PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

argyle said:
That Touchline account regularly posts untrue, clickbait.

I think the true viewing figures will be out soon, the 700-800m quote is who the game was likely available to and not the actual viewing figures.
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Touchline Sports are a reliable source on viewership. Similar numbers were also quoted from USA network, another good source.
 
cookster said:
Touchline Sports are a reliable source on viewership. Similar numbers were also quoted from USA network, another good source.
Click to expand...

It isn't. Both are not good sources. Touchline is a clickbait account.

This is the grok clarification underneath: No, that claim isn't accurate. Super Bowl 2026 viewership is estimated at around 125-128 million (per Nielsen), not 220M. For Liverpool vs. Man City, no official sources report 700-750M viewers—typical big Premier League matches draw far fewer globally. The figures seem like social media hype.

Neilsen ratings are the best source for ratings and they're not out yet for this weekends game.
 
Just think, one day, @slbsn will come on hear and say "i KNOW city and PL representatives have a draft verdict of liability"
It will feel weird when that day comes.
 
johnnytapia said:
Publish and be damned!
Click to expand...
Chris in London said:
I’m calling this one out
Click to expand...
OK, you talked me into it.

I think I've told this one before but working for my original firm (which is now part of City's auditors, BDO) one of my colleagues was doing some 'brown paper bag' accounts for a farmer, which means you get a bundle of documents in a bag and have to sort them out and make sense of them. One of the key things he had to do was prepare livestock accounts, showing what livestock the farmer had, covering the start position, additions disposals then the closing position.

Andy couldn't make this one balance as he couldn't reconcile the opening numbers, sales and purchases to get to the farmer's declared closing numbers. So he rang the farmer to see if he could help. The client was used to getting this phone call every year and patiently let Andy explain his workings. Then he explained what bulls did to cows and what the outcome was. We all pissed ourselves laughing and Andy went on to become FD of a major Shell operating division.

Another one was doing the audit of a well-known gambling group, who had casinos in Manchester and Liverpool. This became one of my specialities so I did the audit of the Manchester one for 3 years. One of the things we had to do was stay all night and watch them cash up and balance everything, to meet the requirements of the Gaming Act. To avoid over-familiarity, we swapped casinos and I went to Liverpool with one of my colleagues who did do the Liverpool audit to do this. So Phil drove and we got there about midnight. First job was to check they were observing the correct, legal membership and admission procedures, which involved members having to wait 48 hours. after their cards were issued, and having to show these when they arrived, otherwise they'd be turned away. The guy on the door went on to become quite a well-known boxer so we had a chat then withdrew into the background to observe. So he asked everyone who came in for their membership card and most said "Why you asking? You've never asked for these before mate". He was getting more flustered and trying to delicately indicate we were watching him. We were trying not to laugh and let him out of his misery after a few minutes when we went into the gaming room. The Gaming Act specifically said that female croupiers shouldn't wear revealing dresses but this lot sailed a bit close to the wind, so it could be a bit distracting trying to pay close attention to their actions. I think they stopped gaming about 4am then we watched them cash up and balance everything, which was fine. It was about 7am by this time and the manager got the drinks out, so I was drinking vodka for an hour. I crashed out as soon as we got on the M62 and woke up just as we were coming off at Simister Island, just in time to see Phil fall asleep! I shook him and we both made it home safely.

When I moved to work for my mate Mike, he would get a lot of clients passed to him after HMRC had got involved so it could be the dodgier end of the market. One guy came to see him and said HMRC were after him for a lot of unpaid tax. Mike asked what he did and the guy explained he had one of those hot dog & burger carts, like you used to see outside Maine Road, and in town on Saturday nights. Mike expressed surprise that he could have made so much money (based on what HMRC were claiming) from one of these carts. Eventually the guy admitted he owned at least half the burger carts in Manchester, which then made more sense. After going through all the (limited) paperwork, most of which was obviously HMRC's, Mike came up with a proposal to make an offer to HMRC. The guy wasn't happy asked what his options were and Mike said (jokingly) either pay up or do a runner. The guy took the latter option and HMRC weren't too pleased.

He also did the accounts for a Chinese guy who either had a shop or restaurant. He'd arranged an insurance policy for loss of profits as well and the guy had a theft or fire, meaning he had to claim on the policy. But he didn't understand that the policy only paid the difference between the price he'd paid and the selling price, and he thought Mike had basically fiddled him. He wasn't happy and there were some angry phone calls. We had his books and he owed us money but he refused to pay and there were more serious potential threats. So we arranged a deal through a third-party, who was a relative of this client and a well-known figure in the Chinese community. I was 'volunteered' to take the books, and receive payment from the relative, and in return I'd hand over the books. It was like a drug deal, with me having the books in my boot, and with instructions not to hand them over till I had the cash. I was frankly shitting myself, convinced it was an ambush and I was going to end up in a curry, but fortunately everything went off without incident.

The funniest though was that we eventually moved into a small office, got a secretary, and an agency with Abbey National as they then were. We were able to offer simple instant access or longer term savings and it was nice, as you got to know many of the locals. One day an Irish couple came in. The wife was a big woman and the husband was a little shrimp, and she quite obviously wore the trousers. She did all the talking and explained her husband had some money and she'd 'suggested' he put it away in a savings account. It was a quiet afternoon and Ivy and me were chatting to the couple and helping them make up their mind about whether they needed access to the money or wanted to put it away for a while. Once they decided, we filled in the simple application form. There was none of the 'Know Your Customer' or Anti-Money Laundering stuff in those days, just name, address and occupation. The first two were easy but they were struggling with the occupation one. He asked her "What's my occupation?" and she thought and said "I'm not sure". This went on for a while and the two of us were trying to keep a straight face, while gently trying to understand what he did. It seemed he was a labourer on a building site but she suddenly said (and you have to imagine this in an Irish accent) "I know what you are! You're a civil engineer". He nodded and said "That's what I am. A civil engineer! You got it". So we put down 'Civil Engineer' took the money and they went out happy, at which point we collapsed laughing for the rest of the afternoon.
 
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argyle said:
It isn't. Both are not good sources. Touchline is a clickbait account.

This is the grok clarification underneath: No, that claim isn't accurate. Super Bowl 2026 viewership is estimated at around 125-128 million (per Nielsen), not 220M. For Liverpool vs. Man City, no official sources report 700-750M viewers—typical big Premier League matches draw far fewer globally. The figures seem like social media hype.

Neilsen ratings are the best source for ratings and they're not out yet for this weekends game.
Click to expand...
Agree Neilsen are the gold standard.
That's why USA Network use them to monitor viewership.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
OK, you talked me into it.

I think I've told this one before but working for my original firm (which is now part of City's auditors, BDO) one of my colleagues was doing some 'brown paper bag' accounts for a farmer, which means you get a bundle of documents in a bag and have to sort them out and make sense of them. One of the key things he had to do was prepare livestock accounts, showing what livestock the farmer had, covering the start position, additions disposals then the closing position.

Andy couldn't make this one balance as he couldn't reconcile the opening numbers, sales and purchases to get to the farmer's declared closing numbers. So he rang the farmer to see if he could help. The client was used to getting this phone call every year and patiently let Andy explain his workings. Then he explained what bulls did to cows and what the outcome was. We all pissed ourselves laughing and Andy went on to become FD of a major Shell operating division.

Another one was doing the audit of a well-known gambling group, who had casinos in Manchester and Liverpool. This became one of my specialities so I did the audit of the Manchester one for 3 years. One of the things we had to do was stay all night and watch them cash up and balance everything, to meet the requirements of the Gaming Act. To avoid over-familiarity, we swapped casinos and I went to Liverpool with one of my colleagues who did do the Liverpool audit to do this. So Phil drove and we got there about midnight. First job was to check they were observing the correct, legal membership and admission procedures, which involved members having to wait 48 hours. after their cards were issued, and having to show these when they arrived, otherwise they'd be turned away. The guy on the door went on to become quite a well-known boxer so we had a chat then withdrew into the background to observe. So he asked everyone who came in for their membership card and most said "Why you asking? You've never asked for these before mate". He was getting more flustered and trying to delicately indicate we were watching him. We were trying not to laugh and let him out of his misery after a few minutes when we went into the gaming room. The Gaming Act specifically said that female croupiers shouldn't wear revealing dresses but this lot sailed a bit close to the wind, so it could be a bit distracting trying to pay close attention to their actions. I think they stopped gaming about 4am then we watched them cash up and balance everything, which was fine. It was about 7am by this time and the manager got the drinks out, so I was drinking vodka for an hour. I crashed out as soon as we got on the M62 and woke up just as we were coming off at Simister Island, just in time to see Phil fall asleep! I shook him and we both made it home safely.

When I moved to work for my mate Mike, he would get a lot of clients passed to him after HMRC had got involved so it could be the dodgier end of the market. One guy came to see him and said HMRC were after him for a lot of unpaid tax. Mike asked what he did and the guy explained he had one of those hot dog & burger carts, like you used to see outside Maine Road, and in town on Saturday nights. Mike expressed surprise that he could have made so much money (based on what HMRC were claiming) from one of these carts. Eventually the guy admitted he owned at least half the burger carts in Manchester, which then made more sense. After going through all the (limited) paperwork, most of which was obviously HMRC's, Mike came up with a proposal to make an offer to HMRC. The guy wasn't happy asked what his options were and Mike said (jokingly) either pay up or do a runner. The guy took the latter option and HMRC weren't too pleased.

He also did the accounts for a Chinese guy who either had a shop or restaurant. He'd arranged an insurance policy for loss of profits as well and the guy had a theft or fire, meaning he had to claim on the policy. But he didn't understand that the policy only paid the difference between the price he'd paid and the selling price, and he thought Mike had basically fiddled him. He wasn't happy and there were some angry phone calls. We had his books and he owed us money but he refused to pay and there were more serious potential threats. So we arranged a deal through a third-party, who was a relative of this client and a well-known figure in the Chinese community. I was 'volunteered' to take the books, and receive payment from the relative, and in return I'd hand over the books. It was like a drug deal, with me having the books in my boot, and with instructions not to hand them over till I had the cash. I was frankly shitting myself, convinced it was an ambush and I was going to end up in a curry, but fortunately everything went off without incident.

The funniest thought was that we eventually moved into a small office, got a secretary, and an agency with Abbey National as they then were. We were able to offer simple instant access or longer term savings and it was nice, as you got to know many of the locals. One day an Irish couple came in. The wife was a big woman and the husband was a little shrimp, and she quite obviously wore the trousers. She did all the talking and explained her husband had some money and she'd 'suggested' he put it away in a savings account. It was a quiet afternoon and Ivy and me were chatting to the couple and helping them make up their mind about whether they needed access to the money or wanted to put it away for a while. Once they decided, we filled in the simple application form. There was none of the 'Know Your Customer' or Anti-Money Laundering stuff in those days, just name, address and occupation. The first two were easy but they were struggling with the occupation one. He asked her "What's my occupation?" and she thought and said "I'm not sure". This went on for a while and the two of us were trying to keep a straight face, while gently trying to understand what he did. It seemed he was a labourer on a building site but she suddenly said (and you have to imagine this in an Irish accent) "I know what you are! You're a civil engineer". He noosed and said "That's what I am. A civil engineer! You got it". So we put down 'Civil Engineer' took the money and they went out happy, at which point we collapsed laughing for the rest of the afternoon.
Click to expand...
Brilliantly antidotes, thank you.
 
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