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

Bluelion7 said:
FFP regulations were intended to prevent “overzealous directors from themselves” and borrowing to a dangerous degree that put creditors and the club themselves in jeopardy.

They specifically denied at the time it was an artificial cap intended to prevent what some called “financial doping”. There were then several prominent lawsuits out, which UEFA saw themselves as losing. That was the reason given for the “easing” of FFP in 2015.

The rule was never intended to prevent someone from using actual money (not debt) to compete with already wealthy teams like United, Liverpool, and Madrid.

Or at least that’s what they said. The obvious inference many took was that that was EXACTLY what FFP was for: to protect the status quo.

People are acting like all the leagues and all the owners agreed to this equally. They didn’t; hence the lawsuits. It was only after certain assurances were given that they were dropped. Some of those assurances have seemed under threat for awhile now.

I will agree that the sloppy ways in which they breached FFP has earned them what they get.

But they should have just challenged FFP openly.

The real problem with it is it places limits on how teams can acquire legitimate money.

And the “types” of income are VERY slanted towards pre existing powers.

And no, money is not illegitimate if it comes from selling oil. It’s legitimate if it’s theirs, not borrowed, and they want to spend it on a football team.

Either an across the board hard cap, no cap, or, like some other leagues, a financial luxury tax distributed to teams without as much money if your spending crosses a certain threshold.

I am simply saying the narrative that City wildly outspent United is … wrong. And saying a team can’t invest money into a squad to reach your level just because they dont have the established fanbase and scope is anti free competition in business.

If City were an American owned team, where we have treaties with both Europe and the UK regarding this practice… there would be issues I feel certain.

City’s big sin was lying and committing fraud. They SHOULD face issues for that.

But my point is they should have challenged it and should t have had to make that choice. They were stupid to try and be “clever”.

But FFP as a restrictor if legitimate investment is not sustainable.
Click to expand...

Some interesting points, granted, but not sure why you keep suggesting a narrative about City wildly outspending United nor the relevance to this discussion.

They’ve committed fraud and breached the rules of the league on at least 100 different occasions.
 
Mockney said:
You’ve got it backwards. The reason transfer outlay has ballooned is because clubs who are expected to balance their books are being forced to compete with teams who theoretically can’t go bankrupt, and as such you’ve got teams who’ve earned their money over decades like Barca actively destroying themselves to beat out the likes of City & PSG, and even financial titans like United bargain shopping for Burnley strikers because they’ve had to spend so much to catch up…. The reason United have spent as much as City IS a product of their financial doping. Not the other way around.

Not to mention that if a lot of these allegations are true, City have been paying people off the books, and therefore spending a lot more than is on the official record… that’s kinda the whole point!

Also, it’s sport, not ‘the open market’ …A department store might not get accused of financial doping when a billionaire ploughs loads of money into it, but a sports club in a league with a notion of fair sporting competition might.
Click to expand...

Good post Mockney

@Bluelion7
 
TheReligion said:
So the huge undeclared salaries and payments didn’t do anything to inflate the market no?
Click to expand...
This is only speculation although there seems to be confidence about the Mancini consultancy wage so it’s not a wild leap to think there will be more.
@padr81 i agree with what you’re saying, that City alone didn’t inflate the market IF it transpires the figures we have now for transfers are correct. PSG broke the market with Neymar in 2017.
 
padr81 said:
Barca had competition for Coutinho, Dembele, Griezmann? City didn't break £100m till Grealish. Barca spent that years previously.

We can be found guilty of cheating or whatever and should take full responsibility but we're in no way responsible for the level of idiocy that went on at Camp Nou.
Barcelona had 3 x £100m+ players when Cities transfer record was still £65m. In fact 2 players who cost nearly double Cities most expensive signing.

We might be going down for alot of shit we deserve but we most certainly aren't responsible for the state of Barca or United, spunking huge money on the likes of Maguire, Pogba and Coutinho. Harry Maguire for £80m is a bigger crime than the hundred+ we've committed combined.
Click to expand...
Nah sorry, have to say I agree with Mockney on this
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This is only speculation although there seems to be confidence about the Mancini consultancy wage so it’s not a wild leap to think there will be more.
@padr81 i agree with what you’re saying, that City alone didn’t inflate the market IF it transpires the figures we have now for transfers are correct. PSG broke the market with Neymar in 2017.
Click to expand...

Some of the charges specifically relate to the Mancini era from what I’ve read so it’s fair to say it all points to this particular practice being used in the early days in order to attract personnel to the club that wouldn’t ordinarily given it a second glance.

City have definitely contributed to inflating the market for everyone else though. They are paying KdB 400k per week currently as the highest paid player in it PL.
 
@The Irish Connection @TheReligion @caid
Shit don't wanna be arguing with everyone but instead of oil clubs maybe this is the real factor in transfer spending.
Just look at the curves from 2004 to 2019. Only overlap I could get. Can people really look at that and say City are the reason for transfer spending and inflation?




Cheats? Very likely. Inflated costs? thats tv money. The idea clubs would still be paying 30-40m for players without oil clubs is rubbish. Its not strange transfer spending is still roughly 5-6 times the tv money like in 2004?
 
Last edited:
City were the first team in the league to be able to spunk 40-50m on a player and bench him for someone else the following season if he didn’t work out.
City were in for Maguire. Who’s to say they didn’t offer 70m and we said we’d better go higher.
Some of their transfer fees were relatively low but according to the charges, they were paying the incoming players extra off the books.
Mangala cost what, 45m and that was before the inflation in the last few years.
Mendy was 50m. Laporte was expensive too and he sits on the bench. There’s loads.
 
caid said:
We have no idea what you payed in transfers, in wages or to agents. Thus the charges
Click to expand...

Thats fair but we have no idea how those charges relate to players. The manager for 4 years is clearly mentioned.
 
TheReligion said:
The PL seem to have an idea, hence the charges as you say
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly you're a cop? Is that how the law works. That charged = guilty, also we know nothing of the charges for players related stuff. I posted above how transfer inflation compares to tv money, you've posted nothing to counter that other than opinions.

Look at the graphs and tell me theres no correlation, which there clearly isn't with your posts.
 
padr81 said:
Shit don't wanna be arguing with everyone but instead of oil clubs maybe this is the real factor in transfer spending.
Just look at the curves from 2004 to 2019. Only overlap I could get. Can people really look at that and say City are the reason for transfer spending and inflation?




Cheats? Very likely. Inflated costs? thats tv money. The idea clubs would still be paying 30-40m for players without oil clubs is rubbish.
Click to expand...

Yes, i was there. I remember it. I remember the hugely inflated fees you payed for Gareth Barry and Roque Santa Cruz and Adabayor and Mangala and so on. The numbers you made up to hide how much you were spending were crazy
You cited Dembele being sold for 110m earlier - you dont think selling Neymar for 200m immediately before might have influenced that transfer fee?
 
padr81 said:
Shit don't wanna be arguing with everyone but instead of oil clubs maybe this is the real factor in transfer spending.
Just look at the curves from 2004 to 2019. Only overlap I could get. Can people really look at that and say City are the reason for transfer spending and inflation?




Cheats? Very likely. Inflated costs? thats tv money. The idea clubs would still be paying 30-40m for players without oil clubs is rubbish. Its not strange transfer spending is still roughly 6 times the tv money like in 2004?
Click to expand...


So you don’t think City have contributed to inflation then?

Interesting stance given what’s being levelled at the club today and has been a few years ago.
 
padr81 said:
If I recall correctly you're a cop? Is that how the law works. That charged = guilty, also we know nothing of the charges for players related stuff. I posted above how transfer inflation compares to tv money, you've posted nothing to counter that other than opinions.

Look at the graphs and tell me theres no correlation, which there clearly isn't with your posts.
Click to expand...

Yeah tbh I tend not to be a fan of criminals. Sorry!
 
caid said:
Yes, i was there. I remember it. I remember the hugely inflated fees you payed for Gareth Barry and Roque Santa Cruz and Adabayor and Mangala and so on. The numbers you made up to hide how much you were spending were crazy
You cited Dembele being sold for 110m earlier - you dont think selling Neymar for 200m immediately before might have influenced that transfer fee?
Click to expand...

Roque Santa Cruz cost 18m (17m too much). Give me a correlation between City transfer fees and transfer inflation spending that matches as well as the tv money one I've provided. You won't because its not possibly.
The idea Gareth Barry wasn't worth £12m at the time too is preposterous.
 
TheReligion said:
Yeah tbh I tend not to be a fan of criminals. Sorry!
Click to expand...

Me too, which is why if found guilty I hope we're punished.
Now correlation between Cities spending and transfer inflation thats more accurate than tv money? I'll wait.

Uniteds spending is purely down to United and wasted by incompetent eejits. Nothing to do with City sadly.
 
padr81 said:
Roque Santa Cruz cost 18m (17m too much). Give me a correlation between City transfer fees and transfer inflation spending that matches as well as the tv money one I've provided. You won't because its not possibly.
Click to expand...
This is a part of the problem with you lot. How do we know they costed that with all the shady things you've been doing? Your dealings on pretty much all fronts have been nothing but shithousery. Fake contracts, fake sponsorship incomes, false wages what's to say you didn't fake transfer fees too?
 
padr81 said:
Me too, which is why if found guilty I hope we're punished.
Now correlation between Cities spending and transfer inflation thats more accurate than tv money? I'll wait.

Uniteds spending is purely down to United and wasted by incompetent eejits. Nothing to do with City sadly.
Click to expand...
That is sad but true.
 
padr81 said:
Barca had competition for Coutinho, Dembele, Griezmann? City didn't break £100m till Grealish. Barca spent that years previously.

We can be found guilty of cheating or whatever and should take full responsibility but we're in no way responsible for the level of idiocy that went on at Camp Nou.
Barcelona had 3 x £100m+ players when Cities transfer record was still £65m. In fact 2 players who cost nearly double Cities most expensive signing.

We might be going down for alot of shit we deserve but we most certainly aren't responsible for the state of Barca or United, spunking huge money on the likes of Maguire, Pogba and Coutinho. Harry Maguire for £80m is a bigger crime than the hundred+ we've committed combined.
Click to expand...

Obviously I don’t blame you for how shit our business has been, but nothing happens in a vacuum. I was responding to someone whose argument was ‘but look, United have spent as much as City!?’ But we obviously wouldn’t have been spending that much if you weren’t. Because you’re our rivals, and the team we have to try and match to catch up… and considering this whole thing is about how you’ve potentially been cooking the books to enable you to spend more than you should, there’s obviously a knock on effect there..

Plus the mere existence of clubs that can draw upon the finances of a state will naturally inflate the market for big players. And whilst City haven’t individually broken the £100m barrier more, the fact you could so casually keep buying £50m+ back up players and retooling you’re entire defence in a couple of windows has knock on effects… just as it did when Chelsea did it - or even when we were outspending everyone, and it forced (or created the environment for, to be more delicate) the likes of Leeds to bankrupt themselves.

So again we’re back to how “deserved” that kind of outlay is… which I doubt United and City fans will ever agree on.

(The Barca situation is more down to PSG than you, but the environmental impact is similar)
 
padr81 said:
Me too, which is why if found guilty I hope we're punished.
Now correlation between Cities spending and transfer inflation thats more accurate than tv money? I'll wait.

Uniteds spending is purely down to United and wasted by incompetent eejits. Nothing to do with City sadly.
Click to expand...
United spend money poorly is certainly on them but of course City impacted United’s spending. United were spending to try and catch City.
 
BlueHaze said:
This is a part of the problem with you lot. How do we know they costed that with all the shady things you've been doing? Your dealings on pretty much all fronts have been nothing but shithousery. Fake contracts, fake sponsorship incomes, false wages what's to say you didn't fake transfer fees too?
Click to expand...

The thing is theres 2 clubs involved, so dodgy agent payments wages etc.. quite possible, for transfer fees that would involve 2 clubs so I'd presume transfer fees are at least accurate, elsewise we're far from the only cheaters given we've bought a billion players from a billion clubs. Any deal involving us and Juve (was I an investigator I'd be all over that), other clubs would be a different story.
 
acnumber9 said:
United spend money poorly is certainly on them but of course City impacted United’s spending. United were spending to try and catch City.
Click to expand...

The presumption is then United wouldn't spend so much were City not there but the correlation with tv money and the leagues spending as a whole suggest transfer spending would be the same regardless, as its been consistent to the tv deals, unless we're implying a much smaller tv deal without City (which is weird given we have no fans) or Chelsea before them.

The more the PL makes, the bigger the tv deal, the more money clubs get, the more they can spend, the more prices get bumped up. With City or no City.
 
So 09/10 most expensive transfers in world football features Tevez, Adebayor, Lescott, Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure (ranked 7,8,10,16,24)

The following season it was Dzeko, Yaya Toure, Balotelli, Silva, Kolorov and Milner (ranked 4,6,7,8,10 and 13)

Then Aguero and Nasri (2 and 7).

Just looking at those early three transfer windows you spent more money than anyone else in Europe in terms of transfer fees. Even worse when you just look at PL clubs.

Of course you contributed to inflating the market @padr81 and that’s not even looking at the spend volume during Peps tenure.
 
Problem is now that the massive fees City were spending on FBs and CBs are normalised now so it doesn’t look that outrageous
Pep got a team that had all of his attackers bought for him before he joined at already enormous fees and still spent like 300m in a summer that didn’t involve an attacker not names Silva who was “only” 50m.
Thats 250m on defenders and keepers. Remember Danilo for 30m? That was their cheapest defender and he was a back up.
Then it keeps going. Rodri and Cancelo. Just the 120m on two defensive players. Then Diaz and Ake came on outrageous feed on their own that’s we over half a billion spent on defensive fecking players.
on paper it may look like you could blindly defend the numbers but the sheer amount of money spent on positions that aren’t attackers is mind boggling. Spending that much on positions that are at the bottom half of expensive positions simply because your attackers Should be costing the big bucks is actually impressive. It’s an entire budget spend on like 6 positions every summer.
It’s the exact mirror image of Chelsea having 500m worth of attackers on their books alone at the minute.
 
padr81 said:
The presumption is then United wouldn't spend so much were City not there but the correlation with tv money and the leagues spending as a whole suggest transfer spending would be the same regardless, as its been consistent to the tv deals, unless we're implying a much smaller tv deal without City (which is weird given we have no fans) or Chelsea before them.

The more the PL makes, the bigger the tv deal, the more money clubs get, the more they spend. City or no City.
Click to expand...

It’s not really a presumption when you look at the spending during your first few years as pointed out.

United sold Ronaldo and spent very little until they forked out on RvP to get the title back.
 
padr81 said:
The presumption is then United wouldn't spend so much were City not there but the correlation with tv money and the leagues spending as a whole suggest transfer spending would be the same regardless, as its been consistent to the tv deals, unless we're implying a much smaller tv deal without City (which is weird given we have no fans) or Chelsea before them.

The more the PL makes, the bigger the tv deal, the more money clubs get, the more they can spend, the more prices get bumped up. With City or no City.
Click to expand...
The presumption being that if United were still winning league titles the Glazers would’ve spent less. Which is evidenced by the fact that we spent less when we were winning titles.
 
Shark said:
Let's wait and see. Every second post is "nothing will happen to them" as if they've some kind of inside information. We haven't seen this magnitude of charges in the PL before.
Click to expand...
Sensible post. Damaged City reputation anyway. FA can’t afford it not to stick. Labour can’t afford it not to stick, and even Tories. Unlucky for City to have such a perfect storm at the point the investigation comes to the boil.
 
padr81 said:
The presumption is then United wouldn't spend so much were City not there but the correlation with tv money and the leagues spending as a whole suggest transfer spending would be the same regardless, as its been consistent to the tv deals, unless we're implying a much smaller tv deal without City (which is weird given we have no fans) or Chelsea before them.

The more the PL makes, the bigger the tv deal, the more money clubs get, the more they can spend, the more prices get bumped up. With City or no City.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the point that you're making, but correlation ≠ causation. Obviously, greater income = greater spend but you must be able to see that state funded clubs, like yourselves and PSG, had a disproportionate influence on fee inflation?
That is, of course, leaving aside the fact it seems you've been cooking the books on salaries which is also going to be an inflationary factor.

The argument that, if City and Chelsea's windfalls hadn't occurred, then we'd have likely steamrollered the league financially unopposed is one which I'd have some sympathy with but you're on shaky ground with nigh on limitless funds in certain clubs is a minor impactor in spend inflation.
 
Mockney said:
You’ve got it backwards. The reason transfer outlay has ballooned is because clubs who are expected to balance their books are being forced to compete with teams who theoretically can’t go bankrupt, and as such you’ve got teams who’ve earned their money over decades like Barca actively destroying themselves to beat out the likes of City & PSG, and even financial titans like United bargain shopping for Burnley strikers because they’ve had to spend so much to catch up…. The reason United have spent as much as City IS a product of their financial doping. Not the other way around.

Not to mention that if a lot of these allegations are true, City have been paying people off the books, and therefore spending a lot more than is on the official record… that’s kinda the whole point!

Also, it’s sport, not ‘the open market’ …A department store might not get accused of financial doping when a billionaire ploughs loads of money into it, but a sports club in a league with a notion of fair sporting competition might.
Click to expand...

Well, that’s the thing: I don’t care why transfers have ballooned or what people have to do to compete.

Either should FFP really. It was created to keep people from creating bad debt. The stuff I listed about people worrying it would be used to restrict competition, and the lawsuits that happened are all record.

If people want to cap spending, then cap it across the board.

It’s not like it was “fair” back when United were paying nearly 30m for Rio. Most teams probably couldn’t compete with that. The only thing that has changed on that front is the number of teams that joined the party.

People were GREAT with the idea of disparity when it was only their teams.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
You miss the point.

They signed up to the rules. Then cheated, lied, didn't cooperate with investigations. Think of all the other teams who would've finished top 4 / top 5 if City hadn't broken the rules. It impacts every club long term.

Any club can grow success, increase fanbase and spending power. But over time and through good development of youth players and sound investments over decades, not over a few fecking years blowing the transfer market wide open.

Also many of the allegations are on City wages/fees not being on the books so you are not comparing true figures. That's also the point.
Click to expand...

I did t miss the point: I said they should be punished … but for lying, fraud, etc.

I said it was stupid of them to create false business fronts and break the law (because they probably did break general, non footballing law in doing this), because they should have just challenged FFP directly.
 
padr81 said:
@The Irish Connection @TheReligion @caid
Shit don't wanna be arguing with everyone but instead of oil clubs maybe this is the real factor in transfer spending.
Just look at the curves from 2004 to 2019. Only overlap I could get. Can people really look at that and say City are the reason for transfer spending and inflation?




Cheats? Very likely. Inflated costs? thats tv money. The idea clubs would still be paying 30-40m for players without oil clubs is rubbish. Its not strange transfer spending is still roughly 5-6 times the tv money like in 2004?
Click to expand...

Mmmm, TV money has gone up 300% from 07 in those figures. Transfer spend has increased by 430%. Seems like it’s more than tv money at play here. Unless you think owners just decided they wanted to be more liberal with their cash for shits and giggles.
 
TheReligion said:
So 09/10 most expensive transfers in world football features Tevez, Adebayor, Lescott, Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure (ranked 7,8,10,16,24)

The following season it was Dzeko, Yaya Toure, Balotelli, Silva, Kolorov and Milner (ranked 4,6,7,8,10 and 13)

Then Aguero and Nasri (2 and 7).

Just looking at those early three transfer windows you spent more money than anyone else in Europe in terms of transfer fees. Even worse when you just look at PL clubs.

Of course you contributed to inflating the market @padr81 and that’s not even looking at the spend volume during Peps tenure.
Click to expand...

We were the biggest spenders but that doesn't drive up the prices and we were shopping for a whole new squad.

Are United of the last 10 years (biggest spenders) and def the biggest the last 5 years driving up the market now? The answer to that is equally a no. Did Paul Pogba drive up Bernardo Silva's price? Nope.
The logic that team x paid y for z means team a is going to have to pay b for c is false except maybe on the high end transfers.

Does Grealish going for £100m bump up the price of some other average winger? Or the average spend for wingers? I'd wager Antony still sets you guys back £70m or whatever it was.

Bayern won't stump up €60m for Cancelo and will make sure they get him for €40m or so come seasons end (maybe free if we have to void contracts), which is far less for example than you guys paid Palace for AWB (not trying to pick on you guys but you are big spenders and one of the only clubs to compare these kinda prices with). If we tried to buy Cancelo from Bayern (vice versa, we'd have to stump up a hell of a lot more).

Teams will pay relative to their budget, which is relative to their income (or in our case their fake income).

Theres a reason people say things like United tax, City tax, Barca tax etc.. and our teams constantly have to overpay for average players and its cause when wealthy PL clubs come knocking other clubs light up knowing they're getting paid. As the tv money gets bigger and bigger and the PL becomes stronger and stronger this will only increase, if the tv money was halved from next season, I guarantee transfer spending and prices would too, even if Todd Boehly is still going crazy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.