What of Pep and the players in all of this? Surely if they have been shown to be taking illegal off the books payments then they should suffer the consequences too? If Toney, who shouldn't be playing right now, can face consequences for his stuff. Then surely their players should have bans looming too.
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th September 2024
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
- Start date
Just been reading through this thread. It’s absolutely astounding
It’s embarrassing frankly if they where gonna stand by knowing what city are doing why even bother bringing in the rules, rich teams can basically do what they want while poor teams are restricted.
They're definitely still artificially boosting their income through owner-related sponsorships which aren't even strictly forbidden but they only need to represent fair value. Sure they've also grown a fair bit as a club due to all the success they've gained in the last decade but certainly not to such extents that they're now bigger than RM/Barca/Bayern/United/Liverpool in revenues.
If only they'd stayed behind all those clubs in commercial incomes and were ranked 'best of the rest' it could even be argued their income represent reasonably fair market value and is merely a result of their growing global status as a club but they just had to overdo it so it's clear as feck to anyone with a brain that a huge chunk of the sponsor money still comes from their owners and in an open market they wouldn't be able to get similar values anywhere else.
The reason their sponsors are still so blatantly overvalued is because they need it to stay within FFP and wouldn't be anywhere near as competitive as a team if you stripped around £100M a year from their commercial incomes. In the latest accounts their commercial revenue was £51M above United, £76M above Liverpool and £132M above Chelsea. If you placed them somewhere between the incomes of Chelsea and Liverpool which is probably the ballpark where they could get legit sponsorship deals the decrease from whatever incomes they're posting now would roughly amount to the yearly squad costs (salary + amortisation) of Haaland, De Bruyne, Rodri and Dias. Remove top players like that from their squad and they're all of a sudden not so great anymore.
That's... not what this is.
The Premier League are a business. They will do whatever brings in the most money for the clubs they represent. It's long been apparent that nobody expects to win the PL except when City has an off year and nobody has really tried apart from Liverpool.
Worth a watch
I mentioned similar earlier, that surely all the agents are complicit in all this
Not going to lie this is starting to sound a bit promising especially the fact other clubs are pressuring FA to sort it
Maybe if all the teams kick up a fuss about the blatant cheating, FA would have to dish out punishment.
Maybe if all the teams kick up a fuss about the blatant cheating, FA would have to dish out punishment.
They immediately remind me of Trump fans.
I can't help but wonder if you guys ever think how clubs outside the EPL look at all of this? Sure, demote and fine City but at the same time clubs from smaller leagues wonder why this all of a sudden is unfair while for years championship clubs got 200 million for just being promoted to the EPL. The Champion's league hasn't been an actual league of champions because the EPL and 3 other leagues get four tickets while the champions of other leagues sometimes have to play three play off rounds. It's been about money way too long. Maybe instead of going after City we should go after UEFA and FIFA even more.
But does that actually form a part of the charges? Where are you getting it from? The PL have not exactly been specific but I’ve not actually seen any claims of this, outside of their rivals’ message boards.
Yep, all the talk is of the owners and the club. However I'm genuinely curious if players and management could be facing individual sanctions too if they are considered to have knowingly partaken in these crimes? Surely they would be facing penalties. At the very least there would have to be tax avoidance issues.
Haven't seen anyone talk of this possibility. Would love if someone, who might be versed in this stuff, could shine some light if it was possible that playing staff and management could be affected legally (even if just in the football legal sense).
To be honest its purely speculation on my part. Just thinking that the level of financial crimes levelled at City could potentially point towards players and management receiving under the table payments. So my real curiousity is could the players, for example, face an investigation into whether they wre aware of what was happening? I'm not saying Pep or the players did but more that surely if City are found guilty then it raises questions of the involvement or knowledge of the players and staff of what was happening.
For instance if KDB was receiving wages of 200k on the books but in actuality his 'real' earnings was 400k, could he face charges for this?
I don't know if that type of stuff happened but if it did then surely the players could face trouble too?
Haha. Simon Jordan is an acquired taste, but he's great when he's shitting on someone.
I think it depends on what the job occupation is listed as under the alleged shadow contracts. If it says "footballer", then its easy for HMRC to prove that their job took place in the UK, therefore they would have avoided collectively, hundreds of millions of pounds in tax payments. If their shadow contract lists them as ambassador or something, it would be difficult to prove they had been paid for their work as a footballer.
He's a midwit twat
He's best when he sticks to corporate or club management stuff. On the football side he always comes across as a wum.
Taking KDB as the example, but this would apply to any player, if this was the case then it would be tax fraud at a minimum ,that would be a criminal charge never mind a PL one
If they broke the rules, they should be punished. But to be honest, I find it very hard to judge them for this since FFP is a farce and was only put in place to ensure that those who are at the top remain at the top. It's a shitty rule made by shitty people sold as something great and romantic to the fans. Good for top clubs, bad for small clubs. feck FFP.
depends What the players have been told. They might have been given extra payments and told it was sponsorship or bonuses. I doubt they have access to the books to see if what they’ve been paid is being declared.
What happens if they win the league this year and we finish second?.
Are there any statements from officials of other clubs yet?
Hope all of this is admissible evidence. It's all stuff from the email hacking that featured in the previous UEFA investigation right?
Are you sure we have the same definition of the word “regularly“?
Surely, that would be tax fraud? The listed charge relates to Mancini as apparently there was a 2nd contract appointing him as manager of a team in Abu Dhabi over the same period as he was coaching City with equal remuneration, although he was essentially in Manchester the whole time and not really coaching another team in Abu Dhabi. If that is proven, I hope that rat is banned from football altogether.
Fair enough I was more thinking of Chelsea and just assumed arsenal had made it in some recent years. But after 6 titles in a decade, City are more akin to Chelsea than arsenal
There's nothing romantic about a gulf state with a terrible human rights record buying a football club and then spending billions and billions of dodgy money on them.
The PL especially, it's pretty competitive. You've got Brighton and Brentford pushing for Europe and possibly CL, you've got the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea in mid table, there's a lot going on.
I don't buy this excuse of oh well yeah they have been cheating for the last 15 years but it's for a good cause.
Yeah, I said pretty much the same a few replies earlier. Looking from smaller leagues the whole EPL money is problematic and the current CL set up damaging smaller leagues and big clubs that play in smaller leagues.
They wouldn't say anything till a verdict or their name is dragged into it
No it's not and I'll cheer if it all implodes. But there's also nothing romantic about top clubs using their influence to put rules in place that ensure that no other clubs can close the gap to them. Which they did with FFP, which they did with the UCL reform and which they attempted with the ESL. They definitely have no moral high ground either.
What their few thousand bitter, bewildered fans fail to realise is that FFP is designed so that no team can gain an unfair advantage over another. These rules aren't exclusive to football, we see variations of them in other sports, such as Formula 1 or Rugby.
When they say "we are being treated unfairly", what they mean is "we want to behave unfairly and we're not being allowed"
It’s always the numpties that call into these phone-in shows.
Imo no if he pays the required taxes on that 400k.
Arsenal haven't finished in the top 4 in going on 7 years.
If they did they would have probably set up an entity that paid their share of taxes and so did KDB on the payments recieved.
The aim wasn't to save taxes but to ensure the payments can't be traced back to City
Yeah fair enough I guess how well they performed this season made me forget how they weren't much better than us last year
The old ‘but the big bad historic clubs’ moaning that City and Chelsea fans like to trot out..
Superb!