PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[blue44]

That was the worst id felt as a blue since god knows when. And i started watching in 79!
Id seen all the shit, all the relegations, the selling of prized assets, the board room battles. But they all had an expected feel towards them. I knew they were coming.
Even relegation to the the third div had an air of acceptance around it.

But our performance on sunday sent my head west. So many questions to answer. Im far from entitled, as i say, ive seen and lived all the bad times, but we are a different entity now.

So monday i woke up, pissed off with football, fed up with pep, disappointed with City.
Then took a call off someone who would know about phil fodens extra curricular activities very much catching up with him. Great.
But then the F bomb was dropped as i logged on here to see the prem charges. Fucks sake what now!!!! Like most i presume i spent the day trying to earn a living whilst simultaneously dipping in and out the thread, grasping at any positivity, sinking at all the negatives.
Fuck off monday

Anyway, tuesdays here, i feel like we are a cornered animal and i hope we band together like never before and come out fighting. If the atmosphere doesnt crackle on sunday it never will

SO … i would say yesterday was the second worst id felt supporting city, relegation v luton by far the worse.
Well whats yours?

Tuesdays gonna be a lot better,its my birthday and an holiday for it to boot too, let the lager flow and the fight back begin.
Up the fkin Blues as always.

 

[M16 citeh]

Heard a lot of these rumours about phill so he's been fucking around then?

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

This all smacks of a rehash of the original charges brought by UEFA but this time the allegations go right from the start of the takeover. Like someone wrote on here yesterday, do you really think after being sanctioned in 2014 we wouldn't make doublely sure of of financial dealing as not to break the rules. The hateful eight are desperate to get City out of the Premier League absolutely desperate. I heard one so called financial expert this morning saying that Chelsea wouldn't fall foul of the FFP rules because they spread their transfer payments and have a long line of academy player to sell, hello , doesn't that sound the same as us? Why is it different for City?

Simple! 'Cos we're City!

 

[halfcenturyup]

Sorry but it's been a thread full of people talking about worst case scenarios, people talking about relegation to the conference and all the rest of it and of course the cesspit that is social media discussing matters of the very same question which I asked Stefan.

It's better to have some clarity and insight is all. By the same token that I don't wake up every day wondering if I'll get hit by a truck, do you think an accused person at court doesn't ask the potential repercussions should they be found guilty of a serious crime?

Ignoring it might do you a favour but then you may as well ignore the full thread in that case?

I know that nobody knows for sure at this stage, but I just asked for his (PR's) best early guesswork, I don't see the issue with that.

Fair enough. We have different outlooks. I get it.

But really, I am not ignoring it. When the news broke, I read the PL statement and came to the conclusion that there isn't enough information there to come to any conclusion of what the issues are, let alone what the outcome will be. All I know is that the PL issued a statement and the club countered with a confident rebuttal. That's good enough for me now.

 

[richards30]

This all smacks of a rehash of the original charges brought by UEFA but this time the allegations go right from the start of the takeover. Like someone wrote on here yesterday, do you really think after being sanctioned in 2014 we wouldn't make doublely sure of of financial dealing as not to break the rules. The hateful eight are desperate to get City out of the Premier League absolutely desperate. I heard one so called financial expert this morning saying that Chelsea wouldn't fall foul of the FFP rules because they spread their transfer payments and have a long line of academy player to sell, hello , doesn't that sound the same as us? Why is it different for City?

hence we now if we are clear we should break any NDA over the dipper hacking and expose any other dodgy shit we have found about other clubs once and for all? Show the rest of the world, broad casters etc that the people running the biggest league in the world are corrupt as fuck!

 

[Bluesince1979]

Heard a lot of these rumours about phill so he's been fucking around then?

And more

 

[willipp]

They are, in effect, claiming City deceived the PL, their auditors and multiple other bodies and filed fake accounts and fake financial forecasts. For at least 9 years. That's the extraordinary allegation.

The bit the makes me uncomfortable is that the PL aren’t just making an allegation here a bit like the UEFA case, they are saying we falsified our books. To make that allegation they must have some pretty strong proof we’ve done it otherwise nothing stands up surely when it gets to court?

At the same time, City at the very top levels know if it’s true or not and will know what the PL have on us, so to hear such a strong response from City then confuses me even more.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Fair enough. We have different outlooks. I get it.

But really, I am not ignoring it. When the news broke, I read the PL statement and came to the conclusion that there isn't enough information there to come to any conclusion of what the issues are, let alone what the outcome will be. All I know is that the PL issued a statement and the club countered with a confident rebuttal. That's good enough for me now.

Absolutely mate. And contrary to what my question might suggest, the clubs statement does fill me with confidence, as they did prior to CAS.

 

[Bluesince1979]

Tuesdays gonna be a lot better,its my birthday and an holiday for it to boot too, let the lager flow and the fight back begin.
Up the fkin Blues as always.

Happy birthday!

Do we really need another 'beat ourselves up' thread. We have 400+ pages of blues arguing with each other already?

Im simply asking, as mondays go, when was the last time u felt so bad

 

[bigA]

This stinks of the corrupt, unhealthy and monopolising influence of United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea have on the PL. FFP is there only to protect their interests, not to keep a "level playing field" as they continually try to fob us off with. Maybe they (the PL) should look at the aforementioned clubs debts before slinging the shit at us. We do not owe hundreds of millions, we are not taking money out of the club to line our own pockets. Those clubs need to put their own house in order before crying foul.

If they took four years to charge us, why wait all that time? If the first "offence" took place over 14 years ago, shouldn't we have been hauled up then, not now?

Perhaps we haven't greased the palms of the PL board and not given them backhanders which I feel other clubs have done to cover up their shady dealings. The PL board is BENT, no other word for it and we haven't played ball with them and they don't like it.

 

[J.G.Blue.]

Just another day in the life of being a city fan, thank god its never boring.

 

[Ederson1000YardDrive]

It adds fire to the flames of the general poor refereeing we have to put up with. They have a clear agenda against us all the way down to the refs and pumping up the media.

The irony of it is that we have attracted the best players to the league and probably enhanced the value of the league the process. They should be thanking the club and the owners for what they have done.

Not to mention the investment in the local community.

The way football is regulated is almost anti-business sense, anti-evolution, anti-entrepreneurial.

I just can't get my head around the way they operate. And clearly there has to be more clubs in the league that have broken the same rules. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[come-on-barney]

It's been coming, deep down we all knew that.

Relegation to the Conference would be brilliant, loads of top away days and great fun as we climb through the divisions. The half and half scarf brigade will be off pastures anew and we can win the FA Trophy, FA Cup and League Cup. We will lose some players of course, but the academy is quality and I will still be there every week, because we are City till we die

40,000 fans in the conference, that would show them all who has the plastic fans!

 

[Dazzle84]

So apparently City, our external auditors, Silver Lake and the Chinese government are all in on a conspiracy to pay Bobby Manc a few backhanders?

They just want to get us. That's it. And I think this time they'll be made to look stupid

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Does it make sense for the PL to destroy City as a club? That's doubtful, for City are an important part of the history of the PL, attract big names and make the league stronger. If they strip us of the titles, they strip the PL of iconic moments like Aguero's goal and iconic title races. The PL would lose more from the worst case scenario than win.

But it makes sense for the PL to weaken City seriously and make the league more competitive. Therefore, the most likely outcome won't be expulsion from the league but heavy sanctions which will seriously harm our buisiness for 3-4 years or so: points deduction, no CL, transfer ban, etc.

Try to understand what makes sense with regard to the image of the PL and you can understand better what's likely to happen.

Now, one can argue that it makes sense for the top 6 that City are relegated and stripped of the titles, especially for Liverpool and United. That's correct. But they are not the PL, plus they also care ultimately about the good image of the PL. What makes sense wrt the image of the PL does not (necessarily) coincide with the private interests of the red clubs.

Personally, I expect heavy sanctions for the club, but no relegation and no stripping of titles.

I would suggest the fact that we are where we are, already puts the Premier League beyond the point of no return on that score. You don’t levy 100 serious charges against a club and not even have the courtesy to contact them before publishing said charges in the press, unless your relationship with that club is pretty broken. They would have known full well what the City hating media’s reaction would be, and that a compromise settlement or leniency would be very difficult as a result, without being slaughtered by the same ’red’ lap dogs.
The PL doesn’t give a shit about City or whether crucifying us would be to damage their own product in the process, or at least if it does, they may have other priorities. As an organisation they’ve always operated under the threat of United and Liverpool leaving them, and I don’t doubt that threat is being leveraged against them now. This is total war. If we lose, get used to the idea of being thoroughly fucked. The Court of Public Opinion will demand relegations and stripped titles. We have no friends out there. None. Forget about talk of Khaldoon whispering in Downing Street ears. How would it look for the government to have had a backstage word with the PL? How would it look, on top of everything else, if even a whisper got out of our trying to influence proceedings?
I know feck all about finance (although the Fordham thing worries even a journeyman like me), but I just hope we’ve got all our ducks in a row, cos this is their (and by ‘their’, I mean the American owner backed tail wagging the PL dog) last chance to destroy us, which is what they want. Fines, points deductions, punishments we can ride out for a year or two and then bounce back from, are of no use to them. In the words of John Kreese in the Karate Kid, they want us “out of commission permanently”.
On a separate note - and my apologies if they’ve already addressed the matter elsewhere - I’d be interested in whether @projectriver or @Prestwich_Blue think we’d be better off grasping the nettle and getting the hearing out of the way quickly, or frustrating the process for years (leaving to one side the fact that the complex nature of what’s involved, might point to a long, drawn out affair in the Courts anyway)? Just thinking practically, in the immediate short term, of how we would attract new players to the club, if we have the possibility of having any titles we might win subsequently removed, hanging over our heads. It surely can’t be in our interests to have the stink of this wafting around us in the long term, albeit that the reputational damage is already effectively done, can it? Whatever, fingers crossed that we’re going to get a fair trial and not one of the Speckled Jim variety!

 

[pride in battle]

Can't someone in the south stand bring a bedsheet with FUCK THE PREMIER LEAGUE on it, the fans need to get across what a fucking witchhunt this is, it's a fucking disgrace. .

 

[M18CTID]

They are, in effect, claiming City deceived the PL, their auditors and multiple other bodies and filed fake accounts and fake financial forecasts. For at least 9 years. That's the extraordinary allegation.

It's extraordinary alright. Unless we've got some proper dodgy cunts running our club who are unbelievably stupid to boot, I can't see how we could be guilty of such criminal behaviour. And surely if we were guilty of all that, it would've been picked up long before now by either the PL or UEFA. Even UEFA didn't accuse us of anything remotely approaching that.

Now I will add that I'm not saying we definitely, 100%, aren't guilty of that but I just find it staggeringly difficult to think a club as professionally run as ours would do such a thing. BUT.....if we have then I for one will be seriously pissed off as the club have always insisted there was no wrongdoing and us fans have been fighting the club's corner for years off the back of that.

 

[cheekybids]

What gets me with all this is we have charges against us in a time when Sheikhandour was allowed to do what he liked with his money. Once the regulations come in then yeah its fair game but if its going to be this intense why not go back to when the human rights advocate Thaksin took us over. Also am I supposed to believe not a criminal in at all Abramovich did everything correctly, that Gillete and Hocks weren't a pair of shysters. The Cardiff and Hull owners who took the piss out of there own fans. Why does it only include us, fucking chancers amd criminals running the PL

How did Gillette & Hicks get cheated by FSG? Has that been
Investigated?

 

[skillman]

What is the likelyhood that should (when) we prove that the charges are unfounded and not true, that we sue the PL for damages (and whatever else applies)

Surely this current situation has the potential to take the PL otganisation down in flames

If our club has the evidence to prove no wrongdoing then i want us to go after the PL and whoever else was involved - no stone unturned, none of this passive victory shite

If the PL fails then it’s the nail in the coffin for an independent regulator. They’ve done a double-whammy of panicking and folding under pressure from certain clubs to charge us.

To be told be us that they’d charged us incorrectly is equally hilarious as it is amateurish. A good start for us.

 

[Revolver]

I am not saying I have the answer. But I find the clubs response so far as public relations is concerned to be wholly inadequate.

We have a cartel witch-hunt backed by a compliant lackey press trying to destroy our club. There is no question of fairness and absolutely no consideration to how it effects our fan base. We may joke about it but this could be lethal.

And in response we get a dry statement as though we are dealing with a parking fine.

It may be that our owners background dictates that a measured response. But that won’t stop bullies. It just leaves us isolated. Until the City heirarchy or high profile ex players publicy call out the latent rascism, the vested interest of clubs and journalists it will always be open season on City.

The teams in red with no spotlight on them must be loving this.

After all it may be too late once a kangaroo court reaches its decision.