This would be the ideal time for the PR department to arrange a long awaited 2nd visit to the stadium by the Sheikh and let's hear a positive reassuring statement from him also, it would help galvanise us from the tea lady to the top all of us together !
Let's show these tosses we don't give a fuck.
I think one point we should bring up is how PSG were allowed to get away with over-valued sponsorship (over double ours), even though UEFA's own audit said it was 95% over-valued!
Also think we should be investigating why the email hacker targetted us... and who was behind that!
We all want justice, but I want revenge... I hope City bring the whole house of cards down... UEFA, G14 clubs... the lot - and when the dust settles, I hope they set our lawyers on certain cnuts within the press.
The Times was as hostile as anyone towards City till late last year. They first ran a story attacking us over the Der Spiegel leaks and also reported that a leading Premier League was circulating a letter to other English clubs demanding that City also be punished by the Premier League. The club pushing the letter was not named but I am certain it was Liverpool FC. They also ran the false story before Christmas saying City would be banned "over the next few days." That was leaked to all the media indirectly but must have started in the Investigating Committee. That story left them with egg on their face when it didn't happen. Since then they have started looking at the bigger picture (which is the bigger story) It's not really about the leaked information but who is doing it and why.
Thanks for a fantastic post, Interista.Just wanted to let you guys know you're not alone. What UEFA is doing and has been doing for years is disgusting, inherently corrupt and is destroying football. Sport without competitivity isn't worthwhile and UEFA seem hell bent on eradicating any form of competitiveness (except where it favours their "chosen few"). They've already destroyed football in Italy by crippling us, Inter, with their sanctions and once they were done with us and we got on something approaching an even foot again, they've hunted down and are hunting down Milan (how interesting that UEFA never took the slightest interest in seeing that Juventus were punished for calciopoli or in pursuing a suitable punishment instead of the ridiculously flimsy penalty that was handed down).
It's not that the clubs they've gone after haven't compromised the rules so much as that the rules are compromised themselves. An example from Serie A, Juventus win it every year so their prize money is huge. That allows them to invest more money which increases their dominance (and lets not kid ourselves, we all know who is going to win the scudetto again this year, and the next, and the next...) which allows them to invest even more money ad infinitum. Financial Fair Play has been set up by a cartel of clubs and those in cahoots with these clubs. UEFA as anyone with even a cursory knowledge of football knows is inherently corrupt. UEFA pontificating about morals and dishing out punishments? That's like taking lessons in morality from Jimmy Saville.
I have firmly believed from day one that UEFA's FFP rules were eminently challengeable in a legal context. In what other business can you tell somebody that they can't invest their own money to grow a project??? The way City have been run since your current owners came in has been exemplary. They speculated to accumulate, an age old business practice, and having done so wisely and astutely are reaping deserved rewards. That a mafia-like organisation like UEFA is now sticking its nose in because they don't like "the new kids on the block" (and I use that term with tongue firmly in cheek; City have always been a massive club and similarly to Inter, unlike other clubs like Liverpool, United, Juventus, your and our fans don't only turn up when the team is winning).
I always hoped we would try to fight UEFA but we were in a mess because of the Moratti-Thohir-Suning ownership saga and by the time Suning came in, I think they felt it was better to just get FFP out of the way and build. I genuinely think your owners however are savvy, wealthy, well-connected, intelligent and committed enough to be the club which finally takes UEFA down from its pedestal. I have nothing but respect for Manchester City, your owners and your project and I hope as much as you do that you manage to give UEFA a bloody nose over this. If they get away with it this time, I shudder to think what the future holds for football. Whilst United are riddled with debt, Juventus have posted debt on the Irish stock exchange for the last couple of years, UEFA are targetting a club which seriously has its house in order and is a shining example for how to run a football club.
Best of luck and I will be supporting you every step of the way.
Forza City!
Looks like is all over now. No way there is revenue to pay salaries if no UCL. So hope ban can be reduced to one year and we move on. If not sell all players that wont stay for premium moneu and start bring in young cheap players like Foden. And play them and rebuild. In two years timewe all will be fine. Stronger than ever before.
Very interesting and potentially very useful. What concerns me though is that our appeal is to CAS and the emphasis may be very firmly on the arbitration aspect of its work ie a compromise settlement where City are supposed to accept a reduced sanction. A one year ban is not acceptable and City have apparently stated that no sanction is acceptable. My fear is that this was, as the club stated, a case initiated by UEFA, prosecuted by UEFA and judged by UEFA according to laws introduced by UEFA and that CAS simply ensures that this process was not so flawed as to render the verdict "unsafe". In that scenario the cards are stacked heavily in UEFA's favour and I am concerned that CAS will not see it as its role to (re)examine much evidence and reinterpret it. This will apply to much of the evidence from the sponsorship deals and I don't believe that CAS is a court of law in the sense that it will pronounce on the admissibility of the Der Spiegel evidence and certainly won't pronounce on whether FFP is actually lawful at all. City will always be vulnerable to the use of FFP to involve us in the continuous distraction of a everlasting battle with governing bodies which have sold out to a cartel of clubs until the ECJ rules that the law protects the right of owners to invest, with no "sporting exception", and that clubs will act in conformity to that law rather than what UEFA thinks is good for "football".
No they aren’t and have no intention of joining their head honcho said any country think of do so must be madSwitzerland is in the EU now ?
It’s in the mail and it’s all hypothetical but it will attract clicks, which in turn attracts advertisers which attracts revenue.