City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th September 2024

stw2022 said:
Retrospectively stripping of honours is pointless. Winning trophies is about the feeling and emotion of the time. Nobody's punching the air or starting an impromptu street celebration finding out that they've retrospectively been awarded the FA Cup several years ago.

It would be the same feeling a young fan researching their club discovering the honours they won in the 1950s on Wikipedia.

"Oh. Right" would be the extent of the impact
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It's not pointless. It breaks the business model. Fewer State-sponsored regimes will go through 15 years of corruption and money laundering to circumvent FFP if it is meaningless at the end.

It deters the wrongdoing as there's less of an end gain. If City continue obstructing the PL investigation for a few more years (as done since 2018) and are then allowed to keep "their" trophies, fans will assume no wrongdoing.

UEFA found they had used corruption, financial doping and money laundering but because the sanction was suspended and financial only in the end, City have claimed to have been "proven innocent".

The punishment has to match the premeditated and determined nature of their aggressive corruption which has undermined the integrity of European football.
 
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Has there actually been any development to this story other than the initial report and the subsequent “we deny everything” from City?
 
stw2022 said:
Retrospectively stripping of honours is pointless. Winning trophies is about the feeling and emotion of the time. Nobody's punching the air or starting an impromptu street celebration finding out that they've retrospectively been awarded the FA Cup several years ago.

It would be the same feeling a young fan researching their club discovering the honours they won in the 1950s on Wikipedia.

"Oh. Right" would be the extent of the impact
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They wouldn't re-award all the cheatingly won trophies, that'd be pointless.

But dismissing the wins from history would be a huge statement.
Hard to see the gutless league doing it, but if they're found guilty of 10s and 10s of offences then it can't just be a little fine and 6month transfer ban.

The hugest thing is can they punish City for illegally gained evidence. Not sure you can in real life trials, can you in football?
 
Have Inter submitted an appeal to be awarded the trophy by the courts yet? :wenger: That’s the best shot as well for the PL, considering that the Dhabis have all the relevant journos and half the FA in their deeeep pockets.
 
dinostar77 said:
Doing it first time round was the big achievement. Plus there was all the drama around it. Giggs goal in FA cup semi final, the extraordinary way Utd won the CL against Bayern.

City just dont have the history (at the moment). That will take decades to build.

Plus the charges of financial doping do take the shine off it.
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At the rate city are going that could take 1 maybe two decades to create a history, they need 2 more CL and 11 more titles to catch us up, and who would be bet against them to doing the same next year, we need Glazers gone and they need to see that they now must fall on their swords and just F….OFF
 
Garnacho's Shoelaces said:
It's not pointless. It breaks the business model. Fewer State-sponsored regimes will go through 15 years of corruption and money laundering to circumvent FFP if it is meaningless at the end.

It deters the wrongdoing as there's less of an end gain. If City continue obstructing the PL investigation for a few more years (as done since 2018) and are then allowed to keep "their" trophies, fans will assume no wrongdoing.

UEFA found they had used corruption, financial doping and money laundering but because the sanction was suspended and financial only in the end, City have claimed to have been "proven innocent".

The punishment has to match the premeditated and determined nature of their aggressive corruption which has undermined the integrity of European football.
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The irony is that City's "greatest moment", ie yesterday may be what brings their house of cards down.

Winning some leagues and league cups almost had them on the borderline of not getting too many assessments twitching. But the mix of the treble, a once only happening in English football and putting the likes of Madrid's noses out of joint will definitely bring sanctions.

Ideally premier league ones through these charges but if not there will 100% be a super league of all the other big clubs with heavily sanctioned rules on City. The rules that had City anti the super league before
 
Sandikan said:
They wouldn't re-award all the cheatingly won trophies, that'd be pointless.

But dismissing the wins from history would be a huge statement.
Hard to see the gutless league doing it, but if they're found guilty of 10s and 10s of offences then it can't just be a little fine and 6month transfer ban.

The hugest thing is can they punish City for illegally gained evidence. Not sure you can in real life trials, can you in football?
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A statement? Yeah I'd agree with that, but you'll never take away the emotion of those wins nor will any fan whose sides are retrospectively awarded titles give a shit about them.

"That night in Barcelona" vs "I was taking a dump when a BBC News alert in 2024 said we'd been awarded the 2012 league title"
 
Woziak said:
At the rate city are going that could take 1 maybe two decades to create a history, they need 2 more CL and 11 more titles to catch us up, and who would be bet against them to doing the same next year, we need Glazers gone and they need to see that they now must fall on their swords and just F….OFF
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Without the charges being proven or a revolt from other big clubs, City will overtake both Liverpool and United's hauls in the relative short term.
However there's no way in hell the other clubs allow that to happen.
 
stw2022 said:
A statement? Yeah I'd agree with that, but you'll never take away the emotion of those wins nor will any fan whose sides are retrospectively awarded titles give a shit about them.
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They won't retrospectively award titles but they could definitely delete wins from history. Like with match fixing stuff. Or like with stripping name titles from deviant individuals etc.
 
This level of cheating has me actually questioning why I still hate Liverpool more than City. If Liverpool win the league regardless of my opinion on them they do it fairly. Same with the Champions league.

If City get away with these charges my hate for them will be more than that of Liverpool. They will have totally swung my complete outlook on rivalry.

They are actually destroying football for me.
 
On another note my wife has commented my behaviour is like a family member has died today, she literally can't believe how I feel.
 
Sandikan said:
They won't retrospectively award titles but they could definitely delete wins from history. Like with match fixing stuff. Or like with stripping name titles from deviant individuals etc.
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Yeah you're probably right. I guess I'd favour punishments that had a present and future impact to those who's biggest impact is the editing of Wikipedia.
 
Quick overview over Swiss media coverage

  • They were sort of lucky to win
  • Still very much deserved, without explanation
  • Istanbul is important
  • Akanji is great
  • Akanji first Swiss to be core important to winning the thing
  • Pep now among the greatest
  • 1bn paid off
  • Move on, nothing to see here
Quality.
 
Devil81 said:
On another note my wife has commented my behaviour is like a family member has died today, she literally can't believe how I feel.
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Yea I feel like shit as well have muted all the Whatsapp groups and no social media for me. Watching them celebrate the treble is very depressing
 
To me today feels like the morning after a Tory general election win. Annoying but too inevitable to get too upset about it
 
Football in general is in a sad over bloated state. It has been ever since Abramovich bought Chelsea. It was a horrible moment for football. Recap for a minute. He bought the club arguably on the cheap from Bates for a couple hundred million USD or so...has since sold it for 5 billion. Ok he did not get much of that because of specific circumstances but can actually anyone believe this club is worth that much? It has made a small profit in one year since the purchase? Assets...meh more because of player value and increased real estate value, but the rest is pretty much the same. They do not even have a new shiny stadium.

City too, it is held up by strings and is it any wonder that we are talking about the cooking of the books now? The whole thing stinks and has taken a turn for the worst. I don't know how many of you have your own small business out there, but nobody could remotely operate like this. Now we have Newcastle and maybe soon Man Utd joining this ridiculous arena of what is now modern football.
 
Trumpeter Whydah said:
Quick overview over Swiss media coverage

  • They were sort of lucky to win
  • Still very much deserved, without explanation
  • Istanbul is important
  • Akanji is great
  • Akanji first Swiss to be core important to winning the thing
  • Pep now among the greatest
  • 1bn paid off
  • Move on, nothing to see here
Quality.
Click to expand...

I take it that Stéphane Chapuisat is now the forgotten man in your part of the world...
 
Trumpeter Whydah said:
Quick overview over Swiss media coverage

  • They were sort of lucky to win
  • Still very much deserved, without explanation
  • Istanbul is important
  • Akanji is great
  • Akanji first Swiss to be core important to winning the thing
  • Pep now among the greatest
  • 1bn paid off
  • Move on, nothing to see here
Quality.
Click to expand...

In Poland they are easily the most liked side I’ve ever seen. Usually when Real/Bayern/Barcelona won these trophies you’d have all the opposition fans and many neutrals rooting against them, I don’t know a single person other than United fans here that wouldn’t be absolutely delighted with City winning last night and I would even say that my United supporting Polish mates were split last night with some supporting City because they preferred a PL team winning (all of my Chelsea, Liverpool etc supporting friends were rooting for City). Virtually all the neutrals I know were firmly behind City throughout entire competition.
 
You'd have thought there would be some time limit on Man City having to respond.

I get it took the PL 4 years to compile all the evidence etc, but they're making a case.
Man City as the defendants surely just have to provide all the info to show that none of this is the case.
115 breaches, even if it took them a day to gather their proof of no wrong doing, they should be answering these claims by now
 
Sarni said:
In Poland they are easily the most liked side I’ve ever seen. Usually when Real/Bayern/Barcelona won these trophies you’d have all the opposition fans and many neutrals rooting against them, I don’t know a single person other than United fans here that wouldn’t be absolutely delighted with City winning last night and I would even say that my United supporting Polish mates were split last night with some supporting City because they preferred a PL team winning (all of my Chelsea, Liverpool etc supporting friends were rooting for City). Virtually all the neutrals I know were firmly behind City throughout entire competition.
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Huh, in my bubble other premier league fans absolutely despise them.
 
Sarni said:
In Poland they are easily the most liked side I’ve ever seen. Usually when Real/Bayern/Barcelona won these trophies you’d have all the opposition fans and many neutrals rooting against them, I don’t know a single person other than United fans here that wouldn’t be absolutely delighted with City winning last night and I would even say that my United supporting Polish mates were split last night with some supporting City because they preferred a PL team winning (all of my Chelsea, Liverpool etc supporting friends were rooting for City). Virtually all the neutrals I know were firmly behind City throughout entire competition.
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I mean, children are following this! Did noone think about that? Kids may actually believe it is deserved... We should protect them!
Crucial point when it comes to the FA's verdict!

Ok, at least in my neighborhood, no car honking was heard, and we're used to it and have had some mad ones before. Italoswiss in 2006, Interisti in 2010, or Germans 2014, that was really wild! Silence yesterday.
 
Changeisgood said:
Football in general is in a sad over bloated state. It has been ever since Abramovich bought Chelsea. It was a horrible moment for football. Recap for a minute. He bought the club arguably on the cheap from Bates for a couple hundred million USD or so...has since sold it for 5 billion. Ok he did not get much of that because of specific circumstances but can actually anyone believe this club is worth that much? It has made a small profit in one year since the purchase? Assets...meh more because of player value and increased real estate value, but the rest is pretty much the same. They do not even have a new shiny stadium.

City too, it is held up by strings and is it any wonder that we are talking about the cooking of the books now? The whole thing stinks and has taken a turn for the worst. I don't know how many of you have your own small business out there, but nobody could remotely operate like this. Now we have Newcastle and maybe soon Man Utd joining this ridiculous arena of what is now modern football.
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I think that showed what was possible for states if they invested in sport (soft power).

Football has improved considerably since the Chelsea takeover on the pitch (data, analytics, pitch quality, tactics, ease of access) but so much happens off the field now. Owners don't just hold influence on a club, but its community too. MCR city council has gone to bed with Abu Dhabi. And with City's win last night, that is a template for Newcastle to follow. The challenge is they need to be just as creative when cooking the books.

I couldn't understand the uproar from the media about the Super League breakaway. There is nothing to get excited about if power is concentrated to a number of teams, and UEFA/EPL and Sky are not working in the best interests of fans.
 
Sandikan said:
They won't retrospectively award titles but they could definitely delete wins from history. Like with match fixing stuff. Or like with stripping name titles from deviant individuals etc.
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Yeah that's exactly what needs to happen
 
Cloud7 said:
I was thinking about this yesterday during the match. The PL is at something of an impasse here. I think we can all agree that marketing and the prestige of 'the brand' is huge for the PL. "Best league in the world, anyone can beat anyone" etc etc. and in the last few years how much they have hyped up City, the Pep vs Klopp clash, the close title races between them and liverpool etc.

With these charges, any serious punishment to City is basically the PL officially admitting that they sat by and watched their league be tarnished for over a decade. Would they be willing to take that hit to their own reputation and have a decade of results have a huge asterisk next to it?

The counter point to this is that they have brought forward these charges, but I can't help but feel like they're hoping for an outcome like the UEFA one, where city got off on a technicality, so they can occupy the middle ground where they say that they tried to do something about it but couldn't, so their hands are tied, and the status quo continues. This is just my assumption of course, that they would prefer if this can just fade into the background rather than to have a line drawn through everything that happened in the last decade.
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That would certainly tarnish the league going forward. Much better and easier to put a question mark on their results (no retroactive bollocks, that's pointless and a huge can of worms) and break their backs with sanctions and intervention of the sort Barcelona had to face. Levers or no levers, they took a knock and had to rejig stuff significantly.

That would make it more interesting going forward, not saying "aye, remember Agüeroooooo? Nope, struck off". Couldn't give two shits about it, had to hear Agüerooooo over and over again for a year on MOTD and that's what stands.
 
Sandikan said:
They wouldn't re-award all the cheatingly won trophies, that'd be pointless.

But dismissing the wins from history would be a huge statement.
Hard to see the gutless league doing it, but if they're found guilty of 10s and 10s of offences then it can't just be a little fine and 6month transfer ban.

The hugest thing is can they punish City for illegally gained evidence. Not sure you can in real life trials, can you in football?
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Two points on this. The criminal justice system in England and Wales can exclude evidence for a number of reasons but material derived from unauthorised sources are not automatically inadmissible as they are in other jurisdictions such as the US, where the fruit from the poisoned tree principle applies. Judges here have to carefully assess the probative value of the material to a fact in issue against the prejudicial value it brings (Section 78 PACE 1984). Furthermore, as the material has not been collected by a state actor, there is generally more scope for admissibility. The likes of the "Fake Sheikh" evidence has been adduced previously despite it being considered entrapment and agent provocateur territory if it were a State involved.

I am less au fait with the Civil Procedure Rules governing noncriminal trials but aware that the admissibility gateways are even wider with more scope for hearsay evidence being adduced.

City's best effort is to attack the credibility of the evidence by suggesting the emails are doctored or our of context or otherwise unreliable, etc. This will require expert witnesses. The prosecution/claimant will be entitled to use their own expert. City would have to allow their expert access to their raw data for interpretation which is unlikely given ongoing obstruction.

What complicates this further is that it's a sports law case. It isn't even a "trial". It's a private regulatory body with it's own rules and procedures for evidence. There is no body with supremacy (i.e. CAS). There is far less wiggle room. The PL have spent years gathering evidence to accuse the most successful team in the past 15 years of corruption, financial doping and money laundering. I can only imagine the PL will allow their own evidence to be admissible.

On balance, the emails get admitted, unless City can prove unreliable but probably have to give access to their systems.
 
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Igor Drefljak said:
You'd have thought there would be some time limit on Man City having to respond.

I get it took the PL 4 years to compile all the evidence etc, but they're making a case.
Man City as the defendants surely just have to provide all the info to show that none of this is the case.
115 breaches, even if it took them a day to gather their proof of no wrong doing, they should be answering these claims by now
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City will kick the can down the road for as long as possible with delay tactics to separate the time proximity between the treble and having their corruption and money laundering proven for a second time. All the while, Pep will lie to the media about wanting a quick resolution.

The quick resolution is that this is corruption and money laundering on a scale otherwise unprecedented in any sports history. The emails are clear and unequivocal. Even while paying players and managers double their declared salaries through offshore tax evasion systems in the UAE, they had to generate fictitious commercial income bigger than clubs like Liverpool and Real Madrid. They couldn't even get the declared books low enough to make it plausible they weren't money laundering.

There is absolutely no plausible deniability. They are screwed.
 
stw2022 said:
A statement? Yeah I'd agree with that, but you'll never take away the emotion of those wins nor will any fan whose sides are retrospectively awarded titles give a shit about them.

"That night in Barcelona" vs "I was taking a dump when a BBC News alert in 2024 said we'd been awarded the 2012 league title"
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:lol: :lol:
 
Sarni said:
In Poland they are easily the most liked side I’ve ever seen. Usually when Real/Bayern/Barcelona won these trophies you’d have all the opposition fans and many neutrals rooting against them, I don’t know a single person other than United fans here that wouldn’t be absolutely delighted with City winning last night and I would even say that my United supporting Polish mates were split last night with some supporting City because they preferred a PL team winning (all of my Chelsea, Liverpool etc supporting friends were rooting for City). Virtually all the neutrals I know were firmly behind City throughout entire competition.
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Hard to believe that Bayern (and now Barca) were not very well supported in Poland considering Lewandowski, and also that many neutrals were "firmly" behind City "throughout" this year's CL.
 
erikcred said:
Hard to believe that Bayern (and now Barca) were not very well supported in Poland considering Lewandowski, and also that many neutrals were "firmly" behind City "throughout" this year's CL.
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No Madrid fan will support Barca, Lewandowski or not, and there are many people who dislike Barca in general. With Bayern many Poles will not support a German team regardless of a Polish player either, though they did get more support due to Lewandowski.

I don’t know many non-United fans here that hate or even dislike City. Many seem to find a reason to like them: Barca fans because of Pep, other English club fans because they represent PL and they are United rivals. And even when they can’t find a reason to genuinely like them, they don’t actually dislike them and will support them when they are playing their rivals (eg pretty much everyone I know that wasn’t a Madrid fan rooted for them in the semis).

I also don’t really know many people here that care about their financial history. It bothers UK based fans because they are closer to it but your average European fan won’t be equally bothered by it.
 
Sarni said:
In Poland they are easily the most liked side I’ve ever seen. Usually when Real/Bayern/Barcelona won these trophies you’d have all the opposition fans and many neutrals rooting against them, I don’t know a single person other than United fans here that wouldn’t be absolutely delighted with City winning last night and I would even say that my United supporting Polish mates were split last night with some supporting City because they preferred a PL team winning (all of my Chelsea, Liverpool etc supporting friends were rooting for City). Virtually all the neutrals I know were firmly behind City throughout entire competition.
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Sounds like a post written by a paid troll.

I refuse to believe this.
 
Define doing and il answer, ffs UNTD had and still have the funds. Total bullshit from your fans, where do you think your funds come from but investment in the Middle East oil, laughable and total misunderstanding on your fans part. Plus let’s not forget you want bought out by a Saudi, could not literally make it up. Hope you guys enjoy the gapes you suck on.
 
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