, the Qatari backers surely deserved better than to see their highly paid and pampered players implode at the business end of the competition they crave yet again.

Season after season, they do it. Win the French league by the length of the Champs Elysees but when the going gets tough in the Big Boys’ league, they either find new ways to bottle it or simply lose the plot.

After coming so close last year – losing a tight final 1-0 to Bayern Munich – many felt this would be their year. They beat Barcelona and then Bayern in the quarters to suggest that they’d finally matured.

And with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe upfront, it was possible to believe they could beat anybody.

But without Mbappe in the return leg against City, they found Pep Guardiola’s men too tough and bowed out 4-1 on aggregate.

It was nowhere near as one-sided as that scoreline suggests and City had the rub of the green. But what ensured victory in both legs was that PSG lost their rag.

Frustrated, panicked and petulant, they had a man sent off in both and should have had more. Tackles were flying in; toys were flying out of the pram… yet again.

They epitomise the worst kind of overpaid, under-achieving prima donnas in the game and deserve their reputation as the most hated club in France.

There, for once, they are not shoo-ins for their own league either as they trail Lille by a point with three games to go.

That the latest meltdown should follow a rare PR success – being hailed as heroes for rejecting the Super League – made it all the harder to take.

But as football knows only too well: you can have all the money in the world, but you can’t buy class.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.