They simply can’t let them get away with it, the ramifications of doing so are far worse.
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th September 2024
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
It'll be chaos if they do. Other clubs may start to take action themselves if they see the PL as being toothless.
If City somehow squirm their way out or it, I can see the big clubs threatening to leave for the Super League again, at a minimum.
That’s what they are calling City‘s end? One season in the championship? If that’s what they are aiming for, the final penalty will really be ridiculously soft.
One hope so. But shouldn’t there have been any noise from these clubs by now? It seems that all PL clubs are just quietly accepting City’s antics.
demotion and stripped of titles would be adequate I feel.
As much as we all want severe immediate sporting punishment perhaps more important will be the longer term stipulations. City need to be hit with transfer bans, squad limitations and put be under season on season audit for a prolonged period of time
If you offered city 1 relegation now with no long term implications I imagine they'll snap your hand off
If you offered city 1 relegation now with no long term implications I imagine they'll snap your hand off
The stripping of the titles is an absolute must. Simply relegating them to the championship for a season will not suffice.
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I like the idea of them getting a massive fine and being deducted 30points every season for next 3 seasons.
I like the idea of them getting a massive fine and being deducted 30points every season for next 3 seasons.
Correct. If it's ust a one time relegation it will easily have been worth it for City. They've established themselves as one of the top clubs in the world by cheating for several years in a row. That's not undone by 1 season in the Championship after which they will be back. If they are found guilty it would be one of the biggest scandals in football ever and the punishment has to reflect that.
They would surely lose loads of their best players and take a huge revenue hit, and wouldn’t be able to manipulate the system to recover?
It has to be stripping of titles. Also relegation would just f up the Championship for a season. No need for their cheating to ruin yet another competition when there's an easy solution that'd only hit them. I'm not for re-awarding the titles either. The record books showing asterisks and 'trophy withheld due to Manchester City cheating' ad infinitum would ensure their much wanted place in football history was achieved.
Not really. The owners are basically a bottomless pit of money so they’ll still be paying the players a fortune and they’ll just say look, stay and do this one season in the Championship and we’ll bounce straight back up and be challenging for the Premier League again the following season. It’s only one year of no European football and i’m sure there will be a big fat bonus for every player involved in getting them back up as well. That’s why it’s so important they’re stripped of all titles as well, there needs to be real lasting damage from what they’ve done. If not then they’ll simply bounce back and pick up where they left off, adding more trophies on top of the ones they’ve already amassed through corrupt means. Instead of starting from scratch which they should rightly have to do.
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Disagree. I feel many of their players would leave if they were relegated.
If they’re relegated is it not then up to the football league to accept them? I get when it’s a normal relegation things are straightforward, but we’re talking a completely different situation here.
Some will probably leave of course but it’ll most likely be players like KDB who are at the tail end of their careers and would most likely be moving on soon anyway. I think the main core of their squad will remain and they will be very heavily incentivised to do so. I think it all depends on whether they can keep hold of Pep if shit hits the fan. If he jumps ship then I think there could possibly be a bit of an exodus, but if he remains I can see the bulk of their squad staying as well.
Good point, it would feck up the league they land in as they would dominate it and come straight back up.
Would they? Look at what happened with Juventus in 06. Relegated to Serie B, won that with absolute ease of course earning promotion, and then straight back into the top 3 for two years in a row. Then they had two bad years where they placed 7th twice after which they went on a winning spree winning the title 9 (!) times in a row. So long term the relegation did feck all really.
Abu Dhabi FC aren't coming back. City may be back in a few years, but there's no way their current ownership will be allowed back in the PL.
Best to just dissolve the club then
We've punished them with an unprecedented fine!
Actually they can. They'll just find that there's only enough proof to charge them with some minor stuff that is just enough to save face, get a big fat fine and move along.
PL get richer, 'make a statement' to other clubs and City can say they're 'vindicated' too.
Disappointing to see there's s no mention at all of title/trophy stripping. While it says any sanction is open to the PL, all the quotes and comments talk about points deductions/relegation. Good to see the real City/Abu Dhabi shinning through in their counter claim though.
Whilst I agree, I think if they’re found guilty it’ll be pretty much the consensus that those titles don’t count anyway. Nobody will recognise them as legitimate, which is the next best thing.
The only way the Premier League can "relegate" Man City is with a points deduction, which would put them in one of the 3 relegation places. The Championship would accept them in this case.
Fair point! Cheers.
Another thing about a points deduction is it solely benefits teams going for the title this season. So Utd finish second twice against a cheating City, Liverpool the same, Arsenal have multiple 2nd places but whoever has the standout season this year or next year is the only one that benefits? If you’ve battled with City for years and missed out on titles because of them and you just happen to be on a bit of a downturn, where’s the justice there?
I think so too. A record fine, in the region of 200m, which the PL will say will be distributed to the rest of the PL teams and I can guarantee you the majority of teams will back that decision.
Trouble is, the precedent for points deduction has already been set with Forest and Everton. I'm too lazy to look but i'm pretty sure Everton at least would have finished quite a few places higher last season, which in turn would have meant more money (not a lot but some) for new players etc. It just becomes an absolute mess if a points deduction isn't used.
Hope so. The club has already said that whatever fine they are forced to pay they will pay in one penny pieces delivered in sweet jars, taking the PL 5 years to count.
The likes of Talkshite, Sky, 5Live will still be blowing smoke up their arses about the 4 PL s in a row though.
Only this afternoon, Talkshite were saying that City are the team to beat without any mention, or caveat, about their cheating.
The hearing will start in 2024 but no one will be listening. feck all will happen from this. If it did, it would have happened a while ago.
What about for all those years they stopped reporting to the PL? Are those going to be overlooked for these offences/breaches?
The entire club is a breach of integrity of the Football Leagues, the FA, UEFA and yet they were welcomed with open arms, I don’t see why it will change suddenly.
What about for all those years they stopped reporting to the PL? Are those going to be overlooked for these offences/breaches?
The entire club is a breach of integrity of the Football Leagues, the FA, UEFA and yet they were welcomed with open arms, I don’t see why it will change suddenly.
200M/19 (or 23 for the previous PL teams) is about 10M each. That's absolutely nothing, why would the majority agree to that ?
It did annoy me last night when they said ‘even United couldn’t do 4 in a row’. They haven’t been found guilty yet though, it’s probably for legal reasons that they’re all shit scared of even referencing the 115 charges.
If they’re found guilty, I think the media will have no excuse but to reflect fan sentiment.
What is the possibility of a class action lawsuit being brought by any club that feels their cheating has impacted their earnings since 2008?
Surely if they are found guilty then there is a real case for one.
Surely if they are found guilty then there is a real case for one.
For me, I’d be happy with all titles stripped and 100 point deduction this year.
Guarantees relegation, means this season and next season at the very least are write offs
I’m also not sure how it works but they’d have to comply with championship ffp, which means wages would have to fall a lot surely, which means players would have to be sold.
On top of that, clubs could easily play hard ball with them.
As for loaning them all out, when does that max of 10 loans per club come into affect.
I think being in the championship would be a bigger hinderance than some people think
Guarantees relegation, means this season and next season at the very least are write offs
I’m also not sure how it works but they’d have to comply with championship ffp, which means wages would have to fall a lot surely, which means players would have to be sold.
On top of that, clubs could easily play hard ball with them.
As for loaning them all out, when does that max of 10 loans per club come into affect.
I think being in the championship would be a bigger hinderance than some people think
That's such nonsensical logic.
The league could have either not bothered to bring charges at all, or literally just scrapped the enquiry early and washed it away.
But we've done this to death.
All posts saying "nothing will happen" simply just clog the pages up and make people think there's a proper update.
I truly appreciate your optimism, and I do wish to be proven wrong.
Although I do understand what you mean.
However, I must clarify. Points deduction, transfer ban etc all equates to “nothing being done” for me. The only acceptable punishment is being thrown out of the league entirely. Or suspended for quite a few years until the ownership get bored of their little play thing.
You have to attack the root cause otherwise it’s a mere slap on the wrist and sets terrible precedents moving forward.
That's a fair response, although a huge points deduction would be quite unprecedented. I remember Luton copped 30 points once for financial shenanigans but they'd barely skimmed the surface compared to what City have been accused of! Easier to smash a then lower league minnow though, think they were either L1 or L2 at the time.
But any punishment "if" they're found guilty of a high percentage of those offences should not be something they can get over in 1 season.
Even relegation to the championship would mean they'd have a hell of a mission to keep in line with financial fair play with their wages.
The fantasy scenario is they get multiple relegations, titles after the cheat period scrapped and their owners kicked out of ownership. But that latter point would be next level impossibility to enforce unless they can engineer some sort of government level / Abramovich scenario.
What is in the favour of a proper serious punishment is the other 19 premier league clubs. No club has said anything publicly, as they're clearly waiting to see how this pans out. The fury of other clubs could open another can of absolute beast levels of lawsuits.
Those trophies won since 2009 need a big asterisk on them
You make very good points and I hope the punishment is severe at the fantasy scenario you laid out. I suppose the whole ordeal has left me cold and lacking any faith in the backbone of English football hence my skepticism.
If they do get off easy, I wonder if clubs will react with lawsuits or if they will adopt similar methods to City to gain an advantage - especially if they can “afford” the risk. But I guess that’s the can of worms that will be opened if a large punishment isn’t handed out.
Anyways, don’t want to be clogging up the thread. We’ll see how it starts to play out next month if there aren’t any delays in proceedings. Can only hope for the best (worst for City) from here on in.
Are the potential sanctions set in writing somewhere in guidelines or is it up to the league to come up with something within whatever is in their power ? Can they order relegation to lower leagues directly or is it only through the indirect effect of point deductions ? Can point deductions be applied for several seasons or just the current or next one ? Transfer ban ?
If we assume City may be found guilty of unprecedented cheating, you'd think the punishment would have to be too. I think forcing them down to the Championship or League One would probably hurt them more financially and in their greater project of creating better public image for their owners through sport success. Would perhaps force a soft reset of the team and to build back from scratch. Making them struggle a bit 3-5 years seems fair, perhaps too light still.
If we assume City may be found guilty of unprecedented cheating, you'd think the punishment would have to be too. I think forcing them down to the Championship or League One would probably hurt them more financially and in their greater project of creating better public image for their owners through sport success. Would perhaps force a soft reset of the team and to build back from scratch. Making them struggle a bit 3-5 years seems fair, perhaps too light still.