We're seeing some true colours come out now. When we were punished a few years ago I could understand why, I didn't agree with it.
Since then we've done the following:
- Reduced our transfer spending significantly
- Reduced our wage bill significantly
- Extended our stadium
- Built a state of the art training facility
- Built a state of the art Academy
- Built a footballing network around the world
- Sold a % of the club to Chinese investors (earning HHSM what he initially invested to buy the club)
- Continued to be successful on the pitch
- Started making a profit year on year
When considering punishments, I hope UEFA understand that we're no longer the City of 2010, we're a completely different entity.
We've already been punished for failing to meet FFP standards, surely UEFA should look into how we're behaving now? We should be compared to the likes of PSG (who've continued to spend incredible amounts of money) or Chelsea (who're hundreds of millions of £'s in debt). It can't be argued that what we did lead to an unfair advantage. Since FFP was introduced, 4 separate teams have won the Premier League, non have retained it. Compare that with Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Greece, Poland, Italy, Scotland etc. These countries have proven that FFP has hindered competitiveness as opposed to encouraging it. We cannot be stripped of European trophies we did not win.
Can we also note that both Leicester and Liverpool have failed FFP recently? The talk of docking points in a competition UEFA don't govern is laughable.
Realistically the punishments we will face are a transfer ban (something we could swallow) and exclusion from UEFA competitions for a year. The former wouldn't impact us too much, we have a young squad and a great manager. Banning from Europe would be bad for the money men at the club, but other big 6 clubs have shown it's hardly a nail in the club's coffin. In fact it's probably aided some clubs to title challenges.