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

Well, it appears the revenue aspect is one of the problems. TV has exploded, but your revenue streams also went crazy and that hasn't been seen to such a scale with other clubs. The Eithad deal in particular looked dodgy and then got exposed in the leaks as being Mansoor paying himself. This is where the issue lies with your revenues. How much of it is real and how much of it is just essentially the owner pumping it in and pretending it is commercial revenue?

If significant, then you'll be in trouble as that was against the rules you and the other clubs signed up for.

Then there is the off the book payments. How significant are/were these? If Mancini for instance was being 2x + his declared wage and this was applied to players, then all your financial accounts are essentially fiction. The issue here is obviously proving they were for the job in question and not something seperate. If proven to be for being a Man City manager/player then your going to have HMRC to deal with as well.

Personally, I always wait and see with charges as I believe people/companies should be able to defend themselves before they are declared guilty. However, to just focus on spending in relation to the other teams you were competing with, doesn't really deal with the issues that you're being charged with.

Problem is that this case will not be done in public despite public interest. All quiet within the commission and then they publish their findings.

It's a suboptimal approach.
 
Is it? That’s ridiculous

but still, one is paying their first team manager a second salary through a third party which is extremely serious on its own

They can claim that he did legit consultation work for those entities albeit once a quarter. Can claim site visits and zoom calls?
 
They can claim that he did legit consultation work for those entities albeit once a quarter. Can claim site visits and zoom calls?

Sure they can try. But he got paid a similar amount as his yearly city salary in the PL, the most lucrative league in the world, for a 4 day a year contract in a tin pot league.. Good luck arguing that in court!
 
I wish I had the confidence that some do that they’ll be punished, but I think they’ll basically get off with it all.
Tbh I feel the same here.

But if that happens it'd be a big fecking slap to the so called most competitive and attractive league in the world. And probably the UK and what its people has been so proud of.
 
Is it? That’s ridiculous

but still, one is paying their first team manager a second salary through a third party which is extremely serious on its own

Yep the salary one is a massive one. They need to follow the money, if the money comes from the City owners, then it also becomes a criminal case.

Imagine your place of work paying you off books, do you think you will be there without anything come towards you?
 
I can’t see them being expelled from the league because as bad as this is, there are worse crimes in football and you leave yourself very little room for manoeuvre if you start with expulsion. Juventus went down for match fixing but only got a points deduction for their financial maladministration.

For me if the FFP rules are judged over a 3 season period and carries a penalty of a 15 point deduction, they’ve been breaking the rules for 10 years so it stands to reason they should expect a fine and a 45 point deduction as a minimum.

This would mean Pep would probably leave, they’d probably get relegated (which would be a de facto ban from Europe) and the reduction in revenue wouldn’t quite be a transfer ban, but it would be a transfer limitation.
 
Yes, it sounds alot having 100 charges but how bad are the breaches?

One of the charges is that in 09/10 the grass was more than 3cm long. So lets wait to see what the extent of the breaches are.

This isn't true :lol:
 
I can’t see them being expelled from the league because as bad as this is, there are worse crimes in football and you leave yourself very little room for manoeuvre if you start with expulsion. Juventus went down for match fixing but only got a points deduction for their financial maladministration.

For me if the FFP rules are judged over a 3 season period and carries a penalty of a 15 point deduction, they’ve been breaking the rules for 10 years so it stands to reason they should expect a fine and a 45 point deduction as a minimum.
What?

They have cheated for over a decade, their cheating has lead to teams not getting into Europe, relegation and preventing titles going to the rightful teams.

This is monumental, relegation is arguably the right punishment.
 
So when they are punished for cheating and ruining arguably the biggest football league in the world for more than a decade, will it be decided that their sportswashing wasn’t particularly successful?
Remember there are people on here who don't believe sport washing exists...
 
What?

They have cheated for over a decade, their cheating has lead to teams not getting into Europe, relegation and preventing titles going to the rightful teams.

This is monumental, relegation is arguably the right punishment.

In my mind it would be worse if they were bribing referees for wins, match fixing with opponents, engaging in squad wide doping, covering up sexual abuse of children in the academy. Much worse crimes than what they are accused of.

They’ve definitely cheated and its been systematic over 10 years. But we’ve always known thats what they were up to. If we knew they were doing any of the things mentioned above they would have been stopped immediately. So in my opinion, there is worse they could have done.
 
Sure they can try. But he got paid a similar amount as his yearly city salary in the PL, the most lucrative league in the world, for a 4 day a year contract in a tin pot league.. Good luck arguing that in court!

We did overpaid £84million for Macquire.... ;)
 
They’ve definitely cheated and its been systematic over 10 years. But we’ve always known thats what they were up to. If we knew they were doing any of the things mentioned above they would have been stopped immediately. So in my opinion, there is worse they could have done.

Human rights issue in Abu Dhabi?
 
In my mind it would be worse if they were bribing referees for wins, match fixing with opponents, engaging in squad wide doping, covering up sexual abuse of children in the academy. Much worse crimes than what they are accused of.

They’ve definitely cheated and its been systematic over 10 years. But we’ve always known thats what they were up to. If we knew they were doing any of the things mentioned above they would have been stopped immediately. So in my opinion, there is worse they could have done.
They’ve been trying to stop them. We just didn’t know about it because City were successful with court injunctions
 
They should be stripped of their titles, owners forced to sell and sent to whichever league will take them. They have made a mockery of the sport since the takeover.
 
Everyone saying city have great lawyers and will negotiate their way out of the mess. I'm sure the premier league's lawyers are no slouches.
 
In my mind it would be worse if they were bribing referees for wins, match fixing with opponents, engaging in squad wide doping, covering up sexual abuse of children in the academy. Much worse crimes than what they are accused of.

They’ve definitely cheated and its been systematic over 10 years. But we’ve always known thats what they were up to. If we knew they were doing any of the things mentioned above they would have been stopped immediately. So in my opinion, there is worse they could have done.
No one really cares about this arbitrary hierarchy you've decided in your head. There are rules to competitions they enter in, rules they are presumed to have violated for years and years, and which enabled them to create a position of dominance to the detriment of their competitors, a position they most likely should not be in had they followed the rules. So yeah, if they are found guilty, there is no reason why the book shouldn't be thrown at them.
 
Yep the salary one is a massive one. They need to follow the money, if the money comes from the City owners, then it also becomes a criminal case.

Imagine your place of work paying you off books, do you think you will be there without anything come towards you?

I think the salary part is the smaller issue esp with regards to Mancini's salary. Its small potatoes. The bigger issue is how the concocted their revenues.

City currently have the highest (top-line) revenues in the world. Bigger than Real Madrid, the 14 time European Champion. Made the league a laughing stock when United, Liverpool and even Chelsea all have a larger global fan base.

That was probably the triggering point -- it too bullshitty that there was no way they could get away with that.
 
@Relfy my thinking is more cynical than yours: that those same states (and perhaps those wishing to buy Manchester United?) are putting pressure on the governing bodies as a "if they got away with it why aren't we allowed!" sort of deal - that they only want to invest in Chelsea/Man Utd if they were allowed to breach the same rules City have done (on hundreds of occasions). They've got a point too, why AREN'T the PIF allowed to get away with what City did? Perhaps the Newcastle ownership stand to benefit here since they're on the verge of CL football and if City are docked points/relegated then that frees up a slot for the Saudi's....
 
Everyone saying city have great lawyers and will negotiate their way out of the mess. I'm sure the premier league's lawyers are no slouches.

Surely even Lionel Hutz can win this case
 
@Relfy my thinking is more cynical than yours: that those same states (and perhaps those wishing to buy Manchester United?) are putting pressure on the governing bodies as a "if they got away with it why aren't we allowed!" sort of deal - that they only want to invest in Chelsea/Man Utd if they were allowed to breach the same rules City have done (on hundreds of occasions). They've got a point too, why AREN'T the PIF allowed to get away with what City did? Perhaps the Newcastle ownership stand to benefit here since they're on the verge of CL football and if City are docked points/relegated then that frees up a slot for the Saudi's....

Or maybe it's the PL's shot across the bow of PIF/Newcastle? If they can't control or stop the poorer Abu Dhabi now, then there is no way they can allow the PIF to fester in a few years time.
 
One thing I keep seeing which I don’t like and needs to stop is the idea that a ‘small’ club is irrelevant to the PL. The issue here isn’t that City are a small club or that they have bought their success, every club buys their success to varying degrees, it’s that they cheated.
 
It is certainly true that financial doping is just as if not more effective in enhancing performance than the kind of doping cycling teams did, but it is much more debatable ethically. I mean big clubs with big revenue bases have a massive and perpetual advantage unless you allow some level of owner-led investment in smaller clubs, especially if time-limited, so at what point do you say the latter is 'too much'? I am not really clued up on the detail of the FFP rules but I do think the Premier League is a little bit realistic that it likes the fact that it is the one with all the richest clubs, and isn't necessarily that bothered about where the money comes from. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
 
Everyone saying city have great lawyers and will negotiate their way out of the mess. I'm sure the premier league's lawyers are no slouches.
The Premier League's lawyer
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For fans like @Baxter who have no idea what the breaches are but will laugh at others.

https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2023/0...rges-manchester-city-with-financial-breaches/

List of breaches listed on here, I hope you see that Premier league rules K.20 is listed on there.

https://resources.premierleague.com...a4e95f2/PL_Handbook_2022-23_DIGITAL_13.12.pdf

Above is the PL handbook.

K.20. The height of the pitch grass shall not exceed 30mm and the entire playing surface must be cut to the same height. The grass shall be cut so as to display straight, parallel lines across the entire width of the pitch, perpendicular to the touchlines. No other form of pitch presentation (such as circular or diagonal patterns) is permitted


So please do your research before laughing at others :lol: :lol: