The equivalent of getting off a great rollercoaster and realising you were in a simulator the whole time.
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th September 2024
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
- Start date
Where do you sit with this?
In terms of the "heritage" fans, how could they conclude it has been a great ride when it sits upon a bed of lies, corruption and cheating? You might say football is corrupt and dirty but no other club has this level of charges against it currently.
Are there no fans which would be furious with the owners? City had a storied history before UAE, they had previously won trophies and the league albeit many years ago, the club has existed over 100 years. Are there no fans that would be (or are) furious with how this has unraveled? I find it hard to believe that they will shrug their shoulders and move on.
There is no greater 'high horse' than 'I follow my team through thick and thin'. It is the ultimate, persuasive moral: a simple command which encourages only blind faith.
city fans will remain city fans even if they are relegated into the North West Premier League and ensure everyone the world over knows they took 10k away fans to Bradford Park Avenue. Even if they didn't.
When have you seen the UEFA backed 'red cartel' do that ?
city fans will remain city fans even if they are relegated into the North West Premier League and ensure everyone the world over knows they took 10k away fans to Bradford Park Avenue. Even if they didn't.
When have you seen the UEFA backed 'red cartel' do that ?
IMO they should be stripped of the titles but they shouldn’t be awarded to the second placed teams because it’s more complicated than that. The entire season is corrupted by City playing 38 matches and the butterfly effect those matches have.
I doubt this happened but in simple terms what if City beat the 3rd place team twice and lost twice to the 2nd place team and that 6 points decided 2nd position?
That’s the simplest example I can give but that knock on effect creates momentum, pressures and narratives.
In short the entire EPL has been tainted this last 15 years and therein lies the problem for the EPL. They’re going to want to mitigate the reality of the situation to preserve their product and there will be pressure from Sky and the like to do just that - they’ve paid billions for this product.
You’ve then got the juxtaposition the clubs are in, they want City to be punished and they will want their compensation but what none of the EPL CEOs will want going forward is to bite their nose of to spite their face and damage the integrity of the league going forward. Becoming another Serie A is not an option because so many of the clubs would go under considering their overheads now.
I'd be gutted if I were a city fan, completely ruined a (all rivalries aside) proper football club. I'd feel the same if I were a Geordie, Chelsea fan or if the Qataris had bought us out and attempted the same murky shite. It's just all so artificial.
I think with many of their fans we will see the stages of grief play out in real time, first stage right now: denial.
I can totally see how they’d view it as a fun ride. Most the older sane ones I know, albeit it is very few, have always known it was a bit dodgy and it was a house of cards that would likely come tumbling down eventually. But maybe they’re unlike the majority.
I wonder. I don't really know any old school city fans to be honest, just youngsters who picked them up as they were getting their first tastes of success.
I expect they'll discover an uncle who was a Newcastle fan or something soon enough.
I have an open mind. An open mind that has led me to read up on this, notably the leaked documents. Manchester City are clearly guilty. Do you disagree?Which rather proves my point.
You don't have an open mind so no point any Blue engaging with you.
See you on another thread
What about the relegated clubs? They will have lost fortunes
This is part of the butterfly that @Pexbo mentioned correctly. Losing out on the title, CL/EL spots, getting relegated... That is why you cannot simply award teh 2nd place team the title. City's titles should be vacated and they should be relegated.
The whole league has been shafted. I don't agree with handing out titles to who came 2nd because the whole landscape of the league would change if City didn't financially dope.
EDIT: Agree with @Pexbo
No, id wait to see the punishment before judging it
If they do get found guilty, that ticker banner had better make a return.
Agree with this, they should be stripped of titles but they shouldn't be re-awarded to the 2nd place team. Partly because of the reasons you've mentioned (but you could also argue that as they participated over 38 games, they shafted everyone as much), but more importantly for me because it doesn't change much - the fans and the squads didn't celebrate those titles, what impact does it really have several years on? It doesn't really change the difference in amount of titles between clubs (apart from Arsenal, but feck Arsenal, their manager was on the payroll of the cheats too), and I find it more impactful to have 8 out of the past 16 titles void, highlighting the PL's (complicit) inactivity over that period.
What would it be up to 48?
Sadly even if they all their league titles stripped because of their unprecedented cheating. Its highly unlikely they'll lose their cup wins as well.
Has any outlet spoken of the post-2019 stuff and what is going to happen with that? I have never understood why City are being investigated up to what feels like an arbitrary end date when they continued obfuscating beyond that date. They are also still reaping the benefits of the cheating up to 2019.
What if you simply remade the league tables with all City games null and void? Would that compensate for The Butterfly Effect?
I wasn’t advocating giving out titles for those who came 2nd. More that Arsenal would essentially get that by virtue of just being the second best team when City finally got what’s coming to them.
Imagine if one team came second to them every single season and then finally fell off a bit. Only for some other team who were crap that whole time to just happen to have a good season the one time City get a deduction.
No, because everything in the football landscape changes.
I'd happily take Gerrard getting a medal if it meant we get 2012 back and we dont have to listen to fecking Martin Tyler again.
Stoke, Watford and Sunderland have all lost cup finals to City in that period. That's some fecked up daylight robbery.
Stoke, Watford and Sunderland have all lost cup finals to City in that period. That's some fecked up daylight robbery.
I can't see that happening. If it happens, great, but it will set a really strange precedent where it will feel a little random and arbitrary.
There is no outcome that will do justice. Fined, relegated. Doesn't matter. If you could go back in time and tell them they can cheat , win numerous titles but then get relegated and fined they will do it every time.its been worth it no matter what to them.
The fans won't give a sht. In a couple of years it will be forgotten. If they get relegated they will go straight up and win the Prem the next season.
The only real punishment is a black mark on thier name.
The fans won't give a sht. In a couple of years it will be forgotten. If they get relegated they will go straight up and win the Prem the next season.
The only real punishment is a black mark on thier name.
That would look incredibly embarrassing for the PR league that is the English Premier League. Best League In The World (c)
Do you live in Manchester?
They need to be relegated to league one at least, relegating to the championship is meaningless as they will be back within 1 season. Fine needs to be above 500m or closer to a billion, if Mclaren a formula 1 team could get fined for 100m in 2007 for spying, City should get fined 1 billion for the systematic cheating for over a decade.
City cheating wasn't limited to the EPL either, they bent the rules and cheated when it came to youth recruitment too, left clubs like United and Liverpool in the North fighting for scraps.They need to be stripped of all titles, 2nd place gets the titles because this has continued for over a decade, the EPL won't want to have such a massive black hole on the winners list, the length/duration of cheating is unprecedented in sports.
City cheating wasn't limited to the EPL either, they bent the rules and cheated when it came to youth recruitment too, left clubs like United and Liverpool in the North fighting for scraps.They need to be stripped of all titles, 2nd place gets the titles because this has continued for over a decade, the EPL won't want to have such a massive black hole on the winners list, the length/duration of cheating is unprecedented in sports.
Couldn't care less, they need the biggest book you can find thrown straight at them. Just do the right thing and take the titles away and declare no winner for those seasons. Like others have said it will be hard not to walk away with such cheating condoned, however it won't affect things for league as many other teams feel sorry for City.
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I grew up in Wythenshawe, only very recently moved away. I know a handful of blues and their responses are pretty much defiance/denial.
Feels like a lot of people these days have something that they worship and can do no wrong in their eyes. See Trump for parallels. He's been convicted of stuff and hardly any of his supporters have turned against him. They just entrench themselves deeper. Same thing would happen here with City fans imo because it's easier than admitting you've been fooled/lied to for years.
I just can't shake this feeling even if they are found guilty of some charges the media will continue waxing lyrical. Completely ignoring the fact they have been punished (probably lightly) for financial fraud.
Not really, for a variety of reasons. You either give the titles to the runner-ups, or you leave those seasons blank (which would be my preference).
Just want them left blank like Tour De France
The whole "Red Cartel" thing sounds ominously familiar to the "Radical Left" shite
Everybody is starting on equal footing this season, knowing that City's punishment (if it happens) will be handed out prior to the end of the year. Arsenal has the best chance of benefiting but its not like other clubs are being denied that opportunity. That makes this season very different from past seasons.
As far as remedying the past goes, I think awarding titles to second place teams will be very empty after the fact (even as Arsenal would benefit). Not only does awarding a title 10 years later seem weird but second place in some of these seasons might have gone to a different team if everybody had known that City would be ineligible for the title.
They have ruined this league as a competition, yes I will admit we had an unfair advantage for years but that was our own revenue not artificially created sponsorship which is the big difference.
For the posters saying it would be too complicated to just aware the league titles to the second place teams, how did Serie A handle it when Juventus were relegated? Did Inter etc. not get those titles?
We had a fair advantage
I think we should have already put it back up tbh.
I meant in as much as our revenue was so significant that we could but whoever whereas other teams didn't have that luxury was my point
Yet we were rarely the biggest spenders.