A few thoughts on twitter about the accusations:
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with 130 FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th Sep 2024 | Concluded 9th Dec 2024 - Awaiting outcome
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
- Start date
The FA don't have anything to do with it, it's the PL making the charges
They’ve been lying about sponsorships and wages to prop up revenues and cook the books to circumvent FFP for well over a decade which gave them an unfair advantage on the pitch which is the very definition of cheating and blatant corruption.
This could end badly. Very badly. Gerrard might end up with a title ...
At first I was hoping if City gets stripped off their cheated titles, the 2nd teams like us can benefit and become the Champion instead.
On second thoughts, I prefer to leave that void on the Premier League trophy so that future generations will see this obvious void and always remember City being the cheat that disrupted the league for those years.
On second thoughts, I prefer to leave that void on the Premier League trophy so that future generations will see this obvious void and always remember City being the cheat that disrupted the league for those years.
Why not? PL stands to benefit directly from a more successful league.
If it means city get smashed back to where they belong we can allow it.
You don’t have to prove it on an individual basis. They spent money that they shouldn’t - against the rules - in seasons that they won titles for. They then cooked up books, made up sponsors etc to cover it up. They won said titles by cheating. I’m not saying they will be stripped of the titles, but it doesn’t get more “blatant cheating” than this - which is the point I was addressing in that reply.
Apparently if only half of the allegations are proven they’re getting thrown out of the league
Really think a lot of people are missing the mark here.
This isn’t a slap on your wrist thing this is 10+ years of cheating. Keeping players by essentially bribery backhand payments the lot.
The premier league would not take it lightly to prosecute currently their best team in the past x amount of years.
This has to be dealt with seriously or the integrity of the league is done.
This isn’t a slap on your wrist thing this is 10+ years of cheating. Keeping players by essentially bribery backhand payments the lot.
The premier league would not take it lightly to prosecute currently their best team in the past x amount of years.
This has to be dealt with seriously or the integrity of the league is done.
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This has nothing to do with the FA, this is the Premier League and their rules which City agreed to, if they're found guilty by the independent review.
The FA may impose their own sanctions on City but that's a different matter, if City were to be kicked out the Premier League there maybe a case for the EFL and it's members to say nah we don't want you either and that could see them booted down to non League football.
The ramifications are massive, I don't see titles and cups being handed to the runners up but the minimum City must serve is a points deduction and transfer window suspensions.
This might explain why Newcastle have been surprisingly restrained in their spending - perhaps they had knowledge of this investigation.
As for City, the news is about as surprising as learning as to which Christian denomination the Pope belongs. I expect a severe punishment. City may be able to afford expensive lawyers but, if the PL dodges this issue, they set an awful precedent for Newcastle and potentially Liverpool and United down the line. Also, the PL would risk facing problems with the owners of the other clubs who have missed out on trophies and revenues over the years (and who also have deep pockets for these purposes).
As for City, the news is about as surprising as learning as to which Christian denomination the Pope belongs. I expect a severe punishment. City may be able to afford expensive lawyers but, if the PL dodges this issue, they set an awful precedent for Newcastle and potentially Liverpool and United down the line. Also, the PL would risk facing problems with the owners of the other clubs who have missed out on trophies and revenues over the years (and who also have deep pockets for these purposes).
Strangely enough, all Liverpool fans were City fans when Liverpool weren't good enough to compete with us..
Agreed.
They're hollow trophies for City and they will be hollow trophies for us now. Let them keep the trophies and deduct 100 points this season. That'll be enough for me.
It won't be this season, this will drag on for years I suspect
All the money in the world will mean squat if the PL have rock-solid evidence. They may just succeed in kicking the can down the road Trump-style but it doesn't go away.
Thanks for the correction.
But does it change much? They are a smalltime operation compared to the gigantic sportswashing operation they are up against. I just don’t see how an organisation like that could ever „win“ a fight like that.
Well if what you said is true then the PL wouldn't be charging them would they
Oh well - naive people think that something will happen. Nothing, nada, zero...
Owners will fill a few more suitcases with cash and distribute to the right people. In return they will be told to be a little more discreet next time.
Owners will fill a few more suitcases with cash and distribute to the right people. In return they will be told to be a little more discreet next time.
Of course it'll be laughable. The regulatory bodies have been a laughing stock for years now. City are way too rich to be made an example of. I'll be shocked if something anywhere close to Juventus happens here.
So is this. Financially doping is still betraying the Premier Leagues idea of competition.
Mancheatster Cheaty.
If they got banged all the way down to the bottom it would make me feel very good.
Nice one.
There may be a silver lining to this in the long run, State backed takeovers will now know that they are going to be under intense scrutiny, at least in the PL, in United's case that may deter a bid, in Newcastle's case the Geordie's might not get all the money they thought was coming
Ahah city stripped of titles, that means we'll get a couple of...
oh
oh
Yeah but let's not pretend Juve had a little blip, a bit of an oopsy.
The FA could institute a hard salary cap to completely nullify (okay not completely, I'm sure) financial doping but obviously if the rest of the leagues don't follow suit English football might get left in the dust so I know that's basically a non-starter
I'd completely forgot about this after reading about it a couple of years ago.
It's obviously very serious and I doubt after 4 years of investigating the PL wouldn't issue charges unless they had something concrete.
I wouldn't want to be awarded titles(not that I think it'll happen) but relegation should definitely be an option.
Be interesting to see how City's slick PR operation handles this.
It's obviously very serious and I doubt after 4 years of investigating the PL wouldn't issue charges unless they had something concrete.
I wouldn't want to be awarded titles(not that I think it'll happen) but relegation should definitely be an option.
Be interesting to see how City's slick PR operation handles this.
No, I wouldn't class this the same as bribery or match-fixing.
If the Glazers employed questionable accounting practices and shady financial deals to clear our debt and allow us to spend mountains of cash each summer, you'd think we should be relegated, titles stripped and long term bans from European competitions?
I’ll take league 1 right now for a gerrard PL.
There is a little wish fulfillment at the moment going on here and RAWK. Chelsea I think will be fine. RA did most of his spending before there were any rules, then pulled back when they were applied. What City did, was ignore the rules when in place and tried to cover it all up. Chelsea were able to take advantage of RA being the first Oil Baron to distort the market at a time with no rules on this sort of thing as no-one foresaw that kind of money being pumped in prior to him.
Where Chelsea are in trouble is with Boehly's spending. If they don't get CL they'll be restricted and with the new five year rule coming in, they're stuck with a lot of their current squad for a long time, which is very risky.
Another element that shows wish fulfilment is the stripping of titles. Personally, I cannot see it. People are comparing this City issue with Marsailles and Juventus. However, those cases involved bribing refs. Unless City were bribing people in the FA/EPL to avoid dealing with them at the time, I think they will get to keep the titles.
My money is on a 30pt deduction like the EFL give teams when they enter administration. On top of that, I suspect a very heavy fine. This can be seen with the outline of the case against them in The Times. There is no mention of stripping titles. This I suspect is due to the EPL's rules not covering stripping of accolades if teams get caught of financial irregularities. If there were such rules, you can be sure The Times and Skysports etc would be shouting from the rooftops about the possibility.
Salary caps are asinine. And yes it would be suicide for one league to institute it. They would be willingly handicapping themselves.
That was the 2006 case, the OP I quoted was referring to the 2022 case which was far less serious.
Fundamentally they've damaged the product. The PL should be coming down very hard on City.
I'm sure City's legal team will take this all the way and try and drag it out as long as they can, over 100 breaches though there'll surely be enough to make some if not most of it stick.
City irrespective of it's legal challenge will not come out of this clean.