Man City found guilty of 114 charges

[777Kidnappings]

Im not angry about city. What a ridiculous situation where the rules mean thats its near impossible for anyone to break into the elite. Even the 1 off near miracles like leicester and dortmund dont get a genuine place at the table with the big boys. The rules would be okay if it wasnt such a global game but theres so much outside money for so few that winning football games becomes a distant second to global appeal when it comes to what teams can spend

Fuck city but fuck the other 5 who also benefit from their privileged unattainable (for the rest of us) position

Seeing them squabble over who has the right to spend half a billion and who doesnt is just funny. They arent arguing about fairness they are arguing about who gets to benefit from the massive unfairness of it

I dont really care about city because what difference does it really make to us. We weren't allowed to win anyway. The 14 others might go 100 years winning zero leagues 10 fa cups and 10 league cups. I dont know who these teams will continue to attract new paying fans. I dont know how fans of villa keep paying when every successful season ends with them being handicapped for the next

Whats the point. Feels like the rest of us are just feeders for the 6

[777Kidnappings]

I don't know why, but I just don't have the same anger on this whole thing at least as far as Man City goes.

All this flows from UEFA and the bigger clubs ring fencing competitions, not on paper, but the end result is the same. They created a beast with the Champions League to keep well established huge clubs happy by funneling vast sums of money to them so they wouldn't break away (and even that wasn't enough for some of them as so many of those clubs still wanted to make a new league where they kept more of the pie for themselves). The Champions League distorted every major league in Europe that year by year pulled up the drawbridge on 99% of clubs to actually win the main prize they're all fighting for which is the league they're in. I mean who here really has thought for decades now when the season started we really had any chance of winning the league? That dream did not die with Man City.

I can't really get that mad at Man City because they wanted to sustainably win things and they realised that never ever would have happened without making up the difference in revenue. Same as Chelsea...and why that whole situation was fine is a mystery to me. Do Man City just need to sell themselves to a friend and have them disclose things for it all be laundered and fine?

I'm not even trying to stand up for Man City, it's all a bit shit all around, but I don't get this thing of pretending almost that the thumb on the scale is not there every season and it's only got more so over time because of the structures set in place by those in top (likely leaned on my the bigger clubs while making those structures). If they had any interest in making actually fair league, where every team has a chance of winning it at the start of the season, it's not obvious in their actions. If we had a league where everyone followed a squad cap so all the talent couldn't be vacuumed up, had an actual wage cap so that teams with huge global presences couldn't fail on repeat until they stumbled to a winning formula etc etc and then they did this I'd be ready to throw the book at them too. I don't know how you separate the two though otherwise.

Also this is an aside, but you look at the ownership and what they've invested into Manchester and compare that to just their neighbours with the leaking roof who are trying to have taxpayers fund their stadium and then firing of the dinner ladies and it feels on some level bizarre that those are the teams the organizations are trying to protect.

Its not even champions league money. Least with that a villa or a newcastle can break in and then if it was only that theyd be at the top table and the likes of spurs and man u would drop out for a time.

Its massive sponsorships for the global few regardless of if they win. Theres no way to become a global brand without putting maybe 10 miracle seasons back to back while the global teams pick off your best players

If I didnt love everton I wouldnt bother with football at all. Its shite. Practically all of it.

[blueToffee]

Its not even champions league money. Least with that a villa or a newcastle can break in and then if it was only that theyd be at the top table and the likes of spurs and man u would drop out for a time.

Its massive sponsorships for the global few regardless of if they win. Theres no way to become a global brand without putting maybe 10 miracle seasons back to back while the global teams pick off your best players

If I didnt love everton I wouldnt bother with football at all. Its shite. Practically all of it.

Not just CL, although for a time it was only for a smaller pool of teams so that wealth helped cement those teams finances and reach. I mean the PL itself was also one of the first things that started the ramp up. There isn't just one reason clearly.

Unless they address the fundamental chasm of financial unfairness at the heart of these competitions then you're just swapping one problem for another.

Man City for me didn't take away most teams ability to win the league. They just took it away from the teams like Man United...and that's what I have a bit of a problem with in this whole scenario because that's seemingly when those with the rule book started caring.

Address the problem that it takes a country's finances to compete against the imbalance you have in these competitions and you take care of the Man City problem.

I won't be happy if they boot Man City to the sun and we're back to a loop of Man United > Liverpool > Arsenal taking turns to win everything again.

[blueToffee]

Just to add, as I was wondering, in the 34 years since the PL has begun (and indeed the rebranded CL) in 1992 there have been 7 winners including the very long shots of Leicester and the original money men of Blackburn. The rest you can guess I'd imagine, and if you did strike Man City's wins out then obviously just 6 at that point as shocker the runners up in each of the 8 seasons they won were Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

In the 34 years before the PL begun (just as an equivalent sample) there were 13 different winners.

So in that small window since the PL/new CL we've already seen basically half the amount of winners as before due to what is essentially officially sanctioned financial doping by a select few teams who are privy to these different giant income streams that were in part with the CL brought about to keep them happy. It's just rigging the deck a different way to protect big brands and also as a way homogenise football into being only about a select handfull of teams.

[74Blue]

I just fail to understand why PSR and now SCR even exists if I'm honest. There is no other industry out there that actively stops businesses from spending their own money. The Premier League are trying to sell their product as the best league in the world. If City want to spend a billion pounds on one player, why can't they? Or Newcastle for that matter. If their owners are willing and able to spank that sort of cash away, then why not? The only rule that should be in place is a restriction on the number of players a club can have registered. That would make it a.more even playing field and would restrict the ability for the likes of Chelsea to simply hoover up shit loads of players, just so their rivals don't get them. There was a ridiculous situation a few years back where Chelsea had an insane number of players out on loan. The vast majority of them were never going to wear a Chelsea shirt competitively, but were signed to stop anybody else getting them.
Let's say Newcastle decided that they wanted to go and throw in a billion pound bid for Mbappe for instance and chuck a million pounds a week at him in wages. As long as their owners have the money to do that and sufficient funds to fulfill that contract, what's the issue?
I know that we are not.in a position financially to compete at the very top table, but I don't see why we can't spend whatever the owners are willing and able to gamble, without fear of repercussions.
We were penalised for financial breaches related to stadium build costs. What the absolute fuck? A club investing in their infrastructure to create a world class venue, worthy of hosting world class football in what is supposedly the best league in the world, but gets penalised for doing so. What other industry pulls shite like that?

[Shogun]

Completely agree with BT but the footballing landscape means these points are just never going to be discussed because frankly it's not in the interest of the Premier League, sponsors, TV Companies, advertisers, etc to have anyone but the usual clubs winning everything.

I don't care for City breaking the rules really and never have but will happily see them punished just on the basis that they're one of the Sky 6 and they are certainly not good for the sport in this country imo, especially given the ownership.

But do I care about City paying Mancini from two different entities in a footballing landscape where Aston Villa have to sell half their team and build from new again whilst Man United can continue to spend £100m+ every window despite being a BILLION pound in debt? Certainly not. I'm more bothered about the PL being fair than I am all 20 clubs following the rules that actively make it less fair.

[TheRam]

Not sure why this has developed into a PSR discussion.

As far as I’m aware only seven charges relate to PSR, the majority of them come before 2018, and there’s charges of not cooperating with the investigation.

I find it mad that there’s a sizeable majority of football fabs who think gulf states owning clubs and sportswashing them is a good thing?

The Man City owners didn’t go this out of the goodness of their own heart. They did it for political reasons and to attract western investment and to attract tourism to their country.

It should have never been allowed. Same with Chelsea being allowed to launder dirty Russian money into the west.

Also, football has a food chain. Always has done. Even without PSR it would still be the same teams winning the league.

And don’t forget the majority of clubs outside the big six voted for the financial rules, as well.

Only thing I’d say in Cities defence is at least they cheated and were successful because of it.

We broke the rules and nearly got relegated ffs.

[Goaljira]

Completely agree with BT but the footballing landscape means these points are just never going to be discussed because frankly it's not in the interest of the Premier League, sponsors, TV Companies, advertisers, etc to have anyone but the usual clubs winning everything.

I don't care for City breaking the rules really and never have but will happily see them punished just on the basis that they're one of the Sky 6 and they are certainly not good for the sport in this country imo, especially given the ownership.

But do I care about City paying Mancini from two different entities in a footballing landscape where Aston Villa have to sell half their team and build from new again whilst Man United can continue to spend £100m+ every window despite being a BILLION pound in debt? Certainly not. I'm more bothered about the PL being fair than I am all 20 clubs following the rules that actively make it less fair.

Lets not question too much about Ancelotti being paid anything via Usmanov that he took us to court over....

[blueToffee]

Not sure why this has developed into a PSR discussion.

As far as I’m aware only seven charges relate to PSR, the majority of them come before 2018, and there’s charges of not cooperating with the investigation.

I find it mad that there’s a sizeable majority of football fabs who think gulf states owning clubs and sportswashing them is a good thing?

The Man City owners didn’t go this out of the goodness of their own heart. They did it for political reasons and to attract western investment and to attract tourism to their country.

It should have never been allowed. Same with Chelsea being allowed to launder dirty Russian money into the west.

Also, football has a food chain. Always has done. Even without PSR it would still be the same teams winning the league.

And don’t forget the majority of clubs outside the big six voted for the financial rules, as well.

Only thing I’d say in Cities defence is at least they cheated and were successful because of it.

We broke the rules and nearly got relegated ffs.

It's all related to finances at the end of the day.

Sure, not all the charges are officially PSR, but tangentially its all related surely? If they could be open about their sources of income and how they got the money into the club didn't matter, then there isn't any reason to hide anything (which are half the charges).

I don't think any of this is good, the sportswashing, etc but I think the pearl clutching I'm hearing from so many pundits and podcasts that they're breaking the "level playing field" is just so dishonest to what the reality is. Man City wanted to sustainably compete at the very very top of football year on year and that doesn't happen unless they brought in the money they did to fund that, as proven by no other team able to truly break into the top 4/5/6 every year let alone consistently win the PL.

Regarding the food chain, yes, agreed...but I was just saying there was already a fairly small club but with this evolution of the PL/CL it's become an absolutely tiny club and in many way is a closed shop because in order to compete with the clubs who have benefited most from the PL era you have to dump a decent wedge of an country's economy to level the financial playing field and sustainably compete.

Football fans of most clubs in the top tier know they go into the season with the likelihood that they can't win the league they're in. When was the last time you felt Everton could win the league? That feels like the bigger issue to me than one team breaking the rules to get that success in a broken system. If you fixed the first thing, the second situation doesn't happen. I know US sports have plenty of their own issues (the fact they can move teams around to different cities seems nuts), but you can at least say that maybe in a fan's lifetime there is a chance that they may know the feeling of winning the top honour (Knicks just recently). These problems are solvable if there was any sort of motivation to do so.

[Bluedylan1]

I don't really understand some of the whataboutery going on which ends up serving as a kind of defence for Man City.

Whether there are fundamental structural issues with English football, and obviously there are, is a separate point.

They cheated on an industrial scale for 9/10 years (that we know about) in a way that has totally invalidated the experiences of every other club and football fan involved in the top division since 2008. It's immoral and criminal.

If you don't agree with capitalism, you don't get to rob 19 shops on the high street and tell everyone you've done nothing wrong because the rules of society are the real problem. If you don't agree with euthansia, you don't get to help 19 people with terminal illnesses, who want to die, end their lives and then just shrug after it's done because you don't agree with the law. City haven't done any of this as some moral crusade to challenge the unfairness of the Premier League. They have done it because they wanted to cheat their way to success and self aggrandize, at the expense of absolutely every one else. And that's what they did.

Not only have they cheated, they have lied about it systematically as an organisation as a fully organised cover up and conspiracy, they have used the legal system and their outrageous wealth to hide that cheating, and they assumed that because they are essentially a country, that they would never be held to account.

They have tainted and ruined every game in the Premier League from 2008 onwards (including after the charges), even the games that didn't involve them, because of the endless knock on effects of their actions. It's all null and void in my eyes.

Yes, we need to change the Premier League and the inbuilt advantages that allows certain teams to prosper over others. That's definitely a huge problem, as we all acknowledge. But these cheats need to be fired into the sun both from the perspective of setting an example, and from maintaining any remote semblance of integrity/competition the Premier League has left.

They are an absolute disgrace. It won't happen, but quite a lot of their actions should actually lead to criminal prosecutions.

[Bluedylan1]

Dortmund sporting director on the record about the 2022 Haaland sale:

“Manchester City never wanted the real number out. That was the first condition they put on the table. Not the release clause everyone printed. The full package.

Officially it was reported as £51 million because that was the figure written into the clause and that was the figure they asked us to stand by.

Internally it was a completely different conversation. When you add the guaranteed payments, the structured extras and what was agreed around the player’s camp, we were looking at something close to €250 million all-in.

That is more than PSG paid for Neymar in 2017. City knew that. We knew that. They did not want Europe talking about it.

They were very clear: if Dortmund confirmed anything above the clause, the deal would become politically messy for them. So there was a private understanding.

We stay silent on the real total. They stay silent. A few people in the media were steered toward the £51m line and that became the official story

I am not going to sit here four years later and pretend we sold the best young striker in Europe for pocket money. We did not. City paid what they had to pay to get him. They just did not want the world to see the receipt.”

[blueToffee]

I don't really understand some of the whataboutery going on which ends up serving as a kind of defence for Man City.

Whether there are fundamental structural issues with English football, and obviously there are, is a separate point.

They cheated on an industrial scale for 9/10 years (that we know about) in a way that has totally invalidated the experiences of every other club and football fan involved in the top division since 2008. It's immoral and criminal.

If you don't agree with capitalism, you don't get to rob 19 shops on the high street and tell everyone you've done nothing wrong because the rules of society are the real problem. If you don't agree with euthansia, you don't get to help 19 people with terminal illnesses, who want to die, end their lives and then just shrug after it's done because you don't agree with the law. City haven't done any of this as some moral crusade to challenge the unfairness of the Premier League. They have done it because they wanted to cheat their way to success and self aggrandize, at the expense of absolutely every one else. And that's what they did.

Not only have they cheated, they have lied about it systematically as an organisation as a fully organised cover up and conspiracy, they have used the legal system and their outrageous wealth to hide that cheating, and they assumed that because they are essentially a country, that they would never be held to account.

They have tainted and ruined every game in the Premier League from 2008 onwards (including after the charges), even the games that didn't involve them, because of the endless knock on effects of their actions. It's all null and void in my eyes.

Yes, we need to change the Premier League and the inbuilt advantages that allows certain teams to prosper over others. That's definitely a huge problem, as we all acknowledge. But these cheats need to be fired into the sun both from the perspective of setting an example, and from maintaining any remote semblance of integrity/competition the Premier League has left.

They are an absolute disgrace. It won't happen, but quite a lot of their actions should actually lead to criminal prosecutions.

I think the majority of fans agree with you.

All I can say is, I don't exactly feel the same way. I don't think it is a separate point either when ultimately the structure is why this happened.

I've seen Man United/Liverpool/Arsenal fans win again and again crowing about their achievements like they didn't just win a three legged race but they didn't have to have their legs tied to the person next to them. I just can't get worked up by another set of fans having some degree of true success at the top end of the game. That is different to the point of the ownership and their actions, that's a whole other thing, and I know you're not arguing the point over the fans. Ultimately, this isn't capitalism or euthanasia though.

Although I might argue another comparison if we're connecting to broader societal issues is really that of inequality. If you have a society and limit upward mobility then ultimately you're setting up for something to break that status quo. I'm not saying by any stretch Man City are in any way the good guys in this, or French revolutionary peasants...but when privileged minority can retain advantages that others can't ever hope to get then it's going to lead to a reaction eventually.

Man City will get punished I imagine, unless they take their ball and go off to the Super League...but to me it's just more important to address the problem they were trying to circumvent. It sucks as a fan to know that we are almost certainly are not going to win the league again in this sort of environment, let alone have true sustained success at the top end. Maybe there is a miracle season in there like Leicester for us or one of the other 14 in the PL, but it's a long shot.

I ultimately care more about fixing the systemic issue than that of Man City. If the option was turf Man City out the football pyramid and go back to having around 4 clubs winning everything on repeat or put in wage/squad caps or similar so that financial advantages were far far reduced...I'd take the latter all day long.

[Jamokachi]

Personally, I find it hard to care...

Ultimately, I don't feel any more cheated than Utd being a billion in debt and still spunking wads of cash left right and centre, or Tottenham blowing over 300m after twice finishing 17th, or Chelsea spending over a billion despite being guilty of 74 charges, or Arsenal and Liverpool spending and spending and spending (even though they'll plead poverty) and leaving others in their wake.

It's just really demoralising all 'round.

[Cods]

It's all related to finances at the end of the day.

Sure, not all the charges are officially PSR, but tangentially its all related surely? If they could be open about their sources of income and how they got the money into the club didn't matter, then there isn't any reason to hide anything (which are half the charges).

I don't think any of this is good, the sportswashing, etc but I think the pearl clutching I'm hearing from so many pundits and podcasts that they're breaking the "level playing field" is just so dishonest to what the reality is. Man City wanted to sustainably compete at the very very top of football year on year and that doesn't happen unless they brought in the money they did to fund that, as proven by no other team able to truly break into the top 4/5/6 every year let alone consistently win the PL.

Regarding the food chain, yes, agreed...but I was just saying there was already a fairly small club but with this evolution of the PL/CL it's become an absolutely tiny club and in many way is a closed shop because in order to compete with the clubs who have benefited most from the PL era you have to dump a decent wedge of an country's economy to level the financial playing field and sustainably compete.

Football fans of most clubs in the top tier know they go into the season with the likelihood that they can't win the league they're in. When was the last time you felt Everton could win the league? That feels like the bigger issue to me than one team breaking the rules to get that success in a broken system. If you fixed the first thing, the second situation doesn't happen. I know US sports have plenty of their own issues (the fact they can move teams around to different cities seems nuts), but you can at least say that maybe in a fan's lifetime there is a chance that they may know the feeling of winning the top honour (Knicks just recently). These problems are solvable if there was any sort of motivation to do so.

Not just US clubs.

Practically all clubs in all sport in Australia have a better sense of competition than the EPL and European football, and it really works well.

Only on an extremely rare occasion do clubs up stumps and move, I can't even think of one tbh.

Sometimes, again on a very rare occasion, might a club with serious and long term financial issues merge with another club, usually into a region new to the sport, to solve an expanding area becoming popular to that league. Think MKDons without all the poisonous vitriol and politics.

In the AFL, new-ish club Brisbane merged with financially stricken Fitzroy(Melbourne) and Sydney with historic club South Melbourne.

Neither mergers were clean and without emotion, but they're both now some of the most successful clubs in the country.

It's no good having the same bullies beating up on the poor kids every week. Without a David beating a Goliath every now and again it's, by definition, no competition at all.

[Blueomar]

20 points????

Didnt we get half of that for a couple of charges?

Should be 600 points if we going by equivalent punishments.

Perhaps more than 20 then, but wouldn't anything above what results in relegation be inconsequential? It's not as though a negative points total would carry over into the following season.

That's why, as I stated, there are points deductions in each season for the next 10 years, descending per year. In addition to denying champions league for 5 years (which would probably be the strongest impact on them).

I also posted that within the context of Chelsea basically getting no punishment at all, which is the more recent precedent to have been set.