Manchester City banned from CL for 2 seasons and fined 30 million euros | CAS - Ban lifted, fined 10 million

robinamicrowave

Wanted to be bran, ended up being littlefinger
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There's no good outcome, is there? If we get the decision reversed then the business wing of a royal family have opened the floodgates for predatory capitalists to do as they please. If we don't, then UEFA have confirmed that clubs from outside the established elite are barred. The only solution is for there to be a way for clubs to "do a Leicester" (or a "Spurs") and still sustain success instead of being picked apart by clubs who can afford ginormous wage packages and keep hold of their best players. Can't see that happening, though.
 

Marcelinho87

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Hope it's a joke about them getting their titles rescinded. Purely because the players and manager did actually win those titles. Yes, the means which they assembled the squad was cheating and I think they should be banned from the CL and moved down a league as punishment to the entire club. But I don't like the idea of saying "actually liverpool or United won it that year now" because that moment has passed, we can't celebrate it. It would feel empty and meaningless, since we didn't actually win it. When Rio was banned for missing a so called drugs test they didn't strip him of his premier league medals from previous seasons (and the thought of 'pool getting a hollow title turns my stomach).
Think of it this way. Liverpool are winning the league this year, end of.

How much easier would it be to swallow that they are gifted a previous one that then proceeds to shit all over the upcoming wank fest of winning one for the first time in 30 years? "Nah ya won that one a couple of years back"
 

Dumbstar

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There's no good outcome, is there? If we get the decision reversed then the business wing of a royal family have opened the floodgates for predatory capitalists to do as they please. If we don't, then UEFA have confirmed that clubs from outside the established elite are barred. The only solution is for there to be a way for clubs to "do a Leicester" (or a "Spurs") and still sustain success instead of being picked apart by clubs who can afford ginormous wage packages and keep hold of their best players. Can't see that happening, though.
MAGA? ;)

Your owners could have microscopically examined PSG's tactics and followed that to the letter. Then any penalties could be challenged in any court on account of precedence. You don't have to do a Leicester. But very importantly your owners shouldn't have done the smug feckwittery which they opted for.

I know the least painful option is to blame anyone but yourself (God knows I talk from experience with the Suarez debacle). But since accepting it unconditionally I found I could finally move on.
 

africanspur

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There's no good outcome, is there? If we get the decision reversed then the business wing of a royal family have opened the floodgates for predatory capitalists to do as they please. If we don't, then UEFA have confirmed that clubs from outside the established elite are barred. The only solution is for there to be a way for clubs to "do a Leicester" (or a "Spurs") and still sustain success instead of being picked apart by clubs who can afford ginormous wage packages and keep hold of their best players. Can't see that happening, though.
Thing is, I agree FFP was partly put in to keep the elite as it is and the whole structure of football is broken. But City (and Chelsea) are not the way forward, for the game anyway. All they've actually done is made it even more difficult for clubs trying to grow organically.

Levy (and Spurs) get a lot of shade thrown at them on here, probably mostly because of Glaston in fairness, but I think what he and the team have done in the last 20 years is exactly the way it should be approached. Yes, I know we haven't won trophies yet, who knows if we will. But the financial growth of the club has been incredible and we're not getting to a stage where we can try to consistently compete for trophies and actually compete on transfer (and most importantly, wages).

Part of the problem is though that most football fans (and humans in general) want instant results and have short memories.
 

MackRobinson

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portsmouth and blackburn attained success with their owners though however fleeting and then too we are not strictly talking sugar daddy type ownership here. you should see how the pompey fans at the time felt around 2007 when they were signing a lot of players they would not otherwise have been able to sign. not all non plcs are necessarily sugar daddy pet projects. Newcastle fans still complain of Mike ashley and he is not what you would call a sugar daddy at all.
We are talking more so about clubs spending beyond their means. Sugar daddies are just the best examples of such. Ask the Pompey fans how the feel NOW. It's ridiculous to think they preferred nearly losing their club to not being as good of team as they were. And Newcastle fans may hate Mike Ashley for not spending but I guarantee if you ask them whether or not they would want Ashley to spend money at the risk of becoming insolvent they woud be against the idea just like any sensible fan who gives a shit about the club surviving. Truth is most fans don't understand the risks until they are in that situation.

you should read up on how leicester weren't ffp compliant until 2016, it includes the period after their title win. this thread has the information in it. it wasn't completely some feel-good romantic story of a club against all odds doing it without any investment from outside at all.
1) There are plenty more examples: Spurs, Sheffield United, Bournemouth, Dortmund, etc, etc.
2) Regardless of their FFP situation, look at the key players Leicester City bought (Kante, Mahrez, Vardy) and what they paid for them. They didn't have to engange in financial doping to do so, nor did they need to spend 1B in the transfer market.

it may not be a fault of theirs but it is still less disingenuous to recognize the chance nature of what occurred then and seeing that it is not all about trying to preserve your own status quo now which is just hypocritical. there is luck and acting like someone with a feifdom who doesn't want someone else rising up. And certainly with talks of a European super league which will probably happen sooner rather than later this will become even more evident. everyone did benefit yes, but some more than others.
For one, I never disputed the chance nature of the commercialization in football. Secondly, you seem to ignore that randomness and chance are rife in all sports. I don't even understand why you think this is controversial. Sure, a side effect of FFP is that it entrenches the position of big clubs but surely this is less important than making sure callous businessmen don't bring a club to the brink of financial collapse. Also, you are completely guessing about whether a European super league will be formed so that isn't relevant.

The problem is you purposely ignoring the very real side effects of artificially pumping money into football clubs: Once the funding stops, they can become insolvent, riddled by debt, nearly impossible to sell, and potentially wound up. Like I keep saying, any match going fan or fan from the area of that said club would have very different opinions if they knew the risks of pumping money into a club.

sport is not designed to calcify the existing hierarchy nor take away the aspect of someone being able to achieve glory and success tomorrow even if it seems improbable today and vice versa. if it isn't possible to do so - as now over 2 decades seems to show - its quite likely a romantic and far fetched notion that many just don't ascribe to. why not ask yourself that, that is as much a reality. Clubs going insolvent is neither here nor there, there's as much chance of a club getting fecked over by a PLC board and it's decisions in the long run as that of a sugar daddy's whims. one isn't inherently that much more nobler than the other.
Sport isn't designed to undo chance and sustained success. Chance works both ways. Small clubs rise up from obscurity all the time. Outliers disrupt the system constantly. Look at the current PL table ffs. It's easy to ignore recent history and past examples and just blame the established clubs, but that would be disingenuous wouldn't it?

The bolded is completely false. There is a big difference between a shitty board and a club being depending on the wealth of an owner. You can easily replace decision-makers but you cannot easily replace funding, especially during recessions or global financial crises.
 

robinamicrowave

Wanted to be bran, ended up being littlefinger
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Thing is, I agree FFP was partly put in to keep the elite as it is and the whole structure of football is broken. But City (and Chelsea) are not the way forward, for the game anyway. All they've actually done is made it even more difficult for clubs trying to grow organically.

Levy (and Spurs) get a lot of shade thrown at them on here, probably mostly because of Glaston in fairness, but I think what he and the team have done in the last 20 years is exactly the way it should be approached. Yes, I know we haven't won trophies yet, who knows if we will. But the financial growth of the club has been incredible and we're not getting to a stage where we can try to consistently compete for trophies and actually compete on transfer (and most importantly, wages).

Part of the problem is though that most football fans (and humans in general) want instant results and have short memories.
I wish Spurs' model was a realistic option for everybody but Levy is very a specific case. And, sadly, it's not just that it hasn't turned into trophies for Spurs, it's that you haven't really been able to keep hold of enough of your best players while adding to them with better ones. So much in football is made of transfer expenditure when really it's the wage packets making all the difference, and the fact that you try to keep your wage expenditure below a certain level means you'll almost always be blown out of the water when chasing key targets or picked apart by the likes of us (or, in recent weeks, Inter).

And even then, your good patch in recent years has still seen you hovering on the fringes of the elite rather than joining them. It's also worth mentioning that your recent period of relative success since 2014 only came under one manager. If you can sustain top four finishes and go deep into the Champions League under Mourinho (and whoever comes after him) then it will absolutely be time to start considering Levy's type of business model, but until then (whether we like it or not) this recent purple patch might only be credited to Pochettino.

I'm friends with a couple of Spurs fans and they're frustrated with Levy as they are fond of him because of the way he approaches things as an owner.
 

caid

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@padr81 has closed his account! That must be recent (as he'd commented in this thread).
No way. Thats a pity. He had me feeling sorry for City fans yesterday. Briefly. He was a good poster

Thing is, I agree FFP was partly put in to keep the elite as it is and the whole structure of football is broken. But City (and Chelsea) are not the way forward, for the game anyway. All they've actually done is made it even more difficult for clubs trying to grow organically.

Levy (and Spurs) get a lot of shade thrown at them on here, probably mostly because of Glaston in fairness, but I think what he and the team have done in the last 20 years is exactly the way it should be approached. Yes, I know we haven't won trophies yet, who knows if we will. But the financial growth of the club has been incredible and we're not getting to a stage where we can try to consistently compete for trophies and actually compete on transfer (and most importantly, wages).

Part of the problem is though that most football fans (and humans in general) want instant results and have short memories.
Think Leeds are worth throwing in with City and Chelsea. Agree with Spurs (and somewhat Arsenal) suffering from them more than most.
 

africanspur

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I wish Spurs' model was a realistic option for everybody but Levy is very a specific case. And, sadly, it's not just that it hasn't turned into trophies for Spurs, it's that you haven't really been able to keep hold of enough of your best players while adding to them with better ones. So much in football is made of transfer expenditure when really it's the wage packets making all the difference, and the fact that you try to keep your wage expenditure below a certain level means you'll almost always be blown out of the water when chasing key targets or picked apart by the likes of us (or, in recent weeks, Inter).

And even then, your good patch in recent years has still seen you hovering on the fringes of the elite rather than joining them. It's also worth mentioning that your recent period of relative success since 2014 only came under one manager. If you can sustain top four finishes and go deep into the Champions League under Mourinho (and whoever comes after him) then it will absolutely be time to start considering Levy's type of business model, but until then (whether we like it or not) this recent purple patch might only be credited to Pochettino.

I'm friends with a couple of Spurs fans and they're frustrated with Levy as they are fond of him because of the way he approaches things as an owner.
I don't want to throw this thread too far off topic but:

The trickle of top players leaving against our will has gotten less and less as time has gone on and the financial power of the club has increased though. What was initially almost every season or two has been...what? Eriksen is the first key player we've lost that we really wanted to keep since Bale in 2013 (50 million for Walker was an offer that was too good to refuse imo).

This is what I mean though. Football fans often can't see beyond the last couple of weeks, let alone more than a couple of years. Last set of accounts was the first time we weren't the pauper of the top 6 anymore, first time we broke into the top 10 across Europe I believe, first time we started to see some effects of the new stadium. And the stadium means that isn't going to be fleeting, we'll be in and around there financially for the foreseeable future.

Pochettino did a sensational job but its also easy to forget that Redknapp finished top 4 twice and Jol and AVB both finished a couple of points off so it isn't like we came from nowhere under Poch. If it wasn't for the two sugar daddy clubs in the league, we'd have been finishing top 4 more often than not in the 2010s and late 2000s too, with the CL money that comes with it.

The wages we paid were in line with the finances. We can look at Villa, Newcastle, Everton, Fulham, Bolton, QPR etc, all of whom have at times been around Spur's level and have fallen down because they spent beyond their means/ were funded by an owner who could no longer do so.

If in 5 years time (I know, blasphemy in football) we've still won nothing, Levy is still scrimping on deadline day, we've not kicked on and still not paying similar wages despite having similar turnover to some of the other clubs in the league, then I'll say thank you Levy but that's enough. As it is, its mostly just fans being spolit brats and wanting everything right now.
 

Zen86

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There's no good outcome, is there? If we get the decision reversed then the business wing of a royal family have opened the floodgates for predatory capitalists to do as they please. If we don't, then UEFA have confirmed that clubs from outside the established elite are barred. The only solution is for there to be a way for clubs to "do a Leicester" (or a "Spurs") and still sustain success instead of being picked apart by clubs who can afford ginormous wage packages and keep hold of their best players. Can't see that happening, though.
City becoming untouchable by smashing UEFA into pieces in the courts is certainly the worst case scenario. Think I will just call it a day on football if that happens in all honesty, it’s not really the game I knew anymore.
 

McGrathsipan

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Maybe this is the kick up the hole that is needed to bring the elitists back to earth.
There is no fcuking need to be paying 100 million pounds per player just because that is what some rich cnut can so everyone else does.

Football has gone mad and has us working class constantly squabbling over millions and billions. Its actually pathetic.
Its gone too far now as its almost a requirement to have a few hundred million to spend on players before you can compete.
Let me tell you if all clubs agree to stop this nonsense of overpaying for players then there is some hope. But they wont because its about ego and the clubs are the playthings.

fecking Arabs owning european clubs is ludicrous when you stop to think about it. Why? Is it because they can?
And Im not being racist. I just dont understand why some oil baron from halfway across the world would want to own a soccer club other than the arrogance and ego boost and/or so called prestige it might bring them at home. They dont need the money.

Its all gone to shite.
 

redman5

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So what happens if the likes of United & Liverpool go for the City approach ? Saudi's take over at OT & China buys LFC. Both clubs are part of the 'elite' set-up because of their respective histories & massive worldwide fanbase. If Abu Dhabi win this battle with UEFA, thus destroying FFP, then how would they benefit if United & Liverpool, along with PSG, Bayern, Real, & Barca, were able to compete with them on a financial basis ? The way I see it, that's a very plausible scenario.
 

gajender

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Thing is, I agree FFP was partly put in to keep the elite as it is and the whole structure of football is broken. But City (and Chelsea) are not the way forward, for the game anyway. All they've actually done is made it even more difficult for clubs trying to grow organically.

Levy (and Spurs) get a lot of shade thrown at them on here, probably mostly because of Glaston in fairness, but I think what he and the team have done in the last 20 years is exactly the way it should be approached. Yes, I know we haven't won trophies yet, who knows if we will. But the financial growth of the club has been incredible and we're not getting to a stage where we can try to consistently compete for trophies and actually compete on transfer (and most importantly, wages).

Part of the problem is though that most football fans (and humans in general) want instant results and have short memories.
Its all well and good lauding Levy for great job he has done with Tottenham but the point people miss is it's owned by a Billionaire as well do you think all the great training facility and new stadium which Tottenham have built would have been possible had it been not backed by Billionaire owner I don't think so it would have been really difficult to raise the capital for all this growth.
Though I would like to disclose I am fundamentally against the idea of FFP it was designed to serve interests of traditional big clubs nothing more.
 

africanspur

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Its all well and good lauding Levy for great job he has done with Tottenham but the point people miss is it's owned by a Billionaire as well do you think all the great training facility and new stadium which Tottenham have built would have been possible had it been not backed by Billionaire owner I don't think so it would have been really difficult to raise the capital for all this growth.
Though I would like to disclose I am fundamentally against the idea of FFP it was designed to serve interests of traditional big clubs nothing more.
Yes I do. We've paid for literally all of that through club money, years and years of an essentially neutral net spend as well as (large) bank loans as well.

Lewis doesn't put any of his money into Tottenham, its pretty much Levy's project now.
 

Tincanalley

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This is the argument of 'bitter United' from 2008/9/10 when City became the richest in the world.

I remember having arguments about how United should be able to spend as we earned our profits via success on the pitch and brand marketing. I remember being told I was simply bitter because City were spendibg a shit ton of money.

This is why we had this argument... because City, Chelsea, PSG had this artificial financial doping and wouldn't survive such scrutiny.
Well I started a thread then. It was called Man Cheaty. I was harangued in here, called bitter. Mods closed my thread!
 

gajender

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Yes I do. We've paid for literally all of that through club money, years and years of an essentially neutral net spend as well as (large) bank loans as well.

Lewis doesn't put any of his money into Tottenham, its pretty much Levy's project now.
Only point I was trying to make was maybe Lewis's status as Billionaire made these big bank loans to be easily accessible for Tottenham which may not have been the case with different owner with lesser wealth it wasn't a criticism in any way just an observation apologies if it came across that way.
 

Tincanalley

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People comparing American franchise-based sports system and European football need to get a grip. These are two separate universies.

1. NFL, NBA etc. are franchises. There is no relegation. It makes a huge difference in the whole dynamics
2. In NFL, teams play total of 16 games per season! Fecking 16! And they have nothing like Champions League, cup games or anything like that.
3. In US, college sports is huge. Professional players predominantly first go through college leagues and then get drafted into professional teams. That is an entirely different approach to European Football where you have academies, age-group leagues etc.

You cannot just take financial part of these two radically different worlds and slap it on European football. We can talk about what the changes should be in UEFA regulations, but talking about drafts etc. is a waste of time and nonsensical.
Said.
 

OverratedOpinion

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There's no good outcome, is there? If we get the decision reversed then the business wing of a royal family have opened the floodgates for predatory capitalists to do as they please. If we don't, then UEFA have confirmed that clubs from outside the established elite are barred. The only solution is for there to be a way for clubs to "do a Leicester" (or a "Spurs") and still sustain success instead of being picked apart by clubs who can afford ginormous wage packages and keep hold of their best players. Can't see that happening, though.
Man City the moral saviours of the footballing world, empowered by the noble sheik to rid us the evil ruling elite. :lol: :lol:

It's a wonder that you haven't been given a medal.
 

Dorris

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I don't want to throw this thread too far off topic but:

The trickle of top players leaving against our will has gotten less and less as time has gone on and the financial power of the club has increased though. What was initially almost every season or two has been...what? Eriksen is the first key player we've lost that we really wanted to keep since Bale in 2013 (50 million for Walker was an offer that was too good to refuse imo).

This is what I mean though. Football fans often can't see beyond the last couple of weeks, let alone more than a couple of years. Last set of accounts was the first time we weren't the pauper of the top 6 anymore, first time we broke into the top 10 across Europe I believe, first time we started to see some effects of the new stadium. And the stadium means that isn't going to be fleeting, we'll be in and around there financially for the foreseeable future.

Pochettino did a sensational job but its also easy to forget that Redknapp finished top 4 twice and Jol and AVB both finished a couple of points off so it isn't like we came from nowhere under Poch. If it wasn't for the two sugar daddy clubs in the league, we'd have been finishing top 4 more often than not in the 2010s and late 2000s too, with the CL money that comes with it.

The wages we paid were in line with the finances. We can look at Villa, Newcastle, Everton, Fulham, Bolton, QPR etc, all of whom have at times been around Spur's level and have fallen down because they spent beyond their means/ were funded by an owner who could no longer do so.

If in 5 years time (I know, blasphemy in football) we've still won nothing, Levy is still scrimping on deadline day, we've not kicked on and still not paying similar wages despite having similar turnover to some of the other clubs in the league, then I'll say thank you Levy but that's enough. As it is, its mostly just fans being spolit brats and wanting everything right now.
Another thing with spurs, which I think people miss when viewing the rights and wrongs of FFP, is how much they’ve grown even with City being took over. It’s not the Manchester United’s etc that really suffer when one of these clubs comes along, it’s the teams who’ve organically grown and are nearly there. The likes of Everton and Villa were pushing the top 4 at the back end of the noughties, then City come along and swat them down a place and make it all the harder. Who knows where villa could have got to with a champions league qualification and the influx of money that brings.

Spurs have managed to grow despite City, but its probably set them back 5 years, think of how many times they’d have got CL between 2010-2015 had city not been there.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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The argument that without massive outside investment no club can hope to compete with the traditional elites is a bit shaky, looking at United fall from grace despite the massive spending over the last 7 years.

With that being said, I’d prefer a system wherein big transfers over a certain threshold, let’s say £100m is capped at 1, £50m capped at 3 for instance, and the owner has to put up a guarantee to make sure the wages/transfer fees are paid in full in the event the ownership changes hand/investment withdrawn, so the club wouldn’t be saddled with debt. 4 or 5 big transfers every season would suffice to build a competitive team over 3-4 years but it still requires using youths/homegrown players, and if you feck that up too many times in a row then you have no one else to blame.