The Premier League is complicit too and allowed this to happen. When a non entity like City are suddenly signing sponsorship deals that dwarf ones for Real Madrid, Barcelona and United and they do nothing about it or even look into it, they are just as guilty. This could have been stopped in 2011.
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with 130 FFP breaches | Hearing concluded | Awaiting outcome
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The Premier League is complicit too and allowed this to happen. When a non entity like City are suddenly signing sponsorship deals that dwarf ones for Real Madrid, Barcelona and United and they do nothing about it or even look into it, they are just as guilty. This could have been stopped in 2011.
Yeah instead they have run roughshot for 15 years due to the weak Premier League. Nice to hear Paul Ross mentioned it on Talkshite, unsurprisingly Simon Johnson went quiet and quickly changed subject
Sport is about stories. Being bought by an oil state who then proceed to hire best in class decision makers to invest their money in a sensible and strategic fashion is an incredibly dull story. It captures no imagination.
Abramovich may have chucked money around, but being a maniac with it, hiring and firing on a whim, signing strikers they didn’t need for record fees… that’s a lot more interesting,
What about being gifted football clubs? Could we have bought a football club for Guardiola’s brother? The idea their cheating isn’t the main reason for their dominance is ridiculous. Guardiola has stayed at City longer than he did at Barca and Bayern combined. Do you think he does that because he loves Manchester so much?
I get that it is not directly related, but I was specifically replying to the tweet saying it wasn't embarrassing that City couldn't sell out Wembley because they have been there so often in the last decade. My point was that it is more embarrassing for us, arguably the biggest club in the world, to have let them get so far ahead of us, than it is for them.
I agree that City have been a major cause behind transfer inflation, just as Chelsea were before them. I'm not defending them or their actions, I just think that 20 years ago what they did wouldn't have largely been against the rules; the rules were brought in after pressure from American owners who saw their cash cows under threat. I want to beat City anyway, not moan about their unfair dealings, just like we did to Chelsea. The moans about Chelsea distorting the system kind of subsided once we came out on top; it turned out they were mostly sour grapes while Chelsea were winning, and I think the same would be the case with City. We have also spent enough that we should be able to compete with them, particularly as we have a global status and reputation that they will never be able to attain.
Yeah it's super shady he's stayed as long as what he has. Some on here have even said the owners will not allow him to leave and that he's tried in the past but his attempts are blocked.
Make of that what you will.
He’s stayed at City because he has all the trappings of being a big club. The facilities, the backroom staff, the players… but he has a fraction of the pressure and scrutiny.
It’s something that goes unremarked about City; it’s easier for them. If Haaland had that kind of winter goal drought at United or Liverpool or Arsenal, you’d not be able to move for the think pieces on it. As it’s City, scarcely got a mention.
Seems like more of a pillow for Haaland rather than Guardiola.
But it’s sure as feck a big coincidence with Pere Guardiola and Girona.
Has there ever been an easier job in football than Guardiola's at City? Countless billions to spend that the club didn't have to earn, but was gifted by their owners; the groundwork laid by his Barcelona chums on and off the pitch years before his arrival; and yes, all the tools and more to compete for the biggest honours with a lot less pressure to actually win them than he would have at several other big clubs.
Carragher said in his book that he believed mourinho had a difficult job at Chelsea because the more you spend the more pressure you are under as no less than success is expected. He also said everyone is bitter about the spending and wants to beat you and badmouth you. He also pointed out benitez signed very badly a lot of the time so signing good players consistently is not easy.
Imo guardiola has a very difficult job but makes it look easy. Lots of top managers have not done as well at city and psg as guardiola has. He also did better than any manager that followed him at barca and bayern, although people may say flicks cl is better. Imo the only manager that could do as well as pep at city is ferguson. If guardiola goes too long without a trophy he would be fired.
Imo the reason he kept his j9b unlike Pellegrini and macini is because the owners know there is nobody better atm.
Are City a Golden Goose? Or at least remotely integral to that idea? I get that the league would take a reputational hit, but I also think its brand is a lot more valuable with United, Liverpool, Arsenal winning than it is with City...the combination of a winning juggernaut who arent well liked, supported or have any narrative behind them is probably the worst case scenario in terms of value...
No. Pep buys armadas of players, throws away an astronomical amount of them and then just buys an entire horde more. And if that’s not working, they just buy the cream of the winter window crop to top up and continue on unabated (see Guehi and Semenyo for this year’s edition), which is completely unprecedented in its sheer volume and certainty. No other club in England conducts themselves in this manner because it’s not possible without cheating.
Pep’s job is easy insofar as the pl is concerned.
Made even easier by the fact that despite the allegations, players are still fecking queuing up to join them.
The players won't be affected though.
They've all been paid ridiculous amounts to be part of this project. If it goes under because they're found guilty and punted to the National League, it won't matter because they'll all leave, get handsomely paid elsewhere, and plead ignorance to any shady dealings they'll have benefited from.
Even if any individual players are named in relation to dodgy payments, it'll just be pushed onto agents/representatives/accountants.
Carragher also spat at a 14 year old girl
If it was easy other managers would be doing the same at similar clubs. No manager has done as well at psg or Bayern, barca or madrid. I agree they are cheating but imo other big clubs like madrid and barca are too. Mancini and Pellegrini spent a lot and didnt come close to pep. I guess to contradict my ealier point z8dane and ancelotti perhaps had similar success at madrod but their teams relied more on luck than Guardiola and didnt dominate as much.
Imo only ferguson could match Guardiola's success. Only flick at bayern compares to pep and he is a great coach as we see at barca. Imo it seems easy because he makes it look easy. I guess it will be interesting to see how Enrique does at psg which may give an indicator if it is as easy as it looks. He has done excellent so far, I would say.
He doesn't seem very nice imo but when he is not being completely biased towards Liverpool he is knowledgeable, I think. I consider his book to be a good one.
There are no similar clubs man. Absolutely no other club have a bottomless pit of oil money.
Real, Barca, Madrid all have to work within their means. Man City could literally spend 2 billion in a single window and not notice it, it would have absolutely zero effect on next year’s spending.
I guess psg and bayern are the most similar clubs atm as they both have a big advantage in their leagues and tend to win but only flick and enrique did similarly well at bayern and psg. Those jobs are called easy too but pep did one if the best jobs there. If they were easy then other managers would be having similar success to pep casually. Ancelotti is excellent and his work was questioned at psg and bayern and his job was under pressure a lot, according to him.
Pep impresses higher ups more than other managers at big clubs so gets more backing and makes the most of it. It will be interesting to see how Enrique does at psg overall. The only manager who could have done as well as or better than Guardiola at these clubs is ferguson imo. I used to say ten years ago mourinho was better than Guardiola but I think he has proven me wrong. Pep has a similar amount of trophies (leagues and cl) to ferguson already and he is only 55 or something like that.
You don’t seem to understand - only PSG could act in this way. Nobody else. And why do you think that is?
I get you now, regarding that form of cheating. I never actually thought of that tbh. I think other teams are cheating in different ways though.
And on the whole, he hasn't done anything particularly special in the CL at Bayern or City, which also says something about him. He can win domestic trophies when he vastly outspends everyone, but when facing other teams that dominate their leagues, he hasn't exactly taken the world by storm. At Barcelona he had the strongest team in the history of the sport, so while he didn't precisely overspend there, it was kind of handed to him anyway.
I've always said - and continue to say - that I won't regard him as the GOAT until he shows that he can actually succeed without having far better tools at his disposal than everyone else. Thus far, he has basically spent every single season of his career with the best team in whatever league he was in. With that in mind, his accomplishments really aren't more than what should be taken for granted. His modest achievements in Europe tell the real story.
I don’t really have the energy to be enthused about this topic anymore because I am certain there’ll be no consequences of note for systemic cheating for more than a decade, so it’s better I repost this from 2024, yep, 2 years ago when there was a modicum of hope there would actually be consequences (read through this thread from the start to observe the ebb and flow on that):
I think it explains things clearly.
Yep. He’s not run roughshod over equal or better sides than his own.
Good post Fortitude 
If anything, you've been a bit kind to them there about the early years.
- They were promoted back to the Premier League in 2002. They finished 9th, 16th, 8th, 15th, 14th and 9th in the years preceding the takeover. It is clear that the occasional finish in the top half isn't beyond them.
- The takeover happened on deadline day 2008, and they were only able to bring in Robinho for the first half of the season, but that was a British record fee from a club that had previously been nowhere near being able to a) spend that much money or b) attract players of that reputation.
- Despite this marquee signing, they were only 13th by the time the January window opened (and were 18th two games prior). This is pretty much "business as usual" as the money hasn't really had time to influence the squad.
- They then spend a further £46 million in January on Bridge, Bellamy, de Jong and Given. This was more than any other club in the league. They went on to finish 10th.
- 2009/10 is the first time they'll benefit from a full summer window under the new owners. They spend £120 million on players, blowing the spending of literally every other club in the league out of the water.
- They jump from 10th in 2008/09 to 5th in 2009/10. This is their highest league finish in the Premier League era (having finished 5th in 1991/92 and 1990/91) and the joint highest finish since they finished 4th in 1977/78.
- They once again blow everyone out the water for spending, win the FA Cup (their first trophy in 35 years) and finish 3rd (their highest finish since finishing 2nd in 1976/77).
- 2011/12 and the big spending continues. Aguero becomes their 7th expensive centre-forward signing in just three years (Robinho, Santa Cruz, Tevez, Adebayor, Balotelli and Dzeko all signed before him). He scores the goal that wins them the league.
I think some of those, fans of clubs who are not part of the Old Order would understand and support because City (like Chelsea) had to have some means of drawing level with the established clubs, but where things go completely and utterly awry with them is the overdrive to get to the very top - constantly breaking rules and pumping their squads like frois grais - to excesses that have gone so far beyond everyone else that they’re not reading from the same playbook, so once they got to status quo and were par evens at the top, that’s when things really go haywire for everyone else and how they became damaging for any and everyone vying for the positions they are perennial fixtures in.
People will always argue that clubs should have the right to become competitive, but there should be no disagreement at all about the step after that, which City exploit to mind boggling extents.
But he gets away without winning the CL at City, even being thrased (like this year by Real), or kocked out by much less expensive teams (Monaco, Lyon). There's barely a murmur at times. PSG chuck top managers for not winning it.
Then you factor in one CL win in 10 years. Surely the owners would’ve been expecting more than that given the spending.
I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if they have threatened him with all sorts if he decided to leave City
Yeah and it's sickening that not once do you hear any of the British Media bring up the players he has discarded, no unfortunately it's because they keep on winning things so it goes unnoticed. We would have loved to get Guehi and Semenyo in January window as would many other PL clubs, however unlike City we hadn't got the bottomless pit to sign them.
This went beyond a joke and long time ago, however amazes me that @padr81 actually believes they will get a severe punishment. Quite frankly there seems very little evidence of it and no sign of them ever reaching a verdict. Mind you doesn't help that Villa and Newcastle have their heads in the trough so will want rules relaxed further so they can spend too.
We've spaffed a whole load of money up the wall for sure, but we've also had to bring in the likes of Ighalo Odion and Wout Weghorst when we're desperate for forwards and cant find the money. We're also rapidly running out of it because of all this. City dont, have never, and will never experience this, so the idea that other teams have also spent X is completely meaningless because there's a limit to what even hugely wealthy competitive clubs can spend, in a way there just isnt for a nation state. Its ludicrous...City might have only spent a few 10s of million more than us, but they didnt have to do or earn anything to do that. And can quite easily go much higher if they actually need to!
Its like someone running the 100m with rocket boots going "Well i didnt turn them on fully and I only finished a little bit ahead of you!"
Its like someone running the 100m with rocket boots going "Well i didnt turn them on fully and I only finished a little bit ahead of you!"
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You cant just buy the cl. Look at how Madrid struggled for so long with the galacticos, psg, Chelsea and us under fergie. That money just buys you ability to be competitive and get to qf/sf minimum each season with luck of the draw who wins
Since he left Barcelona in 2012, he has only been in two CL finals. He never did with Bayern, who incidentally won it the year before he arrived and again a few years after he left.
In that same timespan, Klopp has been in four CL finals, one with Dortmund and three with Liverpool. Probably spent a sixth of the money Pep has.
He only dominates domestically where money trumps everything. In Europe, where you can't just purchase automatic success, he isn't good at all.
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Yeah the last two January's when they have been in trouble they've just dropped huge amounts of money on players. No one really does it in January and there is probably a reason for that.
Oh yeah there's no doubt we have wasted a lot of money which British media take joy in saying. The reason none of City’s players ever want to leave is because owners will just dig into the bottomless pit and pay whatever it takes to see off interested teams.
Yeah they are the only club who didn't feel any pinch from COVID times whatsoever whereas other club had to make cutbacks, now I wonder why that might have been then
To be fair what you like doesn't matter mate, all clubs signed upto abide by the FFP rules. All clubs were playing by those rules except for one who it seems thought it didn't aply to them and have cheated on an industrial scale for decades at this stage.
You can think what you like about FFP, but we can't (or we shouldn't) have a situation for legitimately ran football clubs are having to compete with the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf states pumping billions into mid-table clubs for their sports washing projects.
There was literally a case about this in the last couple years because the Premier League didn't want to approve a sponsorship deal. Pay attention.