City launch legal action against the Premier League | Unconfirmed reports that City have secured "potentially significant victory" (p 808)

[bluenova]

No need to apologise, let me try to explain what I mean. When you say "If you try and suggest every mention of "Middle East" owners is racist, when there are differences that do only currently apply to them, then anyone who doesn't support City is likely to roll their eyes, and it weakens any genuine arguments about racism." Ask yourself "Why do they focus on Middle Eastern owners? The answer is simply to feed the redshirt herds a racist excuse for their own failure to compete and invest. Khaldoon's response to Tebas' attempts to single us out sums up the way I see it. “There’s something deeply wrong in bringing ethnicity into the conversation. This is just ugly. The way he is combining teams because of ethnicity, I find that very disturbing to be honest.”

City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak launches scathing attack on La Liga chief

Javier Tebas last week claimed that clubs such as City and Paris Saint-Germain, backed by wealthy Gulf state owners, are creating a competitive imbalance in European football which will change the face of the sport

www.independent.co.uk

The OP asked if a particular reference to the Middle Eastern owners was racist. It wasn't, and it's a fairly straightforward argument why.

The fact that the two clubs in the PL with Middle Eastern owners have so much more wealth, power, and influence over a huge number of companies, is factual. It is absolutely vast in comparison to any other owners, who are already some of the wealthiest individuals around. It's therefore a legitimate concern for the PL, that currently only applies to the two Middle East owned clubs. Describing them as such is factual, not racist.

If you want to accuse someone of racism, then stick to incidents which are clearly racist, of which there are plenty. Don't give them an easy argument by overstretching.

It reminds me of a lecturer I had at University. He worked with Government ministers, and said that if they didn't want to do something, they would never try to challenge the hard argument. They'd pick up on something easy, and say 'if you got that wrong, then the rest of your argument is probably rubbish too'.

 

[Bluesbrother]

Do we know who proposed the original changes to the rules

 

[denislawsbackheel]

With or without you-nitid?

They failed UEFA FFP rules.
No PL involvement.

Yet…

 

[Xhavenjoe]

Happen to recall what he said at all?

Didn't say a whole lot really.
That although we may have won something, it may not have been a whole lot. Time may tell more but little known at this stage.
Most of the discussion was on the the large amount of money the Premier league was putting in to these issues with Everton, Leicester and ourselves but getting little out of it.

 

[Academica]

what did he say?

Thinks we lost on the main points of the case, otherwise the Premier League would of already have changed the rule book.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

The assumption at PL headquarters, in the media and even sometimes on here seems to be that companies/sponsors from the middle east ar nothing more than passive vehicles for the funnelling of extremely large, unfairly so, sums of money into football clubs, notably City and potentially Newcastle - clubs which do not deserve such corrupt deals. Furthermore it is assumed that such deals will destroy "fair" sporting competition in the premier league and even in European competition. The demand is therefore that clubs with "connections" to such regions should be subjected to a regulatory regime which will make it difficult to sign any sponsors up.

The problem with this case is that it lacks compelling evidence at all stages and levels. Etihad and other "Gulf" companies have to operate in the same competitive environment as any others and to argue they can throw money around on deals that simply don't add up is madness. The argument that competitive balance is thin in the extreme. "Gulf" deals seem to have remarkably little to do with the rags 13 of te first 20 PL titles which seems to argue strongly that competitive balance has never existed, at least in the PL. And United's struggles over the last ten years suggest the their success in the nineties and noughties was not due to the distortion of competitive balance caused by lavish spending. It all suggests that City's domination owes as much to Pep as to money. As might Barcelona's struggles in recent years.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Thinks we lost on the main points of the case, otherwise the Premier League would have already have changed the rule book.

Thought they are doing on Thursday.

 

[ganganvince]

what did he say?

 

[Keeper!]

Do we know who proposed the original changes to the rules

No but we can all take a good guess.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

Anyone would think they have just got a new owner and dream of him pumping hundreds of millions into the club to make it great again!!

Or they might just wonder why it's teams from the lower end of the PL who fall foul of the regulators ... apart from the mighty "Man" Utd's city rivals. And the "other" Merseyside club!