BBC forced to withdraw claim that Man City have bought English football.

[The Stockport Iniesta]

Latest instalment of complaint exchange with BBC - cobbled together from comments on here - it's a reply to their attempted justification of Roan's rant.

CAS-5572998-RC5QVH - further to these responses from Deborah Dawson:


“The job of the BBC interviewer is to then put forward questions likely to be in the minds of our audience[..]Just because Dan questioned whether Man City's financial clout made the League unpredictable does not mean that it can be inferred that this is his own view."


Your attempt to justify this question shows the same bias against Man City. The key issue, which you completely fail to address, is why his opening question was to ask if City’s financial resources made the Premier League uncompetitive. If the question had been about the club’s recent dominance in respect of their footballing excellence, the question would have been entirely legitimate. Instead Mr Roan asked if the competition was being damaged not as a result of sporting performance of the team on the pitch but as a consequence of the club’s ‘financial clout’.


His clear implication is that Man City’s financial resources are different from their rival clubs. Yet Mr Roan knows full well that the club is not financially dominant by any measure whether profits, transfer fees paid – they have none of the most 20 expensive signings - or player wages. His biography makes it abundantly clear what he believes about Manchester City and why he asks the question he did. Your claim that it was not his own is absurd.


"’Sport has been revolutionised by the huge amount of money that’s come into it. It’s part of the modern business world, but hasn’t caught up governance-wise. When you see Putin using the Winter Olympics and now the FIFA World Cup to project his image onto the world, and the situation in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and China, you see sport as another arm of power. These places are using sport as a way of projecting their authority, not only on their own people, but globally too. So money in sport is becoming important to governments as well as just people.’ https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/a-life-in-sports-reporting-the-bbc-s-dan-roan/


Mr Roan and his bosses have deliberately aligned the BBC as a supporter of the racist attacks on Manchester City by its commercial opponents. The plain truth is owners of rival clubs have seen their profits and hegemony threatened by City's success via a profit investment business model they will never copy. Through the media outlets they control or influence these clubs have sought to divert the disappointment of their mass supporter bases at City’s domination with a series of invented pegs to hang their resentment on.


First they reassured their supporters that new investment in City was just a temporary ‘vanity purchase’ which would inevitably fail. When this didn’t happen FFP was redesigned to protect elite clubs whilst hobbling City and PSG. These measures were later combined with the openly racist narratives of ‘Financial Doping’ and ‘Sportswashing’. Both these fictions have been exposed by reputable football journalists such as Martin Samuel and Oliver Holt but a derivative campaign is still being waged by a few discredited individuals, some of whom are referenced by Mr Roan on his twitter account (despite yesterday’s deletions.)


All football clubs face questions and criticism, some justified, some not. In City's case, financial and sporting rivalry have created an emotional interest amongst millions of people which a commercially pressured media are targeting – a perfect storm to which is added political bias from those who object to Arab ownership of a PL club. No other owner or club has ever been questioned and vilified to such a degree. Singling out City from the large number of major companies, scientific research institutions, HE bodies and sporting industries that benefit from UAE investment, including long term sponsorship of the clubs that are responsible for these attacks, is hypocrisy of the highest order. For them to be subjected to this continuing and escalating hostility by the BBC as well is totally unacceptable and needs to stop right now.

Round of applause gif

 

[cookster]

Latest instalment of complaint exchange with BBC - cobbled together from comments on here - it's a reply to their attempted justification of Roan's rant.

CAS-5572998-RC5QVH - further to these responses from Deborah Dawson:


“The job of the BBC interviewer is to then put forward questions likely to be in the minds of our audience[..]Just because Dan questioned whether Man City's financial clout made the League unpredictable does not mean that it can be inferred that this is his own view."


Your attempt to justify this question shows the same bias against Man City. The key issue, which you completely fail to address, is why his opening question was to ask if City’s financial resources made the Premier League uncompetitive. If the question had been about the club’s recent dominance in respect of their footballing excellence, the question would have been entirely legitimate. Instead Mr Roan asked if the competition was being damaged not as a result of sporting performance of the team on the pitch but as a consequence of the club’s ‘financial clout’.


His clear implication is that Man City’s financial resources are different from their rival clubs. Yet Mr Roan knows full well that the club is not financially dominant by any measure whether profits, transfer fees paid – they have none of the most 20 expensive signings - or player wages. His biography makes it abundantly clear what he believes about Manchester City and why he asks the question he did. Your claim that it was not his own is absurd.


"’Sport has been revolutionised by the huge amount of money that’s come into it. It’s part of the modern business world, but hasn’t caught up governance-wise. When you see Putin using the Winter Olympics and now the FIFA World Cup to project his image onto the world, and the situation in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and China, you see sport as another arm of power. These places are using sport as a way of projecting their authority, not only on their own people, but globally too. So money in sport is becoming important to governments as well as just people.’ https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/a-life-in-sports-reporting-the-bbc-s-dan-roan/


Mr Roan and his bosses have deliberately aligned the BBC as a supporter of the racist attacks on Manchester City by its commercial opponents. The plain truth is owners of rival clubs have seen their profits and hegemony threatened by City's success via a profit investment business model they will never copy. Through the media outlets they control or influence these clubs have sought to divert the disappointment of their mass supporter bases at City’s domination with a series of invented pegs to hang their resentment on.


First they reassured their supporters that new investment in City was just a temporary ‘vanity purchase’ which would inevitably fail. When this didn’t happen FFP was redesigned to protect elite clubs whilst hobbling City and PSG. These measures were later combined with the openly racist narratives of ‘Financial Doping’ and ‘Sportswashing’. Both these fictions have been exposed by reputable football journalists such as Martin Samuel and Oliver Holt but a derivative campaign is still being waged by a few discredited individuals, some of whom are referenced by Mr Roan on his twitter account (despite yesterday’s deletions.)


All football clubs face questions and criticism, some justified, some not. In City's case, financial and sporting rivalry have created an emotional interest amongst millions of people which a commercially pressured media are targeting – a perfect storm to which is added political bias from those who object to Arab ownership of a PL club. No other owner or club has ever been questioned and vilified to such a degree. Singling out City from the large number of major companies, scientific research institutions, HE bodies and sporting industries that benefit from UAE investment, including long term sponsorship of the clubs that are responsible for these attacks, is hypocrisy of the highest order. For them to be subjected to this continuing and escalating hostility by the BBC as well is totally unacceptable and needs to stop right now.

Keep us updated George, excellent riposte.

 

[80s Shorts]

I see George has been weaponised ;-)