Varchester City 18/19 discussion

padr81

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£1.2b net since the takeover. And that’s only the over the table money.

In for every decent player possible and spent a fortune on average players (your words, not mine) yet you say you didn’t inflate the market.

You made it look a normal thing to spunk £50m on a defender, FFS.

Chesea set the precedent, you upped the ante and PSG are now taking it to obscene levels.

But I’ll remain true to my word now. Not discussing this any further with ye plastic apologetics.

Congratulations and enjoy.
Ah I see so conspiracy theories about under the counter payments or something.

We did spend a lot on average players but it was £18m here and there that didn't set the precedent that said "Hey United go and spunk 90m on a dabbing tit", or "hey barca, waste £120m on an average Liverpool winger with a decent long shot". Throughout history its been shown the megadeals are the ones that inflate the market and as of yet thats at the feet of the Uniteds, Barca and of course PSG, not City.

But yeah its all City, we forced the price of overrated midfielders with no work ethic to 90m by buying five times the player for £35m less the season beforehand.

Oh another plastic dig. Don't be so angry its only football, you're best off not discussing it further when you have nothing to back up your claims, resorting to conspiracy theories and throwing in sly insults.
 

The Nani

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Ah I see so conspiracy theories about under the counter payments or something.

We did spend a lot on average players but it was £18m here and there that didn't set the precedent that said "Hey United go and spunk 90m on a dabbing tit", or "hey barca, waste £120m on an average Liverpool winger with a decent long shot". Throughout history its been shown the megadeals are the ones that inflate the market and as of yet thats at the feet of the Uniteds, Barca and of course PSG, not City.

But yeah its all City, we forced the price of overrated midfielders with no work ethic to 90m by buying five times the player for £35m less the season beforehand.

Oh another plastic dig. Don't be so angry its only football, you're best off not discussing it further when you have nothing to back up your claims, resorting to conspiracy theories and throwing in sly insults.
I’m amazed you and a few others are allowed to spout your nonsense here.
 

padr81

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Are you seriously arguing that City haven’t inflated transfer spending? You have two £50M full backs!
We do and might I ask what was the record for a defender before we bought those fullbacks? Pretty sure it was £50m a full 3 seasons earlier, no?

We paid 50 million for Walker a full 9 years after Barca paid 35 for Alves. We paid the same for Mendy 4 years after United spent over £30m on Shaw. This is exactly my point
Did Barca inflate the market with the Alves deal? Did United inflate the market with the Shaw deal? According to everyone on here, nope, only City and Chelsea do that. Its an absolute joke, the biggest deals in the transfer market drive inflation its been proven again and again but you guys stick your fingers in your ears and refuse to acknowledge it.

When I say we haven't played our part thats no 100% but we are far less guilty than those, as I said show me one City deal and how it inflated the market? We've seen teh effects of Coutinho, we've seen the effects of Pogba, I've not seen any effect of Mendy or Walker, or even Santa Cruz, have you?
 
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padr81

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I’m amazed you and a few others are allowed to spout your nonsense here.
Oh please cry me a river, this forum is open for debate and I've had some great ones with United fans, some I've come out the better of, some I've got absolutely schooled on.

If your gonna cry about having opposition posters on your forum then start a petition or something. If Niall or the mods tell me I've broken rules and I have to go, I'd have zero issue, but I break zero forum rules, I treat United supporters and their club with respect, I don't resort to insulting them like you do City fans. I call out posts I see as wrong and I debate it, if you can't handle said conversation and have to go making up conspiracy theories about under the counter payments, expect me to call out said rubbish.

I've brought transfer info and figures into this thread to back up my opinion, You've brought "city are bad", "their fans are plastic", "they pay under the counter", "you shouldn't be allowed on here because our opinions differ" as your arguments. Put me on ignore or something if you can't handle civil conversation which disagrees with your opinion.
 

padr81

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Yes, how dare anyone suggest spending £300m+ on the likes of Mangala, Otamendi, Stones, Walker, Laporte and Mendy inflated the market.

Bitter, jealous United fans. :nono:
Back up those statements like I said show me proof that the walker deal has increased the price of fullbacks globally? I mean you do know what inflation is right?
 

andyox

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I don't think I put any blame on City in particular, rather I included them along with PSG and to an extent Chelsea. I also never claimed that the playing field to ever have been level nor expect it to be so in the future. What I can safely say is that things stay roughly as they are is that we will never get another Ipswich,Aston Villa, Everton or even Leicester situation again. All I can see is City winning title after title with record points until someone is taken over by another oil rich nation/family. As I said in my previous post just like in Scotland with Celtic, the only difference being Celtic will never repeat their European Cup victory. The French Ligue 1 will continue to be dominated by PSG and non of that will be good for anyone but the clubs doing the winning.


We do agree on one thing however and that is the need for a more competitive environment, and I don't mean for second place. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Leicester win the Prem because it was so unexpected and the league was reasonably competitive at that point. I also agree with your thoughts about how to go about making the game more even and how any changes would be monitored, corruption is rife anywhere where there is money. In the meantime I try to watch football as much as possible but would not go to the end of the road to watch City as the result is now ineveitable so I leave such "pleasures" to the fans of the club. Have to say that even watching Utd in their pomp was not always pleasant as they put us fans through the mill at times when they just didn't play that well and the defeats we suffered were sometimes a blessing just to show we were human. Wouldn't ever want it any other way.
Fair enough, yes I had thought your target was specifically City but no worries. As I said, City needed massive external investment to compete. City's owner then injected the necessary massive external investment. City were lucky to find an owner willing to make that investment, but I definitely concede it's not fair on plenty of other clubs who were or are in need of similar investment. My point of view is that the broader problem is the structure of football that provoked the need for massive external investment in the first place.

On competitiveness, fully agree. I hope we ban sugar daddies and I hope that in future clubs don't need sugar daddies to compete. But that would require serious reform of the game, on at least a Europe-wide level that will be fought tooth and nail by the elites who rather like their competitive position. No-one seems to have a good answer for this. I've said this in previous posts, but honestly I think it would be absolutely brilliant if at the start of the season, all of the 20 clubs in the PL thought that they had half a chance, or at least that any club could think "you know what, with a few years of good management, developing and buying the right players, we could have a real crack here." But unfortunately that's not the case. Leicester are obviously a massive exception (although I always point out they broke FFP to get there), but in reality, we already know the winner of next season's PL will come from 6 clubs (maybe even from less than that). That means that fans of at least 14 clubs already know they have no chance of winning the league next year and I find that sad. Obviously football is not all about trophies, but fans should be able to dream.
 

padr81

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You chimed in on this debate talking about the VVD transfer and now you wanna discuss fullbacks. :lol:
I chimed in to this thread showing examples of mega deals that's boosted the price of players, VVD is one example. Your posts are reading like you got your football knowledge off a toothbrush, I don't know what to say... its clear to read.

Everything typed in the thread is easy to read if you just follow along. I was quoted by a poster saying "you have two 50m fullbacks", you jumped on it with a silly comment so I asked him and you for examples of how said fullback transfers inflated the market for fullbacks/defenders. Its not that hard to comprehend if you follow along.

I'm sure you'll spout some nonsense nothing to do with the conversation, post a smiley face like you've somehow got the better of me despite it only showing your lack of reading comprehension in this thread so far, but keep digging you are making yourself look like Paul Merson with these posts.
 

BobbyManc

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£1.2b net since the takeover. And that’s only the over the table money.

In for every decent player possible and spent a fortune on average players (your words, not mine) yet you say you didn’t inflate the market.

You made it look a normal thing to spunk £50m on a defender, FFS.

Chesea set the precedent, you upped the ante and PSG are now taking it to obscene levels.

But I’ll remain true to my word now. Not discussing this any further with ye plastic apologetics.

Congratulations and enjoy.
Did they? What about Italian clubs in the 1990s? Inter under Moratti's first sixteen years of ownership invested heavily in the side, using Moratti's own personal wealth, but failed to achieve much success. Their total losses for this period were around 1.3bn euros, a ridiculous amount which few other clubs could sustain. Juventus had the personal wealth of Agnelli, Milan of Berlusconi, all spent exorbitantly. Italian sides broke the world record for transfers numerous times in this period. Does that count as obscene spending? They spent so much the Vatican City felt compelled to comment on several transfers, such was their perceived excess at the time.
 

The Nani

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Did they? What about Italian clubs in the 1990s? Inter under Moratti's first sixteen years of ownership invested heavily in the side, using Moratti's own personal wealth, but failed to achieve much success. Their total losses for this period were around 1.3bn euros, a ridiculous amount which few other clubs could sustain. Juventus had the personal wealth of Agnelli, Milan of Berlusconi, all spent exorbitantly. Italian sides broke the world record for transfers numerous times in this period. Does that count as obscene spending? They spent so much the Vatican City felt compelled to comment on several transfers, such was their perceived excess at the time.
Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen. Not just shady foreign entities using clubs as PR toys. And the market settled down after Serie A’s popularity waned.

I don’t begrudge Blackburn’s success under Jack Walker for example despite the fact that it cost us a title and possibly Shearer. It’s about the scale as well as the owners themselves.
 

BobbyManc

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Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen. Not just shady foreign entities using clubs as PR toys. And the market settled down after Serie A’s popularity waned.

I don’t begrudge Blackburn’s success under Jack Walker for example despite the fact that it cost us a title and possibly Shearer. It’s about the scale as well as the owners themselves.
Ah ok, so local businessmen spending obscene amounts is fine, but if someone foreign wants to do the same then that's bad. Well I'm sorry that City's owners aren't white and English mate, I'm guessing that would make it more palatable to you.
 

RoyH1

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Ah ok, so local businessmen spending obscene amounts is fine, but if someone foreign wants to do the same then that's bad. Well I'm sorry that City's owners aren't white and English mate, I'm guessing that would make it more palatable to you.
Don’t be facetious. You know full well that the issue is not the owners ethnicity. It’s the fact that the likes of PSG and City are de facto owned by states sitting on the worlds biggest commodity (oil and gas) and have liquidity that no private company can compete with.
 

BobbyManc

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Don’t be facetious. You know full well that the issue is not the owners ethnicity. It’s the fact that the likes of PSG and City are de facto owned by states sitting on the worlds biggest commodity (oil and gas) and have liquidity that no private company can compete with.
Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen...I don’t begrudge Blackburn’s success under Jack Walker for example
The point was clearly made that there was an objection to the fact that the owners are not English.
 

kaiser1

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Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen. Not just shady foreign entities using clubs as PR toys. And the market settled down after Serie A’s popularity waned.

I don’t begrudge Blackburn’s success under Jack Walker for example despite the fact that it cost us a title and possibly Shearer. It’s about the scale as well as the owners themselves.
What difference does it make if the spender was local like Berlusconi or foreign like Roman, Mansoor or Usmanov. Does it make it better if the sponsor is American Italian Russian or Qatari

Madrid and Barcelona have been backed by States in the past either Spain or Qatar
 

padr81

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Don’t be facetious. You know full well that the issue is not the owners ethnicity. It’s the fact that the likes of PSG and City are de facto owned by states sitting on the worlds biggest commodity (oil and gas) and have liquidity that no private company can compete with.
"Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen. Not just shady foreign entities using clubs as PR toys. And the market settled down after Serie A’s popularity waned." the quote bobby manc copied.
The more I read from him the more I think he's 12 or something.

AC Milan were owned by Sylvio Berlusconi.

The guy is up to his neck in mafia links, a notorious crook, been on trial for soliciting sex with a minor and he's somehow a more fitting club owner than Cities because he's local.

Only posting this because I'm unsure of your age but I'd imagine you know most of it already, in no way intended to be condescending.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_and_allegations_involving_Silvio_Berlusconi A gentleman/local businessman who was not the least bit shady or using Milan for PR. This is why he's getting called out the entire thread, jumping into a discussion and arguing/spouting rubbish without a clue of what he's on about.
 

The Nani

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What difference does it make if the spender was local like Berlusconi or foreign like Roman, Mansoor or Usmanov. Does it make it better if the sponsor is American Italian Russian or Qatari

Madrid and Barcelona have been backed by States in the past either Spain or Qatar
Usmanov is bleeding Arsenal dry and is just as bad as for the game as Roman or Mansour.

And as I’ve said before, the state aid the Spanish clubs received was also well out of bounds.

It’s not about nationality. It’s just impossible to begrudge a local businessman investing in a football club whereas oligarchs and states should have no place in football club ownership.

"Yeah, Italian spending was nuts in the 90’s. But at least they were local businessmen. Not just shady foreign entities using clubs as PR toys. And the market settled down after Serie A’s popularity waned." the quote bobby manc copied.
The more I read from him the more I think he's 12 or something.

AC Milan were owned by Sylvio Berlusconi.

The guy is up to his neck in mafia links, a notorious crook, been on trial for soliciting sex with a minor and he's somehow a more fitting club owner than Cities because he's local.

Only posting this because I'm unsure of your age but I'd imagine you know most of it already, in no way intended to be condescending.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_and_allegations_involving_Silvio_Berlusconi A gentleman/local businessman who was not the least bit shady or using Milan for PR. This is why he's getting called out the entire thread, jumping into a discussion and arguing/spouting rubbish without a clue of what he's on about.
Yes, Berlusconi is a shady character and almost certainly wouldn’t pass the fit and proper test in England.

He is an outlier though and has little to nowt to do with state owned clubs and sponsorship.
 

nore1975

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MC v Watford in this years showpiece game for the English FA namely the cup final. City win 6-0. Their subs cost more than their cup final opponents first team. A team that finished 10th in the same division as City.
The game was a farce and embarrassment for the FA highlighting the enormous inequality in the EPL. The winning manager had to field a question about whether he is paid off the books.
City’s ‘achievement’ in doing the domestic treble has drawn admiration only from City fans. Their is no football romance attached to City. Non Liverpool fans could admire our comeback against Barcelona at Anfield. They could admire the atmosphere.
City just feels like an Arab oil state funded vacuous footballing machine. City’s achievements are tainted and to know why read the DER Spiegel article on their finances. City have run rings around FFP to be point of rendering it pointless.

When Howard Kendall revived Everton in the 1980s you could admire the side he built. His brilliance in putting the team together without breaking the bank.
Brian Clough’s genius in putting Forest on the footballing map in the 70s is still admired today well beyond Forest fans.

City are not admired beyond their fans and nobody will recall their treble with any admiration.
 

BobbyManc

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MC v Watford in this years showpiece game for the English FA namely the cup final. City win 6-0. Their subs cost more than their cup final opponents first team. A team that finished 10th in the same division as City.
The game was a farce and embarrassment for the FA highlighting the enormous inequality in the EPL. The winning manager had to field a question about whether he is paid off the books.
City’s ‘achievement’ in doing the domestic treble has drawn admiration only from City fans. Their is no football romance attached to City. Non Liverpool fans could admire our comeback against Barcelona at Anfield. They could admire the atmosphere.
City just feels like an Arab oil state funded vacuous footballing machine. City’s achievements are tainted and to know why read the DER Spiegel article on their finances. City have run rings around FFP to be point of rendering it pointless.

When Howard Kendall revived Everton in the 1980s you could admire the side he built. His brilliance in putting the team together without breaking the bank.
Brian Clough’s genius in putting Forest on the footballing map in the 70s is still admired today well beyond Forest fans.

City are not admired beyond their fans and nobody will recall their treble with any admiration.
Like it did when United beat Palace in 2016? When you beat West Ham in 2006, Djbril Cisse alone cost more than West Ham's matchday squad. Three of your subs combined (Morientes, Dudek and Hamann) cost more than their lineup too. Guess what mate, money has for a long time decided who are the winners and losers in football.
 

andyox

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Usmanov is bleeding Arsenal dry and is just as bad as for the game as Roman or Mansour.

And as I’ve said before, the state aid the Spanish clubs received was also well out of bounds.

It’s not about nationality. It’s just impossible to begrudge a local businessman investing in a football club whereas oligarchs and states should have no place in football club ownership.

Yes, Berlusconi is a shady character and almost certainly wouldn’t pass the fit and proper test in England.

He is an outlier though and has little to nowt to do with state owned clubs and sponsorship.
I think there are a few separate issues here that it's worth clearly separating, because they seem conflated:

1) Local business vs. non-local/international business
You seem to have a clear preference for local businessmen owning the club. But football is now an international game, so local/regional owners are going to be unbelievably rare. Even if you define local as "UK", which I think is broader than you intended, there are very few Premier League teams currently owned by British businesspeople/businesses, let alone those whose wealth is actually maintained within the UK. It's just not realistic anymore, much as I miss Franny Lee.

2) Business vs. states/oligarchs
I agree with you that it doesn't seem right for states or oligarchs (using your term) to own or own states in clubs. This could be on two levels, which again can be separated: a) states/oligarchs have disproportionately more money; b) states/oligarchs may have accrued their money in dubious ways, and states in particular may pursue policies (e.g. human rights, etc.) that we consider unpalatable. Point a) probably leads us to FFP so no need to debate. The problem with b) is in enforcement on many levels: How would you define an oligarch? How do you determine "dubious" sources of income? How would you determine which policies are unpalatable? I'll also mention here, because it's frequently written in the media and on here, that Manchester City are not state-owned. At the time of the take over, we were wholly bought by ADUG, which is a private equity firm wholly owned by Sheikh Mansour (in 2015 CMC, a Chinese consortium took 13% of ADUG's share). While he holds a position in the UAE government and is a member of the royal family, Sheikh Mansour's ownership of ADUG is legally private. Even if you may consider it to be a technical distinction, it is a distinction that would have to be enforced somehow -- we've already seen disagreement today on the forum on whether the proposed new Newcastle owner is a senior enough royal to meet some sort of state-owned definition. This is different to PSG, for example, which is legally state-owned as ownership is by the Qatar Sports Investment, which is a subsidiary of state-owned QIA.

3) Ownership vs. commercial/sponsorship by states/state owned companies
The other point to consider on part b) of the states/oligarchs discussion of above, is that if the unpalatable policies pursued by these states is truly a serious consideration, and I agree it is, then I think we should consider banning both ownership and sponsorship of football clubs by unpalatable states/state-owned companies. City obviously gets criticised for our UAE connections, and you see phrases like blood money. No-one really has a problem with Emirates, a UAE state-owned company sponsoring Arsenal though. Clearly there is distinction, but does that distinction really matter to a labourer or dissident in the UAE whose human rights have been stripped? You can extend this argument to other state-owned airlines like Qatar Airways (Roma, Bayern, FIFA) and other companies like Gazprom from Russia (Chelsea, Barcelona, Champions League). I think you should have to ban unpalatable money irrespective of how it is provided, but again, the challenge will be determining which states/state owned companies we find unpalatable.

I guess the point I'm making is that it's actually quite difficult to develop policies around who we do and do not want owning our football clubs. There have been plenty of terrible club owners, irrespective of whether they're local or international, or whether they use dubious/state money or don't. One part of the issue related to disproportionate investment is already covered (imperfectly) by FFP, but the Fit and Proper Person's test is totally unfit for purpose in this regard.
 

The Nani

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I think there are a few separate issues here that it's worth clearly separating, because they seem conflated:

1) Local business vs. non-local/international business
You seem to have a clear preference for local businessmen owning the club. But football is now an international game, so local/regional owners are going to be unbelievably rare. Even if you define local as "UK", which I think is broader than you intended, there are very few Premier League teams currently owned by British businesspeople/businesses, let alone those whose wealth is actually maintained within the UK. It's just not realistic anymore, much as I miss Franny Lee.

2) Business vs. states/oligarchs
I agree with you that it doesn't seem right for states or oligarchs (using your term) to own or own states in clubs. This could be on two levels, which again can be separated: a) states/oligarchs have disproportionately more money; b) states/oligarchs may have accrued their money in dubious ways, and states in particular may pursue policies (e.g. human rights, etc.) that we consider unpalatable. Point a) probably leads us to FFP so no need to debate. The problem with b) is in enforcement on many levels: How would you define an oligarch? How do you determine "dubious" sources of income? How would you determine which policies are unpalatable? I'll also mention here, because it's frequently written in the media and on here, that Manchester City are not state-owned. At the time of the take over, we were wholly bought by ADUG, which is a private equity firm wholly owned by Sheikh Mansour (in 2015 CMC, a Chinese consortium took 13% of ADUG's share). While he holds a position in the UAE government and is a member of the royal family, Sheikh Mansour's ownership of ADUG is legally private. Even if you may consider it to be a technical distinction, it is a distinction that would have to be enforced somehow -- we've already seen disagreement today on the forum on whether the proposed new Newcastle owner is a senior enough royal to meet some sort of state-owned definition. This is different to PSG, for example, which is legally state-owned as ownership is by the Qatar Sports Investment, which is a subsidiary of state-owned QIA.

3) Ownership vs. commercial/sponsorship by states/state owned companies
The other point to consider on part b) of the states/oligarchs discussion of above, is that if the unpalatable policies pursued by these states is truly a serious consideration, and I agree it is, then I think we should consider banning both ownership and sponsorship of football clubs by unpalatable states/state-owned companies. City obviously gets criticised for our UAE connections, and you see phrases like blood money. No-one really has a problem with Emirates, a UAE state-owned company sponsoring Arsenal though. Clearly there is distinction, but does that distinction really matter to a labourer or dissident in the UAE whose human rights have been stripped? You can extend this argument to other state-owned airlines like Qatar Airways (Roma, Bayern, FIFA) and other companies like Gazprom from Russia (Chelsea, Barcelona, Champions League). I think you should have to ban unpalatable money irrespective of how it is provided, but again, the challenge will be determining which states/state owned companies we find unpalatable.

I guess the point I'm making is that it's actually quite difficult to develop policies around who we do and do not want owning our football clubs. There have been plenty of terrible club owners, irrespective of whether they're local or international, or whether they use dubious/state money or don't. One part of the issue related to disproportionate investment is already covered (imperfectly) by FFP, but the Fit and Proper Person's test is totally unfit for purpose in this regard.
Fair points. And I agree that enforcement of such policy is nigh on impossible. City are certainly state-owned for all practical intents and purposes though. Let’s not kids ourselves here.

The real crux of the matter is that any state government official or royalty not only has the power and resources to do as they please but also more than likely has little respect for a foreign football club or the system in which it should rightly operate.

This leads to the ridiculous scenario we are now seeing where City have obviously broken all manner of laws regarding club conduct yet UEFA are in a position to be intimidated by its ownership legally.

It’s farcical.
 

padr81

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Yes, Berlusconi is a shady character and almost certainly wouldn’t pass the fit and proper test in England.

He is an outlier though and has little to nowt to do with state owned clubs and sponsorship.
Juventus sold tons of shares to Gaddafi (admittedly early 2000's),

Luciano Moggi while not club owner was the main man behind Juventus and was banned for life after calciopoli in 2006. He also made a statement the following statement "A homesexual can't fulfil the job of a footballer. I wouldn't put one under contract and if I discovered I had one, he would fly immediately."

Berlusconi is not an outlier in Italian football. All 3 Italian giants were involved in Calciopoli, Inter just managed to bribe their way out of it. Juve were relegated and Milan docked 40 points or something.
Do you not think said local owners weren't part of this? Moratti took over Inter in 1995 and was still in charge when they won the CL in 2010. All through those years. If I had to name 3 clearly more corrupt clubs than City, Italy's big 3 would be the first place I'd go.

You are back to state owned which is nothing to do with you referring to owners in Italy as being the opposite of shady characters my friend. AC Milan were absolutely a PR tool, as was Gadaffi's deal with Juventus. Both corrupt heads of state using football for sportwashing or whatever the term is people recently coined about City.

You don't seem to get it but football is the same shit show its always been, only the ones carrying out the shit and the clubs being used have changed.
 

DevilAgeIdiot

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Juventus sold tons of shares to Gaddafi (admittedly early 2000's),

Luciano Moggi while not club owner was the main man behind Juventus and was banned for life after calciopoli in 2006. He also made a statement the following statement "A homesexual can't fulfil the job of a footballer. I wouldn't put one under contract and if I discovered I had one, he would fly immediately."

Berlusconi is not an outlier in Italian football. All 3 Italian giants were involved in Calciopoli, Inter just managed to bribe their way out of it. Juve were relegated and Milan docked 40 points or something.
Do you not think said local owners weren't part of this? Moratti took over Inter in 1995 and was still in charge when they won the CL in 2010. All through those years. If I had to name 3 clearly more corrupt clubs than City, Italy's big 3 would be the first place I'd go.

You are back to state owned which is nothing to do with you referring to owners in Italy as being the opposite of shady characters my friend. AC Milan were absolutely a PR tool, as was Gadaffi's deal with Juventus. Both corrupt heads of state using football for sportwashing or whatever the term is people recently coined about City.

You don't seem to get it but football is the same shit show its always been, only the ones carrying out the shit and the clubs being used have changed.
Please stop trying to use history to make out there's something legit about the human rights abusers and mass murderers of children in Yemen, cheating our regulations to buy our trophies in order to sportswash their disgustingly oppressive regime.

So please, for the sake of your own integrity, enough of your sportswashed bleating on a United fan forum. We are simply not interested. No true football supporter wants the dirty blood money of the anti democratic, racist and homophobic Qatar and the UAE anywhere near our game. The fact that you are completely unaware of the irony when you bring up homophobia to defend the systemic homophobic oppressors of the UAE, proves you are not capable of rational thinking when it comes to the ethics of those barbaric oligarchs who buy our trophies under your club's and PSG's name.

Or you can choose to carry on defending the indefensible, like a true weaponised zombie, but you have zero chance of convincing any one of us that your gulf oil nation state owners who are systemic human rights abusers carrying out a brutal war, murdering Yemeni innocents, should be admired.
All the convoluted whataboutery you can dream of, will not change that truth.
 
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nore1975

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Like it did when United beat Palace in 2016? When you beat West Ham in 2006, Djbril Cisse alone cost more than West Ham's matchday squad. Three of your subs combined (Morientes, Dudek and Hamann) cost more than their lineup too. Guess what mate, money has for a long time decided who are the winners and losers in football.
We didn’t annihilate the opposition! It’s the money and source of which calls into question what City have won.
 

andyox

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Fair points. And I agree that enforcement of such policy is nigh on impossible. City are certainly state-owned for all practical intents and purposes though. Let’s not kids ourselves here.

The real crux of the matter is that any state government official or royalty not only has the power and resources to do as they please but also more than likely has little respect for a foreign football club or the system in which it should rightly operate.

This leads to the ridiculous scenario we are now seeing where City have obviously broken all manner of laws regarding club conduct yet UEFA are in a position to be intimidated by its ownership legally.

It’s farcical.
Yes on one hand I agree it's quite a technical point to argue, because I have no doubt that Sheikh Mansour has very easy sway over UAE-based state-owned companies, including those that have sponsored City. On the other hand, the legal definition of state-owned is an important distinction that is important in how FFP has been able to be applied to PSG and City. In PSG's case, UEFA were able to write down PSG's QTA sponsorship to fair market value because PSG and QTA, both state-owned, were deemed to be related parties. In City's case, because our legal owner is Sheikh Mansour as an individual (and not the UAE/AD government), UEFA were not able to link Sheikh Mansour and Etihad (state-owned, Sheikh Mansour not on the board) as related parties, and therefore the value of City's Etihad deal stuck. Definitely fair to note here that the scale of QTA's sponsorship to Etihad's is a completely different level, but the general point still stands.

I do agree with your general point on the issues that ownership by governments/royal family creates, both in terms of the level of funding, and on the way it's possible to get around FFP by leveraging non-related party state-owned companies. I think it's worth noting though, that these issues are really only going to apply to very few countries in the world, so I feel like we're probably making a mountain out of quite a small molehill. It's basically going to just be wealthy absolute monarchies, where important members of the royal family have total control of government and state-owned companies, and are able to use that control to benefit ownership of a football club. For instance, in the UK our royal family obviously wouldn't be able to use state money to buy a football club, and have the BBC (we don't have many state owned companies left!) pump billions in sponsorship into the club. So pretty much we're narrowing it down to just GCC countries. So any regulations targeting that type of ownership are going to be very narrowly focused on only a few countries, which makes things a little awkward. It would be hard for the PL to put out a regulation that could be seen as targeting just GCC-based royal family. And that could also have knock-on effects for GCC-based sponsorships too. And again, yes there is UAE and City, and Qatar and PSG, but realistically how many other clubs are going to be bought by GCC royal family? I don't see them buying up multiple clubs in this way, particularly with ownership restrictions on owning multiple clubs in the same competition.
 

Tincanalley

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Please stop trying to use history to make out there's something legit about the human rights abusers and mass murderers of children in Yemen, cheating our regulations to buy our trophies in order to sportswash their disgustingly oppressive regime.

So please, for the sake of your own integrity, enough of your sportswashed bleating on a United fan forum. We are simply not interested. No true football supporter wants the dirty blood money of the anti democratic, racist and homophobic Qatar and the UAE anywhere near our game. The fact that you are completely unaware of the irony when you bring up homophobia to defend the systemic homophobic oppressors of the UAE, proves you are not capable of rational thinking when it comes to the ethics of those barbaric oligarchs who buy our trophies under your club's and PSG's name.

Or you can choose to carry on defending the indefensible, like a true weaponised zombie, but you have zero chance of convincing any one of us that your gulf oil nation state owners who are systemic human rights abusers carrying out a brutal war, murdering Yemeni innocents, should be admired.
All the convoluted whataboutery you can dream of, will not change that truth.
Top post.
 

andyox

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Please stop trying to use history to make out there's something legit about the human rights abusers and mass murderers of children in Yemen, cheating our regulations to buy our trophies in order to sportswash their disgustingly oppressive regime.

So please, for the sake of your own integrity, enough of your sportswashed bleating on a United fan forum. We are simply not interested. No true football supporter wants the dirty blood money of the anti democratic, racist and homophobic Qatar and the UAE anywhere near our game. The fact that you are completely unaware of the irony when you bring up homophobia to defend the systemic homophobic oppressors of the UAE, proves you are not capable of rational thinking when it comes to the ethics of those barbaric oligarchs who buy our trophies under your club's and PSG's name.

Or you can choose to carry on defending the indefensible, like a true weaponised zombie, but you have zero chance of convincing any one of us that your gulf oil nation state owners who are systemic human rights abusers carrying out a brutal war, murdering Yemeni innocents, should be admired.
All the convoluted whataboutery you can dream of, will not change that truth.
I don't think padr81 or any City fan on this forum has ever sought to justify any of the policies in the UAE that you care to mention. Nor are any of us ignorant of those policies.

I think the point is that your type of post, which is admirable and absolute, flies in the face of the broad acceptance of both previous owners of football clubs, and current sponsors of many football clubs (including your own). I don't see that as whataboutery, I see it as a very valid acknowledgement of the apparent hypocrisy within these type of posts. Your moral compass cannot be so strong but yet so narrowly targeted. Dirty blood money is dirty blood money. So do you want to just target City and City fans with these posts, or do you want to target every club that receives that dirty blood money? If it's the latter, then I'm all on board. If it's the former, which is implied in your post, then you're a self-interested hypocrite hiding behind a moral compass.
 

DevilAgeIdiot

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I don't think padr81 or any City fan on this forum has ever sought to justify any of the policies in the UAE that you care to mention. Nor are any of us ignorant of those policies.

I think the point is that your type of post, which is admirable and absolute, flies in the face of the broad acceptance of both previous owners of football clubs, and current sponsors of many football clubs (including your own). I don't see that as whataboutery, I see it as a very valid acknowledgement of the apparent hypocrisy within these type of posts. Your moral compass cannot be so strong but yet so narrowly targeted. Dirty blood money is dirty blood money. So do you want to just target City and City fans with these posts, or do you want to target every club that receives that dirty blood money? If it's the latter, then I'm all on board. If it's the former, which is implied in your post, then you're a self-interested hypocrite hiding behind a moral compass.
And here we are, right on cue, even more convoluted whataboutery from the weaponised Etihad project support. "...do you target every club..blabla"...."self interested hypocrite..."
As you can not defend your disgusting cheating owners, their domestic human rights abuses including their systemic sexual abuse of vulnerable female migrant workers, their slaughter of innocents in Yemeni, their incarceration,torture and disappearing of pro-democracy advocates and so on, you resort to desperately searching in vain for a nonexistent shred of hypocrisy in order to distract from the truth of the vile and cheating Etihad oil project. Though you can not find any hypocrisy you still go ahead with your insulting and name-calling.

As I said to Padre, nobody here is interested in your defence of the human rights abusers nor are we interested in your shameless name-calling and whataboutery.
Qatar and the brutal UAE are not wanted in football and your defence of their project and your name-calling is not wanted on this United fan forum.
 
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VorZakone

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I'm not sure if the difference between local businessmen and foreign entities is that important in the grand scheme of things.

Because the actual point is that both provide investments to a club that other clubs don't get. At the end of the day, these other clubs are still competing against a big bag of money.
 

rotherham_red

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Back up those statements like I said show me proof that the walker deal has increased the price of fullbacks globally? I mean you do know what inflation is right?
You spent that £100m on Mendy and Walker before Neymar left Barca and consequently before that deal's resultant inflation. So yes, that was definitely an inflationary pressure caused by City's spending.

At the same time as those deals went through, we were haggling over Inter's asking price of £45m for Perisic which should show to you how obscenely priced those two deals were in the context of that summer's market. That a Utd under Ed Woodward's stewardship and who haven't been shy to spend big money were having cause for concern over that deal...
 

MalcolmTucker

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Please stop trying to use history to make out there's something legit about the human rights abusers and mass murderers of children in Yemen, cheating our regulations to buy our trophies in order to sportswash their disgustingly oppressive regime.

So please, for the sake of your own integrity, enough of your sportswashed bleating on a United fan forum. We are simply not interested. No true football supporter wants the dirty blood money of the anti democratic, racist and homophobic Qatar and the UAE anywhere near our game. The fact that you are completely unaware of the irony when you bring up homophobia to defend the systemic homophobic oppressors of the UAE, proves you are not capable of rational thinking when it comes to the ethics of those barbaric oligarchs who buy our trophies under your club's and PSG's name.

Or you can choose to carry on defending the indefensible, like a true weaponised zombie, but you have zero chance of convincing any one of us that your gulf oil nation state owners who are systemic human rights abusers carrying out a brutal war, murdering Yemeni innocents, should be admired.
All the convoluted whataboutery you can dream of, will not change that truth.
Fantastic post.

Imagine having an encyclopedic knowledge of Italian football shareholders in the 90s to try and justify owners that oversee such a horrible regime. It's pathetic but I guess I can kind of understand it.
 

Thunderhead

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You spent that £100m on Mendy and Walker before Neymar left Barca and consequently before that deal's resultant inflation. So yes, that was definitely an inflationary pressure caused by City's spending.

At the same time as those deals went through, we were haggling over Inter's asking price of £45m for Perisic which should show to you how obscenely priced those two deals were in the context of that summer's market. That a Utd under Ed Woodward's stewardship and who haven't been shy to spend big money were having cause for concern over that deal...

I'm not saying it is or isn't inflation caused by City's spending (I don't really care tbh) but United spent £75m on Lukaku before we'd even signed Mendy or Walker that summer may have also caused prices to inflate the summer.

I don't think £135m is too bad on full backs in this decade.

2010/11 - £0
2011/12 - £7m
2012/13 - £3m
2013/14 - £0
2014/15 - £0
2015/16 - £0
2016/17 - £0
2017/18 - £125m
2018/19 - £0
 

Tincanalley

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And here we are, right on cue, even more convoluted whataboutery from the weaponised Etihad project support. "...do you target every club..blabla"...."self interested hypocrite..."
As you can not defend your disgusting cheating owners, their domestic human rights abuses including their systemic sexual abuse of vulnerable female migrant workers, their slaughter of innocents in Yemeni, their incarceration,torture and disappearing of pro-democracy advocates and so on, you resort to desperately searching in vain for a nonexistent shred of hypocrisy in order to distract from the truth of the vile and cheating Etihad oil project. Though you can not find any hypocrisy you still go ahead with your insulting and name-calling.

As I said to Padre, nobody here is interested in your defence of the human rights abusers nor are we interested in your shameless name-calling and whataboutery.
Qatar and the brutal UAE are not wanted in football and your defence of their project and your name-calling is not wanted on this United fan forum.
Precisely.
 

padr81

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Please stop trying to use history to make out there's something legit about the human rights abusers and mass murderers of children in Yemen, cheating our regulations to buy our trophies in order to sportswash their disgustingly oppressive regime.

So please, for the sake of your own integrity, enough of your sportswashed bleating on a United fan forum. We are simply not interested. No true football supporter wants the dirty blood money of the anti democratic, racist and homophobic Qatar and the UAE anywhere near our game. The fact that you are completely unaware of the irony when you bring up homophobia to defend the systemic homophobic oppressors of the UAE, proves you are not capable of rational thinking when it comes to the ethics of those barbaric oligarchs who buy our trophies under your club's and PSG's name.

Or you can choose to carry on defending the indefensible, like a true weaponised zombie, but you have zero chance of convincing any one of us that your gulf oil nation state owners who are systemic human rights abusers carrying out a brutal war, murdering Yemeni innocents, should be admired.
All the convoluted whataboutery you can dream of, will not change that truth.
Were you dropped on your head or something? I've not said that at all. Jesus wept, another one who doesn't read. I've openly called out our owners human rights issues and said they are scumbags numerous times, I've not defended them at all, learn to fecking read before spouting shite.

You are great at name calling though so I might as well give a bit back. Typical shit post with zero argument by another of the can't follow a simple conversation brigade. Also don't try and tell me where I can or can't post my opinions thanks like I said to the other fella, if someone of importance tells me I'm not welcome to post them I won't.

1 - Bring up money issues get called out on them - no argument brings up human rights.
2 - Gets zero argument from me on human rights - I despise the kind of people cities owners are.
3 - Idiot no.2 that can't read, starts saying "Italian clubs weren't owned by shady foreign business owners" - I point out they were owned by shady local business owners and one of them sold out to a dictator every bit as bad as Cties.
4- I'm somehow using point 3 to justify point 2 in your mind because you don't read or have any ability to follow a conversation, go to feck with your 2+2 = 5 maths.
 

padr81

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You spent that £100m on Mendy and Walker before Neymar left Barca and consequently before that deal's resultant inflation. So yes, that was definitely an inflationary pressure caused by City's spending.

At the same time as those deals went through, we were haggling over Inter's asking price of £45m for Perisic which should show to you how obscenely priced those two deals were in the context of that summer's market. That a Utd under Ed Woodward's stewardship and who haven't been shy to spend big money were having cause for concern over that deal...
Did we spend it before Chelsea set the precedent form defenders buying David Luiz for £50m? You haggled for £45m over Perisic because you were after pissing away £170m or whatever on two wankers, one whose a great footballer with no heart, the other whose well Lukaku. You also didn't get him for that money. Why you thought you'd get Perisic for £45m given the price players of Perisic talent went for around that time is nothing to do with City. Your bid was €45m not pounds if I'm not mistaken.

We also singed Mendy and Walker before the Neymar deal was completed but it was known about least 5 weeks in advance, which is why negotiations for Demeble say Barcelona have to spend £120m or whatever on him.
 

DevilAgeIdiot

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Were you dropped on your head or something? I've not said that at all. Jesus wept, another one who doesn't read. I've openly called out our owners human rights issues and said they are scumbags numerous times, I've not defended them at all, learn to fecking read before spouting shite.

You are great at name calling though so I might as well give a bit back. Typical shit post with zero argument by another of the can't follow a simple conversation brigade. Also don't try and tell me where I can or can't post my opinions thanks like I said to the other fella, if someone of importance tells me I'm not welcome to post them I won't.

1 - Bring up money issues get called out on them - no argument brings up human rights.
2 - Gets zero argument from me on human rights - I despise the kind of people cities owners are.
3 - Idiot no.2 that can't read, starts saying "Italian clubs weren't owned by shady foreign business owners" - I point out they were owned by shady local business owners and one of them sold out to a dictator every bit as bad as Cties.
4- I'm somehow using point 3 to justify point 2 in your mind because you don't read or have any ability to follow a conversation, go to feck with your 2+2 = 5 maths.
You're not making a lot of sense Padre.

4- I'm somehow using point 3 to justify point 2 in your mind.


What is the actual point of your imaginary convoluted and numbered bullet points?
If you are agreeing that your owners and PSG's owners too are dispicable human rights abusers and murderers of innocents in Yemeni and who are lying and cheating our regulations to sportswash their brutal regime then why are you even comparing their unprecedented spending of billions of oil money and their financial doping with the hard earned football money of legitimate clubs?

Also why mouth off about the history of Italian football as if that typical weaponised rhetoric of whataboutery, somehow legitimises or softens or at the very least distracts from the brutal UAE PR racket ?

There are many good City fans who simply do not support the illegitimate, nation state PR project at the Etihad.
I think theyve made the right choice.
Now as for your good self Padre is concerned I appreciate that you are (in your support of the Etihad project ) indeed ethically compromised but if you do in fact agree with us about the owners and their dirty money project, then rather than wasting your valuable time indulging in such whataboutery fantasies of defence (United spend money so why can't we?, look at the bad Italians and so on..) and insulting United supporters on a United fan forum, why don't you simply refuse to support the club until the scum have been forced out.
That is some amount of hypocritical cynical gymnastics you are performing in your bold professing of your ethical hatred for the owners whilst you continue to cheerlead their disgusting project on a rival fan forum.
Put simply, put your money where your mouth is.
 
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BobbyManc

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We didn’t annihilate the opposition! It’s the money and source of which calls into question what City have won.
And if you had annihilated them, do you think the press would have made any mention to the fact Cisse cost more than their entire squad? I don't think they would, as they would have viewed it as a 'natural' result as Liverpool are a big club and it's perfectly fine for them to outspend their rivals and win trophies as a result.

Why was it any different to when Arsenal beat Aston Villa 4-0 a few years back? That's what can happen when you get one team that is clearly superior to its opposition. Watford lost 4-0 to Bournemouth this season, and they lost 5-0 at Anfield. City played one of our best games all season in that final, it was not a 'normal' game. At the Etihad we beat Watford with a big helping hand from the referee awarding an offside goal. We won the League Cup on penalties against Chelsea, we beat Liverpool to the title by a point, and we got eliminated from the CL by Spurs. People are acting like City are untouchable and are dominating like no team before in the history of football. It's ridiculous hysteria. It's the first time we've retained the league title since our takeover. As I've said numerous times, when United won eight of the first eleven PL titles, of course football was fine then, but now City have won consecutive titles, we've ruined football.