I guess the problem with ‘earning’ the right to massively outspend your rivals is that you are obviously going to think that that is fair, because it directly benefits your own team. And in addition to that it’s a perpetual advantage (like the one you are annoyed at city for having). The Prem could play for another 80 years or whatever, and no team would ever be able to match Utd’s spending power.
This is also absolute bollocks by the way, you already know that United very rarely outspend their rivals prior to Roman arriving, as you’ve seen the youtube video and been told literally hundreds of times.
We have spent like mad since City especially though in order to try and keep up, and at the cost of everything else with our infrastructure, whilst Spurs, Arsenal have new stadiums and training grounds, Liverpool have a new stand etc.
Despite this spending, all those teams have been gaining on United in the Deloitte table since SAF’s retirement and our inevitable downturn. Both Liverpool AND Spurs are now within touching distance, without state help.
I’ve said it before, the argument is fecking ridiculous, United, like Spurs and Liverpool are a football club, and their fortunes will often be shaped by periods of good and bad, this league has never been like Germany or Spain and we were always going to let the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal in post Fergie.
Take City away and a more successful Liverpool would have already surpassed us.
City’s fortune is shaped by nothing, they have a bottomless pit even if they are shite for 10 years, 20 years etc. We have a league in which football clubs must make good football decisions in order to be able to be able to pretend they can compete with an oil state football project.
City quite simply can outspend the most profitable club in the league, all whilst spending off the books. Without FFP, they’d obviously be even fecking worse. Messi would certainly have ended up there.
City can spend 10 fold of United, all whilst building new stands, infrastructure, and whilst having a wage bill the size of the rest of the league combined (a la PsG).
The only thing even making City pretend to follow the rules and rein it in is FFP.