I’d love a seat on your pedestal, bet it’s reet comfy! some of your posts are insightful, intelligent & offer plenty to a debate, but a lot of em are you just being a wiener & generally trying to take some kind of higher ground, honestly just chill out a bit & stop taking life so serious
Legally, according to the documentation, we are owned by Sheikh Mansour and there's no doubt about that. But effectively we're owned by Sheikh Mohammed & the Executive Council. There's simply no way Khaldoon & Simon Pearce would be involved so heavily if weren't. Anyone who thinks otherwise is astoundingly naive.
Whether that was the intention from the start (and the fact that a clown like Sulaiman al-Fahim was involved could be seen to support the fact it wasn't) or they quickly saw the PR possibilities of owning a PL club, we simply don't know. But we are now very much an arm of the Abu Dhabi government, albeit what's known as a soft one in diplomatic terms.
As you're an aggressive, argumentative twat, I'll respond in kind. So - which bit of "Legally, according to the documentation, we are owned by Sheikh Mansour and there's no doubt about that" do you not fucking understand?Sorry if it comes across as being on a pedastal, it's just that I know what @Prestwich_Blue actually thinks of our ownership structure. To quote him.
So when I then see him telling people how to argue to non-city fans that we're nothing to do with the state, it's a bit weird.
As you're an aggreesive, argumentative twat, I'll respond in kind. So - which bit of "Legally, according to the documentation, we are owned by Sheikh Mansour and there's no doubt about that" do you not fucking understand dickhead?
Being "an arm of the Abu Dhabi government" and being legally owned by them are two different things. Harold Wilson cleverly used the Beatles to project British influence around the world but they weren't state-owned.
Is this $2bn from his own pocket or is some of it money earned by City that has been reinvested in the club?Has Sheikh Mansour put in nearly $2bn? Yes he has but some of that was the actual purchase price and at least $400m was for infrastructure (CFA & SS3).
If they regarded it as inflated wouldn't they be effectively saying it was a deal between related parties?As I understood it, it is a test for fair value. They can't stop the deal but if they consider it inflated, they can reduce the amount we can count in our FFP calculation (same as Eufa)
They have adopted a wider definition of "associated." Not IAS24. Basically means "we can fuck City over on the flimsiest excuse. You had a coffee in Abu Dhabi?........associated. Your mum knew Sheik Mansour's cat? .....associated" You get the drift.If they regarded it as inflated wouldn't they be effectively saying it was a deal between related parties?
It's the other way around. They only, rather conveniently, look at deals which they have decided may be "associated", and then they consider fair value. So any deals they consider un-"associated" won't be looked at.If they regarded it as inflated wouldn't they be effectively saying it was a deal between related parties?
So we're "effectively" state owned, ran by the executive council and an arm of the government but you're pretending the Queen owning horses is the same.
It's dishonest isn't it? One explanation accepting how heavily involved the state is in our ownership and running for City fans, one denying any link at all for outsiders.
You frequently get irate if anyone - player, pundit, journalist, presenter, editor - publicly says the club is owned by Abu Dhabi, but you simultaneously believe that "effectively we're owned by Sheikh Mohammed & the Executive Council...Anyone who thinks otherwise is astoundingly naive".
Why the discrepancy? Why coach people to say things that you know to be bullshit?
I can think of several good reasons why Pearce and Khaldoon might be on our board short of ownership. I have made the point before that influence and ownership are different and I prefer "influence" toMuch respect to @Prestwich_Blue but I imagine he regrets posting that opinion on a public forum every time someone, years later, digs it out. :)
But an opinion was all it was. The fact is, legally, Mansour is the club's ultimate owner, as PB points out. I am not aware of any document that has been used in any of the proceedings against the club that has referred to City being owned, or effectively controlled, by the AD state. Probably a reason for that.
I prefer posts made by @Damocles a while back in which he made a pretty detailed analysis of Mansour, the Royal family and the government and the relationship between the three. That doesn't make anything a fact either, but it was the sort of analysis of a complex situation, in a different culture, that we haven't seen anywhere else since 2008.