They win it. It’s in the history books. That’s all they care about.
Are there any City fans that accept it’s tainted?
- Thread starter OldSchoolManc
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How can some people interpret the breaking of all FFP rules as the little man raising his middle finger to the establishment, it really baffles the mind. Well, i guess, it can be justified somewhat, if you subscribe to a neoliberal school of economics, but still...
Anyway, back to the question, i don't think there are any. If there are, they probably have checked out somewhere down the road and didn't wait for the culmination of a 15-year-long process. Why would they care? Most people don't bother with cheating in other, far more serious, aspects of everyday life. I know people who used personal or political connections to jump the queue and get high paying/high prestige jobs. Now, they're leading happy lives, they're raising families and just wave away any suggestions that they did anything wrong by using an argument that could be summed up as this: "I did it because i could". They also rank among the more prestigious members of their communities, getting their arses licked by other people who also know but simply don't care. And the ones who suffered the injustice are told to suck it up and step aside. You know them, too. It is what it is, and the world simply moves on. Maybe there's a lesson there for the reactions from the neutrals and the members of the press.
The only irony is that they can't even claim they've won the lottery. Newcastle fans can to a degree. A huge and passionate fanbase in their area, a historic club and lots of unrealized potential. They can claim they took the short-cut after years of mismanagement. But City... had it not been for United and Ferguson, they would still be struggling somewhere in the middle of the table in the Championship. Which is why, and you might laugh at it now, Pep will not go anywhere and City will only rest when they have 21 PL titles and 4 CL trophies. And their fans are going to enjoy every single day of this journey. Does it matter that they already know the script? It rarely does. After all, success is success and when you're on top of the world, whether it's earned or not, is something that bothers the ones beneath you.
Anyway, back to the question, i don't think there are any. If there are, they probably have checked out somewhere down the road and didn't wait for the culmination of a 15-year-long process. Why would they care? Most people don't bother with cheating in other, far more serious, aspects of everyday life. I know people who used personal or political connections to jump the queue and get high paying/high prestige jobs. Now, they're leading happy lives, they're raising families and just wave away any suggestions that they did anything wrong by using an argument that could be summed up as this: "I did it because i could". They also rank among the more prestigious members of their communities, getting their arses licked by other people who also know but simply don't care. And the ones who suffered the injustice are told to suck it up and step aside. You know them, too. It is what it is, and the world simply moves on. Maybe there's a lesson there for the reactions from the neutrals and the members of the press.
The only irony is that they can't even claim they've won the lottery. Newcastle fans can to a degree. A huge and passionate fanbase in their area, a historic club and lots of unrealized potential. They can claim they took the short-cut after years of mismanagement. But City... had it not been for United and Ferguson, they would still be struggling somewhere in the middle of the table in the Championship. Which is why, and you might laugh at it now, Pep will not go anywhere and City will only rest when they have 21 PL titles and 4 CL trophies. And their fans are going to enjoy every single day of this journey. Does it matter that they already know the script? It rarely does. After all, success is success and when you're on top of the world, whether it's earned or not, is something that bothers the ones beneath you.
It's the modern narrative that extreme wealth based privilege is some kind of rebellion. See Trump etc.
Do you talk to yourself often or hear voices?
feck City, obviously.
But FFP is a farce, and if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn't care at all about the alleged 'cheating'.
All it does is enforce the status quo. A lot of us won't care since we're a big enough club to have secured our long term financial independence. But for any ambitious club with new funding, what are they supposed to do?
IMO, it's not fair that some clubs can spend freely (whether or not they're owned by oil money) because of success decades ago, whereas others are accused of cheating for doing exactly the same.
But FFP is a farce, and if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn't care at all about the alleged 'cheating'.
All it does is enforce the status quo. A lot of us won't care since we're a big enough club to have secured our long term financial independence. But for any ambitious club with new funding, what are they supposed to do?
IMO, it's not fair that some clubs can spend freely (whether or not they're owned by oil money) because of success decades ago, whereas others are accused of cheating for doing exactly the same.
Yes you are correct. But on top everything else Glazer took roughly 50m pee season on divident and installment. Say that money was 100% invested back... Still hardly double or triple
Tbf that’s a response to the constant league domination of City and no one giving a single feck about the supposed corruption.
If the choice is getting corrupt yourself or fading into oblivion, many would choose to the former. It may or not be reasonable and justified but its a bit unfair to call it hypocrisy.
If there were no petrodollars in football I doubt there would be much support among Utd fans for Qatar.
By now they probably invested more than 2 billion in accordance with it. How is any club supposed to function on such pittance without adding in fake sponsors and giving double contracts?!
They feel it at some level. How else do you explain the tepid celebrations in the stands?
As if they would give damn about such a fact, for all they care they won it fair and square on the pitch everything else be damned.
Admittedly small sample size, but when I was growing up on the North Wales coast, there were three lads in my year in school who had shown no previous interest in football, but suddenly announced that they were Manchester City fans at some point between 2008 and 2011.
They never seemed to actually watch any football even then, but they did now own a football shirt.
I would imagine there's a fair number of that type of 'supporter'.
Bet you it all feels at least a little bit hollow to them, especially the older fans.
It's like cheating on FM, it's fun for a while but quickly becomes boring as there's no challenge. It's the journey and the challenge in getting to the top that makes it all so satisfying and worthwhile.
We experienced that in the 90s, with the decade culminating in beating the best teams in Europe and eventually winning our treble. That feeling will only be equaled if we achieve it again legitimately. It just wouldn't have been the same had we won it all through unlimited funds injected into the club via oil money, dodgy sponsors and over 100 charges of rule breaking looming over us
It's like cheating on FM, it's fun for a while but quickly becomes boring as there's no challenge. It's the journey and the challenge in getting to the top that makes it all so satisfying and worthwhile.
We experienced that in the 90s, with the decade culminating in beating the best teams in Europe and eventually winning our treble. That feeling will only be equaled if we achieve it again legitimately. It just wouldn't have been the same had we won it all through unlimited funds injected into the club via oil money, dodgy sponsors and over 100 charges of rule breaking looming over us
Of course it could be corrupt. If the competition offers a player a Picasso or bitcoins under the table, that’s what you’re up against. A Qatar take over would try the same stuff as City as they will fall behind if they dont. But it’s a balance as it also damages the reputation. A company like Ineos would probably have a harder time hiding it (making it untraceable) and it would therefore be a bigger risk.
Slightly out of topic but an anecdotal question worth asking nonetheless: despite City's success, why haven't they been able to accumulate worldwide support in high numbers like Chelsea did in their Mourinho peak? In my part of the world (Indonesia/Southeast Asia) you barely see any of their fans. If anything, around these parts the only club with a sharp uptick of support is Spurs. Son being Korean plays a major role in this.
The only part of the world where I imagine they could be quite popular is the Arab world for ownership, possibly Mahrez and FC Barcelona reasons.
The only part of the world where I imagine they could be quite popular is the Arab world for ownership, possibly Mahrez and FC Barcelona reasons.
What they can do is invest the money they generate back into their club, try to make more right decisions than wrong ones and, ultimately, watch their investment grow organically. It will obviously take more than 15 years to get from the very bottom to the top, but, on the other hand, the ground has never been more ripe for such enterprises. Football, nowadays, is an industry generating hundreds of millions and there's also a whole new set of younger fans who only care about records and the next shiny toy. But they can't even wait for that. Since money can buy everything, what's the problem with fast-tracking the whole process?
FFP was introduced to prevent (or, at least, try to) economic bubbles like Blackburn and Leeds from bursting. And it's not a farce. Even in the Mecca of capitalism, there are regulations in place to (somewhat) ensure that City-like phenomena won't happen. Most countries (if not all) in the western world have laws which (try to) regulate and establish a semblance of fair competition between companies.
Since there are so many people talking about fairness and the establishment. Let's say your grandpa worked his arse off day and night for 50 years to build a company. Then, your father spent the next 50 years making it gradually grow so that you, the third generation, can make 7 figures per annum just by running it smoothly: By trying not to make many mistakes, but to stay ahead of the competition instead, by balancing the victories and the blows. One day, a multi-billionaire decides to be your competition. He starts taking cash from all his other successful businesses and just injects it in his new project. He also uses his connections to break all the rules that are there to protect you (and others like you). You simply can't compete with him and you vanish into oblivion. Is that considered fair nowadays? I have acquaintances who worship at the altar of Thatcher and Reagan, and even they will tell you that this isn't how capitalism should work. Let alone that this is how the "peasants" can become the "masters".
Your don't understand the charges include paying staff "off the books". Your figures are wrong.
If it doesn't matter, breaking the rules of sport then we may as well have some teams playing with 12 men on the pitch.
There are a few things to note about the Man City project:
1. Having money doesn’t guarantee success. We have had access to large funds and have been shite for years. Chelsea also recently have spent big and are a mess. City clearly have top people upstairs making great decisions in terms of football direction.
2. Having a top squad doesn’t guarantee success. City have a top coach who is able to keep so many brilliant players happy, rotating expertly and playing a brilliant brand of attractive football.
The City we see now is down to Pep, rather than that prior to him that won a few domestic titles but were off it in Europe and a bit of a mess by the time Pep joined.
3. The players still have to go and deliver. City have such quality players with an incredible winning mentality.
So clearly they have top direction, a top coach and a special talented squad who have gone out and proven themselves at City and not flopped.
The big issue therefore is: why are they all at Man City? This is a club who had won the league twice in 100 years. Who probably weren’t even in the top 10 biggest in the country and had recently suffered relegations and were in relative obscurity in the mid 2000s.
As we all know this is down to the fact they have been bank rolled by an oil state, plucked from said obscurity and attracted all these top people to go there solely due to their financial muscle. This is just so hollow and wrong and anyone even if they aren’t into football would agree, and as per the thread title even City fans.
City fans rebuttal will be that other clubs have spent big with nowhere near the same amount of success. But the issue for me is that it’s them, a total smallish club who just got bankrolled, it could just have easily been Coventry City. When you consider all the empty seats, the fact a lot of people don’t even know any City fans and other evidence that they aren’t a historically big club on sporting merit - it really does leave you cold.
Finally, when you then also consider the fact there are rules to stop these clubs just becoming a front for Arab states and being van riled by them and City have just ignored them, celebrating a PL when they’ve received 115 charges and a CL when they were banned a couple of years ago - it doesn’t just leave you cold it genuinely feels as though the integrity of the game has gone.
1. Having money doesn’t guarantee success. We have had access to large funds and have been shite for years. Chelsea also recently have spent big and are a mess. City clearly have top people upstairs making great decisions in terms of football direction.
2. Having a top squad doesn’t guarantee success. City have a top coach who is able to keep so many brilliant players happy, rotating expertly and playing a brilliant brand of attractive football.
The City we see now is down to Pep, rather than that prior to him that won a few domestic titles but were off it in Europe and a bit of a mess by the time Pep joined.
3. The players still have to go and deliver. City have such quality players with an incredible winning mentality.
So clearly they have top direction, a top coach and a special talented squad who have gone out and proven themselves at City and not flopped.
The big issue therefore is: why are they all at Man City? This is a club who had won the league twice in 100 years. Who probably weren’t even in the top 10 biggest in the country and had recently suffered relegations and were in relative obscurity in the mid 2000s.
As we all know this is down to the fact they have been bank rolled by an oil state, plucked from said obscurity and attracted all these top people to go there solely due to their financial muscle. This is just so hollow and wrong and anyone even if they aren’t into football would agree, and as per the thread title even City fans.
City fans rebuttal will be that other clubs have spent big with nowhere near the same amount of success. But the issue for me is that it’s them, a total smallish club who just got bankrolled, it could just have easily been Coventry City. When you consider all the empty seats, the fact a lot of people don’t even know any City fans and other evidence that they aren’t a historically big club on sporting merit - it really does leave you cold.
Finally, when you then also consider the fact there are rules to stop these clubs just becoming a front for Arab states and being van riled by them and City have just ignored them, celebrating a PL when they’ve received 115 charges and a CL when they were banned a couple of years ago - it doesn’t just leave you cold it genuinely feels as though the integrity of the game has gone.
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Nah, I have zero sympathy for them, but very few people outside of Manchester/Manchester United supporters will ever think it's "tainted", unless they are actually officially found guilty and consequently punished of course, in that case the whole thing will be different. How likely that really is though, I don't know.
What I do find weird is the "nobody cares" angle. It's blatantly and demonstrably not true, both on this very forum and, at least, in the country where I live (Spain); I can't remember ever seeing as many shirts of a foreign club on the streets, and I don't even live in a big capital or a place full of tourists, I live in a small city in the middle of nowhere. Admittedly that could very well not be the case in other countries, just telling it as I see it.
What I do find weird is the "nobody cares" angle. It's blatantly and demonstrably not true, both on this very forum and, at least, in the country where I live (Spain); I can't remember ever seeing as many shirts of a foreign club on the streets, and I don't even live in a big capital or a place full of tourists, I live in a small city in the middle of nowhere. Admittedly that could very well not be the case in other countries, just telling it as I see it.
God you sound so pathetically salty. Are you sure you're a WHU fan?
Just for context, according to Transfermarket, United spent the 4th most from 1990 to 1999. Figures below are total spend in Euros. We spent 65m, 30m and 15m less than Newcastle, Liverpool and Blackburn respectively. We spent 45m more than West Ham United in 12th place.
Not extreme in the slightest.
Fast forward to the City takeover. From 2008 to now, biggest spenders are:
Chelsea: 2.44bn
City: 2.39bn
United: 1.95bn
Liverpool: 1.53bn
12 place is Wolves with a spend of 691m. So during the 90's, a total difference of 110m separates 1st and 12th place. Now that stands at c. 1.8bn.
Only the already established have been able to keep pace with the astronomical spending of City and Chelsea.
The gap now between the top and bottom spenders is astronomical. The best players are more concentrated in the top teams.
Do you feel closer to the top table because of City? Do you feel grateful?
If it makes you feel any better, West Ham would have remained shit through your childhood regardless of how good Manchester United were.
Unfortunately, Citeh and their tainted success are just a symptom of the unbridled capitalism that we live and breathe. It’s much bigger than football.
That's not true, sadly enough.
I think what will happen is that more and more people will fall out of love with the game but will still continue to support/follow their team.
It already happens now and will keep happening, as more clubs become toys of states.
But walking away from football altogether is an impossible thing to do for millions of people.
and also walking away from the league your team plays in. I wish it was that simple.
You mean like when Liverpool broke the transfer record for Stan Collymore in 1995? Or when Newcastle nearly doubled it a year later? That was a record that stood until United beat it in 2000. Leeds United that is. What you think and what happened are not the same things.
Says the Chelsea fan whose club started all the unfair overspending in 2004
There's still plenty of people who keep posting about how
I'm fairly convinced that only those big clubs who have had City beat them to trophies are even remotely bothered. To the Tottenham/West Ham types, it's just another bogger club winning, they don't care who and why.
- United have spent more
- United "Bought" titles like City have
I'm fairly convinced that only those big clubs who have had City beat them to trophies are even remotely bothered. To the Tottenham/West Ham types, it's just another bogger club winning, they don't care who and why.
Whatever make you feel happy mate. But it's sports that players gave all that to get success against fellow players. It's just not right to say it's tainted. It's their hardwork made it possible. Nothing tainted in it.
If players take dodgy stuff then tgats tainted. If referee was bribed and decided match out come then that's tainted. They won it fair. Give them credit for it.
Every so often you get a real pigheaded thick as shit bitter oppo supporter who makes an account, posts some shite and stays in the newbies for a good length of time. Sometimes they never make it up and end up getting banned because they’re a real pigheaded thick as shit bitter cnut.
Anyway, on an unrelated note - I disagree with your post pal. We didn’t spend the most and there’s clear evidence to back that up.
You were quite abit shite in the final. Oh wait, its not you as in its not Man City, its Abudhabi FC.
Too many of you are making the mistake of judging city fans by an outdated metric. They're a tiny club and the fans they had pre 2005 for example, probably split between the majority delighted to see them win things and rationalising that the game is generally corrupt, and maybe a few who wish they supported a decent club.
Beyond that, your average fan under 30 is of a completely different generation - probably came to city post money, and one who holds no real value or places no worth on history or sport in the truest sense of the world. They want to invade the pitch while streaming live, they want to have good content from following football, they want to have good memes and idiotic phrases like 'cry more' and 'shithouse'. They are simply disconnected from what supporting a club means and only know football in its current state- nothing before it. They cant even be blamed because this is all they know. They probably cant even see where the cheating is wrong. Its entertainment, much like following their favourite couple on Love Island, or contestant on X Factor. They have risen to the top as a plastic club in plastic Instagram times and it probably feels great for them.
Beyond that, your average fan under 30 is of a completely different generation - probably came to city post money, and one who holds no real value or places no worth on history or sport in the truest sense of the world. They want to invade the pitch while streaming live, they want to have good content from following football, they want to have good memes and idiotic phrases like 'cry more' and 'shithouse'. They are simply disconnected from what supporting a club means and only know football in its current state- nothing before it. They cant even be blamed because this is all they know. They probably cant even see where the cheating is wrong. Its entertainment, much like following their favourite couple on Love Island, or contestant on X Factor. They have risen to the top as a plastic club in plastic Instagram times and it probably feels great for them.
He's wumming mate
does a decent job at it too... the "resting Keane and Scholes for the final" should have given it away.We've got to remember that at least 90% of UK football fans get their information about football from SkySports and BT Sport punditry and commentary. Both appear to be unwilling to speak about the £5bn elephant in the room in any accurate detail. It consists of "Carra" giving some populist opinion about Pep being the greatest coach and Neville using the platform to influence future FFP regulation favourably for his own project at Salford.
The next 5% of football fans get opinion from Twitter which just consists of City trolls shouting cRy MoRe or pRoVeN iNnOcEnT whenever you discuss anything or merit.
Being active on a forum, listening to a range of dedicated and genetic podcasts, reading a range of sports journalism, etc. is a rarity. I reckon only between 1-2% of football fans have actually looked at the der Spiegel source material and understand football leaks, etc.
They require spoon feeding by MNF or "Fletch" which isn't happening for some reason.
The alternative is discussion descends into a debate about the issues with FFP (Neville's diversionary tactic). While it isn't without merits, it doesn't justify creating shell companies to fabricate sponsorship revenue, falsify offshore consultancy work to double salaries and evade tax and obstruct both UEFA and the PL. If you don't like their rules, don't buy a football club. It's not a justification to respond to overwhelming evidence if corruption by taking the moral high ground about FFP's legitimacy. You knew the rules, you cheated to gain an unfair competitive advantage over FFP complaint clubs. That advantage led to the success. Anything less that trophies being rescinded and permanent/long term expulsion from the PL is not satisfactory. The expulsion should at least match 50% of the period of known corruption (2008 to 2023).
I for one, would vote you to be cafe spokesman on this case.
You haven’t beaten the best of the best. The league was handed to you. You didn’t concede a goal in the FACup until the final, against a poor United team. In the CL you beat a poor Bayern team (compared to BM teams of the past) and a poor RM team in the semis. One that sold two of their best players at the end of last season to meet fair play rules. Hardly the stuff of legends. Yes you’re the best team in Europe. But only becasue there’s nothing else out there. The treble is the least you should be doing. And for the next few seasons. United “scraped” their way to first one because they faced the best opposition they could in every competition. And it was exciting.
This is a very good post, one that perfectly sums up the situation, that is irrefutable and proves certain posters ignorance around the issue.
bUT buT CiTy CheAts bUU
This site is getting more and more rawkish with it's whining. They are better than us and FFP is complete BS. Fergie would've loved this challenge to become better and that's the attitude needed. Not this whining cult of fans we've got
This site is getting more and more rawkish with it's whining. They are better than us and FFP is complete BS. Fergie would've loved this challenge to become better and that's the attitude needed. Not this whining cult of fans we've got
@cheekybackheel I've had similar anecdotal conversations about City lately. Brilliant ones in your post there, but some Liverpool season ticket holders have been saying "feck them both" which is honestly about as high praise as I'd ever imagine because normally it would have been only United they'd have it in for, so the hate for the blue side is finally getting to even the scousers
Some neutrals I knew wanted United to win on Saturday which is probably the first time I've heard a neutral genuinely to want us winning since the 90's. It's unheard of.
Some neutrals I knew wanted United to win on Saturday which is probably the first time I've heard a neutral genuinely to want us winning since the 90's. It's unheard of.
I'm going to quote Sir Alex Ferguson here regarding City and Real Madrid.
He was more concerned in 2009 about Real Madrid and the protections they had, of course, but he wasn't a stupid man and he wasn't whining, it's true, but he appreciated the threat these sorts of clubs posed to ours. It's come to fruition now of course
Someone tapped the tainted water.
I've been tracking City's wrongdoing since 2011/12 and feel like my moment has arrived!
Thanks mate.
I've noticed it with mates and work colleagues of a similar age that remember the real Man City and realise they're only being so successful now because of the cheating.@cheekybackheel I've had similar anecdotal conversations about City lately. Brilliant ones in your post there, but some Liverpool season ticket holders have been saying "feck them both" which is honestly about as high praise as I'd ever imagine because normally it would have been only United they'd have it in for, so the hate for the blue side is finally getting to even the scousers
Some neutrals I knew wanted United to win on Saturday which is probably the first time I've heard a neutral genuinely to want us winning since the 90's. It's unheard of.
The problem is when you speak to some younger people and they say City deserve it because they're run better and United have spent more the last few years so we can't complain about money