Prestwich_Blue said:
It seems clearer what has transpired now and why we were upset with UEFA. We had been working on the basis of being able to exclude £80m of player wages in order to comply. That figure always looked high to me but Kieran Connor (aka Swiss Ramble) told me that UEFA had clarified the pre-2010 wages figure by saying that although FFP says that renegotiated contracts were not included, we could exclude any wages paid under those renegotiated contracts in 2011/12 that we would have paid under the old contract.
As an example, if we paid Player A £70k a week and renegotiated that up to £90k a week on or after June 1st 2010, we could still exclude the £70k. The statement seems to imply that they have back-tracked on that, hence we aren't allowed to exclude the £80m but a lesser amount. So that's why we believe they've gone back on their word.
To me, it looks like a catastrophic PR failure from our club. Again.
This is a golden era for City. I don’t even think these punishments will affect us too much. The only question for me has always been whether our owners (coming from an entirely different media culture) are being given the best advice on how to manage the European media.
These 'rules' were announced 3 years ago. They were laughable, transparently corrupt, and may yet turn out to be illegal. Why on earth did we wait until the 11th hour to start talking to journalists about them?
Why did we let every major European news outlet cover Platini & Gill’s media roadshow for ‘fairness,' but wait until the last 2 weeks to begin briefing on the hypocrisy of it all, set against the United's leveraged debts, or the community regeneration we are doing in East Manchester?
Why have we let HUNDREDS of journalists and 'financial experts' merrily publish their conclusions that City would fail (which we have) without sharing with any of them our plans to comply, and some of the detail of our conversations with UEFA? So that if UEFA have broken their word and moved the goalposts it would be now be obvious who the real cheats are?
Why have we relied on a single journalist - Martin Samuel - to tell the other side of the story? And not because we talked to him about it, but because he came to that conclusion on his own.
Why have we let Wenger make City and their evil money a weekly theme of his Friday press conferences without once reminding those same journalists about the tens of millions Arsenal have happily taken from us to spend on their new stadium?
Why have we not fed ONE serious news article been to the press that highlights the clear conflict of interest in a director of Manchester United (still involved in the day-to-day running of the club) sitting on a UEFA panel that has the power to run the rule over their biggest competitor’s accounts?
Because we want to do it 'quietly.'
We let UEFA, Ruminegge, Platini, Gill and Wenger set the media agenda, while we believe (against ALL evidence) that silence is a better strategy. And in the end, where has it got us?
Just wait and see how they now emerge to bask in this triumph. Forget the gentle requests to UEFA in our official statement, or the reality that these measures may not really affect us, this will be a media tsunami. As far as the world is now concerned:
City tried to outspend the ‘big clubs’ - they were stopped.
City tried to ‘cook the books’ and cheat the fairness rules - they were caught and punished.
We lost the PR war, hands down. Again.
Our owners are quiet, successful people and they want the club to operate that way. But football is political. And like all politics, the media is the key battleground. Time and time again we get beaten at their game.
There is a middle ground between the motormouth of Suliman al-Fahim and total silence. In fact there are a multitude of positions between the two.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it:
Our media team are NOT up to the job of managing one of the biggest news cycles in modern sport, and our owners are getting the wrong advice with regard to how to handle the press.
