The Spiteful Nine

The BBC sports website always has the back / football pages of the daily papers - headlines proudly displayed and all shown in full glory at the bottom of the gossip page . .
until today, when Martin Samuel prints a rebuke against the cartel . . then suddenly no back pages shown.
It's a deliberate omission to hide an opinion that somebody doesn't want in the public domain - it's "almost" as if the BBC is in the pocket of the cartel isn't it?

Or am I getting paranoid in my dotage?
 
OccupiedPalestineBlues said:
The BBC sports website always has the back / football pages of the daily papers - headlines proudly displayed and all shown in full glory at the bottom of the gossip page . .
until today, when Martin Samuel prints a rebuke against the cartel . . then suddenly no back pages shown.
It's a deliberate omission to hide an opinion that somebody doesn't want in the public domain - it's "almost" as if the BBC is in the pocket of the cartel isn't it?

Or am I getting paranoid in my dotage?
Click to expand...


Strangely they forgot the papers yesterday too..
 
OccupiedPalestineBlues said:
The BBC sports website always has the back / football pages of the daily papers - headlines proudly displayed and all shown in full glory at the bottom of the gossip page . .
until today, when Martin Samuel prints a rebuke against the cartel . . then suddenly no back pages shown.
It's a deliberate omission to hide an opinion that somebody doesn't want in the public domain - it's "almost" as if the BBC is in the pocket of the cartel isn't it?

Or am I getting paranoid in my dotage?
Click to expand...
Maybe I’m getting paranoid too.
After Sky Sports breaking news with quotes from Klopp and Mourinho all day yesterday, they seem to have forgotten to do the same with Arteta and Solskjær.
Maybe it’s just my paranoia or maybe it’s simply because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
 
I'm Blue said:
Maybe I’m getting paranoid too.
After Sky Sports breaking news with quotes from Klopp and Mourinho all day yesterday, they seem to have forgotten to do the same with Arteta and Solskjær.
Maybe it’s just my paranoia or maybe it’s simply because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
Click to expand...

Noddy said he won’t get into it as it’s not his job
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
Whoever Scooby D is, that’s a great letter!
Click to expand...
This x2 from me, too.. Nothwithstanding whoever 'Scooby D' may be, I think we all know who it is who will be revealed when the ghost/monster costume is removed at the end as Scooby and pals prevent some innocuous local who is really behind the crime/scam from wreaking havoc on the world.. And of course, the perpetrator gets hauled away complaining 'B-b-but I would've got away with it too, if it weren't for you pesky, meddling kids!'..
 
I'm Blue said:
Maybe I’m getting paranoid too.
After Sky Sports breaking news with quotes from Klopp and Mourinho all day yesterday, they seem to have forgotten to do the same with Arteta and Solskjær.
Maybe it’s just my paranoia or maybe it’s simply because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
Click to expand...
No they showed Arteta mate yesterday, he said City were cleared by the panel of CAS so they are not guilty, the choir boy basically refused to talk about City, he said ffp is there to protect clubs overspending..
 
LongsightM13 said:
If you can plough through the embittered united and Liverpool fans crying, this letter in the Football365 mailbox today is worth a read. Talented chap whoever wrote that...
https://www.football365.com/news/mailbox-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-man-united-moyes

The absolute States
As a City fan it has been both entertaining and illuminating to read some of the reaction to the CAS decision from supporters of other clubs – and certain sections of the media whose buffoonish incompetence, haughty hubris and self-destructive personal prejudice against the club and it’s supporters has been laid bare for all to see in brutal fashion (hello Delaney, MacKenna, Syed, Herbert, Corbett, Conn, Panja, Evans, Nakrani, Glendenning and pretty much any hack with the surname Harris).

Much of the reaction has been depressingly predictable. Blinded by tribalism and self-interest to even the most cursory reading of the factual decision of an independent judicial body, many are clinging vainly to the ‘time-barred’ element of the judgement as some sort of consolation prize – while choosing to ignore the fact that CAS also found that many of UEFA’s allegations- for that is all they were – simply were not supported by the evidence.

We all await the full detailed ruling with interest, which may hopefully shed some more light on the issues rather than the heat generated by hysterical smacked arses over the last 48 hours, but for CAS to come down so firmly in City’s favour would at least seem to suggest that the club refuted those of UEFA’s allegations which were not time-barred with some ease.

So it follows that there is nothing to say that those specific allegations which were not discussed at CAS by virtue of being time-barred could not also have been dismissed in similarly perfunctory fashion by City and their legal representatives.

If you’re hoping for a smoking gun to prove your “got off on a technicality” consolation tales, lads and lasses, then you may be disappointed.

Perhaps now the UK sports media, including the aforementioned rabble, might use this episode as an opportunity for reflection. To consider the fact that engaging in witch hunts and pile-ons against an individual club or fanbase (“sewer rats”, anyone?) does both themselves and their profession a disservice. That their journalism should be fair, honest, balanced and evidence-based, rather than churning out emotion-fuelled clickbait to appeal to rival supporters from the Meme/BANTZ generation.

They could perhaps start by asking who pressured UEFA into pursuing what City and its supporters knew all along was a doomed endeavour, a spiteful tilt at a windmill?

The old G14 may no longer formally exist but it is naive and disingenuous in the extreme to think that these old, long-standing political alliances between the entitled establishment clubs don’t exist and, indeed, continue to flourish today (see Agnelli’s shameful recent comments about Atalanta’s Champions League qualification at Roma’s expense as just one example).

Most Tory MPs and Peers have long ago left Eton and Oxbridge but does anyone honestly believe that the alliances and connections they forged at that time don’t influence their conduct and values in later life? Same thing.

The media could ask those rival Premier League clubs (aka ‘The Hateful Eight’) what on earth possessed them to write that ludicrous letter to UEFA demanding City’s immediate punishment despite the fact an independent due process had yet to run its course? Quite why the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley got involved with the red-shirted mob is beyond me. They are fully deserving of scorn.

Finally, the media could just stop being so credulous and gullible. They could apply the principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? Who had the most to gain from this grandstanding pursuit of an upstart rival?

Enter American-owned LFC, MUFC and Arsenal. There is an infamous photograph doing the rounds for a while now of their owners and senior officials all laughing along at a dinner table. It’s not a massive stretch to imagine that using the blunt instrument of FFP to fatally damage a rival might have been a subject for chit chat over the breadsticks.

With compliant mouthpieces in the press and broadcast media, extensive lobbying operations and even reports of murky connections to social media dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns, the redshirts and their owners have managed to convince a depressingly large constituency that while white American hedge fund money is good, brown Arab oil money is bad.

Persuading the gullible to “Look over there at what those nasty Arabs are up to” means nobody is looking too closely at their own values and conduct. Leveraged buyouts. Huge debt levels which they convinced UEFA to exclude from FFP. A cultural desire for sport as a closed shop – a cosy system where promotion and relegation on sporting merit is utterly alien and something to be resisted at all costs if it threatens the flow of money. You could even throw in the proven on-field cheating culture apparently condoned by other sports clubs in their broader organisations. Or perhaps the hacking of a rival club’s databases and the personal information contained within – criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act. Instead of disciplining those responsible, they get promoted instead. How does that work, la?

I would suggest that these factors mean US owners pose a great existential threat to football as we know it than any amount of upstarts from what their glorious Commander in Chief referred to as ‘shithole countries’.
It is a classic bait and switch and a great many people – journalists and rival fans alike – have been taken in completely. Completely conned like the doomed rubes who still think they can beat a street corner card sharp at Find the Lady.

There might be a sucker born every minute but there are literally thousands of them tweeting every second. And that just goes to prove that this cabal of septic Americans have done their job depressingly well.
  • from Scooby D, Manchester
Click to expand...
LongsightM13 said:
If you can plough through the embittered united and Liverpool fans crying, this letter in the Football365 mailbox today is worth a read. Talented chap whoever wrote that...
https://www.football365.com/news/mailbox-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-man-united-moyes

The absolute States
As a City fan it has been both entertaining and illuminating to read some of the reaction to the CAS decision from supporters of other clubs – and certain sections of the media whose buffoonish incompetence, haughty hubris and self-destructive personal prejudice against the club and it’s supporters has been laid bare for all to see in brutal fashion (hello Delaney, MacKenna, Syed, Herbert, Corbett, Conn, Panja, Evans, Nakrani, Glendenning and pretty much any hack with the surname Harris).

Much of the reaction has been depressingly predictable. Blinded by tribalism and self-interest to even the most cursory reading of the factual decision of an independent judicial body, many are clinging vainly to the ‘time-barred’ element of the judgement as some sort of consolation prize – while choosing to ignore the fact that CAS also found that many of UEFA’s allegations- for that is all they were – simply were not supported by the evidence.

We all await the full detailed ruling with interest, which may hopefully shed some more light on the issues rather than the heat generated by hysterical smacked arses over the last 48 hours, but for CAS to come down so firmly in City’s favour would at least seem to suggest that the club refuted those of UEFA’s allegations which were not time-barred with some ease.

So it follows that there is nothing to say that those specific allegations which were not discussed at CAS by virtue of being time-barred could not also have been dismissed in similarly perfunctory fashion by City and their legal representatives.

If you’re hoping for a smoking gun to prove your “got off on a technicality” consolation tales, lads and lasses, then you may be disappointed.

Perhaps now the UK sports media, including the aforementioned rabble, might use this episode as an opportunity for reflection. To consider the fact that engaging in witch hunts and pile-ons against an individual club or fanbase (“sewer rats”, anyone?) does both themselves and their profession a disservice. That their journalism should be fair, honest, balanced and evidence-based, rather than churning out emotion-fuelled clickbait to appeal to rival supporters from the Meme/BANTZ generation.

They could perhaps start by asking who pressured UEFA into pursuing what City and its supporters knew all along was a doomed endeavour, a spiteful tilt at a windmill?

The old G14 may no longer formally exist but it is naive and disingenuous in the extreme to think that these old, long-standing political alliances between the entitled establishment clubs don’t exist and, indeed, continue to flourish today (see Agnelli’s shameful recent comments about Atalanta’s Champions League qualification at Roma’s expense as just one example).

Most Tory MPs and Peers have long ago left Eton and Oxbridge but does anyone honestly believe that the alliances and connections they forged at that time don’t influence their conduct and values in later life? Same thing.

The media could ask those rival Premier League clubs (aka ‘The Hateful Eight’) what on earth possessed them to write that ludicrous letter to UEFA demanding City’s immediate punishment despite the fact an independent due process had yet to run its course? Quite why the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley got involved with the red-shirted mob is beyond me. They are fully deserving of scorn.

Finally, the media could just stop being so credulous and gullible. They could apply the principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? Who had the most to gain from this grandstanding pursuit of an upstart rival?

Enter American-owned LFC, MUFC and Arsenal. There is an infamous photograph doing the rounds for a while now of their owners and senior officials all laughing along at a dinner table. It’s not a massive stretch to imagine that using the blunt instrument of FFP to fatally damage a rival might have been a subject for chit chat over the breadsticks.

With compliant mouthpieces in the press and broadcast media, extensive lobbying operations and even reports of murky connections to social media dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns, the redshirts and their owners have managed to convince a depressingly large constituency that while white American hedge fund money is good, brown Arab oil money is bad.

Persuading the gullible to “Look over there at what those nasty Arabs are up to” means nobody is looking too closely at their own values and conduct. Leveraged buyouts. Huge debt levels which they convinced UEFA to exclude from FFP. A cultural desire for sport as a closed shop – a cosy system where promotion and relegation on sporting merit is utterly alien and something to be resisted at all costs if it threatens the flow of money. You could even throw in the proven on-field cheating culture apparently condoned by other sports clubs in their broader organisations. Or perhaps the hacking of a rival club’s databases and the personal information contained within – criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act. Instead of disciplining those responsible, they get promoted instead. How does that work, la?

I would suggest that these factors mean US owners pose a great existential threat to football as we know it than any amount of upstarts from what their glorious Commander in Chief referred to as ‘shithole countries’.
It is a classic bait and switch and a great many people – journalists and rival fans alike – have been taken in completely. Completely conned like the doomed rubes who still think they can beat a street corner card sharp at Find the Lady.

There might be a sucker born every minute but there are literally thousands of them tweeting every second. And that just goes to prove that this cabal of septic Americans have done their job depressingly well.
  • from Scooby D, Manchester
Click to expand...
Wow ! Everything that needs to be said......
 
The hateful 8 will get pissed off at the PL turning into a one horse bundesliga race eventually and realise working together will benefit the whole league.
 
I see Spitty & his mate Neville are showing their collective outrage at IFAB confirming they support 5 subs next season, both imploring the prem to swerve it like they have some kind of sway, they both know we’d walk it. Seems like a great opportunity for our young guns to develop
 
We have to make each and everyone of them pay the penalty when they turn up at City, (no violence) with noise, from the fans from every corner of the ground, once we get back. Lets make sure none are comfortable, from there players, supporters, and staff, we must never forget how they have treated us, we will never forgive or forget, get ready for when we do return, we have to be more Vocal, and make them know we are never beaten, Stick Together, Come on City.
 
Jesus H Gabz said:
I see Spitty & his mate Neville are showing their collective outrage at IFAB confirming they support 5 subs next season, both imploring the prem to swerve it like they have some kind of sway, they both know we’d walk it. Seems like a great opportunity for our young guns to develop
Click to expand...
I get why they're both bothered. Physicality is king in the PL. Liverpool and United are two teams that rely on this aspect more than anyone else. It's not a coincidence Liverpool get late goals in each half. Allowing an extra 2 subs helps bridge the gap.

City rely on physicality too, just not as solely. Generally, when teams get at City, it's because they've managed to get at us physically and negate the tactical/technical side. The extra 2 subs give City a chance to negate that negation, especially with the player quality we have.

It's something that probably won't affect an individual game, but over the course of the season being able to bring those two extra players off can make a world of difference.
 
Nails said:
To be fair to Klopp, he was probably only following orders.
Click to expand...

And Arteta wasn't?

Hardly an excuse anyway. But let's focus on the content of his statement for a moment. City will keep participating in the CL, which is:
  • Good for Liverpool, as City will have the extra matches (!!!). Otherwise his club wouldn't be able to compete (lol)...
  • Bad for football, because ............. ???
You'll have to help me with the second one, as I fail to see the argument. All this disrespect for an institution operating within the legal framework of the system, just because the verdict was not the one his club and the rest members of the cartel, dominating European football for decades by the way, would wish?

City had to be found guilty, no matter what? No matter the case, the "evidence" supporting it, etc? And since they weren't, CAS's outcome is unacceptable? Seriously?

And then all these references to the administrative and ownerdhip models applied in the Budesliga. Where competition is officially dead for like 8 years in a row, a one club show league, may I add. The same in Italy, the same in France, the same in Tebas's beloved Primera...

Bottom line is that Klopp had a perfect opportunity to distance himself from the anti-City propaganda in the mainstream media all these years, given CAS's verdict which is a historic fact (apologising, such as Guardiola suggested, is too much, I guess). Also, as a professional, he had the perfect opportunity to contribute to a discussion regarding the influence of FFP, considered as an instrument cementing the above mentioned realities.

He did neither. He is an adult, so we will have to assume he agrees with all the unjustified shit thrown at City, for one. Even after CAS's verdict. He also agrees with strategies, structures and measures encouraging favoritism. Which defines his vision for the PL, I suppose.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how you can take this man seriously...
 
LongsightM13 said:
If you can plough through the embittered united and Liverpool fans crying, this letter in the Football365 mailbox today is worth a read. Talented chap whoever wrote that...
https://www.football365.com/news/mailbox-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-man-united-moyes

The absolute States
As a City fan it has been both entertaining and illuminating to read some of the reaction to the CAS decision from supporters of other clubs – and certain sections of the media whose buffoonish incompetence, haughty hubris and self-destructive personal prejudice against the club and it’s supporters has been laid bare for all to see in brutal fashion (hello Delaney, MacKenna, Syed, Herbert, Corbett, Conn, Panja, Evans, Nakrani, Glendenning and pretty much any hack with the surname Harris).

Much of the reaction has been depressingly predictable. Blinded by tribalism and self-interest to even the most cursory reading of the factual decision of an independent judicial body, many are clinging vainly to the ‘time-barred’ element of the judgement as some sort of consolation prize – while choosing to ignore the fact that CAS also found that many of UEFA’s allegations- for that is all they were – simply were not supported by the evidence.

We all await the full detailed ruling with interest, which may hopefully shed some more light on the issues rather than the heat generated by hysterical smacked arses over the last 48 hours, but for CAS to come down so firmly in City’s favour would at least seem to suggest that the club refuted those of UEFA’s allegations which were not time-barred with some ease.

So it follows that there is nothing to say that those specific allegations which were not discussed at CAS by virtue of being time-barred could not also have been dismissed in similarly perfunctory fashion by City and their legal representatives.

If you’re hoping for a smoking gun to prove your “got off on a technicality” consolation tales, lads and lasses, then you may be disappointed.

Perhaps now the UK sports media, including the aforementioned rabble, might use this episode as an opportunity for reflection. To consider the fact that engaging in witch hunts and pile-ons against an individual club or fanbase (“sewer rats”, anyone?) does both themselves and their profession a disservice. That their journalism should be fair, honest, balanced and evidence-based, rather than churning out emotion-fuelled clickbait to appeal to rival supporters from the Meme/BANTZ generation.

They could perhaps start by asking who pressured UEFA into pursuing what City and its supporters knew all along was a doomed endeavour, a spiteful tilt at a windmill?

The old G14 may no longer formally exist but it is naive and disingenuous in the extreme to think that these old, long-standing political alliances between the entitled establishment clubs don’t exist and, indeed, continue to flourish today (see Agnelli’s shameful recent comments about Atalanta’s Champions League qualification at Roma’s expense as just one example).

Most Tory MPs and Peers have long ago left Eton and Oxbridge but does anyone honestly believe that the alliances and connections they forged at that time don’t influence their conduct and values in later life? Same thing.

The media could ask those rival Premier League clubs (aka ‘The Hateful Eight’) what on earth possessed them to write that ludicrous letter to UEFA demanding City’s immediate punishment despite the fact an independent due process had yet to run its course? Quite why the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley got involved with the red-shirted mob is beyond me. They are fully deserving of scorn.

Finally, the media could just stop being so credulous and gullible. They could apply the principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? Who had the most to gain from this grandstanding pursuit of an upstart rival?

Enter American-owned LFC, MUFC and Arsenal. There is an infamous photograph doing the rounds for a while now of their owners and senior officials all laughing along at a dinner table. It’s not a massive stretch to imagine that using the blunt instrument of FFP to fatally damage a rival might have been a subject for chit chat over the breadsticks.

With compliant mouthpieces in the press and broadcast media, extensive lobbying operations and even reports of murky connections to social media dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns, the redshirts and their owners have managed to convince a depressingly large constituency that while white American hedge fund money is good, brown Arab oil money is bad.

Persuading the gullible to “Look over there at what those nasty Arabs are up to” means nobody is looking too closely at their own values and conduct. Leveraged buyouts. Huge debt levels which they convinced UEFA to exclude from FFP. A cultural desire for sport as a closed shop – a cosy system where promotion and relegation on sporting merit is utterly alien and something to be resisted at all costs if it threatens the flow of money. You could even throw in the proven on-field cheating culture apparently condoned by other sports clubs in their broader organisations. Or perhaps the hacking of a rival club’s databases and the personal information contained within – criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act. Instead of disciplining those responsible, they get promoted instead. How does that work, la?

I would suggest that these factors mean US owners pose a great existential threat to football as we know it than any amount of upstarts from what their glorious Commander in Chief referred to as ‘shithole countries’.
It is a classic bait and switch and a great many people – journalists and rival fans alike – have been taken in completely. Completely conned like the doomed rubes who still think they can beat a street corner card sharp at Find the Lady.

There might be a sucker born every minute but there are literally thousands of them tweeting every second. And that just goes to prove that this cabal of septic Americans have done their job depressingly well.
  • from Scooby D, Manchester
Click to expand...
Wow, well played Sir Scooby of Doo
 
percypawpaw said:
We have to make each and everyone of them pay the penalty when they turn up at City, (no violence) with noise, from the fans from every corner of the ground, once we get back. Lets make sure none are comfortable, from there players, supporters, and staff, we must never forget how they have treated us, we will never forgive or forget, get ready for when we do return, we have to be more Vocal, and make them know we are never beaten, Stick Together, Come on City.
Click to expand...

balls to that,

I want to see city fans chase their board members out of the ground..

The players to smash their opponents with lumps of wood on the pitch.


Just kidding, as much as it be good to ban their board members from our ground, talking gets done on the pitch.
 
mccity said:
I get why they're both bothered. Physicality is king in the PL. Liverpool and United are two teams that rely on this aspect more than anyone else. It's not a coincidence Liverpool get late goals in each half. Allowing an extra 2 subs helps bridge the gap.

City rely on physicality too, just not as solely. Generally, when teams get at City, it's because they've managed to get at us physically and negate the tactical/technical side. The extra 2 subs give City a chance to negate that negation, especially with the player quality we have.

It's something that probably won't affect an individual game, but over the course of the season being able to bring those two extra players off can make a world of difference.
Click to expand...
Agreed....same could be said for the way we generally wear teams down mentally at times
 
I wouldn't get too bothered about the 'eight' at this stage.

Clearly this has been orchestrated by Arsenal with encouragement from Spurs, United and Liverpool. They targetted the top-ten clubs as they would have a vested interest in opening up fifth place for CL and eighth place for EL if City were banned. Some, like Wolves, foolishlessly signed up out short-term tactical interests.

Once the heat has gone from this, the battle lines will look rather different. The core of the establishment clubs are the old 'big four' of Liverpool, United, Arsenal and Chelsea. Remember back in the 2000s when they dominated English Football taking the Champions League places most years. Once Leeds had imploded through overspending and the insurgent Blackburn had been vanquished, the 'big four' had little opposition. Limited challenge came from Everton (under Moyes) and Spurs (Under dodgy 'Arry). That in itself is testament to how poor the standards were! Even when Everton did manage to break the top four, Liverpool won a somewhat unlikely CL win. That prompted an unbelieveable late rule change to put Liverpool in the CL dor the next year even though they were not qualified. Everton faced a much harder qualification route and failed to make the group stages.

It was all so very uncompetitive. Arsenal appeared not to bother with trying to win the title because they could make more money by finishing third than spending the cash needed for a real challenge. Liverpool were let down by their own incompetance especially after the departure of Benitez. The huge financial advantage enjoyed by the big four meant that no team could possibly compete given that the CL revenue would double their budget.

This cosy arrangement began to break down towards the 2010s. Liverpool's 'Moneyball'-led incompetance saw them drift away from the top four to be replaced initially by Spurs and later by City. Strangely while Chelsea were relucantly admitted to the cartel, City were still treated as interlopers. This was despite the similarities in the rise of the two clubs.

Over time, the financial advantage of the CL clubs has been eroded because of the rise in revenue from domestic football. Much of this was down to City. particularly following the Aguero moment. The sterile situation of United and Chelsea taking turns was no loger prevelant. Since then Liverpool have broken back into the top four at the expense of Arsenal with Spurs there or there abouts as United have also struggled.

It is likely to line up with Liverpool, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and possibly Spurs on one side and City, Everton, Wolves, Newcastle, Sheffield United, and maybe Leicester on the other. The likes of Wolves and Leicester may have signed the letter out of tactical concerns but strategically belong with City and the other insurgents.
 
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