115 Charges - FAQs

[Didsbury Dave]

It was my mum’s birthday on Sunday, and I couldn’t get there but work took me north on Tuesday, so I made a point of popping in (I’m not entirely selfish) and saying hi and giving her some flowers, which I did.

Anyway, couldn’t then get back home in time for kick off, so watched the game with my rag dad, who has definitely tempered his hate towards City in recent years, so I don’t have to deal with that anymore. And it’s a good chance for us to spend time together. He‘s 89 in May and not going to be around forever. Unless I don’t outlive him. Which is perfectly plausible!

Anyway, half an hour or into the game he asked me what I thought would happen to City. I asked him if he knew what we’d been accused of. He did not. Not having a go at my dad. He’s 88, and whilst he’s declined from his ridiculous heights of intelligence he’s still smart as fuck. Just nowhere near as smart as he once was.

He’s just one of many examples of really smart people I’ve encountered who don’t know the basic facts.

Virtually no **** knows what we’ve actually been charged with. When you explain to them what the charges actually amount to, you can see the cogs whirring round in their minds. Then it dawns on them what the implications are it’s like a light going on. Not an essentially happy light.

Begs the question…what the fuck are City’s PR doing? They should be getting messages out through whatever channels. The club has never had worse PR in its history.

 

[cleavers]

Begs the question…what the fuck are City’s PR doing? They should be getting messages out through whatever channels. The club has never had worse PR in its history.

I think the simple answer is "nothing", but purely because it's subject to legal proceedings, and can't really.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I think the simple answer is "nothing", but purely because it's subject to legal proceedings, and can't really.

Yes they can though. The PR company can get messages out unofficially. They can brief people, set up Twitter accounts, make memes…get a coherent message out there. It’s just not happening. The empty seats myth doesn’t get properly countered. The charges is never broken down. It goes on.

A clever, switched on, modern PR firms could do lots to counter their tidal wave of fake news and bad publicity the club is getting.

 

[cleavers]

Yes they can though. The PR company can get messages out unofficially. They can brief people, set up Twitter accounts, make memes…get a coherent message out there. It’s just not happening. The empty seats myth doesn’t get properly countered. The charges is never broken down. It goes on.

A clever, switched on, modern PR firms could do lots to counter their tidal wave of fake news and bad publicity the club is getting.

Maybe so, but we neither know the bigger picture like the club do.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Maybe so, but we neither know the bigger picture like the club do.

The biggest picture of all is that pretty much everyone in football thinks we are guilty without knowing any of the facts. I totally understand the club itself has to keep quiet but there are ways and means of a third party pulling strings to at least get some control on the narrative.

 

[fanatic1]

Look the PL are really laying down a marker with Everton and Notts Forest - relatively minor charges compared to us. They both cooperated and plead guilty (Forest with all those player signings in a short time were obviously sailing near the wind). Everton had their minus 10 points penalty (appeal decision to come). We're not giving the PL any advance indications of our likely defence strategy which is the right thing under the circumstances. It worked well with EUFA.

 

[GaudinoMotors]

The biggest picture of all is that pretty much everyone in football thinks we are guilty without knowing any of the facts. I totally understand the club itself has to keep quiet but there are ways and means of a third party pulling strings to at least get some control on the narrative.

Exactly - it's like we have to salivate on Khaldoon's vehement denial for a whole 12 months - and a "that's good enough for you" treatment of the fans - yet we're that one's that have to take this relentless diatribe about our guilt every fcking day and turn up and cheer and shout and that's it. That's why rare snippets of resistance from people like Jay and Stefan are so needed - the club is giving us nothing - nobody expects the legal ins and outs, understandably, above all our pay grades - but a bit of "we totally refute the premise of that article" would go a long way.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Exactly - it's like we have to salivate on Khaldoon's vehement denial for a whole 12 months - and a "that's good enough for you" treatment of the fans - yet we're that one's that have to take this relentless diatribe about our guilt every fcking day and turn up and cheer and shout and that's it. That's why rare snippets of resistance from people like Jay and Stefan are so needed - the club is giving us nothing - nobody expects the legal ins and outs, understandably, above all our pay grades - but a bit of "we totally refute the premise of that article" would go a long way.

It worries me that we don't have people doing interviews - it doesn't evn have to be club employees, in fact it probably can't be - talking about the way that other clubs have conspired against us, the fact that these rules were put in place to stop us, the fact that everyone is assuming guilt, the fact that we have been cleared once. Just an alternative narrative. Anyone high profile connected but not employed by the club could do it.

I honestly don't know why there is no Twitter Account set up by a PR company to do a similar job that that guy was doing to jounralists a few years ago. Rabin I think. Messages to counter the lies. That Liverpool fan went fucking viral; with that doctored image of the stadium at the weekend. A lie spreads around the world before the truth has its boots on. The damage is done.Everyone thinks we have a half empty stadium every week. And there is damage: kids are not suporting City because of the barrage of "EMpty Seats/Shit fans/Cheats" they get in the playground.

I've seriously thought about setting one up myself.

 

[Pam]

Exactly - it's like we have to salivate on Khaldoon's vehement denial for a whole 12 months - and a "that's good enough for you" treatment of the fans - yet we're that one's that have to take this relentless diatribe about our guilt every fcking day and turn up and cheer and shout and that's it. That's why rare snippets of resistance from people like Jay and Stefan are so needed - the club is giving us nothing - nobody expects the legal ins and outs, understandably, above all our pay grades - but a bit of "we totally refute the premise of that article" would go a long way.

Ignore them. It's just jealousy.

 

[Pam]

Had this with the lad cutting my hair yesterday, he didn’t have a clue, so I started to to tell him, in fact non cooperation, he said well you should do operate, I said if you go to the police and say no comment is that not the same, it’s upto them to prove your guilt, he tried to laugh it off but the penny dropped he didn’t have a clue, they just read headlines and spout bollocks.

I refuse to talk to anyone about it. Nobody knows anything. This is a legally complex case.