United’s position on this is: City spent less than us over the last 10 years, and a bit to catch up, wahhhhhh, so we want the rules fixed in our favour. Sorry it just doesn’t wash with me, you want to swap corrupt crap with corrupt crap for your benefit. The whole thing needs a massive reset.
I missed the stories about United taking the league to court to ask for rules fixed in our favour. Can you point me in the right direction?
I agree with the whole thing needing a massive reset. A reset with state owned clubs kicked out and explicit controls regarding who can own an English football club put in place.
In 2003/03, ten years after the Premier League was created and after ten years of relative domination by United - the difference between total spend (transfers and wages) at the top of the table and the bottom half was roughly £300m. That's the total spend over a decade between clubs like United, Liverpool, Chelsea versus clubs like West Ham, Middlesbrough and Blackburn.
Today that difference is close to £6bn.
People want us to believe it's a "cartel" of the established elite that is the problem, but Manchester United was the richest club in the world and dominated England for close to two decades without ever creating a financial gap like we see today. The top 2 which at various stages contained Leeds, Villa, Blackburn, Newcastle, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, eventually became a top 4, and then a Big 6 and now suddenly a "cartel". As if sides haven't broken in and then out of contention over time.
City and their paid for friends in the media are very clever at setting an agenda for themselves, and painting United, Liverpool and Arsenal as the problem is an easy thing for fans who grew up watching their clubs get beat by our teams to swallow. But it's like the Tories blaming the results of their corrupt policies on immigrants - a red herring designed to take the heat off themselves. It doesn't measure up to reality.
It is harder to break into and then remain at the top nowadays, but that is a result of what City (on book and off book) and to a lesser extent Chelsea have done over the past 10 - 15 years. United have spent to try and compete, often unsuccessfully - but we are one of the few clubs in a position to even try. What City and the likes have done is far worse on the smaller clubs trying to make their way.