CAS judgement: UEFA ban overturned, City exonerated (report out p603)

[waspish]

I’ve had a few exchanges on Twitter, nothing vitriolic, but the one thing that is common is their refusal to acknowledge any possibility that they may be wrong although when you school them, they shut down. Here’s an example.

“City are not a club with any heritage yet they act like one. Their success is entirely off the money given by a country, and in order to invest in them a lot of bogus companies have been used for the purpose of making this look legitimate.”

I put him right and asked about bogus companies.

“As for bogus companies weren’t there ghost companies found that were in fact owned by City’s owners? If everything they have done is legal, why have they been caught twice breaching the rules? Nothing you or anyone can say will ever be able to get around that.”
...
“As for Guardiola asking for an apology that sums the whole club up from top to bottom.”

well there you go. He didn’t want to exchange any further.

Better of just saying do you believe everything that said in the media about Boris Johnson?

 

[DrBlueBob]

Certainly did.

Their fans are livid about VAR in the last week, and are looking forward to being screwed over in the last match of the season.

Tbf VAR & FFP are separate issues though. If both are implemented correctly then I really feel that they would both be a force for good but I really can't tell you how disappointed and actually shocked I have been that their implementation has been so dreadful. I was never one for the agenda theories but I am being persuaded.
As an aside my predictive text just offered up Clarkied when I was after persuaded. :-)

 

[Gary James]

@Gary James is your man for this one.

Manchester City paid for Maine Rd but did take out mortgages/loans, like many people, over the years.

 

[johnevans]

I don’t normally head over to opposition fan sites because I just find myself wanting to go on a murder spree. I did however just take a look on RAWK and came across this gem:

“Every club has the opportunity to grow their revenues and built the kind of club that can challenge. A wealthy owner can buy a big stadium and make enough money to win things. It's what Leicester have done.”

Not a single person on there has called this tit out and told him that Leicester failed FFP and paid a settlement.

I think we are actually at a point where when people talk about FFP they only relate it to two clubs, City and PSG. Nobody is arsed about FFP if clubs go bust and out of existence. Nobody is arsed about FFP if a club is £500m in debt yet is spending £100m+ in a transfer window. Nobody is even arsed about FFP if a club fails it, as long as that club isn’t City or PSG.

We said 10 years ago that FFP only purpose was to stop us, we were told we were paranoid. Bollocks, we aren’t even allowed to comply with FFP.

What you outline here so well is typical of all of the tribal tosspots who support other clubs. But it's particularly acute with Liverpool fans. 'Shaelumstash' has eviscerated brilliantly the 'Bayern/German model' argument elsewhere on this thread and in a wider context so have others such as 'Prestwich Blue', 'Tolmie' and 'ProjectRiver' and so on.

What they're really saying on RAWK is that City hasn't built its success 'properly', 'organically' or using (as PB points out) using 'old money'. Rather, our 'new money' is tainted oil money and we have no history and therefore we're not welcome at the top table.

As I say, the Red Scousers delusion on this is worse than with any other group of supporters I've experienced conversations with. About 3 years ago I posted the following which outlines how I confronted the prejudices and lack of awareness of two friends, one of whom is a dyed-in-the-wool Evertonian, the other a Liverpool supporter. Apologies if it runs on a bit and is a bit 'back of the fag packet' with the calculations but I think you'll get my drift regarding the point I was making to my friends about the way THEIR success was pump-primed by the Moores Family/Littlewoods (dare I say it, 'new'?!) money of the early 1960s.

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"One key area Gary James and others touch on is the lack of awareness amongst supporters of the true history of so many of their clubs.

Please bear with me whilst I outline a discussion I had with a couple of pals, one an Everton fan, the other a Liverpool supporter, a year or so back. Both had spouted the usual media tosh about City and 'oil money' (with its inherent racism) and us having no history (ie not having won anything for donkey's years and so on) and all the other stuff about buying success.. etc, etc, you know the score..

So, eventually, having sipped on my pint whilst listening to this guff, I slowly knocked each issue they had with City back into the covers, until finally going into some detail about things I knew about their respective clubs, especially how their joint rise to success post-1960 was pump-primed by the Moores family/Littlewoods connections and shareholdings.

Everton had consolidated recently as a top flight club for 3-4 years after promotion from the 2nd division and were about to appoint Harry Catterick as manager, whilst Liverpool were still a 2nd division side, with their newly installed manager, Bill Shankly. Both clubs gained significantly from these connections with the Moores Family and Littlewoods:

- EVERTON benefited in 1959-60 to the tune of a £56000 interest free loan from John Moores plus a guarantee to underwrite transfer spending for the next few years.
- LIVERPOOL gained funding support in 1961 to buy, most notably, both Ian St John and Ron Yeats for a total of almost £60000.

Within a few years, both had won the 1st division title and the FA Cup, on their way to becoming part of English football's long-term elite.

'So what?' you might say.

Well, those sums of money were significant in kick-starting the Everton and Liverpool we came to know (and occasionally support, especially in Europe) over the next few decades. Just as with every other club that has enjoyed successes down the ages, from the Arsenal of the 30's onwards to United in the 50s/60s and then the 90s, Nottingham Forest in the late 70s to the modern day Chelsea and now City.

And those sums of money given to create 'The School of Science' at Goodison and 'This Is Anfield' across Stanley Park were not piddling amounts.

As I then said to my pals it's very difficult to locate English club accounts information prior to 1974 but taking that year's statement of accounts for both Everton and Liverpool, they posted 'Incomes' of £499328 and £701289 respectively (with 'Income' defined as gate receipts and other sources of funding such as the club shop, programme sales etc less shares paid to other clubs and taxes etc) These figures were earned after some 10 years of being successful top-flight clubs, during which time both had won 2 titles and also the FA Cup, plus begun their early experience with European competition.

Now, using the Bank of England's inflation calculator, £499k for Everton and £701k for Liverpool in 1974 translate back to £223k and £314k in 1960. Remember, in 1960 both were not yet the giants they later became, so their earnings would probably be much lower - but stick with these numbers for now.

The monies given to fund their respective transfer spending of the early 60s represent (£56k and £60k) approx. 25% of Everton's 1960 income, whilst for Liverpool it's 22%. That was some kick-start for both clubs, almost unprecedented at the time and absolutely the key reason for the subsequent successes enjoyed between 1962-74. Without this money, this huge investment for the time, Catterick and Shankly would never have been able to afford the players they brought in from 1960 onwards, building squads that in turn lifted a League title and an FA Cup for both clubs by 1966.

Again, 'so what?'.

Well, my friends were astounded when I outlined this lot to them. In fact, the Liverpool supporter was blissfully unaware that Everton had benefited to such an extent from the largesse of John Moores et al. Whenever I point such things out to fans from other clubs (should the occasion arise), they too are similarly shocked. The point being that, just as with our 'lottery win' of 2008, so too EVERY club that wants to dine at the top table needs the ackers to go with their ambition. The numbers may have skyrocketed astronomically since the advent of the Premier League with its mega-TV deals and corporate sponsorships but the principle is EXACTLY the same. And it always will be.."

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Manchester City paid for Maine Rd but did take out mortgages/loans, like many people, over the years.

Debt is the (Maine) road to ruin.

 

[M18CTID]

Leicester failed the football league version in getting promoted, like many sides who've gone all in to get to the PL.

I think that’s irrelevant to the point he was making, which is that some of these mouth-breathing fuckwits have a habit of pulling Leicester out as an example of a club who can win the league and not spend the kind of money we did, while staying within FFP rules. They’re totally wrong on the latter and as for the former, there’s a reason why they were 5000-1 shots at the start of the season and it will be a long time, if ever, that a team with those odds wins the league again.

 

[Gary James]

Plus of course the club didn't pay a penny towards the costs of construction of OT in the first place. That was covered 100% by their first sugar daddy John Henry Davies. And the rags have the brass neck to claim City got a free stadium.

Like the Glazers he profited from mufc too. There was an investigation where the FA questioned why mufc were paying a fortune to his company for rent of land they never used.

 

[slbsn]

Is there a practical reason for them being there in terms of enforcement? If UEFA responded to this by removing their limitation, or FFP 2.0 had a 15 year limitation, would that difference between Swiss law/UEFA rules make it impossible to enforce?

Or did they just think, "if it's good enough for Swiss law, it's good enough for us" when drafting it?

it’s just normal for there to be a reasonable limitation. People are entitled to move on in civil matters where there is no fraud or dishonesty after 5/6 years.

 

[Centurions]

Has anyone ever figured out what 'organic money' is? I'd have thought oil money was more organic than pools money for instance. Unless it's a particularly dirty pool of course.

Forgive me, I'm coming to the end of a long and boring shift and my mind tends to wander.

 

[Brendan110_0]

Has anyone ever figured out what 'organic money' is? I'd have thought oil money was more organic than pools money for instance. Unless it's a particularly dirty pool of course.

Forgive me, I'm coming to the end of a long and boring shift and my mind tends to wander.

Even oil is organic. Just tell'em to DO ONE.......my motto from now on, cheers bucket hat Manc.