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

Didn’t you get a transfer ban for breaking various rules?

Sure, but it wasn't for anything financial related.

Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid all got done over some transfers involving U18 players from outside the EU and all got a transfer ban for 1-2 windows depending on how many breaches there were guilty of. Pre-agreements for non-EU under-18 players are allowed like RM with Vini/Rodrygo/Endrick but straight up signing them when still underage is forbidden. Not sure how any of that is relevant for FFP purposes though.

I think at the moment it's looking quite likely we'll break the UEFA FFP within the next few years if/when we don't qualify for the CL for next season but we'll have to deal with that when the time comes. First offence for every other club has previously just been a fine.

Will definitely be interesting to see what happens to City now, and when the final verdict will even be ready (if anything even comes out of this). I think changing the league winners in retrospect would be the wrong move and any punishment should only affect them going forwards, though I'm sure many United (and Liverpool) fans will disagree because they'd get more titles if City's were stripped and titles awarded to whoever finished second. :lol:
 
Has any team ever had titles stripped off them?

Juves 04/05 and 05/06 titles were taken off them.

04/05 Milan were second but they were also involved in the scandal so it was declared no winner. 05/06 was given to runners up Inter.
 
They are going to get a penalty. That penalty won’t be as drastic as it should be, but somewhat heavy. Than it will be reduced on appeal to virtually nothing and everything will continue the same.
 
Thing is how can City actually change? From the outside looking in, their entire structure is based on financial doping. Ridiculous how quickly they shot up those Deloitte/Forbes rich list bollocks - something that took normal big clubs decades of investment and growth to achieve.

I just can’t see them all of a sudden living within their means and being self sufficient - the wages their players (and Pep) must be on are surely astronomical.
 
It is blatant cheating though. They’ve spent money the rules said they couldn’t. They don’t win those titles without doing that.
In this context, I would think of it more that they gained an unfair advantage if the allegations are true. I don't think it falls into the realms of blatant cheating like bribery, match-fixing and corruption. I think only those would result in stripping of honours for the years in scope.

I get what you mean though, they have cheated their way in a sense, but not in the blatant way that the governing bodies would need to see.
 
In this context, I would think of it more that they gained an unfair advantage if the allegations are true. I don't think it falls into the realms of blatant cheating like bribery, match-fixing and corruption. I think only those would result in stripping of honours for the years in scope.

I get what you mean though, they have cheated their way in a sense, but not in the blatant way that the governing bodies would need to see.

It is corruption. And blatant cheating.
 
I think we can all agree that the punishments that would be appropriate-relegation, multiple years of bans of transfers/european competition-will never happen. So I hope that at the very least they are proven guilty and we can officially recognize that which every football fan has known for a decade-they are a bunch of cheating cnuts.
Juventus was punished for one transfer. In City's case, we're talking about 100 breaches of FFP regulations, if they get the same punishment it will be laughable.
 
If all they get is a financial penalty then thats a slap on the wrist.

Need to be a much heavier sanction.
 
I do fully expect that in the end the punishment will massively underwhelm and not fit the crimes. It’s just football is now, certainly in this country.
 
Anyone who thinks an example will be made of City is deluded.

Weak spined corporates will more likely impose an absolutely ludicrous punishment such as a £150,000 fine.

Expect no justice.

Oh yeah already expecting that outcome
 
I do fully expect that in the end the punishment will massively underwhelm and not fit the crimes. It’s just football is how, certainly in this country.
I think the word you’re looking for is corrupt.

Nothing will come of this.
 
I do fully expect that in the end the punishment will massively underwhelm and not fit the crimes. It’s just football is how, certainly in this country.

Yeah will be another wussy fine and carry on financially doping to your hearts content
 
I do fully expect that in the end the punishment will massively underwhelm and not fit the crimes. It’s just football is how, certainly in this country.
That 15 million £ penalty they are going to get in the end will cripple them. Just trust the FA. :lol:
 
We won't see them stripped of any titles I would think. That would be reserved for match-fixing and blatant cheating.

The recent points deduction of Juventus is probably a good benchmark for what we can expect. Probably a chunky points deduction and a hefty fine. Maybe a transfer ban too?

Nope, the Juve case is a bad comparison. The charges against City are far more serious. This is more than a few accounting tricks over a few years. It's a deep corruption across many financial areas and attempted cover up. It makes Juve look like choir boys. I haven't seen a legal expert yet who thinks City are going to escape relegation over this if the charges stick.
 
I see lots of mention Chelsea will be next to be investigated, but why?

We've never been suspected of cooking the books like City have. Sure the club have posted financial losses, and sure Abramovich injected a lot of money into the club over the years but unlike City's owner spending masked as dodgy sponsorship deals the Abramovich investment was always done completely out in the open and there were never any rules preventing him from doing so, as long as the club still stayed within the boundaries of the FFP rules which we always did because for starters the FFP rules allow for a ton of deductibles and even after all that they still allow for clubs to post a fixed amount of losses over the monitoring period as long as they are covered by the club owner. Maybe the rules are/were flawed that he was allowed to do it but you can't change the rules for past seasons.

In City's case the charge is that they cooked the books and would have failed FFP if they hadn't so it's all very different to what's been going on at Chelsea. Nobody would have prevented City from doing things the same way we have but if they did they just wouldn't have been able to spend as much money because when the FFP rules became a thing their starting point was much lower than ours. The timing is key here. When Abramovich bought Chelsea and made all those huge money investments in 2003-2010 there was no FFP yet, which allowed us to openly post massive losses and gain higher revenues through legit sponsorships etc. due to already being competitive over a multitude of years. When FFP rules were implemented we were already in a better position where the club still wasn't profitable but could continue to operate within the rules and using owner money to cover the allowed losses.

As for Chelsea's spending since the ownership change, it's again all out in the open and the club are not trying to hide anything. It's a shit load of money invested in new players but I don't think there's anyone claiming we're boosting our revenues with fake sponsorships and/or making off the books payments to clubs/agents/players to hide the costs. There's every chance this high-risk strategy causes the club to fail FFP monitoring and leads to some sanctions down the line if we fail to make CL in the coming seasons and also fail to increase other revenues, but as for right now we haven't fallen foul of any rule yet and if the high-risk strategy works out in our favor we might never do so. If we do fail FFP, there will be immediate sanctions that don't need this kind of further investigating because the accounts will already show how much losses the club have made. This all remains to be seen over the next few years.
Pipe down, no one cares
 
Points deduction and ban from Europe I’d imagine.
Looks like the top 4 race got a lot easier. Might explain Pep mentally checking out all of a sudden

Would say could he walk over this but then City will weasel their way out so nope
 
I disregard the titles they've won, them being offiically chalked off seems pretty natural to me.
I'd relegate them, the FFP is a relatively minor infringement. But they've been infringing it every year for 15 years. They've been making a half assed attempt to hide it and taking on a we'll sue you if you enforce the rules stance that means they need to be made an example of in my opinion. Theres no attempt towards reconciling their finances to reality or negotiating a parachute of sorts to cover wages they cant afford. Maybe you just dock them 30 points or whatever next season but it needs to be a narrow escape from something far worse, with ruinous results if they break the rule again.
 
It is corruption. And blatant cheating.
Fraudulent financial and accounting practices and corruption are not the same thing. It stinks, and I hope they get as harsh a punishment as possible, but all I'm saying is that stripping of titles is beyond anything we'll likely see here because you can't equate this to match-fixing or anything like that.
 
I do fully expect that in the end the punishment will massively underwhelm and not fit the crimes. It’s just football is now, certainly in this country.

Probably but a 4+ year investigation will look pointless if that’s the case

City will bombard them with lawyers and threats of counter suits it’s gonna be hard for the PL but they’re going after a team who have dominated in recent years and must have seen the UEFA case they have some bollocks
 
This was inevitable. Everyone knew they were cooking the books. Even recently, one of their betting partners/sponsors was found to be bogus. They did not exist, didn't have a website or registered CEO. When something so obvious like that is occurring, and in full view of everyone, it's only a matter of time. I'm surprised that they got away with it for 14 seasons.
 
We won't see them stripped of any titles I would think. That would be reserved for match-fixing and blatant cheating.

You don’t class this as blatant cheating? The scope of the unfair advantages they’ve gained and the opportunities missed by other clubs is damn near unprecedented
 
Swindon were denied promotion and also relegated for far fewer offences than this.

The minimum punishment for being found guilty on any of these charges should be relegation to league 2 and a massive compensation payable into a hardship fund that supports the lower leagues.
 
Can only really see them getting a points deduction for this season (which, while they're in with a chance of winning it's not as likely as Arsenal winning anyway) and a transfer ban which they'll appeal long enough to sign loads of players in the summer. And feck all else will happen if we're being honest.
 
I fully expect nothing to come off of this because more money in the PL is a good thing for the league / english system as a whole. EPL will be the new super league. TV rights money will increase and flow through the pyramid. That'll cement the PL's position as the best in the world - 3 of the top four sides in the world are english at the moment per UEFA.

It's not fair, but when has fairness ever mattered? And to be honest, the pre-oil system where the big players always remain big isn't exactly fair either.
 
The FA doesn’t just have to fight City. They will have to fight a whole country on this. Abu Dhabi will just throw resources at this, until it’s gone.
 
You don’t class this as blatant cheating? The scope of the unfair advantages they’ve gained and the opportunities missed by other clubs is damn near unprecedented
But which players helped them win? Which players did they buy with earned money and which ones with doped dosh, and which ones had the most impact on the pitch? It would be near impossible to prove unfortunately.
 
Nope, the Juve case is a bad comparison. The charges against City are far more serious. This is more than a few accounting tricks over a few years. It's a deep corruption across many financial areas and attempted cover up. It makes Juve look like choir boys. I haven't seen a legal expert yet who thinks City are going to escape relegation over this if the charges stick.

They were fixing results with refs, people were arrested, it was an utter betrayal of the concept of competition
 
I fully expect nothing to come off of this because more money in the PL is a good thing for the league / english system as a whole. EPL will be the new super league. TV rights money will increase and flow through the pyramid. That'll cement the PL's position as the best in the world - 3 of the top four sides in the world are english at the moment per UEFA.

It's not fair, but when has fairness ever mattered? And to be honest, the pre-oil system where the big players always remain big isn't exactly fair either.
That doesn't make sense given it's the PL that are making the charges
 
To be fair Redbull Racing didn't cook the books. They went over budget but not fraudulently. I think their punishment was fair.

I meant more that everyone who isnt a Redbull fan wanted them pretty much removed from existence as a punishment but it was never likely to happen.

Same with this, we all want City stripped of titles and relegated to Sunday League football but its sadly not likely to happen.

We are always going to demand the most extreme sanctions and punishments as opposition :lol: