Corruption in English football?

[paulchapo]

This is definitely something they should be legislating against, rather than wasting their time worrying about tragedy chanting, for Christ's sake.

Where is the PFA in all this?

You never hear a peep out of them since Taylor retired.

 

[Keeper!]

Do you think the league are happy with our continued dominance at this point?

You seem to be misinterpreting my posts (and stance). I have never argued they have tried to stop all of our titles.

By the way, I have worked directly on weeding out financial fraud for years, so I have quite a bit of experience and expertise when it comes to recognising methods and strategies of corruption, and I can say many people really don’t have a particularly good grasp of how it is actually done “successfully“, especially over long period of time. It is not “always or not at all”, as is often argued on here.

Here is a post in Ref Watch that sums up why they might want to influence the league outcome this season. I have many other posts explaining how they would do it. And just because their efforts aren’t successful doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. That’s not how anything works.

The league won't like one team dominating everything, that's not good, competition is everything.

The more teams genuinely challenging for the PL title the better and I include us in that, competition makes you stronger.

 

[SebastianBlue]

The league won't like one team dominating everything, that's not good, competition is everything.

The more teams genuinely challenging for the PL title the better and I include us in that, competition makes you stronger.

Then we agree?

Yeah, I am genuinely astonished that anyone can earnestly argue that the league are fine with us dominating in the way we are now. Not only does it make little sense, the league itself has said they don’t want it on numerous occasions. Not to mention the obvious attempts at trying to curtail us (note: I said curtail, not destroy; as you said, they want the league to be competitive, and out winning it every season undermines that state).

Regarding the type of corruption I have posted about in various threads—and the resistance to believing it could occur—I think people just haven’t had much exposure to it in their daily lives, so it is hard to believe or see it as happening.

Whereas I have studied and worked to identify it for years, at industry level, so I know not only how it is often done, but how prevalent it actually is.

 

[Keeper!]

Then we agree?

Competition is healthy yes, conspiracy, your joking.

 

[halfcenturyup]

You never hear a peep out of them since Taylor retired.

It's hopeless isn't it? A quick memo to the FA/PL with a press campaign would soon put the shits up them. If anything did happen to a player, there would be a claim for negligence in the tens of millions I would imagine once they were made aware by the PFA. At the moment they can just say " We were never informed of the risk".

 

[SebastianBlue]

Competition is healthy yes, conspiracy, you’re joking.

I guess I don’t understand how you can believe that the league will not want us winning the title every year but do nothing at all to try to prevent it, as we go for our 5th title in 6 seasons, and don’t look like letting up for next season.

But, as I said, I can understand why people that have little exposure to this type of corruption (I suppose we could call it unethical malipulation, if that makes it feel less conspiratorial) would have trouble believing it has and/or is happening.

I can assure you, it is far more prevalent than most people believe at this sort of level, across industries.

 

[Keeper!]

I guess I don’t understand how you can believe that the league will not want us winning the title every year but do nothing at all to try to prevent it, as we go from 5 in 6, and don’t look like letting up for next season.

But, as I said, I can understand why people that have little exposure to this type of corruption (I supposed we could call it unethical malipulation, if that makes it feel less conspiratorial) would have trouble believing it has and/or is happening.

I can assure you, it is far more prevalent than most people believe at this sort of level, across industries.

The same was said when Leeds, Liverpool, Chelsea and the Rags had their periods of domination.

Football goes in cycles, always has and for me it always will.

Once Pep leaves, however well run this club is, there will be a fall off, and another club will come along and have their time.

 

[TinFoilHat]

The same was said when Leeds, Liverpool, Chelsea and the Rags had their periods of domination.

Football goes in cycles, always has and for me it always will.

Once Pep leaves, however well run this club is, there will be a fall off, and another club will come along and have their time.

He's got a treble and another 10 titles yet to bury the rag cunts with first.

:)

 

[SebastianBlue]

The same was said when Leeds, Liverpool, Chelsea and the Rags had their periods of domination.

Football goes in cycles, always has and for me it always will.

Once Pep leaves, however well run this club is, there will be a fall off, and another club will come along and have their time.

So you’re argument is the league isn’t doing anything to try to stop City’s dominance, even though they have said many times they don’t want it (supposedly from any team), and are just waiting until Pep leaves in the hopes that will make the league more competitive again?

 

[Silva61]

I agree they will want a title chase down to the last day, if possible. And we have usually given them that.

But I think they very much want a new name from the traditional top six, as our continued dominance over the clubs that have more fans worldwide (both individually and most certainly collectively) has negative impacts over time.

The key nuance here is ‘continued dominance’ by us. Our dominance up until recently has had significant benefits. But we are now entering the realm of diminishing returns.

I have posted about this many times, so I won’t go in to a longer explanation, but the summary is that I don’t actually believe they are doing this because it is Manchester City and they hate us (even though a few brass in the league might). Their work to try to prevent us from continued dominance is a matter of what they believe is best for the long term growth of the league, with primary concerns for viewership, advertising, sponsorship, and licensing. Those are ultimately financial goals that heavily influence the leagues overall mission and, subsequently, their operations.

City winning a few titles, especially in hotly contested races with Liverpool or United, were a boon. City continuing to win the league nearly every year, regardless of whether another well-supported team keeps it close to the end, is not especially helpful to its longterm mission. It leads to growing disinterest amongst neutrals and, more concerning, falling engagement amongst the fair weather fans of the other top six clubs, which make up a fairly large portion of each clubs global fan base. That in turn eventually impacts viewership, advertising, sponsorship, and merchandising revenues. We are never going to be supported as well as the other ‘top six’ clubs combined, so degradation of their support has very real impacts on the league’s wellbeing.

I can say with 100% certainty—mostly because league executives have said it themselves—that the league do not want us winning the title every year (or even 5 out of 6 seasons). They want the top six clubs to win it in cycles (which now includes us), with the occasional Leicester City in the mix to give the appearance any half decent club could win it in any given season. That maximises viewership and engagement—and thus revenue—and supports the long term mission of growth.

From a league mission standpoint, they were happy with our initial success, especially the way we went about it (Aguerooooooo and the turn around against Liverpool were great narrative and entertainment). It helped the Premier League become even more dominant in the global football market.

But it’s gone too far now. It’s threatening the longterm health of their cash cow clubs. It’s making lucrative American owners/investors unhappy. We may eventually join that group of cash cow clubs ourselves, but we aren’t there yet, and the league has to do something before things get out of hand. Hence the charges, attempts behind the scenes to curtail our operations, and what I believe are attempts to aid Arsenal in winning the title.

I believe you and I agree they can only do so much without drawing far too much attention to themselves (it becoming blatant corruption to even City haters), which is why their efforts can usually be overcome with sheer will and cunning.

And we may be successful in that this season. But it doesn’t mean the playing field is fair (or that they are doing this because they “hate” us).

Most of this is just business.

I agree they will want a title chase down to the last day, if possible. And we have usually given them that.

But I think they very much want a new name from the traditional top six, as our continued dominance over the clubs that have more fans worldwide (both individually and most certainly collectively) has negative impacts over time.

The key nuance here is ‘continued dominance’ by us. Our dominance up until recently has had significant benefits. But we are now entering the realm of diminishing returns.

I have posted about this many times, so I won’t go in to a longer explanation, but the summary is that I don’t actually believe they are doing this because it is Manchester City and they hate us (even though a few brass in the league might). Their work to try to prevent us from continued dominance is a matter of what they believe is best for the long term growth of the league, with primary concerns for viewership, advertising, sponsorship, and licensing. Those are ultimately financial goals that heavily influence the leagues overall mission and, subsequently, their operations.

City winning a few titles, especially in hotly contested races with Liverpool or United, were a boon. City continuing to win the league nearly every year, regardless of whether another well-supported team keeps it close to the end, is not especially helpful to its longterm mission. It leads to growing disinterest amongst neutrals and, more concerning, falling engagement amongst the fair weather fans of the other top six clubs, which make up a fairly large portion of each clubs global fan base. That in turn eventually impacts viewership, advertising, sponsorship, and merchandising revenues. We are never going to be supported as well as the other ‘top six’ clubs combined, so degradation of their support has very real impacts on the league’s wellbeing.

I can say with 100% certainty—mostly because league executives have said it themselves—that the league do not want us winning the title every year (or even 5 out of 6 seasons). They want the top six clubs to win it in cycles (which now includes us), with the occasional Leicester City in the mix to give the appearance any half decent club could win it in any given season. That maximises viewership and engagement—and thus revenue—and supports the long term mission of growth.

From a league mission standpoint, they were happy with our initial success, especially the way we went about it (Aguerooooooo and the turn around against Liverpool were great narrative and entertainment). It helped the Premier League become even more dominant in the global football market.

But it’s gone too far now. It’s threatening the longterm health of their cash cow clubs. It’s making lucrative American owners/investors unhappy. We may eventually join that group of cash cow clubs ourselves, but we aren’t there yet, and the league has to do something before things get out of hand. Hence the charges, attempts behind the scenes to curtail our operations, and what I believe are attempts to aid Arsenal in winning the title.

I believe you and I agree they can only do so much without drawing far too much attention to themselves (it becoming blatant corruption to even City haters), which is why their efforts can usually be overcome with sheer will and cunning.

And we may be successful in that this season. But it doesn’t mean the playing field is fair (or that they are doing this because they “hate” us).

Most of this is just business.

What the authorities need to do is encourage our rivals to do "good business practice" if they carry on with their business ie, false accounting charges and subjective rules VAR, they'll end up damaging their own product, not MCFC.