Manchester City Found Guilty Of Almost All Charges

[Nick]

3 minutes ago, Samilktray said:

They could invest in us after they sell, in an ownership role perhaps?

Yes, they could buy us, sue themselves for a couple of billion and then legitimately reinvest it into our club.

 

I’m in.

[Muzzy_no7]

[AKCJ]

7 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

But if Roy Keane accepts patting himself on the back and all of the glory that comes with his victories at United, from the point of view of a footballer, he has to acknowledge that he won those things because he was playing for a squad that was more expensively assembled than anything anyone else in the league could put together. He won because the financial power of his club enabled them to assemble a team of stars to dominate the sport for decades.

Completely agree with everything you've said but regarding this point....this collection of ex-Man United players that are everywhere in the media all think they won everything because they just worked harder and had a better attitude than anyone else.

 

 

[Les-TA-Jon]

16 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

You're missing the point. You're getting hung up on rule-breaking when I'm not.

 

My view is that I don't care that Man City broke the rules because I think the rules themselves are immoral. I'm not hand-wringing about the morality of Man City breaking rules and laws that were - if you'll pardon me being a little theatrical with my language - evil in intent in the first place.

 

I was angry when Saracens had a similar scandal in rugby union because rugby has a blanket salary cap that all of the clubs have to follow, it isn't relative, Leicester Tigers weren't allowed to spend more than Exeter because they had a bigger commercial footprint or a bigger match day revenue, the clubs all had a fixed cap they had to stick to. That's financial rules with in-built meritocracy, that's fairness.

 

In football, the rules Man City have broken are an absolute joke fabricated by the top clubs after they'd already cultivated their commercial footprint. They're rules specifically designed to pull the ladder up after themselves because "we don't want too many Leicester Citys."

 

And to bring it back to my earlier rant, Roy Keane thinks Manchester City's players should throw away their medals because in his view they don't deserve them. But his logic doesn't follow through. Man City's players nor their Head Coach were out there fudging the numbers themselves, they're not lawyers or accountants, they're just a collection of athletes and coaches who all came together to win something. No different to Keano and his cohort at United under SAF.

 

But if Roy Keane accepts patting himself on the back and all of the glory that comes with his victories at United, from the point of view of a footballer, he has to acknowledge that he won those things because he was playing for a squad that was more expensively assembled than anything anyone else in the league could put together. He won because the financial power of his club enabled them to assemble a team of stars to dominate the sport for decades.

 

How is that any different from Man City, their players and their coach? They were given a well assembled, well put together squad that cost a lot of money, sure. But how is that different?

 

If Man City had won by match fixing scandals, if Man City had won through chemical doping, performance enhancing drugs, if they'd won by corruption, if they'd paid off referees and officials and that was their legacy? Absolutely, I'd be right there with Roy Keane and everyone else. If we were looking at a Calciopoli situation I'd be right on board. Juventus were a great team, sure, but their players legitimately did not earn those trophies and they absolutely belong in the bin.

 

Bit Man City won on the same sporting merit that Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United do. There's no difference other than Man City's smaller stadium, smaller fan base, smaller commercial footprint and the fact they don't sell the same number of shirts in Asia, Africa and America was supposed to hold them back. 

 

Cry me a ****ing river, Big Six willy pullers.

 

For clarity, I don't think we're actually that far away from agreeing, for what it's worth. I'm not so bothered about the Roy Keane stuff or what players should or shouldn't feel about their achievements. That's not what I'm focused on here. 

 

I agree that the big clubs are a cartel. That the various FFP/PSR rules over the years have been to protect the status quo. That they pulled the ladder up after them. On that basis there's something inherently 'unfair' about spending rules that limit the activities of Man City, Newcastle, Leicester, Villa etc. 

 

But as I say, that's a separate debate. "The rules are morally wrong = / = Man City didn't break the rules" 

 

I guess I'm just hung up on the semantics of you treating what seem clearly to me to be unequivalent things, as the same thing. 

 

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but it also reads like, by your logic, every team that has had the 'most expensive team' and won something at the same time has essentially 'cheated' their way to that silverware. Which would likely apply to 95% of all silverware won in this country in last 2-3 decades? 

 

And I presume you think Man City have done literally nothing wrong and deserve no punishment whatsover? 

Edited 48 minutes ago by Les-TA-Jon

[jammie82uk]

11 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

Bit Man City won on the same sporting merit that Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United do.

How have they? Whether You like the rules or not is irrelevant, The only reason they can afford the players in the first place is because they broke the rules and failed PSR in 9 consecutive seasons

[Manwell Pablo]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

Keane was maybe the worst "I'd throw my medals in the bin if I was a Man City player."

 

**** OFF. Every single trophy he won at Manchester United he won because they could spend more money than anyone else. He literally played for them in the era in which their corporate section essentially invented modern football. Man Utd TV channels, Man Utd credit cards, they took commercialism in the sport to whole new levels that nobody had ever seen before. That's why he's got about fifty five thousand medals.

 

Put them all the bin right now Keano you massive ****ing hypocrite.

 

 

To an extent.

 

There was no rule against it back then though, had this conversation in the office as I have the pleasure of working in Manc and there's a City Fan and a Blackburn fan and the Jack Walker era got bought up. If there's a rule you need to stick to it, no such rule for Blackburn so it's not a fair yard stick (read Man U).

 

It is, for that reason though, I am personally an endorser of them losing their trophies. They were won in terms of Sport fairly on a field even if that was by a squad of players who wouldn't have played together had FFP been hit, the advantage is purely structural, it is therefore not comparable to the Calcipoli incident. 

 

The biggest problem for the sport is these rulings have in the long term proven to be the death of football and it's now a circus. There's no going back now as City will have the book thrown at them and you can't reverse the rules after you've crippled a club over them so we are stuck this FFP nonsense and now all of the private legal damages cases that come with it, and these rules don't even do what they were supposed to do, stop clubs making a mess of themeselves, as we've proven.

Edited 46 minutes ago by Manwell Pablo

[BenTheFox]

21 minutes ago, Reynaldo said:

Man United didn’t really cheat to dominate the 90s and early 2000s did they. They just had more money than everyone else and spent it in an era where it was allowed.  An advantage yes, cheating no. It’s not even remotely the same. 

This is true. What really happened is they struck gold by becoming the dominant force just as the Sky premier league league deal came into play and English Football became a global phenomenon and became a huge global brand as a result. The timing was so important for them. 

[Corky]

I am reading a lot about how these rules were introduced to prevent another Portsmouth or Leeds situation yet how does this square with players moving for north of £100 million, debt leveraged takeovers, car parks being sold to comply and many other dealings that hardly scream sensible or sustainable running of clubs?

[Finnegan]

19 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

I'm not trying to be obtuse here but it also reads like, by your logic, every team that has had the 'most expensive team' and won something at the same time has essentially 'cheated' their way to that silverware.

 

No, the reverse.

 

I'm saying I don't really particularly think that Man City cheated their way to titles. I don't think they should be stripped of them.

 

I don't think their players should be made to feel embarrassed or ashamed of having won. I think they won on the same sporting merit that every rich club has done and that's modern football in Europe's top 5 leagues (and realistically beyond.) I think the rules aren't ethical because they don't dictate what a club can do in sporting terms, they're rules that just decide which clubs count as wealthy and which ones don't.

 

I think we are quite possibly the only club in the entire Premier League era that can actually be proud of beating 19 other teams on a level playing field (not that it was level, it was massively stacked against us) and being Champions of England the right way and I don't think the wider world nor our own fanbase stops often enough to think how f*cking amazing that is (please god don't let some Tottenham supporting investigative journalist one day discover it was the biggest match fix of all time.)

 

 

19 minutes ago, Les-TA-Jon said:

And I presume you think Man City have done literally nothing wrong and deserve no punishment whatsover? 

 

There'll be Leicester fans on here taking the attitude that because we got shafted, we should want to see Man City shafted. But, actually, in the spirit of leaving the ladder DOWN for those that follow - I don't actually want other clubs to go through the experience we have, of being constantly whack-a-mole'd in to the floors of the football world because we overspent and flew too close to the sun. Even a club as disgustingly wealthy as Man City (and btw, anyone paying attention to the drivel I write on here, and I forgive anyone that doesn't, should know I don't exactly have a lot of love for woeful oil state monarchies with wretched human rights records.)

It just feels to me like the vast majority of football fans in the country are currently out for blood, they're waiting with baited breath hoping Man City get torn limb from limb and they're wanting to see it with some sort of bloodlust. What they want is to see one of the giants finally fall and for the rules to finally do some good.

I want the opposite. I want the outcome of all of this to be some recognition from the English football establishment (and really the sport, UEFA, FIFA at large) that none of these rules are fit for purpose or working. FFP, PSR, SCR, they can keep tweaking and refining and calling these rule sets different things but they're all just the same nonsense. Admit none of it is working, admit it's a cartel, have a ****ing full on revolution and just establish a salary cap across the sport. And not a salary cap that's pointless because only clubs owned by literal countries can reach it. A salary cap based that's blanket for everyone, that's achievable by the smaller clubs in the Premier League - or better yet - the top sort of 8/9 clubs in the Championship, so there's some upwards mobility in the sport.

 

So, yeah, no. Don't punish Man City, just bin off the rules instead. Maybe force the Big Six to have a whip round to pay some financial compensation for the points deductions given to Leicester, Forest, Derby, QPR, Everton and whoever else. That'd be cool. Have everyone's favourite expert Kieran Maguire calculate how much every club to get an FFP or PSR points deduction lost out financially as a result of being hit by those and lets get the "Super League" Bros who came up with FFP and PSR in the first place make us whole. That'd be good, I'd take that.

 

I'm not an idiot, I know it won't happen, money and greed rules the world and we're all ****ed. 

 

Edit: As an aside, can we start punishing owners and not clubs? Clubs are just groups of people, really, the supporters. We need legal framework that says it's the owners that get fines, not the clubs, and they can't take the money FROM the clubs to pay those fines. And those fines should go straight into the pocket of the CLUBS, not the OWNERS, of the damaged parties. They should be massive ****ing fines too. And you should be forced to sell your football club if you can't demonstrate you're not going to do it again. Stop punishing clubs - IE every day working fans - and letting billionaires off the ****ing hook.

 

 

 

Finnegan out.

 

Edited 28 minutes ago by Finnegan

[foxfanazer]

The furore of the lynch mob if they get away with this lightly will be glorious

 

 

 

[FoxesWalk]

7 minutes ago, Corky said:

I am reading a lot about how these rules were introduced to prevent another Portsmouth or Leeds situation yet how does this square with players moving for north of £100 million, debt leveraged takeovers, car parks being sold to comply and many other dealings that hardly scream sensible or sustainable running of clubs?

The rules are bullshit, but if the charges against city are to be believed this could extend to fraud, pretty serious charges. 

[Les-TA-Jon]

9 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

I'm not an idiot, I know it won't happen, money and greed rules the world and we're all ****ed. 

Thanks for continuing to engage and explain and well done us for this not turning into the 'a man is wrong on the internet' meme. 

 

I actually agree with what you're saying in principle, I too absolutely despise what modern football has become especially the circus around financial rules etc and I agree that idealistically there would be spending and salary caps that turn it into a true meritocracy. Imagine how good football would be if it was truly about who can scout, assemble and coach the best team? 

 

I think where we still diverge, is that just because the rules up until this point aren't fair or don't match the above ideal, doesn't mean clubs should have carte blanche to ignore and break them. 

 

I guess a perfect outcome here would be a big punishment for Man City, but ultimately this is the case that causes a huge revolution of the rules in general. 

[turtmcfly]

44 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

You're missing the point. You're getting hung up on rule-breaking when I'm not.

 

My view is that I don't care that Man City broke the rules because I think the rules themselves are immoral. I'm not hand-wringing about the morality of Man City breaking rules and laws that were - if you'll pardon me being a little theatrical with my language - evil in intent in the first place.

 

I was angry when Saracens had a similar scandal in rugby union because rugby has a blanket salary cap that all of the clubs have to follow, it isn't relative, Leicester Tigers weren't allowed to spend more than Exeter because they had a bigger commercial footprint or a bigger match day revenue, the clubs all had a fixed cap they had to stick to. That's financial rules with in-built meritocracy, that's fairness.

 

In football, the rules Man City have broken are an absolute joke fabricated by the top clubs after they'd already cultivated their commercial footprint. They're rules specifically designed to pull the ladder up after themselves because "we don't want too many Leicester Citys."

 

And to bring it back to my earlier rant, Roy Keane thinks Manchester City's players should throw away their medals because in his view they don't deserve them. But his logic doesn't follow through. Man City's players nor their Head Coach were out there fudging the numbers themselves, they're not lawyers or accountants, they're just a collection of athletes and coaches who all came together to win something. No different to Keano and his cohort at United under SAF.

 

But if Roy Keane accepts patting himself on the back and all of the glory that comes with his victories at United, from the point of view of a footballer, he has to acknowledge that he won those things because he was playing for a squad that was more expensively assembled than anything anyone else in the league could put together. He won because the financial power of his club enabled them to assemble a team of stars to dominate the sport for decades.

 

How is that any different from Man City, their players and their coach? They were given a well assembled, well put together squad that cost a lot of money, sure. But how is that different?

 

If Man City had won by match fixing scandals, if Man City had won through chemical doping, performance enhancing drugs, if they'd won by corruption, if they'd paid off referees and officials and that was their legacy? Absolutely, I'd be right there with Roy Keane and everyone else. If we were looking at a Calciopoli situation I'd be right on board. Juventus were a great team, sure, but their players legitimately did not earn those trophies and they absolutely belong in the bin.

 

Bit Man City won on the same sporting merit that Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United do. There's no difference other than Man City's smaller stadium, smaller fan base, smaller commercial footprint and the fact they don't sell the same number of shirts in Asia, Africa and America was supposed to hold them back. 

 

Cry me a ****ing river, Big Six willy pullers.

 

 

You not being arsed if Man City broke rules you describe as 'specifically designed to pull the ladder up after themselves because "we don't want too many Leicester Citys."' is hmmmm inducing. By definition it would relate to rules formed from mid-2016, which couldn't realistically have come into play until 2017, which would mean they a) only cover one of the nine seasons the charges relate to and b) would be rules Man City were themselves responsible for framing as one of the 'Big Six willy pullers', a group anyone unfamiliar with English football might come away from your post thinking they absolutely weren't a member of.

 

A minor point this, but your logic as regards the bit in bold doesn't follow through here either AFAICS, unless you're imagining a situation where it was the players/head coach who were match-fixing, or paying off referees, or doing a spot of 'corruption' (whatever that means in the light of 10 years of 'rule breaking of evil rules some of which were their own rules' obviously not being classed as corruption). It seems to me you are allowing for a club to 'belong in the bin' in cases where the playing staff specifically were innocent of charges applicable to the club management. 

 

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

Keane was maybe the worst "I'd throw my medals in the bin if I was a Man City player."

 

**** OFF. Every single trophy he won at Manchester United he won because they could spend more money than anyone else. He literally played for them in the era in which their corporate section essentially invented modern football. Man Utd TV channels, Man Utd credit cards, they took commercialism in the sport to whole new levels that nobody had ever seen before. That's why he's got about fifty five thousand medals.

 

Put them all the bin right now Keano you massive ****ing hypocrite.

 

While it wasn't as scatter gun as Man City they did pick of the best talent in the league Ferdinhand and Rooney come to mind, nothing like City though, Ferguson was more Pearson than Pep imo.