Oil Money in Football | New City expose

Not reading the article but not surprised with this hack.


A big point of all this, is that City and PSG are getting away with bending the rules, but nobody else is!
Other clubs have been punished because they can’t afford to pay off UEFA.

If United had spent beyond their means by hiding payments all over the place, we’d have the book thrown at us!
 
Lol so Holt, who is obviously on City's payroll is going

"Oh well you know, if they are found guilty they were only trying to find a way around an already corrupt system so it's OK. Do we really want to punish such beautiful football guys? After all it's not their fault the system is against them"

Corrupt tosser.
 
According to varying reports, UEFA and Premier League seperatley are looking into this. How much that is just lip service and what they'll do remains to be seen but its important the pressure continues to be applied by clubs, football supporters and journalists (haha!).
 
I'm interested in knowing what this so called "reputation" City claim to have that these allegations are part of a plot to damage.
 
According to varying reports, UEFA and Premier League seperatley are looking into this. How much that is just lip service and what they'll do remains to be seen but its important the pressure continues to be applied by clubs, football supporters and journalists (haha!).

Nearly Christmas. They want another pay-off maybe.
 
A big point of all this, is that City and PSG are getting away with bending the rules, but nobody else is!
Other clubs have been punished because they can’t afford to pay off UEFA.

If United had spent beyond their means by hiding payments all over the place, we’d have the book thrown at us!

It's actually not true, Mediapart are part of the Football Leaks and they have articles about how the UEFA have arbitrary application of the rules, with clubs like Inter, Monaco or Zenith among others that have seen their infractions swept under the carpet while others get banned, they used the example of Inter doing worse than Milan while only the latter got a ban.
Also according to the leaks, it's a group of four clubs that literally make the rules, Bayern, Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus. I remember that two french journalist specifically mentioned that United and Arsenal for example, carefully stay away from these shenanigans though.


Edit: In a confidential presentation, the UEFA recognize that there is a concentration issue and that the competition is skewed in favor of the big clubs, then they talk about how a cap would fix it but that it was too harsh on the big clubs and that there was no financial incentives for them.

If the leaks are genuine, the all thing is a sham.
 
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Really? Is that global or U.K. figures?
global

but I have local charts

EPL-Figures-4.png


EPL-Figures-1.png
 
global

but I have local charts

EPL-Figures-4.png


EPL-Figures-1.png

That’s pretty damning, though if I’m honest the PL has gotten boring in the last two years for me. A combination of City being miles ahead of everyone else, and the smaller teams being more cannon fodder than anything else. Every game in the PL used to be a battle, but you get much less upsets these days IMO. La Liga has become more entertaining than the PL IMO. More upsets, no one team steamrolling everyone. I’ll probably be shot for that opinion now.
 
Actually United joined the cartel at some point along with Arsenal and Milan AC. The Mediapart article mentions that those 3 weren't mentioned anymore in the the emails after a first draft of a Superleague organized by Relevent Sports was discussed in a meeting in Barcelona but didn't come through.
 
Wow well I’ve highlighted the above as it’s very inspiring for me and other fans of Manchester City, what colour scarfs do you think we should wear to protest? If we did that would it make us accepted by you and other fans of big clubs?

Football isn’t intrinsically linked to politics despite who owns my club. Again I’ve supported my club before the owners came in just because I don’t agree with their culture and society doesn’t mean I should stop supporting my club.

Yes the owner is part of a royal family that has a poor migrant worker rights record. Your most famous manager accepted a knighthood and invitation into an order from a family which has a lot more blood on its hands than the royal family of the Abu Dhabi. Where was your outrage then? I take it your not a hypocrite and you lambasted him on forums for accepting an honour from a royal family that is one of the bloodiest in history? Or are you holding city fans to a higher standard than “SIR” Alex Ferguson?

I said it in my previous post, this kind of logic isn’t feasible in any argument because it’s hypocritical. Your outrage has to be consistent and as I’ve just shown above it isn’t. I take the owner of my football club as just that, the owner of the club I’ve supported since a child. I am not held accountable for what his family’s human rights record is in the Middle East. Nor would I hold any football fan to account for the actions or beliefs of there owners. I’m not that sanctimonious.

I'm not responsible for how your fans protest.

From reading what you just wrote as a retort, I suggest you shouldn't be either.
 
Actually United joined the cartel at some point along with Arsenal and Milan AC. The Mediapart article mentions that those 3 weren't mentioned anymore in the the emails after a first draft of a Superleague organized by Relevent Sports was discussed in a meeting in Barcelona but didn't come through.
@JPRouve that's interesting, but anything on why United stay in the background?

He is right the leaks say that in March 2016 in Barcelona, they joined the "Seven aristocrats" but all three allegedly left quickly without explaining why. And I have never read why they weren't in it from the beginning or why they left quickly.

Something that is also important to remember for the people who talks about banning City or PSG, the historic clubs want both clubs in their hypothetical super leagues and in the last leaks, they even want them among the founding members(shareholders).
 
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Wow well I’ve highlighted the above as it’s very inspiring for me and other fans of Manchester City, what colour scarfs do you think we should wear to protest? If we did that would it make us accepted by you and other fans of big clubs?

Football isn’t intrinsically linked to politics despite who owns my club. Again I’ve supported my club before the owners came in just because I don’t agree with their culture and society doesn’t mean I should stop supporting my club.

Yes the owner is part of a royal family that has a poor migrant worker rights record. Your most famous manager accepted a knighthood and invitation into an order from a family which has a lot more blood on its hands than the royal family of the Abu Dhabi. Where was your outrage then? I take it your not a hypocrite and you lambasted him on forums for accepting an honour from a royal family that is one of the bloodiest in history? Or are you holding city fans to a higher standard than “SIR” Alex Ferguson?

I said it in my previous post, this kind of logic isn’t feasible in any argument because it’s hypocritical. Your outrage has to be consistent and as I’ve just shown above it isn’t. I take the owner of my football club as just that, the owner of the club I’ve supported since a child. I am not held accountable for what his family’s human rights record is in the Middle East. Nor would I hold any football fan to account for the actions or beliefs of there owners. I’m not that sanctimonious.

False equivalence between the present day human rights abuses in the UAE and centuries old issues. You're clutching at straws. By your logic we shouldn't trade with Italy because of atrocities committed by the Roman Empire.

Out of interest, what are your thoughts on the main allegations recently highlighted by Der Spiegel which are; false sponsorship figures, player wages worth £30m paid from 3rd party companies to reduce City wage bill and Mancini being given an advisor role in Abu Dhabi to more than double his wage from City?
 
Probably, yes.

This wasn't a hostile takeover, Manchester City's internal communications team said that getting in to bed with these people would damage the clubs reputation beyond repair. It was only the promise of riches which changed the minds of the decision makers at the top and the rats in Manchester City Council who sold off half the city in exchange for cushy jobs and (probably) backhanders.

Argue all you like about FFP, I don't care and I'm not looking for sanctions which will never happen. Clearly this is just like cheating on Football Manager, but corruption is commonplace in football, I struggle care either way and hardly consider our relationship with whatever Manchester City is now a rivalry. You'll always have my support over Liverpool because you just don't matter.

What your club represents is worse than corruption in football.

Comparing your owners to the Glazer family is interesting. The Glazers do donate money to Trump, a man I find abhorrent, but being leader of the free-world is different to being the overseers of an obsessive, dark age regime. However, I won't defend Trump or the Glazer family. In fact, I joined MUST and attended games in a green and gold scarf.

What did your fans do?

Dress up as Sheikhs, the overseers of an obsessive, dark-age regime, and erect creditworthy banners thanking them for picking your club as their new toy.

It's a funny feeling being taken under the wing of a dragon. It's warmer than you'd think.

Who cares about where the money comes from? We've got Roque Santa Cruz.

You brought up Trump, but Manchester is a city famous for it's support of another president and abolition of slavery, it's a city about to commemorate the Peterloo Massacre.

You can't go around putting up signs welcoming players to Manchester and calling yourselves 'The Citizens'.

You're the antithesis of everything good about our city.

You can can do something about that as fans, something more worthy than signing up to a rival clubs message board and defending your overseers.

Tell yourselves whatever you like, we know and you know.
100% spot on.
 
And the fact that player wages are inflated by a shell company paying all the image rights which equated to £30 million over 2 years. Which hid the real wage bill. Makes all the talk about Sanchez wages look silly.

Also Mancini, over half of his income while at City came from a "ghost" role at an Abu Dhabi organisation. They paid him to be an advisor but paid more than City did to be a manager. Again, hiding the wage bill.

The sponsorships you say are subsidised by Abu Dhabi companies are actually subsidised by ADUG, City's owners. I.e Etihad.

Have you even read the 4 Der Spiegel articles? The mental gymnastics of denial and blinkered vision by City fans on this is beyond a joke.
Some actually read the stuff, good on you.
 
If City gets away with this again then I'm done with football. At the very least they should be banned from participation in European cups and relegated.
 
A question for City fans.
If it had been for example, Leeds United that had been bought by your owners, rather than yourselves, would you be similarly disgusted about the situation?
It really could have been any club that they bought. Newcastle or West Ham...
Same Question to PSG fans and Lyon had the investment, not you?
 
A question for City fans.
If it had been for example, Leeds United that had been bought by your owners, rather than yourselves, would you be similarly disgusted about the situation?
It really could have been any club that they bought. Newcastle or West Ham...
Same Question to PSG fans and Lyon had the investment, not you?

PSG fans don't need to imagine it, it was the case with Marseille in the late 80s-early 90s.
 
A question for City fans.
If it had been for example, Leeds United that had been bought by your owners, rather than yourselves, would you be similarly disgusted about the situation?
It really could have been any club that they bought. Newcastle or West Ham...
Same Question to PSG fans and Lyon had the investment, not you?


I'm not a fan of the owners but I'd not be against Leeds / mags whoever spending shit tons of cash.

I think the modern 'big' clubs have bought the city / psg clubs on themselves, them and UEFA have created the monsters that city and PSG are with the money and visibility the CL brings.

I don't think the clubs who wanted to break away from the Football League ever envisaged how big the PL would become, ditto the Champions League
 
The money I can look past and the corruption doesn't surprise me, it's the other stuff that is unforgivable.
 
By the way I don't know if anyone saw it but there is an other leak about City regarding african players and third party ownership. It's behind a paywall, so I can't see it.
 
I'm not a fan of the owners but I'd not be against Leeds / mags whoever spending shit tons of cash.

I think the modern 'big' clubs have bought the city / psg clubs on themselves, them and UEFA have created the monsters that city and PSG are with the money and visibility the CL brings.

I don't think the clubs who wanted to break away from the Football League ever envisaged how big the PL would become, ditto the Champions League

Definitely a fair point. Owners like them were probably inevitable sooner or later. Them having more money isn't really a problem, thats just standard fare really with the sport. They've hastened an existing slide down the toilet.
 
A question for City fans.
If it had been for example, Leeds United that had been bought by your owners, rather than yourselves, would you be similarly disgusted about the situation?
It really could have been any club that they bought. Newcastle or West Ham...
Same Question to PSG fans and Lyon had the investment, not you?

As @JPRouve says there's nothing to imagine, French football has a long history with sugar daddies, often at the expense of PSG, sure it's always annoying to have richer competitors than you but that's part of the game.

L1 being raided by the likes of MU, Real Barca, Bayern, Juve, Milan has always been disgusting, some mediocre Italian clubs in the 90s and basically all the EPL nowadays doing the same make it even worse. I've had more issues with that than another French club having more money.
 
As @JPRouve says there's nothing to imagine, French football has a long history with sugar daddies, often at the expense of PSG, sure it's always annoying to have richer competitors than you but that's part of the game.

L1 being raided by the likes of MU, Real Barca, Bayern, Juve, Milan has always been disgusting, some mediocre Italian clubs in the 90s and basically all the EPL nowadays doing the same make it even worse. I've had more issues with that than another French club having more money.

Sugar daddies, not Sugar Sharia States with infinite wealth. Nobody would have an issue with teams being competitive, but subsidised monopoly is immoral.
 
Sugar daddies, not Sugar Sharia States with infinite wealth. Nobody would have an issue with teams being competitive, but subsidised monopoly is immoral.

Monopoly on what? They've won the league once in the past 4 seasons, and only three times total since their takeover. Chelsea were more dominant for the 10 years following their takeover by Roman than City have been.
 
Sugar daddies, not Sugar Sharia States with infinite wealth. Nobody would have an issue with teams being competitive, but subsidised monopoly is immoral.

The regime and human rights issues are for me the only arguments that should be universal. There is a clear issue in that department.
 
Ironic that the thing the City owners probably want the most is respect, yet they're further away than they've ever been.
 
Monopoly on what? They've won the league once in the past 4 seasons, and only three times total since their takeover. Chelsea were more dominant for the 10 years following their takeover by Roman than City have been.

Because FFP kept them within the realms of sporting normality for a few years, and St Pep finished third despite still having some of the best players in the league....then they began to ‘generate’ a ‘profit’ so could spend circa £200m on defenders and goalkeepers in the transfer windows of 2017/18, and proceed to make the league a one camel race.

The correlation between unprecedented spending and the quantum leap ahead of every other team is there to observe. Clubs like Spurs and Liverpool are having to have record starts to Premier League seasons to even keep within touching distance, and will likely fall short with their credible sporting projects because of the advantage Arab wealth gives City.

United lose Pogba, Fellaini comes in; City lose De Bruyne and can replace him with Bernardo and Gundogan, who’d be key starters for every other team in the league. City’s reserve defenders of Kompany, Danilo and Otamendi are the kind of players Mourinho would love in his defence, but he has to make do with Young, Smalling and Lindelöf....and Sane, the young player of the year, and who has been reduced to an impact sub this season by the £60m signing of Mahrez, would be a star man for every other team. With such context, it’s obvious why City are winning, and it’s exclusively because the Arabs can finance it, along with the hiring of one of the best coaches in the world.

The ememies of football indeed.
 
A combination of City being miles ahead of everyone else, and the smaller teams being more cannon fodder than anything else. Every game in the PL used to be a battle, but you get much less upsets these days IMO.

Every single game is a battle for us at the moment, even against so-called lesser sides.

And that's what makes watching Utd so exciting!

(it really doesn't though)
 
Football365 said:
People will not be happy if we let this analysis go by without talking about the revelations made by Der Spiegel.

However much a club might disagree with competition rules like Financial Fair Play, it is incumbent on them to abide by them. If most other clubs are doing so and you are not, you’re not simply taking advantage of having greater wealth or a higher profile; you are outright cheating.

City are by no means the only club in Europe to have faced such allegations, merely the most recent; but it is right that people should raise questions about it, even if the driving force behind those questions is rooted in little more than nakedly jealous tribalism and whataboutery.

Money is a huge part of what determines which clubs are successful and which aren’t; the clear correlation between wages spend and achievement demonstrates that very clearly.

But it is not everything: the travails of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich this season and Chelsea in two of the last three Premier League campaigns demonstrate that. And when you see a team start a game with ten minutes like City had, and then end it with a wonderful, utterly wonderful goal like their third, you can’t just put that down to money. Money does not coach players or implement tactics or automatically instil that level of confidence.

For the good of the game, we need to keep our eyes open to financial doping, but we should also be smart enough to give credit where it’s due and admit that City are also flipping brilliant. You can’t react to such a showing with a roll of the eyes and a declaration that they bought all those passes.
Oh f*ck off.
 
Watching the Monaco-PSG game (if it can even be called that) and it really hits home how oil money has destroyed the French league as a competition - the disparity between the clubs is absolutely shocking. PSG with a forward line of Mbappe-Cavani-Neymar against a back four of Monaco containing a 17 year old kid who has been forced to make his debut as they didn't have enough players. His last game was at U19 level and now he's playing against >£350 million worth of strikers :lol:

Not to mention the league standings - with 13 games played, PSG are 13 points clear of second-placed Lille. Surely this cannot be considered a competition - was more like an exhibition game tonight, and you can see why the Oil-fueled club is keen on joining a European super league. They have nothing to play for here, it doesn't even feel like competition. It's something you see on FIFA career mode on Amateur difficulty.

The only reason why the Premier League hasn't gone the same way and Chelsea/ City aren't dominating is because of the rich and successful histories of Liverpool, Arsenal and United (which have allowed them to be financially competitive) - and because of the TV money the PL receives allowing them to be at least semi-competitive. Even then City could blow any team out of the water financially, through no effort nor history of their own. You can see things going the way of the French league though, if you look at this season and the last - the trend is being set.

FFP my arse.
 
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I am so, so tired of everyone proclaiming Pep as a genius.
Genius, is what SAF did during United’s glory years. On a realistic budget and mixing in players that were not necessarily brilliant, but they worked as part of a team.
What Pep does is attainable by any half decent manager on the unlimited (and mostly undeclared) budget that City have.
Yeah, it’s great to implement a system where every player can pass the ball brilliantly and get away with cynical fouls when they lose the ball. But that doesn’t come cheap. Every other team has numerous fillers in their 1st 11. City don’t. They have a bench full of players that walk into every other team in the league.
Pep failed miserably in his first season, all things considered. Then he was given what he asked for to improve the squad.
I’m not going to defend Jose in any way. This team has underperformed terribly. But anyone that thinks City are ‘good’ for the game are living in la-la land.
Pep is great with a squad that is head and shoulders above every other team in the league. But he could never have done what SAF did with United, or Jose did with Porto and Inter. Or even what Ranieri did with Leicester.
The only thing I’ll give him credit for, is being very selective and picking situations that can’t fail.
 
I am so, so tired of everyone proclaiming Pep as a genius.
Genius, is what SAF did during United’s glory years. On a realistic budget and mixing in players that were not necessarily brilliant, but they worked as part of a team.
What Pep does is attainable by any half decent manager on the unlimited (and mostly undeclared) budget that City have.
Yeah, it’s great to implement a system where every player can pass the ball brilliantly and get away with cynical fouls when they lose the ball. But that doesn’t come cheap. Every other team has numerous fillers in their 1st 11. City don’t. They have a bench full of players that walk into every other team in the league.
Pep failed miserably in his first season, all things considered. Then he was given what he asked for to improve the squad.
I’m not going to defend Jose in any way. This team has underperformed terribly. But anyone that thinks City are ‘good’ for the game are living in la-la land.
Pep is great with a squad that is head and shoulders above every other team in the league. But he could never have done what SAF did with United, or Jose did with Porto and Inter. Or even what Ranieri did with Leicester.
The only thing I’ll give him credit for, is being very selective and picking situations that can’t fail.
Great post. I've been saying this for a while, I can't call Pep Guardiola an all time great until he goes to a club where he's actually challenged. All three clubs he's managed in his career have been almost perfect jobs for him. I would love to see him go and challenge himself by taking on an underdog team with a small budget and a squad that needs re-built. It would be fascinating to see what he could do without a world class player in nearly every position.
 
Watching the analysis by graham souness after was annoying to say the least. He asked Gary Neville how had their been such a turnaround in 10 years? The answer being blatantly obvious given the recent articles for everyone except that sky studio:
United have had a billion wrongly taken out of the club after selling one of the best ever players by their owners, all the while, spending (hard earned, legitimate money) within their means and showing profits due to ffp.
Meanwhile, city have had 2 billion pumped into them while cheating the ffp rules, which allowed them to spend 50m on bench players and buy more next time if they don’t work out. Even now, their profits are fake, inflated by their owners hidden money.
It’s just wrong. If graham souness isn’t a complete moron then he has zero back bone in acting oblivious to the reality. It doesn’t surprise me really knowing the way sky are, commercial, contrived, choreographed, plastic.
 
By the way I don't know if anyone saw it but there is an other leak about City regarding african players and third party ownership. It's behind a paywall, so I can't see it.

"Fifa is investigating allegations Manchester City broke rules banning third-party ownership in their links with Danish club FC Nordsjaelland.

On Thursday, Danish newspaper Politiken claimed City had signed an agreement with the Superliga side allowing them to recruit African players for free
"

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46159075