City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)

[Centurions]

I'm late to this but I was arguing about some if this with some Red top scouse on the one of the MSM websites yesterday about most of this. None of this is aimed at PB, I'm sure most peoples opinion on the matter has evolved, the more they've learned over the years. Isn't that what we are supposed to do?

I don't think anyone's denying there are links there. It's just wrong to say City are state owned and I don't think the City project was ever intended to be a sports washing project personally.

Sheikh Mansour is a member of the royal family. Khaldoon and Peirce have worked closely with various high ranking figures in the UAE. The Etihad Airline is state owned. But those links are more tenuous than the media likes to portray.

Even Sheikh Mansour's roles in government are overstated IMO. Personally, I think everyone should consider how he got those roles(i.e who appointed him... is he working under anyone in particular?). Count how many business(chairman, vice-chairman) roles he fulfils in comparison to political ones, and consider how many hours there are in a typical working day. Then maybe read about his personality in general and decide for yourself, whether he's more of a businessman or a politician. I think it's obvious personally, that's without looking at his personal projects(and interests), outside of state related roles.

Khaldoon and Peirce have worked with many high profile figures in the UAE, but they are hardly an arm of the government or the executive council. They have worked with those people so often because they were highly successful in their field. Could it not just be, they were chosen by Sheikh Mansour because of their skill sets? Maybe I'm wrong but I thought in business, the connections and employees you already have available, are a resource that you'd draw upon first before hiring elsewhere. Khaldoon was clearly a great choice for chairman, Al-Fahim before him, not so much.

Etihad airlines being state owned might be the sportswashing angle. They've used City to try and grow that but is that really anything unique in football? It wasn't something new even in 2008(Chelsea 2001 in the PL, then again with Arsenal in 2003) and it's widespread in football today. As for the club itself though, even if it was an afterthought. They must of realised it was a bad way to gain good PR in the west, long ago. I don't see heavy promotion of Abu Dhabi or the UAE itself at City, they have never claimed any credit for City's achievements. City do deny being owned by a state. Ironically, the only people giving Abu Dhabi/UAE credit for what City do are the press... So technically, aren't they the ones sportswashing? In that case there is no sportswashing, if they'd simply shut up pushing that angle all the time.

Damocle's posts in the https://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/...ood-at-this-sportwashing-thing-are-we.352069/ thread are excellent for anyone who wants to know more about our and especially AD's setup and history.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

Detailed criticism of another sponsorship here...

Another Man City sponsor with seemingly no staff, no active products and being run out of a mailbox in London | Off The Pitch

offthepitch.com

 

[Stiff Little Wingers]

Detailed criticism of another sponsorship here...

Another Man City sponsor with seemingly no staff, no active products and being run out of a mailbox in London | Off The Pitch

offthepitch.com

This looks dodgy and the fact that City have not responded to any questions does not look good. Our enemies have long used the "shady Arab" narrative and things like this do not help dispel this trope in my view.
I cannot see how the club comes out of this well, either we have been scammed (which is not good to hear. Someone has fucked up) or these companies ae fronts for other money or maybe there is money laundering going on?
I've said before and repeat again that despite the glories on the pitch Khaldoon and others are making mistakes, for example, the public promise to bring in a top class striker (not kept. Makes him sound like Swales), the fiasco of the Super League and pitiful apology, the fact that a man with multiple allegations of serious sexual offences was allowed to play for our team and fans (some of whom may have had unfortunate experiences with these sorts of things) and now the fact of these so called "non companies" as well as the ongoing generally shit customer service/ticket prices too high for a predominately working class support.
These indicate to me that something is wrong and I think it is a combination of a) the club is obsessed with money and this is starting to dwarf their duty as custodians of a great institution and its fans b) linked to point a) that CFG is taking too much of a priority over City. It should be possible to set up a new CFG partner in Chile for example and also being able to answer the phone to fans within an hour c) that Khaldoon has so many other competing priorities and has lost a bit of focus and perhaps has been in post too long.
Of course, as a fan I'm grateful for everything Khaldoon and the rest have done and always will be but the mistakes I pointed out earlier are all very bad publicity and in soem cases may involve wrong doing and ironically may end up affecting the bottom line the club seems so interested in.

 

[Damocles]

Detailed criticism of another sponsorship here...

Another Man City sponsor with seemingly no staff, no active products and being run out of a mailbox in London | Off The Pitch

offthepitch.com

Wega aren't a real company? Fucking hell, they obviously never went to a City game a few years back when those guys were handing out the credit card brochures like they were confetti.

Why do I get the feeling that if one of us did, I don't know let's say 20 minutes of research, we could completely debunk this article for the shite that it is?

 

[samuelyeboah]

Wega aren't a real company? Fucking hell, they obviously never went to a City game a few years back when those guys were handing out the credit card brochures like they were confetti.

Why do I get the feeling that if one of us did, I don't know let's say 20 minutes of research, we could completely debunk this article for the shite that it is?

handing out brochures makes you a real company?

by all means then, do the 20 minutes of research and debunk it, we're all ears

 

[Damocles]

handing out brochures makes you a real company?

by all means then, do the 20 minutes of research and debunk it, we're all ears

Handing out brochures that provide you with a credit card which is regulated by the financial industry protections makes you a real company, yeah. Tell you what, why don't you go and try to hand out your own branded Mastercard card? See how far you get.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

When Michel Platini first suggested the possibility of introducing regulations to deal with the problem of debt he was told plainly, by a group of European clubs, known to us now as the cartel, that their lawyers would take action in the courts to ruin his plans and then they would ruin UEFA by breaking away to form their own competition, because there were no laws at all banning debt which was an accepted way of raising capital for investment. The highly principled M. Platini caved in completely and handed over protection of football's financial health to this gang of illustrious debtors. We all know what they did and why they did it. International agreements to prohibit attempts to limit investment were ignored and investment by owners limited severely while debt at most of the cartel grew and grew and grew without even token efforts to control it. Spending on players at non-cartel clubs was to be limited by the "break even" principle but cartel clubs were able to borrow to their noodle-sponsored hearts content. Chelsea's debt ( to their owner!) now stands at over £1 billion but they can carry on spending (transfer bans permitting), Manchester United can spend, spend, spend despite their debt being around the half billion pound mark and Barcelona are apparently hoping to borrow 100 million euros to buy Haaland despite a club debt of over one billion euros. And still they are not satisfied because Manchester City operate within the cartel's rules and still win more trophies than the others! So more rules are necessary. This time it's accountancy standards which are to be rewritten. Related party deals had already been treated to the cartel treatment and now accountants are to be treated to the idea of "associated" party deals so the the cartel can control other troublesome revenue streams at clubs like Manchester City.

The arrogance of the football authorities and the cartel clubs is mind boggling. That they have the right to point out to the legislative authorities of the UK and EU that the game must obey different laws to all other sectors of economic life defies belief, especially in view of the sharp warnings given by the courts that there is no sporting exception given to the football authorities, notably in the George Eastham case in the UK and the Bosman case in the EU, and that football must conform to the law just as everyone else must.

It seems to me that Sheikh Mansour's club are treating the concept of "associated" deals as the nonsense they are and will make the deals they want. I suspect further that the resignations at the PL in the wake of the Saudi takeover at Newcastle were the result of advice to those resigning that the PL were in grave danger of positioning themselves clearly on the wrong side of the law. Finally, I believe that if there is another conflict City will not "take the pinch". And we must remember that Sheikh Mansour has a considerable history of investing in the UK and Europe. Rather more than the PL and it clubs I assume.

 

[Blue Smarties]

Handing out brochures that provide you with a credit card which is regulated by the financial industry protections makes you a real company, yeah. Tell you what, why don't you go and try to hand out your own branded Mastercard card? See how far you get.

Both apps removed from the App Store mate. Quick look at their Facebook and I don’t think the android app was ever released.

From the outside looking in, it doesn’t look the best. Very limited info out there.

edit - no listed employees on LinkedIn either. I can't be arsed doing much more digging, but yeah, doesn't look ideal.


edit x2 - I'm stopping now, but from the website "Wega Payment Card Programs may be commercialised via distributors such as Gleevest Capital Ltd (www.gleevest.com) or program partners." (spoiler: visit gleevest)

 

[Damocles]

handing out brochures makes you a real company?

by all means then, do the 20 minutes of research and debunk it, we're all ears

Oh and here's their parent company, Truxtun Capital, being listed as part of the FIDO Alliance Working Group

FIDO Alliance Launches European Working Group to Expand Use of Authentication Standards - FIDO Alliance

Organization to help companies meet emerging regulations and growing requirements for simpler, stronger user authentication

fidoalliance.org

That was one Google search

 

[Damocles]

Both apps removed from the App Store mate. Quick look at their Facebook and I don’t think the android app was ever released.

From the outside looking in, it doesn’t look the best. Very limited info out there.

edit - no listed employees on LinkedIn either. I can't be arsed doing much more digging, but yeah, doesn't look ideal.


edit x2 - I'm stopping now, but from the website "Wega Payment Card Programs may be commercialised via distributors such as Gleevest Capital Ltd (www.gleevest.com) or program partners." (spoiler: visit gleevest)

Here is somebody on this forum who used this service, posting about it shutting down last month

WEGA Card

Dies anyone else use the WEGA Card? I've used it loads and have 30k points on it. Just been told they are closing down and i will be losing all of my points with no avenue to try and spend them. To say im not impressed is an understatement.

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