The dark side

[Thaksinssoldier]

Bare with me here lads.

Since the year of our first title victory, I've slowly become very disillusioned with the sport in general, and not just as it pertains to City.

It's basically an open secret that there was shenanigans that season to try stop us from winning the league, and the club had to get investigators onto the case to stop the attempts to curtail us. We went on to win it, but in all honesty it should have been won a long time prior to that.

Since then, we've seen some seriously dodgy stuff.

FIFA/UEFA corruption. Dodgy gambling. Money laundering like the Luiz to PSG deal. Blatant steroid use by some well known players and teams last season. A corrupt farce of a title race last year. All this Whitehill/Bennell stuff.

What we even get as sniff of is just the tip of the iceberg.

So what I want to ask, is it just me or are others feeling like the game is getting lost? I'm not talking sanitised atmospheres or endless Poghype, I mean is the game getting so dark and murky that it's sliding into an abyss?

Thoughts?

 

[JULES]

I find it a bit hard to believe you remember our first title !!!
apart from that I do agree with a lot of what you say

 

[Kazzydeyna]

I've heard this before about goings on that season to stop us. What was actually going on and what did the club do to thwart it (and what did we find)?

 

[denislawsbackheel]

From your first word to iceberg you make a string of accusations I've never heard of before, apart from Whitehill/Bennell.

Any evidence to back up your claims would be illuminating.

 

[Tubes26]

I feel that. It makes me annoyed more than anything because I can't fully enjoy watching my favourite sport without having reason to doubt it in some way.

The one you haven't mentioned is the role of Sky/BT and their coverage. This season they have a blatant technique of cutting to a close shot of a player, usually to hide the fact they are shouting at the ref....which is supposed to be a yellow card. But also sometimes they do that to cover up a crap refereeing decision. Like Taylor in your last match. He saw the foul, went to blow his whistle, reached for a card, the players mostly stopped, the commentators say "Luiz could be in trouble here," then it cuts to Luiz close up to hide the farce, then cuts back to normal play and it turns out the ref did nothing. Crazy. Doesn't even matter what the correct decision was, the way Sky tried to hide it was dodgy as fuck, and it's not their first time.

Call me a cynic, but the boring and needless interview with Costa/Luiz just seemed like a time wasting strategy to avoid having to talk about the ref....

The other stuff... well its quite obvious there's something at least a little bit wrong with everything.

 

[manimanc]

After the events of last week I've never felt as detached from the game I've loved all my life as I do today. Money has spoilt football beyond recognition, I don't get the buzz I used to. And I know it's a well worn phrase but I loved us more when we was shit, it felt like if I shouted a bit louder or sang my heart out we'd do alright. It was never the case obviously but there was a connection between fans and team.
Nowadays 9 times out of 10 the atmosphere is flat, very rarely is it bouncing. That's what happens when you become successful, and it doesn't always apply to us, it's happened at other clubs. I first noticed when keegan took over and we won the league, the team was performing and it didn't need us to sing and get them going.
The refereeing decisions last weekend , not just in our match but others, has proven that refs go into a match with instructions from the fa. As simple as that. How can a professional in his profession get straightforward decisions completely wrong and not see the real event? It's blatant cheating. It's not even disguised anymore, refs don't feel any shame about getting obvious decisions wrong.
Personally a part of me died when we won the league, all the money spent, beer drunk, miles travelled and songs sung over 35 odd years of supporting city had gone towards that day v QPR. It was job done. What other feeling could top that. I didn't feel like that after winning the fa cup, I was hungry for more. But winning the league defo put me into semi retirement and I find it hard to get the proper buzz as I did back then.

 

[abu13]

As with everything in life, if there is money in it then there's corruption as well, the level of corruption increases with the the more money that can be stolen.

 

[jimharri]

Have to be honest here OP; it's a bit cold to consider baring anything. Bear with me when I say I'll wait until springtime when I'll reconsider things.

;-)

 

[Deepest Blue]

While you're right that football as a sport has gone down the crapper it's been tainted in some respect for a century or more but the reporting of it has become more efficient and the stakes have increased since the Sky money came into our game.
Overseas is a different matter and has been bent as a Shepherds Crook for longer still.

 

[Manc in London]

The more prize money and sponsorship on offer and the funds acvailable for qualifying for the CL, the more corrupt the game becomes.