So with everton being dropped points once already (maybe again) Notringham furest potentially getting the same treatment. What do fans of different clubs actually want to see or think will see for man city.. you obviously hear the likes of United/arsenal/spurs/Liverpool fans saying relagation as that would obviously make the competition more exciting for them. But what about the Burnley/West ham/Luton/teams who are clearly out-financed by teams like them want to see.. I work in North west so I predominantly get the opinions of United/Everton fans. Want to know how the whole premier league feels. Also city fans, do you think anything will actually happen? And would you still stand by the team if they where branded catagotical cheats for the past 12 years.
I want to know what different clubs actually want to see/think they will see
I'm not even going to pretend to know the ins and outs of the City thing but as an Arsenal fan let them keep their titles and perhaps a point deduction in the region of 20-30 points and a transfer ban.
I’m convinced FFP is just an attempt to crystallize the already established clubs. City will get away with obvious cheating while Everton gets screwed for idiotically not capitalizing their new stadium expenditures. It’s disgusting that Everton is getting screwed because of an accounting blunder.
Theyre getting screwed because they're completely broke. 93% wage to income turnover, borrowed hundreds of millions ( almost all) in form of ridiculous Apr loans from 777 and rights media ltd to just keep the lights on.
The auditor can see all this
Had they capitalized the stadium expenditure as almost every other club does, would that not have prevented them getting into this mess?
No. They simply don't have the income at all for a stadium that size. Not to mention they overspent massively on wages and transfers. It's a complete mess all round tbh
Their net Spend over the last 5 seasons is less than 25 million. It doesn’t make sense for it to be down to transfers even if you account for wages. I’m pretty confident that a significant portion of their problem is down to the accounting position they adopted towards their new stadium
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScF60k88-vS1krDMsDfRwDj1av3DHxVcPBBVWzYN7n5ilwxSg/viewform?usp=sf_link Hi guys, if you could fill out my survey for my university research project on online racism in the premier league, that would be great, cheers!
The cases of Everton and City are entirely different in kind and scale. Why fans think they’re are remotely connected shows how little people actually read into these things, which makes most people’s “opinions” worthless.
Dang man, I hope they don't get relegated. As a Man U fan it's nice to have the rivalry in the PL. Plus Man City has a lot of exciting players now so that would be a huge loss. Those same players would also get negatively effected even though they played no part in the financials of anything. Some of them would stay during the relegation and they'd be almost guaranteed a promotion spot, which screws a team in the championship.
I think a relegation would be way too messy and have too many negative side effects. Plus, Man City brings in so many eyes and fans due to their all star lineup and recent success so I don't think the PL would allow them to get relegated. They will probably just drop them enough so that they will never get the title whenever the punishment is decided. In addition they may take away some awards of the past which is another can of worms...
This is just an insane take to me. If their cheating has been systematic and blatant, the only way you send a message to others of “hey we won’t tolerate this” is to fuck them off to league 2.
Well yeah that is the most obvious step, but I was just noting the side effects of such a major decision. I just feel like a lot more thought needs to go into this decision as so many things will get affected.
Right to jail, right away
Everyone is saying consistency but I also think the rules themselves are stupid. Surely a financial crime should get a financial punishment
It's a financial crime to gain a sporting advantage, so it should be a sporting punishment.
If there was wrong doing, enforce the rules with appropriate penalties. Be consistent. Don’t let lawyers interrupt the process with their shenanigans. If MC was abusing system for as long as it’s been alleged. Find out how that happened and who was responsible. Stop letting owners with unlimited resources come in and influence the game at their will.
I'd like to see consistency. If that means relegation and stripping of titles then so be it. If you're going to hammer Everton for breaking the rules, the same hammer needs to be used for everyone.
This! No club or franchise should be above the rules. Regardless if you’re a big club or tiny club, owned by a multi billionaire or a small group, the same regulations do indeed need to apply to all, for the sake of sporting integrity and equity.
I think man city need to be made an example to get ppl in line Demotion to non league and then 30 point deduction per year for the 5years once they make it back to the championship
Don't worry they've already made an example of us instead
I wanna see a rangers style outcome 🫶
difference is rangers went the way it did because they went into administration and operated under a new company, this would be the same company just that the team of man city would be thrust a league below or in rangers case start from the very beginning of the football tier system which is unfair because some of the lower leagues only get 1 team to promotion each season so it would fuck over the actual top team from that league if man city werent there.
Don’t care how they were relegated tbh with you.. I said I wanna see a rangers style OUTCOME!! Meaning I want them to drop down to the bottom league! Ovi that’s not on the table, but doesn’t stop me from wanting to see it
I’d just like transparency and communication. So the Man City situation: unlike many I’m not blinded by a sheer hatred to assume every single charge is correct and that they’ve bought every title unlawfully…however, I think a case of this nature should have touch points with the public where information that can be released should be, and should be regularly communicated publicly through statements to the public on social media etc.
It’s a tough one because fans will never be happy bc the game is so tribal, but for the fans who aren’t so driven by jealousy and hatred it would allow them to have some sort of information about the cases to a degree.
Another example, I’m a Newcastle fan but I think the Premier League needed to be FAR more transparent about the supposed stringent checks that took place to ascertain whether the new owners of Newcastle had direct links to the Saudi State. That lack of transparency shows itself negatively the more years go on as it casts a shadow on everything that follows
Well said, agree completely.
Jail time for those involved in the fraud aspects that covered up the nature of these payments and a forced sale for peanuts.
Outside of that, a pretty hefty points deduction in the region of 20 to 30 points, a two year transfer embargo and a three year ban from Europe. I’m not really sold on the automatic relegation thing and stripping them of their titles just seems a bit… I dunno, petty.
look first they need to take care of there organizations that own more then 1 club in different leagues, cuz that is just asking for trouble in the future. O city need 150 mill to balance the books. Cheeky bid for Silva for you guessed it 150 mill.
Except in practice this really doesn’t happen lol, and when it has (eg. Aaron Mooy) it is a drop in the ocean and never is to balance books
CFG are already trying to get someone from Girona (owned by CFG) now...and this same player is already on loan to Girona from another club owned by CFG.
Yeah that’s Savio. A well known case. And probably the only well known case in the 10-15 years this model has been in existence
well it has not yet (to a high level) but who knows what the future holds.
Last trophy City won honestly was the league cup with Dennis Tuearts overhead kick - the rest, although won with good teams and great players are tainted because they have fraudulently massaged their finances to enable them to buy and excessively reward superstars! Will anything happen? No! Their money will buy them out of any realistic sporting sanctions.
Get rid of FFP and shut up about it. The whole thing is a farce. No one is happy with the system and no one is coming out of this with any credit.
They can stick their blue card, VAR and current handball rules up their arse too.
Somebody hasn't seen enough clubs get rinsed by their rich owners and then go bankrupt it seems
I think you got that persons context wrong aye.
I don't think anyone in their right mind would agree or argue for allowing rich owners to rinse/fleece/take advantage of/insert thesaurus words.
what context did I miss? That's why ffp was originally bought in and is a key component.....
There are better ways of doing it without preventing genuine investment and maintaining the hegemony of the existing big clubs.
The current fit and proper owner checks are a joke.Personally I’d like to see the German model rolled out in terms of ownership.
No doubt there are possibly better solutions but ffp is better then no solution we had before ruining clubs like Portsmouth etc Don't forget it literally saved Liverpool from gillett debt loading the club and ffp is the only reason Henry bought the club
I for the most part agree with you about handball, var and blue card nonsense. I don't think FFP should be gotten rid of. Overhauled definitely but if you get rid of it teams will just buy the league. And next year more will be spent trying to buy it. It would quickly snowball. It already is out of hand. Uefa turn over about 4 billion a year. Which is more than the top 5 clubs combined.
But FFP in its current guise is a joke. I remember in 2009 explaining to friends how teams would bypass it. I used as an example Man City. At the time they were still on the come up. But I said they could easily sell the naming rights to say Ethiad for a vastly inflated price. Thus artificially inflating their income allowing them to spend more.
This exact thing is one of the many charges they face. Unfortunately nothing will be done.
But Everton , the cheating bastards, they will go down. So as a Liverpool fan 1 out of 2 ain't bad. 😂
Relegation, 50 point deduction in the championship, and a 3 year transfer ban.
I think that's harsh but fair
4 seasons for 10 years of success? Not exactly prohibitory right
12 years? Have there been new charges then, because the 115 charges are alleged to have been between 2009-2018?
It took them until 2023 to accuse them of faults in 2009.. I'm assuming all the breaches between 2018 - 2021 will come out around 2045
Extra-judicial capital punishment or gtfo
Do I think anything will happen if City is found guilty? No, not likely because of the relations between the governments. Maybe a minimal points deduction and hefty fine. Transfer ban potentially. As for standing by the team, yes. I’m not gonna abandon the team I’ve watched for years. Abu Dhabi we’re not always the owners and Abu Dhabi is not always going to be the owners. So I’ll find whatever pirated stream is necessary to watch them. I’ve been a Flyers fan for years anyways I’m used to disappointment.
Another problem I see, and that isn’t mentioned often, is that the charges end in 2018. How do you judge the fact that City’s successes post 2018, are largely due to the infrastructure and money spent in the timeframe where the charges are. E.g Sané joined Bayern for £45m in 2020, so in effect that gave City revenue which they objectively otherwise wouldn’t have gotten if they hadn’t broken rules in the first place. Similar with Sterling, all the academy players they signed etc etc. You could also argue that sponsorship deals post 2018 (whether legit or not) would’ve had their fair market value based on City’s success on the pitch. If said success is tainted, that means the sponsorship post 2018 would have their fair market value heavily scrutinised.
2019 cup final awarded to watford please
This was one of the things I spoke about to a united fan... Do you scrap all the competition wins or do you now decide the other team won.. I personally don't think id feel right about suddenly gaining 4 trophies overnight
Scrap all trophies and no winners for those seasons is something I can live with. It’s horrible for fans and players but it’s just a bit weird to win the trophies now
I wish people would understand that City are being accused of serious fraud, it's not at all like the Everton case . The penalties against Everton can't be used as a yard stick. If City get found guilty we're talking about auditors, accountants,lawyers, financiers all the top brass , possibly Khaldoon facing charges that could put them in prison.
They’ve pretty much made the past decade of the league fraudulent and people want them slapped with a wet lettuce leaf
I'm sorry but "Notts Forest" is bad enough, "nots forest????" who tf is that ????
Is that the only opinion you have to give ? Ignore the point and just comment on the missing "t" ? Thanks for that.
Nottingham Forest is nott shortened to Notts Forest, the same way Tottenham Hotspur isn't shortened to Hotspur.
You saying nots forest (or e.g. hotspurs) is just salt in the wound.
I wouldn't just say Nottingham.. there's more than one team there...you could just say Tottenham being only one team
Yes, and the OTHER team is Notts 😂
So you're saying that spurs being a normally used way to convey "Tottenham hotspur" that what I should of used instead of "Nottingham forest" is... Rests
... what?
Nottingham Forest is shortened to Forest not Notts Forest as they have a local rival called Notts County.
It's not Forest that's for sure.
If only that could be their legal defence ...
Your Honor, it is in fact Not Forest. I rest my case.
It's only a game though no matter what happens
If proven guilty, owners should sell, forfeit all titles won in that period, and immediate relegation to non-leagues seems just. My sympathy to the fans; as a Toffee, I understand. Owners are at fault, and hitting the fans with this punishment is tough. There must be genuine consequences to ensure this never happens again.
A non-league to premier journey is actually quite fun in hindsight. Were I a city fan, having seen my team win every trophy available, doing a full rise though the leagues might be fun to see. Not sure how the media would cope with City and Wrexham love-in.
If proven guilty the owners should be in jail. They're being accused of pretty serious fraud making it completely different to the Everton case.
I know I'm a United fan but I genuinely think the consequences for the top brass should be higher than a simple points deduction/ relegation.
Starting the season on -100 points would be an appropriate punishment, but we all know nothing will happen.
Too much investment from Abu Dhabi in the UK for the govt to not intervene…
Why do you think they should be allowed anywhere in the football league?
Because it won’t ever happen, not even worth fantasising about
I want it to be proportionate to Everton’s punishment now the standard has been set
I’ll probably get downvoted, so let me say on the front end: I don’t think this is “right” or how it should be, just how it probably will play out based on the system in place.
Proportionate isn’t really an easy thing to decipher here though. Everton’s punishment is (ostensibly) to try and discourage spending outside your means and making the club financially unstable. City however, isn’t getting charged with the same thing. Their issue isn’t that they’re spending money they don’t have, it’s that they found ways to spend money they do have so it wouldn’t be counted.
I’m not saying City shouldn’t be punished. Just saying there’s no way to decide what’s “proportionate” when the charges against the 2 clubs are the total opposite sides of the coin. As I understand it, PSR isn’t designed to even the playing field and not allow clubs to spend big. It’s purpose is to make sure that clubs spend within their means and we don’t get more clubs going into administration like Portsmouth and Leeds.
Now if you want to make an argument that there should be a set of rules designed to help even the playing field to create parity and share the revenue more evenly, that’s a different set of rules. Unfortunately, I don’t see City getting much more than a big fine which is basically peanuts to their owners unless it counts against the club’s revenues.
It's financial doping, so just as you'd expect to see from actual doping. Stripped of everything, relegated multiple times over or forced to start again, transfer ban, the lot. Don't care about titles being awarded to the next placed team, it will feel hollow, just get the cheats out of the game so we can all move on.
I’m split on that. Yes it would be hollow AF but there’s a big likelihood that Klopp will have 4 seasons of over 90 points, bigger points totals than any team managed by Wenger or Ferguson, where 3 don’t win the league. I’ve got no doubt the futility of that is one of the reasons for him jibbing it now too. If you get 97 points and lose a title to a team that’s cheated, that title should absolutely go in the record books as yours.
I think you should ask in r/TheOther14
I know this is a totally different argument and discussion all together... But the Premier League, the board, whatever it is that makes up that group, they knew exactly what was happening when they sign off on the ownership exchange / sale of City back in 2008.
They was more than happy to allow that to go ahead and City to spend big and bring all the best players to the league, for their brand, their league, their viewership.
But ultimately, the punishment should be severe. Not exactly sure what that entails nor do I care as I'm just a peasant Bolton fan.
An example should be made of them if they’re found guilty. The death penalty essentially. Stripped of all titles earned during the investigated period (I will say players should retain individual accolades), owners forced to sell, transfer ban, relegation, enforced point penalty for consecutive seasons.
What I think will actually happen? Realistically a fine and if we’re lucky a points deduction that’ll maybe keep them out of European cups for a year.
Whoever breaks the rules set should be punished accordingly. Be that Arsenal or Spurs or Man City.
The weight of the punishment should depend on the crime committed and the honesty surrounding the situation. As Everton came forward about it themselves, and got a 10 point deduction, if a similar thing was done but hidden a 15 point deduction should be placed.
Even if Arsenal were to have broken the rules I'd be calling for the punishment as if you can't do it without breaking rules, then you can't do it altogether.
My question is should titles after the cheating be stripped in Man City's case if it is found to be all true? Because they weren't cheating by this point, but they wouldn't be in the position they are in if they didn't cheat.
City continue to cheat to this day as they spend money from their inflated sponsorship deals. Look at Newcastle they get taken over by Saudi and their sponsorship deals goes from £6.5m per year to £25m per year, no other club is seeing their deals increase by 4 times the amount. Newcastle are just following Citys tried and tested methods, there is no way that City should be the most profitable club in the world.
Didn't they get Champions League football this year. Would this contribute to that stat?
£6.5m per year to £25m per year,
In fairness, Mike ashley paid massively under fair market value to sponsor his business.
Their old sponsor was fun88 which I believe has nothing to do with Ashley.
You are correct.
Comment above is about the stadium advertising being basically free.
I think it has been pointed out the new shirt sponsor is closer in line with the revenue the top 6 receive.
What I want to know is what if City is found innocent? The other 19* clubs of the premier league are gonna hang banners saying “Sorry for being a dumbass” for a full season?
*corrected a typo
Let's be honest here. City are not innocent. Whatever the lawyers and courts decide won't be the actual state of things. City aren't cooperative and will stall and weasel out however they can.
You can hang your own banners saying that.
Only reason it's taken so long to resolve is the lack of cooperation from City to the investigation.
You must be a plastic on the City bandwagon or part of a bot farm if you think there are 29 other Premier League clubs.
Sad can’t even have a typo nowadays
Well it's not really about innocent Vs guilty. We know they broke the rules, managing to wiggle out on a technicality doesn't make them "innocent". We're just waiting to see if they're going to make a mockery of the sport, or not.
Well I know for a fact that they definitely did not break a single rule. They have been dominating the league for the past decade based off shrewd player acquisitions, superior coaching and scouting ability. They did make a mockery of the sport by being able to so easily dominate it for the past decade or so. Makes me wonder why the other clubs in the prem are so sorely lacking
For a fact lol, please provide these indisputable facts you have proving City's innocence. Probably the same ones showing all 29 teams in the league.
Gotta love the double standard. Everybody’s proclaiming them guilty without providing evidence but since you agree with that, you don’t care. I say they are innocent and here you come screaming for evidence
There's enough evidence to charge them with fraud. On 115 counts. This is no longer sports, it's criminal charges these lot face.
Screaming for evidence is asking for undeniable proof which you claimed to have after already being wrong now?
I don't claim to have undeniable proof they cheated, but the FA have 115 charges against them, surely they have a good enough idea for their own rules.
There's almost a 100% chance that they have broken a good few when you consider that they have been charged of 115, there's no point pleading their case anymore.
Yikes
We know they broke the rules,
How do you know that? The entire case is based around an allegation and a flat out denial by the defendants, there are no technicalities for fraud. You're guilty or you're not, it's very black or white.
Because a club of City's size don't just suddenly create the commercial revenue they have before winning much, without some form of help.
It's clearly financed led by the owner, which would have been fine before ffp, like Roman during the early 2000s.
You can't be found innocent, only not guilty. You're presumed innocent as default until proven otherwise
Feels like most people here have already decided that City is guilty. Nobody is using the presumption of innocence when it comes to City, let’s be honest
It's understandable in fairness. They breached the rules before and only got away with it because UEFA bungled it
During the period of time that this took place all of their results being taken away, IE all game points all european coefficient points taken away and as that would've been over the course of multiple years than also that amount of relegations.
( And I'd like that to be for whichever team is found guilty of this amount of wrong doings, even Arsenal the club I support )
If found guilty Man City should be at the very least stripped of any titles domestic or otherwise they have won during the time of cheating, I mean that would be a fair outcome as they have “cheated” their way to success as a club, can’t really blame the players to be honest they are just really good footballers doing what they do best but the club and brand should be tarnished.
That would be significant and fair punishment and i could only imagine the other governing bodies to follow suit of the premier league if they did actually have the balls to go through with such punishment.
Relegation and force the owners to sell
In your dreams 🤣
As a luton fan, I want them to start again from non-league. As many luton/football fans will remember, teams have dropped divisions(and out of the football pyramid entirely) for far less
Force them to use "we are cheats" as their shirt sponsor for the next 25 years.
Fair market value of 200 billion
Forced club rebranding to "Manchester Cheaty" for all eternity 🤣
What I'd like to see is the punishments codified within the rules of the game, such that (a) you know what happens when you breach rule xyz and (b) so that you can't lawyer-up and find loopholes, you take your punishment.
Having the punishments codified enables clubs to find loopholes to reduce their punishments. It works far better if it is determined like case law rather than written into the "constitution" of football.
Can't believe I'm saying this 🤦🏻♂️
But...
The Chelsea fan is right here lads.
But...
Dont you guys have some charges too 😜
We have no charges as of yet. Everything Boehly has done is legal so far, we may have some fines next season if we don't make some sales before June 30th. But right now we are fine.
Also I am literally saying that I don't want clubs to try and find loopholes in the punishment system, if I was a deluded entitled fan I would want Chelsea to find those loopholes and be immoral. I don't though, I want us to play by the same rules as every other club. Yes I know you can say it's not the same rules because of the range of owner wealth, but I don't mean that, that's life, but I don't want our club trying to bend the rules, I want them to be scared of them and stick to them.
30 point deduction X 5 years
They would probably still qualify for Europe with that tbh… not champions league, but Europa or conference for sure
Owners should be forced to sell and never allowed to work in FA again.
In theory I agree seems like a solid idea that I agree with but I think it gets murky when you look at clubs who have ownership with investment firms and fringe investors or people who own stock, at what point and where does the buck stop and at what levels are people complicit?
If someone owned 51%+ of a team and were thus the main voice of the club I think it’s more realistic and also protects people who invest in their favourite club, to own a bit of it but have 0 say in what happens day to day which at this moment according to the guardian is 35% of clubs across top leagues. https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2023/aug/03/private-capital-funds-35-of-clubs-in-europes-top-leagues-research-shows
Should a Man U fan be stopped from owning a piece of the club? They need that hole fixed in the stadium roof somehow…
I want City to play in Vanarama North. Hell, they played once in the third tier, so it isn' that far from their pre-doped & actual level.
Top bants mate but city have spent 96 seasons in the top flight of English football, 26 in the second and ONE in the third.
The season in the 3rd division was in the last 25 years though. Middlesbrough haven't even gone to the 3rd division in the prem era. You have though.
He said once
That 0.0081% percentage of time is their "actual level" though mate. What aren't you getting about this?
Personally I’m not following how you reached .0081%. They said near their actual level pre-doped. So if you include the second level it’s 27/108 or 25%. Still too low to call it their actual level but not nearly as ridiculous as the incorrect percentage you claimed.
I made it up from thin air, I was purposely being hyperbolic. I thought the figure was extreme enough for most to understand that but evidently not...
If you want to work out the actual figure, the guy referred to the third division which city were in for 1 solitary year to suggest that is their level so it's still less than 1% of their existence.
You can just admit that you made a mistake. You divided one by 123 to get .0081 but forgot to move the decimal when converting it to a percentage. So you clearly didn’t make it up out of thin air.
GOTEM
I honestly can't see a drastic measure happening to sanction them. Abu Dhabi group are too powerful. I reckon they'll get a transfer embargo and 50 points etc, something that won't really impact them for more than a season. They definitely aren't going to get relegated to league 2 if that's what people are believing.
Sup
What I want to see is City dissolved as a club, fuck it include all clubs under the City group banner as well. What we will see is absolutely nothing, or a laughably small fine that's basically just a "look we tried" gesture. City will then try and paint themselves as the small underdog club that took it to the man and through sheer grit and determination won.
Terrible take.
Most normal Arsenal fan. What have Girona and Troyes done to deserve that
You try going through what Arsenal fans have been through for the last 20 years and come out the other side with balanced and reasonable takes!
The question wasn't "what would be a fair and appropriate punishment" it was "what do you want to see happen"
I'm very against multi club ownership, and ultimately the club owners are the ones responsible for allowing the breaches to happen and abusing the system. If it's happening at City it will probably be happening at their other clubs (albeit on a smaller scale).
The bit about dissolving all City group clubs was admittedly just me being a bit facetious, but I find it hard to believe that if they're willing to oversee this sort of culture with their biggest asset, the rest of them will be squeaky clean.
I'm a Gillingham fan mate, what you've "been through" is a life of luxury. Get to fuck
You try going through what Arsenal fans have been through for the last 20 years and come out the other side with balanced and reasonable takes!
Hahahaha. This berk is actually trying to paint arsenal as some kind of down on their luck minnows that have been through it. They haven't finished below 8th in that time you fucking melt.
Go through what you've been through the last 20 years? What? Being a trophy winner and consistently challenging? Oh boo fucking hoo you must've had it so hard over there 😂
As for Multi-club ownership. Your owner also owns the Rams in the NFL and the Nuggets in the NBA. Different leagues but as the Glazers showed. They still affect one another
Yeah I can't wait until we arrange the transfer of Jokic to solve our striker dilemma.
You know what the problems with multi-club ownership are, but use this as your example? You're just being obtuse
Are you trying to insinuate that City use their multi club ownership to somehow fix their dilemmas? Cause I don't think Savio from Girona is going to be the missing piece of the puzzle mate 😂😭
The point is, multi-club ownership makes that a possibility. Suppose City is sanctioned and relegated, so they loan Haaland, Pedri, and De Bruyne to Girona until they get back to EPL.
Banning multi-club ownership eliminates that possibility.
Ah yes because Haaland, Pedri and De Bruyne are definitely going to go play for Girona and not Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG or any number of mega clubs
You're fearmongering yourself here 😂
You equated multi-club ownership in multiple sports with multi-club ownership in one sport. I pointed out your false equivalency, and gave an example of why it should be banned.
No fear mongering, just surely if I have thought through the process, I guarantee City has.
If City owned multiple title challenging top flight teams across the major leagues of Europe I would see your concerns. But they don't so I don't. I would be more concerned about an ownership funnelling money from the NBA and the NFL (2 leagues whose teams earn a drastic amount more than Premier League teams) into their football team to supplement their first team artificially than I would be of City owning teams like Melbourne City
What Arsenal fans have been through the last twenty years? What multiple trophies, champions league runs? Must be tough on you that
I had to watch Manuel Almunia in goal and then Shkodran Mustafi in defence.
So yeah it was pretty harrowing.
And still finished no lower than 8th in the league? Christ, I'm a Gooner too but we've had it good the last 20 years despite the slight drop off, which is normal for any club as no club is on top forever.
Other fans have had to see their club relegated, at the edge of administration, or have had to sit and watch their team finish 13th season after season. Most clubs have little to no chance of ever winning anything or even making progress as a football club. We dine good my brudda.
You win
So fans of clubs that aren't even in Europe, who were bought by CFG, should lose their club as well?
This argument sucks
It doesn’t make any sense for the other premier league clubs and I am not saying this because I am a Liverpool fan. Man city not being penalized for everything that they’ve done is much deeper than football.
We constantly see ticket numbers being forged, spending at will, cup draws that are ridiculously easy, and tv scheduling to fit Man city’s preference.
Abu Dhabi’s investment into the U.K is astronomical. Man city being banished from the league would most likely push that Abu Dhabi money out of the U.K which could be detrimental for the overall economy of the country.
In my opinion and I am not a scholar or anyone that knows anything, Man city will continue to do whatever they want until their owners take out their assets from the U.K.
We constantly see ticket numbers being forged.
Ern, no we don't.
cup draws that are ridiculously easy,
Beat real madrid, Bayern Munich and inter Milan en route to their champions league win. Beat Arsenal, chelsea and man united en route to their fa cup win.
Couldnt really get any more difficult than that but yep, ridiculously easy...
and tv scheduling to fit Man city’s preference.
Lol. What?
This is next level delusion.
I have a feeling that they have already move on from the FFP& PSR loopholes that they had exploited. I suspect corruption is their strategy now.
When you have an Emirati Government official and business leader as the owner of your club, there’s no way there could be any corruption going on 🤣🤣🤣
Ok but first you’d have to prove half of what you’ve said here. Please show me your proof of City’s “ridiculously easy” cup draws being anything other than luck of the draw? Show me your proof for ticket number forgeries. If you want anything you’ve said to be taken seriously, then you need to talk seriously based on proved evidence not you’re opinions on what you’ve “heard online”
Citys ticket fraud is pretty easy to see. You only have to compare the match day income of the other big teams compared to City. It's like half of other big teams. You're definitely not getting that stadium filled
I don’t have to do any research when it’s right in front of my eyes. City play championship/league one sides all the time in the cups bar this season where you got spurs and Newcastle.
In the champions league you lot always get the easiest of draws.
Every time I watch a city game the ethihad never seems full there’s loads of empty seats and somehow the attendance figures always say sold out.
You lot basically give away free youth tickets on champions league nights because you can’t sell out. It’s super obvious! You just have to take the City lenses off your face and accept the cold reality.
Guardiola and city play fantastic football no doubt, but it is nowhere near organic. If financial rules were put in place for city there is no way you lot win 7 premier leagues in the last 12 years.
Man city’s success will always be clouded by how they got away with financial doping. Good on for you and your club enjoy those titles, but the world has zero respect for any of them.
right, like last year when we played Chelsea and Arsenal in the 3rd and 4th rounds of the FA Cup
Or last year when we played Bayern and Real Madrid back to back to get to the UCL final and beat a fantastic Inter side. Easy as cake that.
“I don’t have to do any research” could have stopped there.
Take a look who played in rounds 3 and 4 in the fa cup last year
Like I said take your city lenses off. Explain to me how the ethihad is always sold out. Just explain that to me and I’ll concede to you.
That’s a one off. Who did you play the years past? Swindon town, peterborough United, wycombe wanderers, Birmingham, cheltenham town, Swansea, port vale, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston, Oxford United, rotherham United, Newport county, Oxford again, burton Albion…. Give me a break mate.
Easiest cl group of all time too: Porto, Olympiacos, and marseille! Here’s another cl group; Atalanta, dinamo Zagreb, shaktar. Here goes another one; Lyon, shaktar, and 1899 hoffenheim.
Manchester city are absolute cheats. You think cup draws are legit? Give me a break. Like I said answer city’s sold out ethihad for me.
The Etihad isn’t always sold out though is it? I could literally buy a ticket for the Chelsea game now. So I don’t know how to defend the club against something that simply isn’t happening.
City get easier Champions league group draws now cause we’re a top seed, that’s how it works. Our first ever champions league group had Napoli and Bayern in it.
If you don’t believe in the integrity of any cup draw then that’s tin foil hat stuff and not worth engaging
When every season ends, city are always top of the average attendance figures. Make it make sense mate. Everytime I watch a city home game, there’s more blue seats than fans.
City were 6th in average attendance last season.
“Every time I watch a city home game” isn’t an accurate measurement is it?
yeah and last year we had a ridiculously easy CL run straight through Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
To help explain the sold out Ethihad, it's well known that City gives away a lot of tickets because no one wants them and it's good publicity and they can claim them as sold in the stats. Then people don't turn up to watch the match but the given away tickets are still classed as sold.
You serious bro?? A quick Google search on any of those terms will bring back tonnes of results. You just don’t wanna read them because your new favourite team might have done wrong. Everything u/Moetd7 said was right. City have literally just been caught giving out free tickets at youth games in an attempt to fill up the stadium and bypass FFP ticket sales regulation.
"Caught" giving out free tickets. Did this guy just try and suggest regular charitable donations of tickets to local school kids, something that every club does by the way and is something to be commended is somehow underhanded? Heard it all now. What a moron.
Every club does it, and should; you’re right. Get kids into games. But City have been doing it for themselves, not for the sake of those kids. They’re trying to fill their empty stadium and they’re giving out ‘free’ tickets that have already technically been paid for by the club in attempt to cook their ticket sales. It’s one of over roughly 115 things they’ve been challenged with.
It categorically is not one of the charges. You've either made it up entirely or you've read it on Twitter from somebody who has made it up. Show me something that suggests theres an ounce of truth to your claim.
They sell out every league game, Any empty seats are primarily a result of season ticket holders not attending every single game. This is nothing unique to city, it happens at every single ground in the country.
Ticket prices compared to season tickets and more importantly ticket availability have seen people who might not be able to commit to season tickets keep hold of them so they don't lose them.
You'd be very aware of this if you were a regular match goer yourself, it's a problem across the country that all match going fans are aware of.
My new favourite team? Oh darling you’re hysterical.
Okay, I should explain; That was a little dig at the fact that most City fans have only been around since 2012, but I’m sure you’re one of the golden oldie fans. My apologies. Anything else to say about your club or my comment on their actions?
Oh I fully understood mate. And yeah, I’ve had a good look for anything about City giving away tickets and I’m really struggling. Their seems to be this narrative that City at the same time always have empty seats in the ground but are now also giving away tickets to fill up seats, make it make sense. I found info on City doing a 2 for 1 on tickets for a champions league group game 10 years ago. My point isn’t I’m denying any wrong doing, it’s that you have no evidence you can point to, to prove it, cause you’re just a guy online not someone actively pursuing the case.
Not sure where you are from but it's well known in Manchester that City give free tickets to schools, obviously not everyone is going to go watch City just because they are given a ticket hence why you still have empty seats. Not claiming this is anything untoward as it's fine as long as they don't claim they sold the tickets.
I'm a United fan so I'm obviously biased but I do believe it's fair to strip them of their titles, it would send the message that cheating isn't worth it as once you're caught your wins mean fuck all
what does stripping them of titles do now?
all those historical tables that will still show city at the top and 2nd with a C next to them in gold ?
anything historical isnt going to work it will open up so many legal actions just for another team to say they were champions teams that should have finished in certain positions ect
- Points Deduction. (now if Everton get 10 points for 1 breach... city could be in for Thousands of points. are these points able to be transferred to lower divisions over seasons ? as an example lets say 100 breaches x 10 points (because this is the only historical punishment we can go off) = 1000 points.
do city start with -1000 points. of which they will go down and winning every game would take them to National Premier Division 1 in 8 years.
do they cap the points loss at a number per season ? this keeps them in the premier league and still be able to challenge and maybe have a chance at champions league but this would take 34 years to complete.
- automatic relegation to a lower division. now this would be the best for all the other teams especially if you are going past conference. the days out and money teams could bring in from playing man city would be great for the lower tier clubs and in my eyes sees a way of "Paying something back" but would sheik Mansour want to continue and you just ruin a football club anyway sell all the assets and dissolve the club. id like to think even if this is the case man city fans would take over as a trust and the size of the fan base would bring it back up to where it was anyways.
the issue is having the comparable punishment to evertons punishment. if that is setting the standard it has to be kept at the same level.. otherwise you have more legal battles.
the problem has been no set punishments have been outlined from the start of P&S/FFP whatever other name it wants
I’m a City fan and was there when we were shit and let me tell you, those wins didn’t mean fuck all in the moment and that memory never goes away whether we have a nice display of trophies that no one sees anyway or not. Strip the trophies for all I care and to be honest the majority of hard core City fans wouldn’t give a shit either, Aguero snatching the prem from you will never be forgotten.
Everyone won't forget that it was all fake. Look at Lance Armstrong.
Such bollocks. You lot are so deluded that city are completely innocent, it would hit your inner core to be wrong
Kinda like how I failed all my tests for years, then decided to start cheating and got a bunch of A's. Later my teacher found out and still failed me, they took away diploma and I have nothing to show for it. I'm a huge fraud and everyone knows I'm a cheating asshole, but hey at least I got to celebrate my hollow successes at the time.
Along with that, literally everyone else knew I was cheating, the teacher curved the grades to mine so I fucked over all my classmates, and the best part? When I got caught, my rich parents hired a shit ton of owners and enabled me to keep cheating and I acted like it was so cool how we hired millions of dollars worth of lawyers.
Totally get it. What fan wouldn't want to relish those memories.
It'll never be forgotten, but won't you be annoyed with the cheating if that title gets stripped? A great historical moment in Premier League history ultimately meant nothing because the owners cheated. Personally if this was my club I would be quite pissed off with my owners.
I really want to punish the owners of man city without punishing the fans who did nothing. Ideally for me the best case scenario would be to just remove the ownership of the club and change the rules for who can purchase football clubs.
Agree with this. As much as it pains me to see City win things and some of their fans are incredibly smug about it I still don’t think the fans should be punished for what’s happened. Just as Utd fans can’t help that our owners have been useless City fans can’t control what their owners do either.
Ultimately as well financial cheating just isn’t the same kind of crime as say performance enhancing drugs. The City teams outplayed the rest of the league on the pitch regardless of how they got to that point. I don’t know how I’d feel to see a decade of PL history just not mean anything. That’s damaging to the whole league and its reputation.
It’s also somewhat valid that the FFP rules were designed to stop owners like Abramovich or Mansour coming in and upsetting the apple cart. I think wealthy owners should be allowed to put their own cash in but only if it’s a pure cash injection.
Given all that I think the fairest outcome is a punishment for multiple ongoing seasons. Whether that is relegation, multiple seasons of point deductions, being banned from the EFL and FA cup for a few years I don’t know. If the crimes spanned say 10 years then maybe they should be curtailed for a similar length of time.
the majority of hard core City fans wouldn’t give a shit either
I’m sure you’ll both be gutted deep down
Unless they knew they were cheating frauds all along and always knew these were going to be stripped. But that has not been my experience with City fans.
Banishment from Premier and football league. If the PL doesn't want to play against (we are going on the assumption of found guilty) state sponsored cheats, why should champ/L1/L2??
Also if relegated, someone gets screwed out of a promotion or relegation place in the lower levels as these movements have knock ons.
City fan. Here's how I see.
The system has always been rigged. Then in the 80's/90's the marketing people and bankers saw an opportunity and turned football into a money making enterprise. At the beginning of this "revolution" certain teams had money and they capitalised on this breaking transfer and wage records all the time. This allowed them to be successful and allowed them to make more money. Look at Blackburn. People talk about us buying the league but never talk about that.
Then we got to the 2000's. If people are truly honest clubs had roughly the same number of fans in the UK. That's a fact. Some grounds were a bit larger but not much so revenues should have been roughly the same but then we started getting a full on international audience which along with the TV completely changed the finances of the game. Foreign fans (not all) were not like UK supporters who stuck to a team for life as the only connection (again not all) was watching them win. The huge amounts of money now started attracting businesses and people who could see opportunity. Buy a club, invest in players, win, profit. Even if you didn't get the fans to start off with that lovely TV money could still be yours. Win more be on TV more. More money. Play good people more people want to watch, want to buy your merchandise. Sponsors want to sponsor the best and will pay handsomely for it.
Then the inevitable happened. Chelsea were bought out and put on a path to success with lots of money involved. It worked. Someone had now shown the business model makes money. The teams at the top who were already established started panicking. If they have to pay more for players they earn less profit so what to do? Simple. The FFP under the guise of protecting clubs from overspending and going into liquidation. City were bought out just before this came to fruition. Whoops. What did the FFP actually do? It did the opposite because they punished clubs already in the shit. like it was some sort of stick to beat you with if you dared get ideas above your station. People can talk about sportswashing and unfairness till the cows come home but at the end of the day the FFP is only here for one reason and one reason only.
As for now we are seeing it in action. Should Everton have had that deduction for just going over? I don't think so. They are building a new ground. What purpose does this punishment serve? The fact they put it over 3 years of accounts means any team coming up can't start spending to stay in the PL. How fair is that? Then we get to City. The amount of hate we get is crazy but all we have done is used clever accounting to put money into the club. Time will tell if we actually anything wrong but I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed with the outcome. Does it take anything away from our achievements? No, why should it. United have spent more than us so if they had won everything would you have the same conversation? You would not.
What to do about the situation and what does the future hold? This is where it gets tricky. If we do nothing we are going to end up with a league of bought clubs pushing all the others down. If we stop it we end up with a league of a few clubs winning everything. Neither is good for the competition. The super league btw is just FFP on steroids. Designed to keep an elite at the top. If you support FFP you support the super league because both outcomes are exactly the same but on a Europe wide scale. We could put a spending cap on all clubs but again we doom the league because the best players will just go abroad for the money like what we are seeing with the Saudi league. I've seen people talk about a "draft" system but not being funny that would kill the league. There is no solution to this because of what football has become. There is no way to dial it back. What they do need to do is stop punishing clubs because all they are doing is making a bad situation worse for them. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree and point to a bias on my behalf and yeah I probably am biased but this is how I see it. The idea behind FFP has been clear from the start and it has never been about saving clubs and football just keeping certain teams at the top and protecting their bottom line.
People always talk Blackburn being one of the original ‘money’ clubs in the PL. Newcastle and Leeds would get thrown in there more often if they won stuff too.
Chelsea didn’t need to sell out to Russia to get to their new position. They were already achieving 5-6th regularly, and were richer than Arsenal in the mid-90s. Everyone knew the Emirates was soon to be built, so it would have been a case of Utd vs a new challenger by 2003 anyway. Chelsea could have easily taken up that role organically.
Fanbases just weren’t the same size in the mid-00s, be real.
FFP is more beneficial to keeping 100s of clubs financials secure, than it is keeping already successful clubs, successful. Even without FFP, your Arsenal’s, Utd’s and Liverpool’s have consistently come back to the top throughout history. People are just bitter at (particularly) Utd’s success. They hypercommercialised at the right time, Everton were one of the big 5 back then, why couldn’t they have done the same?
People would still attack Utd for having spent the most if it was currently their success, rather than City’s, as that happened mid-00s anyway. But atleast with Utd’s financials it wouldn’t be underhand and disguised ‘sponsorships’ bordering on, or possibly is, accounting fraud.
FFP was voted in, it wasn’t something 4 clubs decided to bring in themselves. People are just mad that their clubs still aren’t consistently successful, FFP made no detrimental difference to 99% of clubs, it just stopped more state-ownerships taking over and fast-tracking clubs to at least consistent UEL football.
Chelsea needed the money to go to the next level.
I never said mid-00s I'm talking before the PL.
How does FFP keep clubs financially secure? How does deducting points and sending you down a league make a club more financially secure? If anything it pushes them more to the brink.
You do realise United were bought with debt and are in debt. They are debt. Are you saying that is financially sound and not a huge risk?
Not all clubs voted for FFP and one of the main reasons why was to stop government regulation being introduced. The "big 4" pushed very hard for it because they knew what it would mean for them.
Why did Chelsea “need” the money? They were already richer than Top2 Arsenal. Without Roman they would have had to spend wisely, but they could have got to the next level. Having a good transfer strategy is no different to what Arsenal were having to do vs Utd and Liverpool. Selling wonderkid Anelka to buy Henry for example.
You specifically said “then we got to the 2000s. If we’re being truly honest clubs had roughly the same number of fans in the UK”. They just didn’t. Utd and Liverpool fans were already dominating areas that weren’t their local catchments.
Nothing will ever stop a club choosing to spend beyond their means, even with actual spending caps that could still happen, as shown by the Champions, Saracens, in Rugby. They got rightly relegated for that. Points deductions are part of the leagues own process, if you go in to administration you get a point deduction anyway. That already happened long before FFP. FFP just tries to intervene before clubs even get close to collapsing in to administration. Points deductions don’t always mean relegations, and relegations can force clubs to reset their squads back in line with financials they can handle. At the end of the day, it’s more important for a club to survive in League 2 than it is for them to go out of business trying to compete in the Championship.
United’s financials are at least structured debt against the clubs revenues, unlike soft loans via ownership investment. For example, when Roman left Chelsea he was actually owed £1.6Bn. They were losing 600k a week under him and the club alone wouldn’t be able to afford that. United could pay their debts, and would get their own punishments if they didn’t. There’s more integrity in that than there is just getting grants whenever you fancy it off the equivalent of a “sugar daddy”.
You’re again focusing on the small benefit it supposedly has for 4 clubs out of 92. Despite the fact that Chelsea, Utd and Arsenal have all had downswings in performance since its introduction anyway. The entire English pyramid voted in FFP of some substance, the Championship, League 1 & 2 couldn’t give a shit what benefit it gives the Big 4, and yet still voted in it anyway. Surely that would only hinder their own goals of reaching the PL money pot?
The thing is if you are against laws, be in football or any other part of a society, you lobby to adjust them, not just break them.
Or break em so officially that they have to talk about that.
But all your valid points are valid points, but are zero justification what city did.
I'm not looking for justification for City. Time will tell if we broke the rules. If that happens then we can have a discussion on the rules themselves. I highly doubt an organisation with lots of lawyers and money would take the risk of putting themselves in that situation.
In the fifa case it was clearly shown that sometimes city just breaks the rules. And we all know statue of limitation and illegal obtained proofs via football leaks, are the only reason city got away the first time. So time already told that city is guilty.
Or would you say mason greenwood is not guilty, just because the victim got paid off?
I can understand why they did it. The gap to Manutd would still be there 10 years later, but again unfair rules never justify the breaking of rules.
So city is guilty, but they propally will get away. Just accept it and move on, like the rest of us has to do too..
What was it 25m over? Hardly the crime of the century. I'm aware the stadium is separate. As for stopping rich owners I don't think it's possible these days to pay your way in. Look at United even they can't do after spending over 1bn.
Clever accounting?
No... outright lying, cheating, fraud and borderline criminal shenanigans.
I get that you love your club, and most of the rest of your take is reasonable and I agree with most of it tbh... But let's be frank and honest about City's true actions here huh?
If we get found guilty I will agree but I don't agree FFP brings anything to the table other than protecting clubs who already have money.
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