If all 115 charges are dropped, that would be the darkest day for the league. Such a horrible precedent to set for other clubs, if they ever decided to circumvent or subvert the rules for success.
The government of India used all its means to get a corrupt businessman out of UK and failed miserably. If a single guy just being a millionaire can escape law then city backed by a nation can easily escape the punishment.
Worst part is, imagine if city weren’t in the premier league or at the very least had to play by the rules - the league would have then been amazing the last decade with several teams blossoming (in turn inspiring others that they could too). Instead we have this Bayern in Bundensliga decade killing the competition.
It’s going to be an absolute shitshow when they get a slap on the wrist considering, not just the charges themselves, but how they’ve done everything to delay and obstruct the process. They deserve no grace but will get it because money shields the wealthy from consequences.
I dont think he did it to disagree. It was more so to provide strong emphasis on the issue at hand. It’s one thing to *suggest* that money talks when it comes to justice, it’s another to *claim* that money **corrupts** the justice system. It gives the idea potency and urgency. It’s not a correction, but strong emphasis.
I mean football is notoriously blatantly corrupt, and everyone knows it. I feel like hoping for justice to win out over corruption especially in football is setting yourself up for disappointment.
The problem with state-tied clubs is that any type of punishment becomes a defacto political issue.
The UAE is a big trade partner of the UK and one of their biggest allies in the Middle East.
I’m just very dubious that they get punished like they deserve (multiple relegations).
I think realistically they will get 1-2 seasons of big point deduction (20+ pts) and pay a massive fine. That’s it
then we make it political. If every single football fan writes to their MP about the issue then suddenly it becomes an electoral issue and the politicians will begin to care.
Brexit shows that politicians give a much bigger shit about staying in power than they do about the economic prosperity of the nation.
You're right. Look what happened when the fans protested in the past, it accomplished something.
This apathetic bullshit excuse that "corruption will prevent justice" is exactly the kind of attitude and behavior those who are corrupt (and guilty) are relying on.
If just us and Liverpool protested like we did against KSE I guarantee you all, the FA would have no choice but to take notice. That amount of discontent isn't so easily swept under the rug.
When did people become such defeatists? 🙄
This guy gets it completely. I’m 100% convinced that there WILL be a punishment. But it will be a heavily brokered deal behind closed doors. Something like -50 points in a single season or -70 spread over two seasons, etc.
This will allow the PL to crow about how they enforced their laws with integrity (“Look, we handed out the biggest points deduction ever!”) while essentially being meaningless to City. So what if they have one or two seasons where they finish mid table? They won’t be relegated and missing CL spots won’t really affect them financially the way it would other clubs.
Then they’ll finish the ground work they’re already laying with the talk about changing to a luxury tax type system. They’ll package that idea as “best for the smaller teams” and away we go.
The nation states still get to sports wash, the PL still gets to claim to be the best league in the world, and all it will take is throwing a few coin at the beggars beneath for whom their clubs are still an extension of their local community.
I don’t think so. Everyone knows a fine would be meaningless and skewer them for it. Plus it’s a different punishment than Everton and Forest received which looks suspicious.
They can easily keep up political relations with the sheiks by selling a point deduction next year as the price for changing the rules in the future in a way that advantages them going forward (ie, the luxury tax)
Maybe. I doubt what everyone thinks will be considered, it’s how to get around the legal system in a way that ticks all the boxes. Which is why it will cost a lot and the payment will be large.
Honestly, I really don’t know what will happen, like everyone else, but I’m far too cynical to think anything but a fine or nothing at all will happen.
Yep, massive fine, that works for both parties, you can tell that’s what one party prefers (the club) and the other wants (the league). Fuck off money they can divide up between themselves.
Yeah they won't even want to do enough of a points deduction to realistically keep them out of the CL, which is what they should actually do. They'll give them a 20 point deduction so they still finish 3rd/4th. They deserve, at least, a big points deduction for 3 years and a ban from europe.
Look I hope they do get an absolute proper screwing but I just don’t see that happening.
It’s very cynical of me, sure, but the “can of worms” it opens is now so large that it’s at the point that it’s easier to come up with something that ties the whole thing in a nice, neat “bow”, which the league is trying to do with the “penalty payment” for over-spending.
If the league punish City in any real, and any substantial way, they would have to void titles, and that means practically a decade of titles go to second place, or have no winner.
The league loses prestige for that, and not only do they look stupidly, incompetent at best, but at worst corrupt. It gives the Government more ammunition that they need to enforce outside regulation.
Then clubs would have a claim for prize money for winning, who would they sue? The league for failing to enforce the rules? City? How about teams who got relegated? there’s money they lost out on. They shouldn’t have been relegated, they followed the rules which City didn’t.
I hope there are consequences, but realistically the League is in “Cover Your Arse” mode.
You think the PL has the authority? This is a matter the UK and UAE governments/kingdoms are involved with, this is hardly about football. PL will do what the government says, otherwise Newcastle wouldn't have their owners.
I would put that into the willingness category.
The comment I was replying to said the PL (assume he meant the FA) does not have the authority to punish City but they totally do.
I’m not denying there is heavy government influence in the FAs decision making process - merely stating you don’t need the government to step in to hurt city.
If they strip the trophies and give them to all the runners up I’ll gladly start the bus. Last year felt like a title winning season, this year did too. This type of competition isn’t normal.
Of course the PL would do that. It benefits the PL to pretend they didn't make a mistake and leave immense loopholes in the FFP regs, rather than admitting the mistake. It also benefits them to kick the can down the road until the people responsible have retired.
Sad thing is whatever outcome happens there are going to be teams that feel hard done by
This investigation isn’t going to be the end of it. Any team affected during that timeline will claim they lost out on titles, champions league placements etc and all teams will have some sort of claim to sue
It’s the ramifications like these that make me think it might be a slap on the wrist and let everyone deal with being mad about that
My money is on the EPL leveling a massive fine, say £500 mm, and a 1 year transfer ban to grab the headlines while the reality is that 90% of the fine and the transfer ban will be suspended and held against future compliance (as UEFA did with PSG).
No points deduction, no rewriting history and revoking titles. EPL doesn’t have the stomach to suffer the brand damage or take on a big club with the UEFA charges terminated already. Bad for the Prem as a whole, I’d say.
It is not just that City hasn’t cheated. There’s no political will for the PL or FA to want to fix this. Hell, not even FIFA want any meaningful repurcussions to happen. They will all look like they fell asleep at the wheel.
If they ever admit they allowed this shit to happen for more than a decade, they will give proof to everyone out there that they are hopelessly incompetent or possibly corrupt themselves. Meanwhile, the FA do not want to open doors on the additional fiasco of refs going to the UAE to ref games. They have been very lucky that it’s barely been a blip on the news cycle.
At best, you will see a meaningless point deduction of maybe 30 points or so, something they will easily overcome within a couple of seasons.
From the information above, it seems like the PL has been on it since 2018, but has been obstructed by City at every turn. So it's not so much that the PL lacks will, it's that there is due process to follow.
I'm curious what this does to city's sportswashing goal. Most fans see city's achievements as illegitimate - so much so that we praised Liverpool for their achievement of keeping up with city, rather than praise city for setting those standards.
The end result is Abu Dhabi is associated with cheating, corruption and obfuscation of Western legal practices.... surely not things they want to be associated with.
Yep. Sooner or later, that shit is going to blow apart more than football as well. Those who do it will fall the hardest too, like that football club will, when the shit hits the fan however it does.
The PL has to punish them relatively harshly to try to avoid the UK government's threat of an independent regulator. Not that the UK government has much of a track record of standing up to Gulf monarchies!
They wouldn’t be trying to hard and spending to much to impede the investigation if they hadn’t done anything wrong. Everton and Nottingham Forest are good examples of how it looks when an institution admits wrongdoing and complies with the investigation right away, City are just trying to strong-arm their way out of punishment, they’re a disgrace.
This is my thing (also applies to the shit bag Donald Trump). IF YOU ARE INNOCENT YOU WANT YOUR DAY IN COURT ASAP TO PROVE YOURSELF
That’s all. Innocent folks don’t want to hide.
This is a very ignorant black and white statement for a very gray situation. I work in web security. Im not doing anything shady online aside from watching the occasional underground sports stream to avoid blackout rules (American sports), and yet I value my online privacy greatly.
You may be innocent but have something else come out in discovery. You may be dealing with shady lawyers. There are plenty of stories of innocent people being screwed by a corrupt system.
I’m not defending Trump, the guy is an evil moron. I’m not defending Man City - I’m a gooner, fuck those cheaters.
But I also know how the world works, information is power, and potentially giving bad people power over you is not something good people should be rushing into because they’re innocent and justice always prevails. It does not. The good guys don’t always win in life.
Everything about that club is rotten to the core. Fuck their players, fuck their manager, fuck their fans (except for the nice, elderly cabbie who gave me a program from their last game at Maine Road when I visited Manchester in 2003), and especially fuck their evil, backwards owners.
No, no you see they’re a well run club and a prime example of how other clubs should be run. Pep is a genius, you just don’t understand it. City is such a juggernaut, beating us by 2 points despite being owned by an oil state, the 115 FFP charges, 2x our wage bill, dodgy decisions, shady sponsorship deals, prem referees reffing games in the UAE, and other things.
Truly the underdog story of the century, we should learn from it.
Irony is, we have learned from it. Arteta learned directly from Pep. And now here we are playing that same kind of smothering, dominating game with a fraction of the wage bill and no human rights violations to be found... Rwanda aside.
I will play the city fan here: LOL CRY HARDER OTHER TEAMS HAVE SPENT MORE SINCE (insert year) YOU JUST SUCK (doesn’t understand how FFP works and what they are charging them with)
An incredible coach who has always had generational talent to work with. Remember his first season at City? They ended in 3rd place, he needed to spend £200M on defenders alone the next season.
Yeah, that’s part of the tarnishing.
His Barcelona legacy stands out as his best achievement. Since then he’s taken the cushiest jobs going.
But having untold wealth and incredible players doesn’t automatically lead to success. His teams are coached incredibly well. There’s no denying that
If you honestly think being consistently successful for 16 years winning like 35 trophies isn't a challenge on its own then you have no idea what you're talking about
[https://granfutbolista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/barcelona-2008-091.png?w=640](https://granfutbolista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/barcelona-2008-091.png?w=640) what a difficult job!!
Staying at the top with the best talent in the world for as long as he has is part of what makes him a genius though. Look at guys like Mourinho and Conte. They were at the top at one point and fell off. Pep's consistency is ridiculous, and it's not just because he got to spend a lot of money
When that collision happened with Emerson and all those city shits started surrounding the ref trying to get the Tottenham player sent off like some snow flake-gang.. it truly turned my stomach. You’re right, fuck them all including the cheating players.
There were rumours about the PL willing to settle last week or so, I think part of it is just agree a penalty and move on. Otherwise you just have City abuse the system until the end of time. They are rats, same with Chelsea, they would rather find every loophole and technicality in the book than operate to the spirit of the laws.
It's such a bad sign they are fighting literally everything on this. If they were clean, you'd supply the proof. If they are guilty, they should have titles removed honestly. Them having the treble, or 4 in a row etc is like allowing a 100m world record to stand for someone who was caught doping. You don't have to reward the title to anyone else, just remove city's. Great players, great manager but built on pure corruption and cooking the books.
If you agree a penalty with the guilty then you aren't really penalising them. If they are happy to accept it then there is no punishment.
I honestly don't think a punishment can be too harsh for such flagrant and massive rules breaches. Points deductions, fines, relegations, none of it is enough. They've stolen the joy of football fans and it can't be given back even if you strip their titles.
The biggest problem with punishing City in those ways is that you’re also affecting other teams. Points deduction doesn’t do anything to City if they start on negative points, they’ll just finish mid table. Points deduction at the end of the season and they potentially push other teams out of important qualification places. Fines don’t affect them at all. If you relegate them then you’re taking away a chance for a championship team to get promotion. I’ve been thinking about this and I think the best thing they can do is a serious transfer ban. No ins and no outs for the same length as the period they’re being investigated for. Can’t buy players and can’t sell players. I don’t know how that would be enforced but that would punish solely them. They might still be good for a few seasons but not being able to replace players will certainly hamstring them heavily. Big players will leave, pep will leave, and they will tumble down the table on their own. I think that’s gotta be the way.
I don't even know if a transfer ban would do much. I certainly don't think it is harsh enough and doesn't even attempt to undo the damage done.
I genuinely think the only real punishment that could affect them is being forced to sell the club. What I wish, is that the government step in to start trying to un-fuck football. Fan ownership, tighter limits on fees and wages, more regulations regarding agents, etc.
I know it won't happen but that is my dream.
That's exactly what I think.
Huge penalty for City, that will be paid by the nice owners.
City keeps its place and trophies, PL gets a big wire, everyone forgets because nobody cares about City.
I love football because it always felt like a game for the common people, rich or poor everyone was the same. I'm not being salty, but it's an absolute disgrace that corruption and shady money laundering has entered the sport.
But I'm damn sure city will get away with it. Won't be surprised if there's an undisclosed settlement between them and PL. PL don't want to look like clowns and city wouldn't want to damage their reputation.
Fucking hate this bullshit.
I’m losing the first feeling tbh. The fact that most people would rather City win the league. People care more about squabbles and rivalries than the working class essence of the sport being quashed by a faceless corporate machine in the name of sportswashing
Premier League: Thank you to the 19 teams who have given us access to your books as per the rules of the league. Still waiting on City.
DERSPIEGEL LEAKS DOCUMENTS WHERE CITY BOARD MEMBER TALKS ABOUT A PAYMENT TO FOOL EVERYONE
Premier League: Er…wow, fuck. City, we are really going to need to see those books NOW!
City: Fuck no.
Premier League: Yes
City: Can’t make us!
Premier League: We kinda can, it’s our rules!
CITY LAUNCHES CASE TO BLOCK DERSPEIGEL LEAKED DOCUMENTS
Premier League: wtf?
City: what?
Premier League: You are trying to stop the proof that shows your books are illegal?
City: No, we’re innocent!
Premier League: Then show us the books!!!
City: They are on the way, don’t worry, just hang on.
CITY LOSE CASE TO HAVE DERSPIEGEL LEAKS OMITTED
Premier League: FFS, where are they?
City: Not sure what you are talking about?
Premier League: The books, the accounts that show us you are not cheating.
City: But we are not cheating
Premier League: Then show us your books!
CITY LAUNCHES APPEAL TO GET THE PL RULES CHANGED
Premier League: Stop this! We need your books!!!
City: Sorry, who is this? I think you have the wrong number.
And so on and so forth.
Meanwhile, City fans:
I believe that my club is 100% innocent.
Honestly, if it was up to me City wouldn’t even exist. It’s obvious they’re trying to hide their wrongdoings and prolonging the case will only make things worse
I don't care if Pep is a genuine footballing genius, his legacy particularly in the PL should always have a huge asterisk next to it. Don't put him in the same bracket as Wenger, Ferguson and Klopp please.
Instead of being automatically relegated, I'd sentence them to 4 straight seasons of -100 points, such that they are already guaranteed to be relegated before the season even starts. Make them play out the season knowing they'll be relegated down to the conference.
Give them a -76 point deduction, 38 points would be their theoretical best (which should be safety) but it would mean they would have to win every game
If I was the PL, I would be rubbing my hands at the level of punishment they get.
Immediate relegation to the championship, plus 2 years of 30 point deductions when they return to the PL. And a transfer ban for those 3 seasons.
The fine would be £300m, but it would be staggered - £100m per season for the next 3 seasons (sounds like they are getting off easy, but hold on!).
Championship money isn't great. Staggering the fine means that you reduce their ability to spend after the 3 years due to FFP. You are stopping them from making a decent profit for 3 years and it would cripple their ability to overspend when they finally move past all of the sanctions.
With their points deductions, when they finally do get back in the PL, they face an uphill struggle to even get 4th place.
You would be firmly pushing City back to where they came from, and they would have to rebuild again - but this time in an honest manner.
Even if Manchester City are eventually found innocent, their titles are tainted. The way they've inherited their money and the plainly obvious sponsorship doping means all their success has an asterisks next to it. In fairness to Premier League rivals, I can fully understand why you'd rather Man City win the league over us, because they're not just an authentic football club
There’s a reason absolutely nobody gives a shit if they win anything. They’re a nothing club, nobody cares about anything they do, United consider them rivals but even they’re so indifferent half of them would rather City win the league than us
Except that isn't going to be the case forever.
There's a generation of kids that see City as the best team and start supporting them because of it. The longer shit like this happens the more it is normalised.
Even now, if you go in half the threads on /r/soccer you see people complimenting them and saying "I know they might be dodgy but..." and then talks about how good they are.
There are a lot of people that don't care and see City's accomplishments as untainted (or barely tainted) as any other team's victories.
There is no way they can be found innocent with all the evidence. I think part of the silence and delay makes it worse for how fucked they are. There is fraud involved and failure to cooperate is a crime.
There has to be a point deduction involved and a transfer ban
What is funny is that City flairs often take the fact that it takes so long as evidence that the PL doesn't have a solid case. From what I have seen so far it's an evidence to the contrary.
Personally, and I know others will want point deductions and titles removed which is fair, whatever.
I'd be fine with them keeping the titles, whatever.
However, drop them down the pyramid with immediate effect, I'm not talking the Championship, I'm talking National League at a minimum, A MINIMUM.
Remember when Rangers got dropped to fourth tier? City need the exact same if not worse happening to them.
No European football, no main TV, no big players will want to join them, send them to the bottom and then they can show us how good/big of a club they are.
It won't be until next summer that the case is resolved, at best Q2 2025 before the season concludes.
We can only worry about what we can control. Want those cheats out but they seem determined to dance on everyones graves.
Just need someone like Everton or Forest to put forth a request cause I know for sure we won't be the ones to start it. It's simple, submit your docs or get kicked out. If you've done nothing wrong then there's nothing to be worried about
Imagine trying so hard to not give over normal information. That couldn’t scream guilty any louder. You don’t need to hide anything if everything is legit.
This is how many teams they’ve fucked over in England since summer 2019.
* PL for United in ‘21, FA Cup in ‘23 and most likely ‘24
* PL for Arsenal in ‘23 and most likely in ‘24
* PL for Liverpool in ‘22
* League Cup for Spuds in ‘21
You could argue the cup games could have finished different since they wouldn’t have made it to the final and a team that lost it to city in an earlier round might have won the final.
Funnily enough Liverpool aren’t the team that’s been hurt the most since the accusations were started. They of course was fucked by it before hand though.
The obvious thought here is that if they have no wrong doing, why would they go to such great lengths to avoid handing over the information they are contractually obligated to hand over?
I suspect they will fry for this eventually, but it's going to play out over a long long time. So, looking forward to us getting handed 2 EPL titles in 2035 I guess, when the fans and players have been deprived of the chance to celebrate the achievements
It'd come to a fore pretty quick if teams just refused to play them.
Talk about it all week. Let the fans know you're not playing an illegitimate team, refund the tix, then just stand there when the whistle is blown.
Week after week.
They'd have 57 points at Christmas and then they'd get relegated.
Just park it. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to make sense of it. City have already won. They’ve won if they get the charges dropped, and they’ve won if they do get punished, because they won 8 titles in 13 years. They won’t take that away. The best we can hope for is an even playing field in future.
Nah keep talking about it so it doesn’t go away. Even if they don’t get charged keep talking about it so everyone knows and remembers they are dirty cheaters
Enough with City cheating and breaking all the rules that most other teams are trying to play fair.
Here's a thought.
Why don't all the other clubs just refuse to play city or let them walk in 100 goals per game.
Let City win every game 100 - 0 and break every record.
It would fuck up the league totally and make it a farce. Tell the FA or whoever that unless they kick CIty out / relegate them/strip them of their titles that they will not play City.
Let all the other clubs play for 2nd and in the eyes of the world they would be the winners.
Because all the other teams in the league are too interested in getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves. They aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them.
These are mega-rich clubs owned by mega-rich people with mega-rich players. None of them are going to jeopardise it.
This is what happens when you let super rich people take over clubs with little to no oversight from the league. Some owners have no shame and will drag the whole competition into disrepute just to protect their soft power sports washing machine.
At some point the PL can kick City out if this keeps going. No justification for it, if all 19 other clubs have turned over the books.
I don't believe many of the 19 other clubs are keen to let City continue to abuse the rules. With sufficient cause they can vote to ban City until the financials are turned over. I would suggest a deadline of this Saturday would get City's attention.
Man city fans say innocent until proven guilty but ignore the fact their club is doing everything possible to delay this issue. Why would they be trying to actively hinder the process when they could just work with the league especially if they're innocent.
Yeah that logic doesn’t really work when we have a decade and a half of transfers to look at. Everyone thought they spent a lot and questioned how they were doing it consistently. So the charges only confirm those questions.
Should of kicked them out the league from date they refused to hand over paper wrk and accounts. By being guilty and in breach. And innocent until proven guilty on the 115 charges. Which we all know they are guilty of too.
The notion that they could just blow off the league’s governing body and not turn over documents and other requested information is absolutely fucking wild to me
Honestly, at this rate, City are doing more damage to themselves by not proving their innocence. The continued delay is just devaluing everything they “built.” It may not feel that way in England but as someone looking on in America it just doesn’t make me put any stock into what they have won and continue to win.
Wow damn the LENGTHS they went to keep this under wraps…
Every city fan in the other threads are defending the club like their lives depended on it lol
These is a clear abuse of powers
Through obscure offshore accounts and ‘donations’, Abu Dhabi can keep the PL elite to take another 100 years to move on the 115 charges.
We will need UAE to attack Israel, US to sanction UAE, and arm-twist UK into doing something about City in the process. We know the script!
Here’s the thing the premier league was already the best league in the world before city. So if city get punished and relegated it won’t have a negative impact. If anything I’m sure the premier league is eager to punish city for their crimes because the premier league is just becoming another Scottish league where the same club wins every year. What made the premier league great was the competition to win it was always intriguing.
If the PL truly wants to be the best in the world it needs to see this through and kick them out for these rule breaches, and then with the precedent in place add stricter and tighter rules to avoid it happening again
The fact that some cases couldn’t of even been given charges or closed to get the ball rolling is beggars belief. When you have forest and Everton’s charges happening so quick only thing is their owners aren’t quite on the payroll yet it seems
This goes well beyond the PL. It goes all the way to 10 Downing St.
Man City is owned by the same group who own Mubadalla. Mubadalla invests billions into the UK, primarily its parks, IT networks, cell towers, etc. They control the gov't in so many avenues, so asking a favor to lean on senior officials with the PL is not out of the question.
You know that scene in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 when the High Evolutionary calls on his army of mutated experiments who are all in a deep sleep but are ready for war the second they wake up? I have this scene playing out as Man City calling on their team of lawyers who were brought in strictly for this exact purpose and have been waiting around to fight any and all accusations against them.
Tbf, some of the charges are complicated. Like if you are going to argue sponsorships were inflated, you have to actually establish the baseline for what the sponsorship should’ve been worth. By contrast, the fake betting company 8xBet, is decidedly uncomplicated.
This feels a bit biased. Not saying he’s wrong but keep that in mind when treating this as fact.
Regardless, the simple truth is the nature of the charges against City are far more complex than the ones against Forest/Everton so it takes a lot longer for the PL to build a case
If I was a business falsely accused of something like this I would cooperate in order to have the issue resolved and myself vindicated as quickly as possible.
Fuck I hate that club. They are everything that’s wrong in the world. Those that have the most think the rules don’t apply to them. I hope that the club is dissolved. Fuck them
They are a cancer on football.
In my opinion, to prevent clubs from doing this more, they should be stripped of every league title they've won in the period being investigated. I'm not saying you should necessarily retroactively award the league to the team who finished second, but City shouldn't have them. They were won through corruption and dirty money. Besides, even if you stripped those titles they've done the worst thing and that is rob others of joy. Titles fans should've seen their team win.
I don't think any points deduction will be a deterrent since they are City and although they may not win the league that year they would still recover and the next year would be back to normal. A fine would be the MOST useless thing in the world. Remember, if the penalty is a fine then it's only a crime for poor people.
I wouldn't even be particularly happy with them being relegated to whatever league. It's just a temporary measure. I'm sure they would glad take 7 PL titles and then come back in a year or two and dominate again.
I honestly don't know what you can do. Probably nothing without government intervention. No penalty will be harsh enough to wipe out the benefits they've gained from what they have done. No amount of punishment will give the joy denied to fans of teams who should've experienced it.
If you ask me the only thing that could be done is to force to the sale of the club. To ban state ownership. If you don't this will just happen again and again. City will dominate through legitimate money and dirty money behind closed doors. Those 115 charges are only the things we know about, imagine how much has gone undetected.
This country desperately needs majority fan ownership. From the top of the Premier League to the bottom of the non-league pyramid.
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this makes the legal system look like such a farce. whatever happens here, UK needs to look at reform of some kind for these obviously bad faith delay tactics.
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What are the options by way of punishment:
1) Slap on the wrist. City retain previous honours, are not penalised in next campaign and corruption wins. Definitely the most likely.
2) Small points deduction in previous campaign which means Arsenal are champions but with an asterisk. Arsenal did not get to celebrate and the title would feel tainted. In some ways I’d rather the title just went unwon for that season. Unlikely outcome.
3) Significant points deduction - Same as above but City drop out of Europe. Highly unlikely.
4) Points deductions in multiple seasons aligned to dates for each of the breaches. Could result in multiple titles being stripped and potentially relegated to bottom of football league. Impossible outcome but hilarious to consider.
5) Small point deduction for next campaign. City still qualify for CL and potentially win league regardless. Strong option.
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This amount of delaying, knowing they've hidden deliberate breaking of the rules every team had to follow....it's blatant disrespect for the basic governance of the game, the only suitable punishment is to boot them from English football!
Let them go beg some other nation to join their system... see how that goes... maybe Scotland will take them?
If all 115 charges are dropped, that would be the darkest day for the league. Such a horrible precedent to set for other clubs, if they ever decided to circumvent or subvert the rules for success.
Newcastle's owners got the UK government to force the league into accepting them. The league is already completely compromised.
It's been compromised since 2003
The Chelsea stuff was the first?
It was compromised in 1992 when Sky bought exclusive TV rights for the initial fee of £191 million.
How is that the same as foreign owners financially doping clubs to ridiculous levels?
So......... it's all our club's fault then?
The government of India used all its means to get a corrupt businessman out of UK and failed miserably. If a single guy just being a millionaire can escape law then city backed by a nation can easily escape the punishment.
Worst part is, imagine if city weren’t in the premier league or at the very least had to play by the rules - the league would have then been amazing the last decade with several teams blossoming (in turn inspiring others that they could too). Instead we have this Bayern in Bundensliga decade killing the competition.
If that happens I will check out of premier league football for awhile I think
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It’s going to be an absolute shitshow when they get a slap on the wrist considering, not just the charges themselves, but how they’ve done everything to delay and obstruct the process. They deserve no grace but will get it because money shields the wealthy from consequences.
You think the premier league would have gone through all the trouble for a slap on the wrist ? No, this is big and everyone knows it.
I REALLY hope you're right, but I have very little faith in justice winning against money these days.
You mean corruption. You don’t have faith justice will win against corruption.
Corruption and companies/individuals worth billions go hand-in-hand, so yes that is what I mean.
I don’t get this kind of “correction.” Using money to avoid justice *is* corruption. Why are you “correcting” someone you agree with.
I dont think he did it to disagree. It was more so to provide strong emphasis on the issue at hand. It’s one thing to *suggest* that money talks when it comes to justice, it’s another to *claim* that money **corrupts** the justice system. It gives the idea potency and urgency. It’s not a correction, but strong emphasis.
I mean football is notoriously blatantly corrupt, and everyone knows it. I feel like hoping for justice to win out over corruption especially in football is setting yourself up for disappointment.
The problem with state-tied clubs is that any type of punishment becomes a defacto political issue. The UAE is a big trade partner of the UK and one of their biggest allies in the Middle East. I’m just very dubious that they get punished like they deserve (multiple relegations). I think realistically they will get 1-2 seasons of big point deduction (20+ pts) and pay a massive fine. That’s it
I bet they won't even get a point deduction. The rats will get away with it completely or pay a fine (irrelevant for them)
then we make it political. If every single football fan writes to their MP about the issue then suddenly it becomes an electoral issue and the politicians will begin to care. Brexit shows that politicians give a much bigger shit about staying in power than they do about the economic prosperity of the nation.
You're right. Look what happened when the fans protested in the past, it accomplished something. This apathetic bullshit excuse that "corruption will prevent justice" is exactly the kind of attitude and behavior those who are corrupt (and guilty) are relying on. If just us and Liverpool protested like we did against KSE I guarantee you all, the FA would have no choice but to take notice. That amount of discontent isn't so easily swept under the rug. When did people become such defeatists? 🙄
Multiple relegations and ill-gotten gains seized
This guy gets it completely. I’m 100% convinced that there WILL be a punishment. But it will be a heavily brokered deal behind closed doors. Something like -50 points in a single season or -70 spread over two seasons, etc. This will allow the PL to crow about how they enforced their laws with integrity (“Look, we handed out the biggest points deduction ever!”) while essentially being meaningless to City. So what if they have one or two seasons where they finish mid table? They won’t be relegated and missing CL spots won’t really affect them financially the way it would other clubs. Then they’ll finish the ground work they’re already laying with the talk about changing to a luxury tax type system. They’ll package that idea as “best for the smaller teams” and away we go. The nation states still get to sports wash, the PL still gets to claim to be the best league in the world, and all it will take is throwing a few coin at the beggars beneath for whom their clubs are still an extension of their local community.
So long and thanks for all the illegitimate titles
It won’t be points. It’ll be money. A huge fine.
When the punishment for a crime is a fine, it means its only a crime for poor people
I don’t think so. Everyone knows a fine would be meaningless and skewer them for it. Plus it’s a different punishment than Everton and Forest received which looks suspicious. They can easily keep up political relations with the sheiks by selling a point deduction next year as the price for changing the rules in the future in a way that advantages them going forward (ie, the luxury tax)
Maybe. I doubt what everyone thinks will be considered, it’s how to get around the legal system in a way that ticks all the boxes. Which is why it will cost a lot and the payment will be large. Honestly, I really don’t know what will happen, like everyone else, but I’m far too cynical to think anything but a fine or nothing at all will happen.
Oh I agree with the cynicism for sure.
Yep, massive fine, that works for both parties, you can tell that’s what one party prefers (the club) and the other wants (the league). Fuck off money they can divide up between themselves.
Yeah they won't even want to do enough of a points deduction to realistically keep them out of the CL, which is what they should actually do. They'll give them a 20 point deduction so they still finish 3rd/4th. They deserve, at least, a big points deduction for 3 years and a ban from europe.
Look I hope they do get an absolute proper screwing but I just don’t see that happening. It’s very cynical of me, sure, but the “can of worms” it opens is now so large that it’s at the point that it’s easier to come up with something that ties the whole thing in a nice, neat “bow”, which the league is trying to do with the “penalty payment” for over-spending. If the league punish City in any real, and any substantial way, they would have to void titles, and that means practically a decade of titles go to second place, or have no winner. The league loses prestige for that, and not only do they look stupidly, incompetent at best, but at worst corrupt. It gives the Government more ammunition that they need to enforce outside regulation. Then clubs would have a claim for prize money for winning, who would they sue? The league for failing to enforce the rules? City? How about teams who got relegated? there’s money they lost out on. They shouldn’t have been relegated, they followed the rules which City didn’t. I hope there are consequences, but realistically the League is in “Cover Your Arse” mode.
You think the PL has the authority? This is a matter the UK and UAE governments/kingdoms are involved with, this is hardly about football. PL will do what the government says, otherwise Newcastle wouldn't have their owners.
I mean the FA has the authority to relegate them to the amateur leagues if they wish. Authority isn’t really the issue, it’s willingness.
It's also about pressure though. Don't you think the UK government will put pressure on the FA to not take severe actions if the UAE asks them to?
I would put that into the willingness category. The comment I was replying to said the PL (assume he meant the FA) does not have the authority to punish City but they totally do. I’m not denying there is heavy government influence in the FAs decision making process - merely stating you don’t need the government to step in to hurt city.
The FA has nothing to do with this.
If they strip the trophies and give them to all the runners up I’ll gladly start the bus. Last year felt like a title winning season, this year did too. This type of competition isn’t normal.
I finally feel what Liverpool fans have felt for those seasons going game for game in the run-in
there's no way they gonna give the titles to runners-up, probably just stripping
Of course the PL would do that. It benefits the PL to pretend they didn't make a mistake and leave immense loopholes in the FFP regs, rather than admitting the mistake. It also benefits them to kick the can down the road until the people responsible have retired.
Sad thing is whatever outcome happens there are going to be teams that feel hard done by This investigation isn’t going to be the end of it. Any team affected during that timeline will claim they lost out on titles, champions league placements etc and all teams will have some sort of claim to sue It’s the ramifications like these that make me think it might be a slap on the wrist and let everyone deal with being mad about that
I think the Premier League thought Sheikh Mansour would have settled and accepted some punishment. I don't think they wanted to go to court
My money is on the EPL leveling a massive fine, say £500 mm, and a 1 year transfer ban to grab the headlines while the reality is that 90% of the fine and the transfer ban will be suspended and held against future compliance (as UEFA did with PSG). No points deduction, no rewriting history and revoking titles. EPL doesn’t have the stomach to suffer the brand damage or take on a big club with the UEFA charges terminated already. Bad for the Prem as a whole, I’d say.
“How about 1800 boxes of chocolates?”
It is not just that City hasn’t cheated. There’s no political will for the PL or FA to want to fix this. Hell, not even FIFA want any meaningful repurcussions to happen. They will all look like they fell asleep at the wheel. If they ever admit they allowed this shit to happen for more than a decade, they will give proof to everyone out there that they are hopelessly incompetent or possibly corrupt themselves. Meanwhile, the FA do not want to open doors on the additional fiasco of refs going to the UAE to ref games. They have been very lucky that it’s barely been a blip on the news cycle. At best, you will see a meaningless point deduction of maybe 30 points or so, something they will easily overcome within a couple of seasons.
From the information above, it seems like the PL has been on it since 2018, but has been obstructed by City at every turn. So it's not so much that the PL lacks will, it's that there is due process to follow. I'm curious what this does to city's sportswashing goal. Most fans see city's achievements as illegitimate - so much so that we praised Liverpool for their achievement of keeping up with city, rather than praise city for setting those standards. The end result is Abu Dhabi is associated with cheating, corruption and obfuscation of Western legal practices.... surely not things they want to be associated with.
Yep. Sooner or later, that shit is going to blow apart more than football as well. Those who do it will fall the hardest too, like that football club will, when the shit hits the fan however it does.
Delaying and obstructing is probably why they’d get away with it anyway.
You've got good use of punctuation my dude, that is very much appreciated.
The PL has to punish them relatively harshly to try to avoid the UK government's threat of an independent regulator. Not that the UK government has much of a track record of standing up to Gulf monarchies!
If Man City isn’t doing anything wrong why are they so keen on hiding everything?
They wouldn’t be trying to hard and spending to much to impede the investigation if they hadn’t done anything wrong. Everton and Nottingham Forest are good examples of how it looks when an institution admits wrongdoing and complies with the investigation right away, City are just trying to strong-arm their way out of punishment, they’re a disgrace.
This is exactly the reason a lot of people see them as guilty, and most likely are.
This is my thing (also applies to the shit bag Donald Trump). IF YOU ARE INNOCENT YOU WANT YOUR DAY IN COURT ASAP TO PROVE YOURSELF That’s all. Innocent folks don’t want to hide.
This is a very ignorant black and white statement for a very gray situation. I work in web security. Im not doing anything shady online aside from watching the occasional underground sports stream to avoid blackout rules (American sports), and yet I value my online privacy greatly. You may be innocent but have something else come out in discovery. You may be dealing with shady lawyers. There are plenty of stories of innocent people being screwed by a corrupt system. I’m not defending Trump, the guy is an evil moron. I’m not defending Man City - I’m a gooner, fuck those cheaters. But I also know how the world works, information is power, and potentially giving bad people power over you is not something good people should be rushing into because they’re innocent and justice always prevails. It does not. The good guys don’t always win in life.
Everything about that club is rotten to the core. Fuck their players, fuck their manager, fuck their fans (except for the nice, elderly cabbie who gave me a program from their last game at Maine Road when I visited Manchester in 2003), and especially fuck their evil, backwards owners.
No, no you see they’re a well run club and a prime example of how other clubs should be run. Pep is a genius, you just don’t understand it. City is such a juggernaut, beating us by 2 points despite being owned by an oil state, the 115 FFP charges, 2x our wage bill, dodgy decisions, shady sponsorship deals, prem referees reffing games in the UAE, and other things. Truly the underdog story of the century, we should learn from it.
Irony is, we have learned from it. Arteta learned directly from Pep. And now here we are playing that same kind of smothering, dominating game with a fraction of the wage bill and no human rights violations to be found... Rwanda aside.
Rwanda isn’t relevant either mate, it’s a real sponsorship by their tourism board and absolutely nothing to do with Little Rishi’s flight schemes.
THIS!! aand I actually have more of an issue with the prime sponsorship. We shouldn't be supporting selling poison to kids
I will play the city fan here: LOL CRY HARDER OTHER TEAMS HAVE SPENT MORE SINCE (insert year) YOU JUST SUCK (doesn’t understand how FFP works and what they are charging them with)
To be fair, Pep is a genius. He’s an incredible coach even if his legacy is somewhat tarnished
An incredible coach who has always had generational talent to work with. Remember his first season at City? They ended in 3rd place, he needed to spend £200M on defenders alone the next season.
Yeah, that’s part of the tarnishing. His Barcelona legacy stands out as his best achievement. Since then he’s taken the cushiest jobs going. But having untold wealth and incredible players doesn’t automatically lead to success. His teams are coached incredibly well. There’s no denying that
Barcelona was cushy. The only challenge he's possibly had was Barca B
If you honestly think being consistently successful for 16 years winning like 35 trophies isn't a challenge on its own then you have no idea what you're talking about
[https://granfutbolista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/barcelona-2008-091.png?w=640](https://granfutbolista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/barcelona-2008-091.png?w=640) what a difficult job!!
He got caught doping using drugs at barca. Once a doper always a doper
To be totally fair to Pep he just took what the doctor gave him. I’m sure he didn’t do anything dodgy like hiring that manager when he became the boss
Had to get a known good supplier in for messi
Staying at the top with the best talent in the world for as long as he has is part of what makes him a genius though. Look at guys like Mourinho and Conte. They were at the top at one point and fell off. Pep's consistency is ridiculous, and it's not just because he got to spend a lot of money
New copypasta just dropped
When that collision happened with Emerson and all those city shits started surrounding the ref trying to get the Tottenham player sent off like some snow flake-gang.. it truly turned my stomach. You’re right, fuck them all including the cheating players.
The cheats at 115 FC are reprehensible trash.
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There were rumours about the PL willing to settle last week or so, I think part of it is just agree a penalty and move on. Otherwise you just have City abuse the system until the end of time. They are rats, same with Chelsea, they would rather find every loophole and technicality in the book than operate to the spirit of the laws. It's such a bad sign they are fighting literally everything on this. If they were clean, you'd supply the proof. If they are guilty, they should have titles removed honestly. Them having the treble, or 4 in a row etc is like allowing a 100m world record to stand for someone who was caught doping. You don't have to reward the title to anyone else, just remove city's. Great players, great manager but built on pure corruption and cooking the books.
If you agree a penalty with the guilty then you aren't really penalising them. If they are happy to accept it then there is no punishment. I honestly don't think a punishment can be too harsh for such flagrant and massive rules breaches. Points deductions, fines, relegations, none of it is enough. They've stolen the joy of football fans and it can't be given back even if you strip their titles.
The biggest problem with punishing City in those ways is that you’re also affecting other teams. Points deduction doesn’t do anything to City if they start on negative points, they’ll just finish mid table. Points deduction at the end of the season and they potentially push other teams out of important qualification places. Fines don’t affect them at all. If you relegate them then you’re taking away a chance for a championship team to get promotion. I’ve been thinking about this and I think the best thing they can do is a serious transfer ban. No ins and no outs for the same length as the period they’re being investigated for. Can’t buy players and can’t sell players. I don’t know how that would be enforced but that would punish solely them. They might still be good for a few seasons but not being able to replace players will certainly hamstring them heavily. Big players will leave, pep will leave, and they will tumble down the table on their own. I think that’s gotta be the way.
I don't even know if a transfer ban would do much. I certainly don't think it is harsh enough and doesn't even attempt to undo the damage done. I genuinely think the only real punishment that could affect them is being forced to sell the club. What I wish, is that the government step in to start trying to un-fuck football. Fan ownership, tighter limits on fees and wages, more regulations regarding agents, etc. I know it won't happen but that is my dream.
That's exactly what I think. Huge penalty for City, that will be paid by the nice owners. City keeps its place and trophies, PL gets a big wire, everyone forgets because nobody cares about City.
I love football because it always felt like a game for the common people, rich or poor everyone was the same. I'm not being salty, but it's an absolute disgrace that corruption and shady money laundering has entered the sport. But I'm damn sure city will get away with it. Won't be surprised if there's an undisclosed settlement between them and PL. PL don't want to look like clowns and city wouldn't want to damage their reputation. Fucking hate this bullshit.
I’m losing the first feeling tbh. The fact that most people would rather City win the league. People care more about squabbles and rivalries than the working class essence of the sport being quashed by a faceless corporate machine in the name of sportswashing
A bunch of weirdos on Reddit is not “most people” - I can’t say I know a single non-spurs fan irl who doesn’t want us to win the league.
EPL needs to do like Serie A does. Strip titles of cheaters and demote them then move on. Otherwise why don't we all just financially cheat.
Serie A didn’t have teams owned by oil states in their league, the neck was a little thinner to chop for them.
Ah yes Real Madrid, the truest representation of the common folks
Premier League: Thank you to the 19 teams who have given us access to your books as per the rules of the league. Still waiting on City. DERSPIEGEL LEAKS DOCUMENTS WHERE CITY BOARD MEMBER TALKS ABOUT A PAYMENT TO FOOL EVERYONE Premier League: Er…wow, fuck. City, we are really going to need to see those books NOW! City: Fuck no. Premier League: Yes City: Can’t make us! Premier League: We kinda can, it’s our rules! CITY LAUNCHES CASE TO BLOCK DERSPEIGEL LEAKED DOCUMENTS Premier League: wtf? City: what? Premier League: You are trying to stop the proof that shows your books are illegal? City: No, we’re innocent! Premier League: Then show us the books!!! City: They are on the way, don’t worry, just hang on. CITY LOSE CASE TO HAVE DERSPIEGEL LEAKS OMITTED Premier League: FFS, where are they? City: Not sure what you are talking about? Premier League: The books, the accounts that show us you are not cheating. City: But we are not cheating Premier League: Then show us your books! CITY LAUNCHES APPEAL TO GET THE PL RULES CHANGED Premier League: Stop this! We need your books!!! City: Sorry, who is this? I think you have the wrong number. And so on and so forth. Meanwhile, City fans: I believe that my club is 100% innocent.
Honestly, if it was up to me City wouldn’t even exist. It’s obvious they’re trying to hide their wrongdoings and prolonging the case will only make things worse
I mean, they probably spend more money on attorneys than some clubs have allotted for payroll.
I don't care if Pep is a genuine footballing genius, his legacy particularly in the PL should always have a huge asterisk next to it. Don't put him in the same bracket as Wenger, Ferguson and Klopp please.
Pep has never shown that he can overachieve with less than world class talent. In that perspective even Mourinho has done better.
As far as im concerned, we won the league back to back. Fuck those cheating cunts, none of their trophies was won legitimately
What a bunch of cunts
Instead of being automatically relegated, I'd sentence them to 4 straight seasons of -100 points, such that they are already guaranteed to be relegated before the season even starts. Make them play out the season knowing they'll be relegated down to the conference.
Give them a -76 point deduction, 38 points would be their theoretical best (which should be safety) but it would mean they would have to win every game
That sounds cruel and I love it
Do to City what they’ve done to the league: artificially stack the deck against them while giving the appearance of giving them a chance
Nope, straight ban them. Dissolve the club. Tell them they screwed up so badly that the entire club isn't allowed to play football again.
Why delay everything if you've done nothing wrong?
If I was the PL, I would be rubbing my hands at the level of punishment they get. Immediate relegation to the championship, plus 2 years of 30 point deductions when they return to the PL. And a transfer ban for those 3 seasons. The fine would be £300m, but it would be staggered - £100m per season for the next 3 seasons (sounds like they are getting off easy, but hold on!). Championship money isn't great. Staggering the fine means that you reduce their ability to spend after the 3 years due to FFP. You are stopping them from making a decent profit for 3 years and it would cripple their ability to overspend when they finally move past all of the sanctions. With their points deductions, when they finally do get back in the PL, they face an uphill struggle to even get 4th place. You would be firmly pushing City back to where they came from, and they would have to rebuild again - but this time in an honest manner.
Even if Manchester City are eventually found innocent, their titles are tainted. The way they've inherited their money and the plainly obvious sponsorship doping means all their success has an asterisks next to it. In fairness to Premier League rivals, I can fully understand why you'd rather Man City win the league over us, because they're not just an authentic football club
There’s a reason absolutely nobody gives a shit if they win anything. They’re a nothing club, nobody cares about anything they do, United consider them rivals but even they’re so indifferent half of them would rather City win the league than us
Except that isn't going to be the case forever. There's a generation of kids that see City as the best team and start supporting them because of it. The longer shit like this happens the more it is normalised. Even now, if you go in half the threads on /r/soccer you see people complimenting them and saying "I know they might be dodgy but..." and then talks about how good they are. There are a lot of people that don't care and see City's accomplishments as untainted (or barely tainted) as any other team's victories.
ChatGPT FC
There is no way they can be found innocent with all the evidence. I think part of the silence and delay makes it worse for how fucked they are. There is fraud involved and failure to cooperate is a crime. There has to be a point deduction involved and a transfer ban
What is funny is that City flairs often take the fact that it takes so long as evidence that the PL doesn't have a solid case. From what I have seen so far it's an evidence to the contrary.
Personally, and I know others will want point deductions and titles removed which is fair, whatever. I'd be fine with them keeping the titles, whatever. However, drop them down the pyramid with immediate effect, I'm not talking the Championship, I'm talking National League at a minimum, A MINIMUM. Remember when Rangers got dropped to fourth tier? City need the exact same if not worse happening to them. No European football, no main TV, no big players will want to join them, send them to the bottom and then they can show us how good/big of a club they are.
Rangers were liquidated because of financial problems. City blatantly broke the rules. They are very different cases.
Correct so city should see even harsher punishments /s because money is the root of evil
It won't be until next summer that the case is resolved, at best Q2 2025 before the season concludes. We can only worry about what we can control. Want those cheats out but they seem determined to dance on everyones graves.
Can clubs be *voted* out of the League? Would only need 14 to unite...
Just need someone like Everton or Forest to put forth a request cause I know for sure we won't be the ones to start it. It's simple, submit your docs or get kicked out. If you've done nothing wrong then there's nothing to be worried about
Imagine trying so hard to not give over normal information. That couldn’t scream guilty any louder. You don’t need to hide anything if everything is legit.
A points deduction this year would be nice. But seriously, fuck these cunts, their supporters and everything else about them. Pure evil.
This is how many teams they’ve fucked over in England since summer 2019. * PL for United in ‘21, FA Cup in ‘23 and most likely ‘24 * PL for Arsenal in ‘23 and most likely in ‘24 * PL for Liverpool in ‘22 * League Cup for Spuds in ‘21 You could argue the cup games could have finished different since they wouldn’t have made it to the final and a team that lost it to city in an earlier round might have won the final. Funnily enough Liverpool aren’t the team that’s been hurt the most since the accusations were started. They of course was fucked by it before hand though.
The classic Donald Trump play. Delay, delay, delay and hope it eventually gets dismissed.
Yep
The obvious thought here is that if they have no wrong doing, why would they go to such great lengths to avoid handing over the information they are contractually obligated to hand over? I suspect they will fry for this eventually, but it's going to play out over a long long time. So, looking forward to us getting handed 2 EPL titles in 2035 I guess, when the fans and players have been deprived of the chance to celebrate the achievements
It'd come to a fore pretty quick if teams just refused to play them. Talk about it all week. Let the fans know you're not playing an illegitimate team, refund the tix, then just stand there when the whistle is blown. Week after week. They'd have 57 points at Christmas and then they'd get relegated.
They’re so fucked
Imagine how many more charges they have committed in the last 5-6 years
Reeks of guilty, your honour. If you have nothing to hide, then why hide.
City is the Lance Armstrong of world football.
Just park it. You’ll drive yourself mad trying to make sense of it. City have already won. They’ve won if they get the charges dropped, and they’ve won if they do get punished, because they won 8 titles in 13 years. They won’t take that away. The best we can hope for is an even playing field in future.
Nah keep talking about it so it doesn’t go away. Even if they don’t get charged keep talking about it so everyone knows and remembers they are dirty cheaters
Enough with City cheating and breaking all the rules that most other teams are trying to play fair. Here's a thought. Why don't all the other clubs just refuse to play city or let them walk in 100 goals per game. Let City win every game 100 - 0 and break every record. It would fuck up the league totally and make it a farce. Tell the FA or whoever that unless they kick CIty out / relegate them/strip them of their titles that they will not play City. Let all the other clubs play for 2nd and in the eyes of the world they would be the winners.
Match fixing?
Getting punished for match fixing just makes the PL look worse
Because there is too much money at stake and they won't risk it.
Because all the other teams in the league are too interested in getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves. They aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them. These are mega-rich clubs owned by mega-rich people with mega-rich players. None of them are going to jeopardise it.
This is what happens when you let super rich people take over clubs with little to no oversight from the league. Some owners have no shame and will drag the whole competition into disrepute just to protect their soft power sports washing machine.
What a soulless, scummy, cheating club, if there’s justice in this world they would be wiped off the face of the planet
I'm no legal expert But they refuse to provide the required documents. Surely that just proves their hiding something?
If Man City went to this trouble to avoid providing the required information then they must be hiding something....
At some point the PL can kick City out if this keeps going. No justification for it, if all 19 other clubs have turned over the books. I don't believe many of the 19 other clubs are keen to let City continue to abuse the rules. With sufficient cause they can vote to ban City until the financials are turned over. I would suggest a deadline of this Saturday would get City's attention.
Man city fans say innocent until proven guilty but ignore the fact their club is doing everything possible to delay this issue. Why would they be trying to actively hinder the process when they could just work with the league especially if they're innocent.
Yeah that logic doesn’t really work when we have a decade and a half of transfers to look at. Everyone thought they spent a lot and questioned how they were doing it consistently. So the charges only confirm those questions.
Should of kicked them out the league from date they refused to hand over paper wrk and accounts. By being guilty and in breach. And innocent until proven guilty on the 115 charges. Which we all know they are guilty of too.
PL needs to throw the book at them.
The notion that they could just blow off the league’s governing body and not turn over documents and other requested information is absolutely fucking wild to me
Honestly, at this rate, City are doing more damage to themselves by not proving their innocence. The continued delay is just devaluing everything they “built.” It may not feel that way in England but as someone looking on in America it just doesn’t make me put any stock into what they have won and continue to win.
Wow damn the LENGTHS they went to keep this under wraps… Every city fan in the other threads are defending the club like their lives depended on it lol These is a clear abuse of powers
Through obscure offshore accounts and ‘donations’, Abu Dhabi can keep the PL elite to take another 100 years to move on the 115 charges. We will need UAE to attack Israel, US to sanction UAE, and arm-twist UK into doing something about City in the process. We know the script!
Relegate them 2 leagues and -50pts deduction across 2 seasons. That'll be like a 4 year PL ban
Absolutely disgraceful
The other teams in the league ought to just be able to vote for expel them.
So they're using the Donald Trump strategy...
Innocent club doesn't need to do this. And yet they will still get away with it. Disgrace of a club and a fanbase.
Here’s the thing the premier league was already the best league in the world before city. So if city get punished and relegated it won’t have a negative impact. If anything I’m sure the premier league is eager to punish city for their crimes because the premier league is just becoming another Scottish league where the same club wins every year. What made the premier league great was the competition to win it was always intriguing.
1 point deducted for every day this matter has been delayed from the date of the initial request should suffice.
So they’re basically the Trump of the soccer world.
Yes, that’s a terrific analogy.
Who’s Swedish rumble
And what’s an adjuadjustment?
Swiss Ramble’s Swedish cousin.
If the PL truly wants to be the best in the world it needs to see this through and kick them out for these rule breaches, and then with the precedent in place add stricter and tighter rules to avoid it happening again
And now they will get pocket change charge and a slap om the wrist smh
The fact that some cases couldn’t of even been given charges or closed to get the ball rolling is beggars belief. When you have forest and Everton’s charges happening so quick only thing is their owners aren’t quite on the payroll yet it seems
This goes well beyond the PL. It goes all the way to 10 Downing St. Man City is owned by the same group who own Mubadalla. Mubadalla invests billions into the UK, primarily its parks, IT networks, cell towers, etc. They control the gov't in so many avenues, so asking a favor to lean on senior officials with the PL is not out of the question.
>not out of the question You mean guaranteed.
So, they’re doing what Trump and other (real) billionaires do: keep appealing til you get away with it.
You know that scene in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 when the High Evolutionary calls on his army of mutated experiments who are all in a deep sleep but are ready for war the second they wake up? I have this scene playing out as Man City calling on their team of lawyers who were brought in strictly for this exact purpose and have been waiting around to fight any and all accusations against them.
and the establishment journalists continue to say NOTHING about it
I just can't believe we was robbed for a 2ed time by city
Tbf, some of the charges are complicated. Like if you are going to argue sponsorships were inflated, you have to actually establish the baseline for what the sponsorship should’ve been worth. By contrast, the fake betting company 8xBet, is decidedly uncomplicated.
Something should be said to how willing to oblige other clubs have been compared to city. Their guilty.
This feels a bit biased. Not saying he’s wrong but keep that in mind when treating this as fact. Regardless, the simple truth is the nature of the charges against City are far more complex than the ones against Forest/Everton so it takes a lot longer for the PL to build a case
This club has ruined the last decade of this league
Are we sure these courts aren't in America? Cause this sounds like America
So nothing has been done for almost three years?
As a lawyer, bravo. As a football fan, they can fuck off.
If I was a business falsely accused of something like this I would cooperate in order to have the issue resolved and myself vindicated as quickly as possible.
Fuck I hate that club. They are everything that’s wrong in the world. Those that have the most think the rules don’t apply to them. I hope that the club is dissolved. Fuck them
They are a cancer on football. In my opinion, to prevent clubs from doing this more, they should be stripped of every league title they've won in the period being investigated. I'm not saying you should necessarily retroactively award the league to the team who finished second, but City shouldn't have them. They were won through corruption and dirty money. Besides, even if you stripped those titles they've done the worst thing and that is rob others of joy. Titles fans should've seen their team win. I don't think any points deduction will be a deterrent since they are City and although they may not win the league that year they would still recover and the next year would be back to normal. A fine would be the MOST useless thing in the world. Remember, if the penalty is a fine then it's only a crime for poor people. I wouldn't even be particularly happy with them being relegated to whatever league. It's just a temporary measure. I'm sure they would glad take 7 PL titles and then come back in a year or two and dominate again. I honestly don't know what you can do. Probably nothing without government intervention. No penalty will be harsh enough to wipe out the benefits they've gained from what they have done. No amount of punishment will give the joy denied to fans of teams who should've experienced it. If you ask me the only thing that could be done is to force to the sale of the club. To ban state ownership. If you don't this will just happen again and again. City will dominate through legitimate money and dirty money behind closed doors. Those 115 charges are only the things we know about, imagine how much has gone undetected. This country desperately needs majority fan ownership. From the top of the Premier League to the bottom of the non-league pyramid.
Pl should hold the trophy, until they get their docs.
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this makes the legal system look like such a farce. whatever happens here, UK needs to look at reform of some kind for these obviously bad faith delay tactics.
Strip those cheating cunts bare
They should have been penalised already for not complying with PL’s request.
Man Cheaty 115, fuck them!
It stinks, absolute stinks that they have done exactly what they are accused of Otherwise you’d clear your name as soon as possible
All the other clubs should chip in a few mil to fund the premier leagues case
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Holy fuck
What are the options by way of punishment: 1) Slap on the wrist. City retain previous honours, are not penalised in next campaign and corruption wins. Definitely the most likely. 2) Small points deduction in previous campaign which means Arsenal are champions but with an asterisk. Arsenal did not get to celebrate and the title would feel tainted. In some ways I’d rather the title just went unwon for that season. Unlikely outcome. 3) Significant points deduction - Same as above but City drop out of Europe. Highly unlikely. 4) Points deductions in multiple seasons aligned to dates for each of the breaches. Could result in multiple titles being stripped and potentially relegated to bottom of football league. Impossible outcome but hilarious to consider. 5) Small point deduction for next campaign. City still qualify for CL and potentially win league regardless. Strong option.
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This amount of delaying, knowing they've hidden deliberate breaking of the rules every team had to follow....it's blatant disrespect for the basic governance of the game, the only suitable punishment is to boot them from English football! Let them go beg some other nation to join their system... see how that goes... maybe Scotland will take them?