PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

gordondaviesmoustache said:
I’m lots of things but cryptic certainly isn’t one of them. Not sure I ramble very much either. If I did, I’d struggle to put food in the table.

If you’d said childish, attention seeking, frivolous, flippant or even a moderate egomaniac then you’d have much more of a point!
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Moderate!!!!!! Hahahahaha. :>)
 
bobbyowenquiff said:
The media keep calling him a shadowy figure but he comes up on Google and has multiple roles. Totally bizarre.
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It’s very strange.
My thought is the American owned teams will have multiple American ‘fixers’ or consultants. Non of which will be in the limelight and many of which will hold other directorships.

Everton with Moshiri and Usmanov looked very dodgy but they never got the same treatment as us
www.theguardian.com

Everton owner received £400m from Alisher Usmanov companies, documents suggest

Exclusive: Questions mount over ties between Farhad Moshiri and tycoon, before he was put under sanctions
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

From the outside the optics at face value of the £30m admittedly look suspicious.
But having been found with no case to answer at CAS and like you mentioned all the information being readily available on Twitter it looks like a complete hit job on us once again.

It’s also strange as we are seemingly not held to the same standards by the media as other clubs.

Chelsea - were dodgy as fuck under abramovic, it’s all coming out now but largely ignored by the media.
Everton - under Usmanov… sorry it was clearly Moshiri and was exceptionally dodgy.
Liverpool - sponsored by alleged money launderers
Arsenal - murderous regime sponsor them
Tottenham - owner is a convicted criminal, insider trading no less.
United - sir Jim pollutes the planet literally on an industrial scale.

None of the above get the same media / PL scrutiny as our owners and club.
Imagine if our owners were convicted of insider trading, or etihad were laundering money for a sanction hit country.
We would be hung out to dry.

I’m just going to call it out as blatant racism, by the media, by the PL and by the fans of other clubs.

They also always call up human rights in the UAE. I don’t want to get political but not many nations, the west included are squeaky clean. To focus myopically on one region and call out issues seems agenda driven as opposed to driven by genuine human compassion.
 
Marvin. said:
I feel the press may press Pep about the verdict in the post-embargo section of the press conference. His answer 1,2,3,4 weeks was a little ambiguous. Does he mean he expects it within the next month, or has he no idea at all?

I don't know why the press don't pin him down a little bit more. He is evasive but surely he can say, I have no idea whatsoever, or it is overdue etc. His main focus is the effect on the players, but the fans are also thinking about this.
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I think Pep plays games with the press, puts little crumbs out then laughs his bollocks of when he reads the shit the day after. About 2 weeks after his comments about the 115 verdict time scales he made a comment to a journalist that he controls them, I always took that to be he can dictate and predict what they write about.
 
Milesvk said:
I think Pep plays games with the press, puts little crumbs out then laughs his bollocks of when he reads the shit the day after. About 2 weeks after his comments about the 115 verdict time scales he made a comment to a journalist that he controls them, I always took that to be he can dictate and predict what they write about.
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I think Pep fucking despises them and its written all over his face every press conference. He won't give them a crumb of anything useful and like you say, i think anything he does give them is designed to make them look stupid.
 
willipp said:
I think Pep fucking despises them and its written all over his face every press conference. He won't give them a crumb of anything useful and like you say, i think anything he does give them is designed to make them look stupid.
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There's nothing to say that a journalist has to be treated as an enemy. They have largely been treated as such by City fans because of what they have written about City. In this press conference I hope they pressed Pep harder on the verdict in the post-embargo section. We all would if we were there but what we don't know is what the press officer says to the journalists before they start i.e., certain questions might be off-limit.

The post-embargo section will emerge later. I don't know if Pep speaks to some journalists off the record.
 
Colin Bells Boots said:
I saw my first City game at Maine Road in 1954, taken by a friend's dad who was a rag supporter, but who liked to watch football, and so went to City one week, and the rags the following week.

Nothing like the same rivalry/animosity between fans then.

Following Munich I think it changed dramatically with the swell of support for the rags.
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The whole "going to watch both teams" thing seems so alien because it was so bitterly tribal a relatively short time afterwards and loyalties became set in stone so early.

As you know, the only non-international match shown live on TV used to be the FA cup final and the first live game I remember watching was a rags game! It was the 76 cup final and 6 year old me, who'd never been to Maine Road, was jumping around the house celebrating the Southampton win.

I didn't even go to a City game until the following year and going to watch the rags would have been unimaginable.
 
KS55 said:
The whole world assume that Mansour is a member of the UAE gov because he has the title Deputy Prime Minister. Not so, the title is complimentary.
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Exactly its a titular position, he's Vice President as well as Deputy Prime Mister basically he's a meeter and greeter
Khaldoon is actually higher in power terms than Mansour
 
Marvin. said:
There's nothing to say that a journalist has to be treated as an enemy. They have largely been treated as such by City fans because of what they have written about City. In this press conference I hope they pressed Pep harder on the verdict in the post-embargo section. We all would if we were there but what we don't know is what the press officer says to the journalists before they start i.e., certain questions might be off-limit.

The post-embargo section will emerge later. I don't know if Pep speaks to some journalists off the record.
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What's the reason for the embargo? Doubt they will get anything out of him though, they have driven him to this point and he's clearly given up even trying to engage with them.
 
Damocles said:
Pep said he doesn't know when the announcement will be. "we'll wait one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks".
Nothing apart from that mate.
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Indeed. They’re still waiting for it. I have the impression that it’s overdue in terms of the timeframe given at the end of the hearings in December. Club remains in the dark about what the outcome will be (with the obvious caveat being whatever the lawyers told them about they felt it had gone).
 
Protein Junkie said:
Nothing alleged about Standard Chartered. Fined huge sums for money laundering or in Scouse speak “ didn’t happen soft lah “
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The argument about Standard Chartered is extremely weak. City fans who pursue that angle will not get very far with it because its tangential to LFC. However, it's off-topic.
 
PaulPowerScreamer said:
The whole "going to watch both teams" thing seems so alien because it was so bitterly tribal a relatively short time afterwards and loyalties became set in stone so early.

As you know, the only non-international match shown live on TV used to be the FA cup final and the first live game I remember watching was a rags game! It was the 76 cup final and 6 year old me, who'd never been to Maine Road, was jumping around the house celebrating the Southampton win.

I didn't even go to a City game until the following year and going to watch the rags would have been unimaginable.
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Same here.
The first cup final I can remember 76.
77 my first ever game City vs Leeds
 
willipp said:
What's the reason for the embargo? Doubt they will get anything out of him though, they have driven him to this point and he's clearly given up even trying to engage with them.
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I think its a courtesy to the press to enable them to have something interesting and new to say for their print run. With press conferences streamed live, if the whole thing was live then no one would buy papers or go on their websites. If they delay a section of the press conference, the media gets some exclusivity
 
Damocles said:
As I say, a lot of info we have comes from CIA cables released during various WIkileaks scandals and other non-classified documents and it's fair to say by the notes made from the Middle Eastern desks that they barely understand who is who and who does what.

Here's something to ponder - is Sheikh Mansour a powerful man?

Here's the Western view. Sheikh Mansour is the Vice President of the UAE, in addition to other duties such as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Presidential Affairs which controls access to the President. Therefore he holds numerous positions of power and influence in an autocratic society.

Here's the UAE view. Sheikh Mansour is the son of Sheikh Zayed and one of the Bani Fatima brothers. He is not the head of his family and answers to MbZ totally and without qualification. The role given as DPM was negotiated during the formation of the country as being held by an Al Nahyan with the other tribes. Sheikh Mansour was made UAE Vice President, against the country's constitution, in order to punish the Al Maktoum family for embarrassing the UAE a decade earlier, for the Head of their family having his affairs dragged in court with his daughters which embarrassed the nation internationally, and to move Sheikh Mansour into more diplomatic conferences where he shines brighter. Abu Dhabi/the Al Nahyan are attempting to be treated as serious long term investors in the global markets and although still very loyal, they are starting to consider the Al Maktoums their troublesome backwater cousins who don't know how to behave and ruin their reputation akin to the Beverley Hillbillies. Sheikh Mansour was Western educated, is an ultra MbZ loyalist for historical and almost religious reasons (the Bani Fatima loyalty is based on a promise made to never attack your own family due to this happening in the past and it fucking up the tribe). He is not Sheikh Mansour in the structures of power. He is a person who exists to politically execute the will of MBZ.

Here's the CIA view. These people are nuts. Their power structures and inter-tribal loyalties and marriages and duties reference shit that happened 300 years ago on some random day in the desert where someone caught a falcon or some shit. Sheikh Mansour is an average C student in the US only noted because he liked NBA and football (soccer). He was quiet, not particularly outgoing or academic and mainly kept to himself while in the US outside a few incidents of awkwardness as a student. While MBZ got on with the job of becoming the next ruler, he mainly spaffed around with nature and conversation projects in his Government job and sports investment in his spare time. He really enjoys sport and the only thing he ever seemed to excel at was camel racing. He somewhat controversially got married to his first wife who was deemed unsuitable and quietly "retired from public life" until he married another woman with which he settled down and had kids. His first wife was an internal Abu Dhabi marriage to one of the "2 quarters" families mentioned before because they seemed to actually like each other from children. His second wife was a member of Dubai family which was right and proper and expected. Him and Khaldoon seem to be actual friends rather than Khaldoon and MbZ who have more of a employer-employee relationship. He's somewhat average, a bit head in the clouds at times unlike his very serious brothers who became leaders of military etc, but seems likeable to other leaders so did very well in diplomatic circles hence as an important brother, was given roles that suited his personality.

Essentially if you want to know if Mansour is powerful then it very much depends on your definition of what that means. By one view he has almost no political power at all. By another view he has almost complete political power. You can bias this however you want when writing about it.

I will say one thing - the "Abu Dhabi bought City to sportswash" thing to my understanding is the wrongest thing to ever be wrong in the history of wrongness. You can argue that's what we're used for now (and I don't agree) but to suggest that's why we're bought is totally incorrect. Sheikh Mansour just quite likes football. The UAE is a former British protectorate, it exists as a country due to help from the British, he grew up watching the BBC and whatever passes for MOTD on the World Service in the 70s and 80s. It has a strong British culture element to it and one of the best friends of Sheikh Zayed before he formed the UAE was a British explorer whose writings are now a major academic source for the landscape between the tribes at the time. It was noted in his time at University in the US that he enjoyed football. It was further noted that before his brother ascended to the crown and he was just the lesser important brother without too much to do in his 30s and 40s that decided to buy a football club which was brokered by one of the Dubai Hillbilly clan who then immediately set back their desire to be seen as serious businessmen rather than inept moneypots by 20 years. I can absolutely guarantee if MbZ knew about this at the time and understood how important to the reputation that a football club in the back arse of Manchester would become to the global reputation of Abu Dhabi and the UAE then he would have back handed his little brother and told him to grow up and stop playing games. City are now the most visible aspect of the Al Nahyan family, the thing that they are globally associated with more than any other business. Not to business leaders obviously but to the wider general public. Sheikh Mansour is not "the little brother of the leader", he is "that guy who owns Man City" which I'm sure is a source of real annoyance to MbZ and possibly one of great humour to Sheikh Mansour. If they had their way, these people would have absolutely nothing to do with us, but they're stuck with us now for the next several decades at least and they understand that they have to be successful.

Which member of the Bani Yas owns what and who gave what to who is so far off their radar in terms of importance and cheating that it beggars belief. Their State doesn't function in this manner.
Click to expand...
9/10 post. I only hesitated to give 10/10 because you did not clarify if Mansour is a barm or muffin man. Apart from that it was an enjoyable read.
 
Damocles said:
As I say, a lot of info we have comes from CIA cables released during various WIkileaks scandals and other non-classified documents and it's fair to say by the notes made from the Middle Eastern desks that they barely understand who is who and who does what.

Here's something to ponder - is Sheikh Mansour a powerful man?

Here's the Western view. Sheikh Mansour is the Vice President of the UAE, in addition to other duties such as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Presidential Affairs which controls access to the President. Therefore he holds numerous positions of power and influence in an autocratic society.

Here's the UAE view. Sheikh Mansour is the son of Sheikh Zayed and one of the Bani Fatima brothers. He is not the head of his family and answers to MbZ totally and without qualification. The role given as DPM was negotiated during the formation of the country as being held by an Al Nahyan with the other tribes. Sheikh Mansour was made UAE Vice President, against the country's constitution, in order to punish the Al Maktoum family for embarrassing the UAE a decade earlier, for the Head of their family having his affairs dragged in court with his daughters which embarrassed the nation internationally, and to move Sheikh Mansour into more diplomatic conferences where he shines brighter. Abu Dhabi/the Al Nahyan are attempting to be treated as serious long term investors in the global markets and although still very loyal, they are starting to consider the Al Maktoums their troublesome backwater cousins who don't know how to behave and ruin their reputation akin to the Beverley Hillbillies. Sheikh Mansour was Western educated, is an ultra MbZ loyalist for historical and almost religious reasons (the Bani Fatima loyalty is based on a promise made to never attack your own family due to this happening in the past and it fucking up the tribe). He is not Sheikh Mansour in the structures of power. He is a person who exists to politically execute the will of MBZ.

Here's the CIA view. These people are nuts. Their power structures and inter-tribal loyalties and marriages and duties reference shit that happened 300 years ago on some random day in the desert where someone caught a falcon or some shit. Sheikh Mansour is an average C student in the US only noted because he liked NBA and football (soccer). He was quiet, not particularly outgoing or academic and mainly kept to himself while in the US outside a few incidents of awkwardness as a student. While MBZ got on with the job of becoming the next ruler, he mainly spaffed around with nature and conversation projects in his Government job and sports investment in his spare time. He really enjoys sport and the only thing he ever seemed to excel at was camel racing. He somewhat controversially got married to his first wife who was deemed unsuitable and quietly "retired from public life" until he married another woman with which he settled down and had kids. His first wife was an internal Abu Dhabi marriage to one of the "2 quarters" families mentioned before because they seemed to actually like each other from children. His second wife was a member of Dubai family which was right and proper and expected. Him and Khaldoon seem to be actual friends rather than Khaldoon and MbZ who have more of a employer-employee relationship. He's somewhat average, a bit head in the clouds at times unlike his very serious brothers who became leaders of military etc, but seems likeable to other leaders so did very well in diplomatic circles hence as an important brother, was given roles that suited his personality.

Essentially if you want to know if Mansour is powerful then it very much depends on your definition of what that means. By one view he has almost no political power at all. By another view he has almost complete political power. You can bias this however you want when writing about it.

I will say one thing - the "Abu Dhabi bought City to sportswash" thing to my understanding is the wrongest thing to ever be wrong in the history of wrongness. You can argue that's what we're used for now (and I don't agree) but to suggest that's why we're bought is totally incorrect. Sheikh Mansour just quite likes football. The UAE is a former British protectorate, it exists as a country due to help from the British, he grew up watching the BBC and whatever passes for MOTD on the World Service in the 70s and 80s. It has a strong British culture element to it and one of the best friends of Sheikh Zayed before he formed the UAE was a British explorer whose writings are now a major academic source for the landscape between the tribes at the time. It was noted in his time at University in the US that he enjoyed football. It was further noted that before his brother ascended to the crown and he was just the lesser important brother without too much to do in his 30s and 40s that decided to buy a football club which was brokered by one of the Dubai Hillbilly clan who then immediately set back their desire to be seen as serious businessmen rather than inept moneypots by 20 years. I can absolutely guarantee if MbZ knew about this at the time and understood how important to the reputation that a football club in the back arse of Manchester would become to the global reputation of Abu Dhabi and the UAE then he would have back handed his little brother and told him to grow up and stop playing games. City are now the most visible aspect of the Al Nahyan family, the thing that they are globally associated with more than any other business. Not to business leaders obviously but to the wider general public. Sheikh Mansour is not "the little brother of the leader", he is "that guy who owns Man City" which I'm sure is a source of real annoyance to MbZ and possibly one of great humour to Sheikh Mansour. If they had their way, these people would have absolutely nothing to do with us, but they're stuck with us now for the next several decades at least and they understand that they have to be successful.

Which member of the Bani Yas owns what and who gave what to who is so far off their radar in terms of importance and cheating that it beggars belief. Their State doesn't function in this manner.
Click to expand...
So basically,

Mansour went out and bought a shit tattoo in a Lamborghini egged on by his Dubai hillbilly big bollocks mates and his family look at it and think he’s an idiot. But that tattoo is now the image that people associate with his family and the family aren’t to pleased but kinda deal with it as long as it doesn’t embarrass them and his best mate, that the family trust and think of as the son/brother they should of had, has been appointed too make sure it doesn’t.
 
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