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

jontheblue said:
Have you even red your own previous post, or do multiple people have access to your account ?

You alleged sportswashing. I pointed out it was pre Abu Dhabi and for that matter, pre Thaksin. You should have backed down gracefully rather than continue to make an idiot of yourself. Sportswashing is a perfectly reasonable topic, but not in relation to the periods the club was a PLC

But if you want to separately talk about the commerciality of the deal, great. There was a deal to pay the council a percentage of revenue to start with, but it was renegotiated, with the council receiving more money than they used to, as part of the investment by the club owners into the stadium expansion. The club are paying to invest on a site they don't own. You want locals to benefit - well every past and future building contract in connection with the stadium has a requirement (at the behest of our owners), to employ primarily local contractors. From Ancoats to the stadium, a route I walk regularly to games, the area has been transformed with huge investment. And by the stadium ,we have the new concert venue and hotel being built.

Of course if facts don't actually matter, sure, sportswashing, cheating, blah blah blah.
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Have you read my post? I haven't even mentioned sportswashing. You are referring to the other poster. Maybe check in the future before making an idiot out of yourself.

Regardless of your investment in the area (which by the way hugely benefits your club i.e. the training complex, convenient to forget this fact) you have been paying what can only be described as a pittance for a proper world level stadium that has one of the highest capacities in the PL. Don't make it sound like you're doing the locals a favour when it's a clear bad deal for the taxpayer with the amount of money involved at your club these days.
 
I've made peace with the fact nothing will happen except a fine that will mean nothing to them.
 
neon_badger said:
City are pretty unique in this case, their community investment is simply a continuation of the reasoning to build a stadium in that location in the first place. Lots of people spoke of investment in the Old Trafford area when supporting the Sheikh Jassim bid, I'd be wary of this, the gentrification and foreign investment that's gripped the city centre is already on the doorstep of Old Trafford which is home to a long standing community and with the exception of a few side streets around the stadium is in good shape.
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Not really a unique case. Real Madrid have just refurbished the Bernabeu so they have more restaurants, shopping center, hotels etc for the main purpose it will be all year attraction. Barcelona are doing the same with Nou Camp. Spurs have complex around their stadium, even got a go kart track underneath now, Fulham new riverside stand has a whole complex of restaurants and hotels, Evertons new stadium will have a whole complex around it aswell. It's now the new normal.
 
jontheblue said:
When cities bid for Olympics or Commonwealth Games, a big part of the process is demonstrating the post-games legacy with particular focus on the main stadium

The most common end results are either White Elephants that stand unused or broken promises (e.g. West Ham stadium)

Manchester bid several times for the Olympics and Commonwealth games in the decade or so prior to winning the Commonwealth games, with no success. Those proposals typically included an 80k ish capacity stadium

Whatever you think of Manchester City, the eventual solution for the Commonwealth games was brilliant for the city of Manchester, who would not have won their bid to host the games without this solution. The club paid half the by today's standards, relatively modest costs to convert from athletics to football. Nobody can say with a straight face there hasn't been a hugely successful re-development and enhancement of the entire area surrounding the stadium. The old Maine Road was given to the council and the site was used to create a lot of housing. The council get a significant annual income which would never have happened if they had not done the deal with city. Other (minority) sports have fabulous infrastructure for their respective homes in the new campus. Manchester as a city has benefited from the extra publicity of now having two top football clubs on the international stage instead of one.

The idea the city, or the council, have been shafted by city, looks insane.

It was also a good deal for the club, but there can be times when deals are a winner for all concerned. I'd love to see you say with a straight face exactly who has been shafted and how, by this 'pure corruption' !
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Who has been shafted? The rest of the league for a start, who have to pay their own way and stick to the rules.
 
There will be a rug. There will be a broom. Expect the two to meet, at which time Pep and club ownership can light their cigars with $1000 bill notes and have a good laugh.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Is this the goverment starting to try to get this brushed under the carpet?

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Is anyone really surprised? The FA tried to stop the Saudis buying Newcastle but the government got involved to make sure it went through as it could have damaged relations. Everything in the UK is for sale to the highest bidder.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Is this the goverment starting to try to get this brushed under the carpet?

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No one respects them anymore, even other fans now who used ti talk them up that I know just look at them with disdain. Won the treble and people shrugged so had to settle for about a month or ‘omg Grealish drinks alcohol’ stories instead.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Is this the goverment starting to try to get this brushed under the carpet?

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That is that then. I expect a massive fine and no other repercussions. Sad day, premier league is going to be like the Bundesliga for the foreseeable future. You can get away with anything if you have the right connections.
 
Would be the time to just not bother with football at the top level, already losing a lot of time for it, doesn’t help we are crap mind, but stuff like this tells you the nail is in the coffin.

No integrity makes it the same as formula 1 a soap opera not a sport.
 
This sounds sinister, but there's not really much there. The only new information here appears to be that a government instrumentality is pushing back on a FOI request and a number of parties involved in an ongoing legal issue provided a "no comment" to some fishing journalists. Pretty standard stuff. The rest is repetitive filler.

FOI requests are rejected all the time relying on all manner of exemptions by government departments that do not wish to be in the news, sometimes for legitimate reasons and a lot of times as CYA. It's Rule #1 for communications between government employees to consider how such communication would look on the front page of a newspaper because a lot of times optics matter more than substance. Even if no untoward activity is going on, the optics of these communications still might harm relations if some government workers were getting chatty over email and the Emiratis were sensitive to public perception.

It's not shocking or unusual that a government agency would push back on a FOI request. In fact, it is probably to be expected. The Athletic still has their right to appeal and these communications could still be released if the grounds upon which these Departments are relying to reject the request are deemed bogus. That they are even relying on those grounds is cause for concern though because it is suggestive of an entanglement between an allegedly private enterprise and foreign relations (sportswashing).

Because of the lack of information here, these communications could range anywhere from a bunch of bored low-level government workers that are fans of rival clubs carelessly bantering over work communication channels about one of the biggest football stories of the year to actual, intentional high-level scheming to coordinate with the UAE government and get City out of this mess. We simply do not know from what the article presents.

It could very well be and probably likely is the case that the Emiratis are exerting pressure on the UK Government in this matter, but some pushback on FOI requests aren't what's going to prove it.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
This should never have been allowed to happen, it just gives City more power over European football and a position they can use to force through the abolition of FFP
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RedRocket9908 said:
This should never have been allowed to happen, it just gives City more power over European football and a position they can use to force through the abolition of FFP
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The current FFP is being done away with anyway, and rightly so imho, as it benefits greatly the ow ers of clubs that happened to be near the top of the tree when the English game went global, almost if not all would have benefited greatly from outside benefactors in the past.
What concerns me is that the limit of spending 70% of football related income on football in future years invites people like the Glazers to stay and others of their ilk to "invest" in clubs, with 30% of all income being taken as dividends - interest payments going forward.
 
All a bit mad, and there's got to be some mileage in thinking there would be a degree pressure from Saudi and UAE to make sure Qatar don't get hold of a United.

Qatar would win who's got the biggest club bragging rights hands down.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Is this the goverment starting to try to get this brushed under the carpet?

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They're a major gas supplier to the UK. Without Russian gas on the market probably don't want to piss them off. Similar to Saudi with Oil.
 
So this will all be swept under the rug with city fans frothing at the mouth about their "innocence" whilst all the success they've had in the last 15 years is not only built on literal human slavery and funded by blood money, they had to cheat their way to it on the footballing side as well.

This is also why Saudi Arabia was allowed to buy Newcastle. The UK was too scared not to let them do it. Pathetic.
 
You can pay your manager under the table, you can inflate your sponsorships and have 120 charges that nothing is going to happen to City or even PSG for buying their own players that nobody wanted. Al Khelaifi being the president of the European Club Association has a nice relationship with Alexander Qatarin.

But football is for the fans :lol:.
 
They will pay a huge fine and that will be the end of it.

It's infuriating that they will get away with it when smaller clubs have been heavily penalised for far less.

Every single club in the Premier League should just refuse to play them. Let them 'win' all 38 games by default. Sadly I don't think the majority of other clubs and fans will even bat an eyelid.
 
So basically, the biggest enablers of sportwashing a regime is the UK government?
The game has gone.

There is literally no point in watching this shitshow anymore because cheating and looking the other way on human rights issues has been okayed by the government.

Turn it off
 
MegadrivePerson said:
They will pay a huge fine and that will be the end of it.

It's infuriating that they will get away with it when smaller clubs have been heavily penalised for far less.

Every single club in the Premier League should just refuse to play them. Let them 'win' all 38 games by default. Sadly I don't think the majority of other clubs and fans will even bat an eyelid.
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100% - this is why the Super League was the saviour of football; it was the only way to govern these theocratic slimeballs. UEFA, the Premier League, FIFA and the FA are all compromised.

All the clubs with any organic substance should pull together if nothing comes of those charges and create their own league, rendering anything else Abu Dhabi ‘wins’ even more irrelevant.
 
OldSchoolManc said:
So basically, the biggest enablers of sportwashing a regime is the UK government?
The game has gone.

There is literally no point in watching this shitshow anymore because cheating and looking the other way on human rights issues has been okayed by the government.

Turn it off
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*looks at camera*

Yes, that's what some of us (only me possibly) have been saying for eons, that ownership of a club is miniscule compared to the influence these autocracies already have in your politics, defense industrial complex, economy, society, real estate...
 
I don't know why anyone is surprised the Tory government is up to no good. Of course City are getting away with it. The football authorities simply don't have the firepower to take on clubs owned by states. It should never have been allowed in the first place but here we are. Then again all major football teams are morally bankrupt. Look at the gymnastics our board tried to pull to get Greenwood back in the side, it doesn't matter where the money comes from or who gets battered by their spouse as long as the ball goes in the net. Right?
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Is this the goverment starting to try to get this brushed under the carpet?

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More important is our relationship with a state that treats people like shit and buys our weapons, than the integrity of our biggest sporting export.

The world, unfortunately has zero morals and everything is up for grabs in exchange for cash or access to cash.

Totally normal.
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
More important is our relationship with a state that treats people like shit and buys our weapons, than the integrity of our biggest sporting export.

The world, unfortunately has zero morals and everything is up for grabs in exchange for cash or access to cash.

Totally normal.
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People expect sports to zag while the world/society that encases them zigs.
 
Ofcourse nothing was ever going to happen to city, you'd have to be extremely naive to think otherwise.
 
adexkola said:
People expect sports to zag while the world/society that encases them zigs.
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Yes, people still expect government officials to uphold laws and represent desires and attitudes of people who elected them... Alas, governments have stopped doing that a while ago and have instead found ways to brainwash and gaslight majority while selling to the powerful minority

It's arguable who got corrupt earlier - sports or governments
 
Hopefully we get some kind of update on this from the Premier League soon as its been nearly 8 months since these were announced and we have heard nothing since then, meanwhile City have been free to continue playing and spending 100s of millions more on new players.
 
Khaldoon already laughed off the 115 charges as if it's nothing much earlier on. Obviously, he knows something that we don't. He is well connected with influential people in power in the UK. That's the reason City can cheats so blatantly for so many years and nothing happened to them.
 
I think we all know that City won't face any meaningful punishment.

Basically, they have succeeded in buying themselves a place among the so-called "elite".

Before Pep, there was a slight chance. But he's much too high-profile. There's no chance in hell that any football authority (corrupt as feck, they all are) will do anything to seriously tarnish the reputation of a coach/manager many now consider to be the greatest ever.

Forget it - not gonna happen.
 
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