What is the explanation for why the investigation began in 2018?
City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches
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What is the explanation for why the investigation began in 2018?
It’s next to impossible to predict isn’t it. The issue with FFP is that it was designed with the input from the big clubs in order to create a situation where they couldn’t really be caught, financially speaking. Man Utd argued that existing debt shouldn’t count, I think, which they didn’t do out of concern for eg Scarborough FC, they did to protect themselves from breaking the rules. It effectively bolted the door behind them, or so was the intention. So it’s sometimes odd to see the moralising on here and elsewhere. I don’t think this is about ethics, it’s about keeping the big clubs forever big.
The FA of today has no right telling us how to operate, because the FA of 15 years ago already did
The sheer number of seasons this puts a cloud over is just a nightmare for the Premier League.
Moneyball at its worst.
Moneyball at its worst.
It's just folk over egging their knowledge of the law, and watching too many episodes of suits.
End of the day, facts are facts, if it's their in black and white, they are screwed. They where even guilty with CAS, after losing the UEFA case. They got off with it on a technicality. They are also over 100+ breaches, and then another 5 years to now where they won't even provide the info. The same oul issue being that they no forthcoming with information. They are clearly guilty.
Could have the brightest legal minds going, but you can't argue facts, and possibly tax evasion etc
It’s not just that. City got busted once already and had their UCL ban revoked and fine reduced on appeal. There’s pretty good reason to be skeptical.
Although this time I do think the crimes are too severe for it to be brushed under the carpet. They’re fecked.
If they get found guilty and punished by premier league could they also be sued by other clubs? Several clubs could say they missed out on revenue from league titles and champions league qualification
And to think, if Der Spiegel hadn't hacked any emails we wouldn't have had any of this come to light.
And the teams relegated as well...
Congrats for calling out others for over-egging their legal/financial knowledge and then doing exactly that yourself!
They are still heavily reliant on Abu Dhabi's money. They are not profitable as it is now. If you take out the fake sponsorships & wage subsidies provided by Abu Dhabi they would still be posting huge losses as they were in the early stages of the takeover.
The Etihad deal went up by £30 Mill alone last season. There was talk before they signed the new deal that they were looking to end the partnership & accept bids from other parties. It would be safe to assume that no other bids materialised that matched Etihads existing payments let alone a £30 Mill increase.
One thing that interests me is whether that info will be allowed to be used. I assume it will, but if the act of hacking is illegal can you use illegally gained information to punish someone? I really don’t know if you can. And as I say, I also don’t know if what DS did was even legal. It may or may not be.
Yeah that's true but as I say that was a technicality, time bar issue, which is impossible to get this time.
This story is huge, they are getting some form of punishment. I'd imagine the main thing that will come of this, they be under more spotlight now going forward, which will massively affect how they've been operating all these years.
They'd have to reign in the spending and probably settle for being title challengers rather than clear favourites every year, but they wouldn't go back to midtable without the oil money now
I don't have a legal mind. Was just starting facts from the previous cases. I mean facts are facts, that is what this will be based on. If they facts aren't in the premier league side then legal para could prob win it for city
Sorry for going all QC Kavanagh on ya.
If found guilty I’d make an uneducated guess the choice will be between a points deduction and a demotion. That’s a big IF.
If it’s points then it may simply deny them CL for a season, or give them CL but deny them a title.
Their refusal to co operate with the investigation or produce any sort of documentation or evidence from 2018 onwards certainly suggests that dubious activities are ongoing. Not to mention posting higher revenues than the likes of Real Madrid and ourselves in the last year...
I don't have a legal mind. Was just starting facts from the previous cases. I mean facts are facts, that is what this will be based on. If they facts aren't in the premier league side then legal para could prob win it for city
Sorry for going all QC Kavanagh on ya.
I don’t have one either. I would assume that both camps have a few tricks up their sleeves and we’ll end up being thrown a curve ball or two before this is over.
I only say that because I struggle to believe the PL would do this without a strong case, but I equally struggle to believe that City’s lawyers have not spent years war-gaming scenarios exactly like this, and so will probably feel pretty confident too.
The only thing I’d bet on is that this won’t be quick. Not this season or next season.
Depends. If they are forced to fairly fight for their top 4 spot, they still have to contend with Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and us who dwarf them in revenue (if we exclude the shady deals). Even Tottenham would be larger than them.
They're still inflating it so they can be the strongest team in the league, and probably paying players under the table which is why de bruyne, aguero, Silva, kompany etc never asked to leave for real or Barca during their primes
Depends I guess if they could secure deals or I wonder would they be viewed as tainted and shunned?
If it was simply "cut related party deals" and they went on BAU and we're able to secure other legitimate sponsorship, then you're defo right. They'd still be one of the top dogs financially in the PL.
That's largely been the perception of them for years anyway.
Clearly bigger contracts than they could pre-Abu Dhabi but they're still essentially a Championship-sized club artificially competing well above their station.
Yes, they'll have appeal as Premier League club competing in Europe, but should be on par with the likes of Spurs/Newcastle at best
No, they'd be top 4 comfortably, their position means they always get a massive amount of the tv rights share, they generally progress a decent amount in the CL, your size is generally based on global rather than domestic appeal, and City's decade of success will have appealed to a lot of global fans, they wouldn't be blowing past 90 points every year, but they'd be title challengers
It would be hard to quantify what teams actually lost out on. Just giving the titles to runners up of City is a bit of a slippery slope for me.
For example, while Liverpool finished 2nd and us 3rd in 2014, does Brendan beat Jose to the title if it was between them? Would Ole have held out with Klopp chasing him if the title pressure was on his shoulders? I think we can almost safely say Klopp and Fergie would have won and probably Jose aswell but I'm not really sure about just handing retrospective titles to second place.
I'm kind of flattered it took this much to paint the city blue.
They need to throw the book at them this time and relegate them to the Championship
Reallocating titles retroactively is only really done in cases where the winning club directly manipulated the results of matches through things like matchfixing or bribing referees.
Relegation is the heaviest punishment one can realistically expect, but a points deduction is more probable.
Relegation is the heaviest punishment one can realistically expect, but a points deduction is more probable.
They will be on that hill in Blackburn again
This one does appear to be the straw which broke the camel's back doesnt it? I wonder what the other clubs might say if nothing gets done.
Hey I will take points deduction
Would they be in a few years if their commercial revenue was reduced to where it should be which is in line with Chelsea & Arsenal. City generated nearly £170m more then Arsenal last year which is ridiculous, take that out and City will be back struggling to make top 4.
Kicked out of the league? as in, not relegated but excluded from english football?
They would then what join one of the failing leagues?
They would then what join one of the failing leagues?
15 point deduction each of the nine years they cheated.
Well Chelsea and arsenal regularly do make the top 4 so yes, they would
I have never met a City fan outside of Manchester. There's a reason they can't even fill their own medium-sized stadium half the time. Nobody gives a shit about the club. Yesterday's release about all of this didn't even make the news in Denmark, one of the countries outside the UK that most follows English football. City's one and only point of relevancy is their recent/current ability to compete for trophies. If that's taken from them, they are literally nothing, as they were before they became a sportswashing vehicle for a human rights nightmare.
Arsenal make what now?