That’s literally one of the caf narratives. It’s abhorrent.
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
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City's tactics are incredibly transparent in all this. They claim they have irrefutable evidence of their innocence in relation to the charges and yet they're constantly relying on technicalities and time wasting rather than defending the case on its merits with the evidence they claim to have. They'll probably get away with it too. Throw rubbish at the wall, outspend the opposition on legal fees, never actually answer a case.
It's hilarious seeing the City fans trying to defend them, like when they say the leaked e-mails aren't evidence because they were hacked. Surely if they were hacked it means they are genuine e-mails that prove they were cheating
Exactly, they claim to have all this evidence to prove their innocence yet rather than using it they took Premier League to court to try and get the investigation blocked but failed and now they they are taking the Premier League to court again with some nonsencical and desperate claim about the guy running the independant panel being bias because he is an Arsenal fan.
From the way they have continously tried to dodge these charges by trying to get them blocked or wrapped up in red tape it definately seems like they have something to hide.
Spot on ..
This lot won't even show the FA there evidence that there not a bunch of cheating bastards, if your innocent of anything and you can prove it, then Show the World?? Apparently they don't have to because there still trying to use the time lapse shit... throw them out of the league let them keep all what they've won by cheating..
Apologies, I misunderstood with the all or nothing, root and branch thing. I don't think it is possible in football though either, horse has long since bolted the stable. All money is dirty and until the way the whole world is run changes (which ain't happening anytime soon) it will stay that way.
Fair enough with City just being part of you. Most of my family are Blues and I would say my friend circle is 70:30 in City's favour and feel exactly the same as you, that is, if I'm reading it right, not very supportive of the means but enjoying the ends. All of them are Mancs, working class, dress to the left (as it were) and are good people. I just think being on board with gaining success via geopolitical todger swinging and HR abuses is more understandable from a City fans perspective than a Utd fans. It's been a bad 10 years by our standards granted and 100% made worse by it being City and Liverpool that are so good but compared to most teams its been alright, been dull but picked up a few bits and bobs and as I've said before, I just can't see any success being enjoyable knowing people had to suffer for it.
I hope I am not coming across all on my high horse (although I do look nice on my high horse), I am just a bit sad really that I might lose a something that is a big part of my life, especially when I think ETH has us on the right track and we could get back to the top eventually regardless. So pleased I got to enjoy a trophy this year. Who knows though? Maybe if we win the quad next year having loaned Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Verratti and Mbappe then I might be scaling Old Trafford wearing nothing but a Gutra and I can have all of these hypocritical words thrown back in my stupid face but sadly I suspect I wouldn't be that fussed.
Anyway, apologies for the late response, had hit my daily limit when you got back yesterday. And double apologies for derailing the thread too seen as it is supposed to be about the financial side of things. Don't know what there is to say about that though, I mean everybody knew that was happening right? One of my City fan mates works for the club, quite near to the first team (won't go into any detail) and his paycheck has no mention of Manchester City on it!
This is a thread specifically on your clubs cheating…and it doesn’t just stop at numbers on a balance sheet. The corruption is off the scale. It’s in no way comparable to being ‘sponsored by adidas’ but the nature of your post was to insinuate that everyone is at it.
No it wasn't thats some serious mental gymnastics, the debate about state ownership and City's cheating are completely different discussions and one I was pretty much asked to elaborate on a few times in the thead. I in no way compared the cheating discussion to Adidas, I really don't know where you guys pull this shite from but its certainly not from my posts.
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They don't try to run a clean operation, they give lip service, if they wanted a clean operation, they'd have one but they want to keep costs low and making bank. Are adidas the same as ADUG? Hell no!, not even close but are they guilty of building their brand and still cashing in on human rights abuse? Absolutely whilst sitting proudly as co-owners of one of the biggest football clubs in history. But the real hypocrisy is Bayern fans allowing it to stand whilst preaching at others no?
I do think state ownership should be the first thing dealt with and needs to go in the end, but there is a long list that needs to follow.
Mental gymnastics is strong
Not at all dude. Fair point in the first sentence. While it may be more understandable, no one should actively support these regimes at all. I actually can't wait for the day City are under new ownership to be honest. When I look back at my older posts (thankfully before I joined the Caf) when I didn't understand the real situation in those countries I'm kinda embarrassed. But at the same time I'd be completely indifferent to Qatar buying United, or Liverpool because it sadly is what it is now. Football has always been rotten, its just rotten on a whole new level as happens when the money becomes bigger.
You're not being on a high horse at all, if I'm genuinely honest, success feels weird at City, its a case of enjoying the team (which is amazing), whilst knowing what it took and who built it (which sucks). Its why I don't really go crazy celebrating on here or rubbing in how good a team we are unless I'm winding up someone who I feel deserves it, or who is constantly giving it to me.
What I will say is United are and always will be more than whoever owns the club, as are City, as are Chelsea etc... Hopefully the nonsense at City get dealt with soon so the club can get their shit together (fairly).
I actually know some of the people who do that job at Adidas. They fly around the world checking up on factories and warehouses. They do try very hard to keep things clean but with such a large operation sometimes things slip through, mostly dodgy factory owners trying to con them. Nothing like what Abu Dhabi do.
Winning the league with charges hanging against them? Unprecedented all right.
Mentioned in passing by Gary Lineker on MotD. Glossed over by Shearer.
Discussion over, move on.
Basically, no one gives a shit. They'll get away with it, no doubt about it.
Discussion over, move on.
Basically, no one gives a shit. They'll get away with it, no doubt about it.
This is it. It's not in Sky/BT/BBC's interest to sully the Premier League, the greatest league in the world™. They'll address it and push it aside so that we can all just watch Haaland "sock a few dingers".
They sure will get away with it. It's a sad state, sucks when cheaters prosper and it happens too much.
Maguire! Perfect.
Champions of England is all I’m seeing over Facebook. Makes me sick man!
Whats the likely punishment they can expect IF found guilty?
An ASBO
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/65648139
Silence in the media is deafening
Silence in the media is deafening
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I hope no one on here is gullible enough to believe they will get properly punished (Points deduction). Your just in for a huge disappointment in a few months time when they are let off with some poxy fines.
While I'm prepared to agree that it's unlikely, I do think there's some chance that the book will be thrown at them.
The Premier League has one thing going for it above all else: its reputation for competition and a uniformly high level. It has been a league that is either not dominated by any one team, or dominated by one team because that club clearly deserves to rule English football on a premise of fairness that is understood in English culture. I'm not just fellating myself in saying that, I'm not English, but it's a country that does have a measure of belief in the notion that success and power ought to be earned. Probably stems from times when such a thing was won militarily. The sun never sets on bla-bla.
And while one would be silly to think that England still embodies that wholeheartedly, I do think that football is the place that has it closest to heart. It certainly isn't politics, so let's say it's football. There's still pride in being the tough, competitive league where it takes a little more to excel, and where there's only pride in earning it the traditional way, as opposed to just being successful because it was automatically granted. There's all this talk of whether or not some foreign player can make it in the Premier League. There's even some merit to that, although it's not as true now as it may have been in the days of Roy Keane, Patrick Vieira and Vinnie Jones. It's still part of the culture of English football. It isn't yet gone altogether.
For that reason, there's some hope (but no guarantee) that this notion will be taken into account when it comes to the investigation of MCFC. If they choose not to, they know that they're giving up the last vestiges of what used to represent English football. There's not so much of it left these days, but it isn't entirely gone, and selling out entirely to a human rights sportswashing effort will mean that nobody can ever again evoke that spirit. It would be right, in that event, to laugh mockingly at anyone who says that there's anything special about the Prem.
I do think that at least some of the people charged with the decision in question would keep that in mind. Whether or not that'll be enough to make the decision that anyone with any sense knows is right, that remains to be seen. But I don't think it's hopeless, or gullible to hope for it. It takes a willfully blind person to call City innocent, and it comes with a declaration that English football is nothing special anymore, and that whoever has enough money can erase all that used to make it special. I do think that there's still enough resistance to that in English culture to make the right decision.
It's still the country behind the Magna Carta and the declaration of war in 1939. That's not entirely gone yet. It's still a small piece of what makes up the English football heritage, i.e. that it's rooted in real culture and deserves to be representative of the people's voice. Even if eight tenths of that notion has been eroded by money, I really think that they won't let money scour away the last two tenths, because everyone knows that City are guilty.
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They'll probably get fined and a transfer ban at most, then the fans will carry on believing they're not guilty like with the UEFA case
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You're right unfortunately
They were never going to be fined, kicked out of competitions, etc. The horse has bolted and they (quite rightly) will fight dirty and take a stand.
The media are complicit in all of this. Going on about competition, not questioning owners, drooling over this City team without discussing or ripping apart how it came to be. You can't just judge them on the pitch.
Sky should be delighted that City have won another league title.
If Man Utd were doing good on field, Man Utd fans wont even mention city's financial doping, but at the moment thats the only stick they are left to beat man city with. And, they dont want anyone to talk abt the fact that Man Utd's net expenditure easily matches city's or even higher....fact is pep has totally transformed man city and Man Utd are jut playing catchup game now and it can easily be decades for them before they win title, and thats why all this bitterness. Fans all over the world just want to see their teams playing fantastic football , scoring goals and winning titles...and only one team in manchester seems to be doing all that at the moment, while fans of other one are left with no choice but to badmouth city's success...
If they get a points deduction I'd image it will be just low enough to keep them in 1st place.
I still think they'll be relegated... Financial doping just shouldn't be a thing. It doesn't happen is US sports in the same way because they realise long term it damages the product a lot.
Football needs to sort it self out. It shouldn't be mainly an economic competition, need sort it at UEFA level as well as notionally. Need a team level salary cap, easy to enforce and will level the playing field financially to a large degree. Sort the structure out so all clubs accept it.
Football needs to sort it self out. It shouldn't be mainly an economic competition, need sort it at UEFA level as well as notionally. Need a team level salary cap, easy to enforce and will level the playing field financially to a large degree. Sort the structure out so all clubs accept it.
A really interesting and thoughtful post, as as an Englishman (with a lot of Welsh and some Irish) ancestry, I would agree with those comments about the culture of fair play, 'playing the game', etc.
However, I think the sad fact is that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. The UK has been largely ruled by neoliberals / neo-cons / libertarians since 1979, and I would include Tony Blair as fundamentally a neoliberal. Deregulation is the norm; markets are essentially fetishized; and money rules everything. I think I am correct in stating that the Edwards family were one of the first to end the model of private ownership when they floated United to save their meat business in the early 1980s. In this they were guided by MU director professor Roland Smith. Once that genie was out of the bottle it is difficult to go back unless, like City, wealthy and corrupt states are willing to sink in billions. And then control is lost completely.
The top clubs themselves were only too eager to remove themselves from the restrictions and regulations of the Football League and get their hands on more of the TV and advertising money, hence the emergence of the Premier League. It was extremely unlikely that the then Major neoliberal government (although he WAS a sports fan - but favoured cricket) would intervene when they were busy selling off virtually every UK asset like public utilities and transport systems.
I think it would take a very brave government to take charge of the current mess. I think there would be three main considerations / barriers: first, the clubs would probably challenge any legislation as a restriction on trade. The clubs cannot be viewed in isolation from European competition, etc, so that might be a challenge to any form of regulation unless it was Europe wide as some posters have suggested. And perhaps most importantly, in terms of UK wealth and prestige, the Premier League is one of the few success stories over the last few decades. But the last point does support your consideration that it needs to retain its Englishness and competitiveness to remain attractive.
I know there have been some City fans acknowledging personal disquiet at what has happened to City, and some of my City friends share those concerns, but any truly reflective fan must wonder what this current outfit, owned by Abu Dhabi, with a virtually non-English management and coaching staff, a different ground and virtually no connection with the former club except the colour of the shirt. In what sense is it the same club. Do we want that for United?
City gets 1 pt deduction and forced to play Sat noon fixture permanently. EPL will announce a big win and deserved punishment for the Cheaty. Edit: forgot a 72-hour transfer ban in October 2023.
They should receive a joint punishment with Barcelona. The two of them can play each other every week for a season in a super league of two. The winner gets promoted to Saudi Arabia. The loser gets abolished.
Yeah because we never went in on Chelsea when they got oil money while we were winning titles and the CL
Shearer's the last person to call it out when he's banking on Newcastle following the same model.
No chance in hell they they relegated. No chance in hell they even get any title vacated. Maximum will be a fine and a transfer ban. This is European football we are talking about here. Very few other professions are as compromised by dirty money. The PL and UEFA made their respective positions clear when they allowed Man City, Newcastle and PSG to be bought over by sovereign states with no conseqiences. Other big clubs have no choice but to fall in line now. Survival of the fittest.
I don't know why I only thought about this today but with the precedent set by the RFU and Lord Dyson regarding the Saracens in 2020. The potential sanction for City is pretty obvious?