An article so full of bile, vitriol and stunning inaccuracies that it's an embarrassment to call it journalism.
Having flinched in the battle with Man City and PSG – two clubs who laughed off the threat via a series of legal challenges.....
Just not accurate in the slightest. City took their medicine, despite having a fairly strong legal case against their punishment (UEFA blatantly changed the way the rules were to be applied, one could argue specifically to catch City and be seen to be enforcing the rules).
Muscles are flexing, and restrictions are easing; only time will tell if City’s victory has left FFP mortally wounded.
No, muscles aren't being flexed, City are simply growing financially to the point where FFP doesn't really affect us a great deal. Our "victory" is that, despite UEFA's attempts to prevent us from challenging the establishment, we've ensconced ourselves in the upper echelons of European football.
why not just ignore FFP and build a super-club in spite of the rules? Take the financial hit, take the squad size restrictions, take the tournament disqualification, even, and spend five to seven years in an isolation booth of rapid expansion
The implication that this is what Sheikh Mansour did is insulting and simply wrong. We didn't ignore FFP, we attempted to, and based upon UEFA's guidance, managed to comply with FFP. Underhanded moving of the goalposts post the event is what we fell foul of.
The sanctions imposed by FFP thus far are complex - not least because they have slithered and shifted under pressure from legal challenges and secret meetings – but in short very little has been done to shut down the expansionist ideologies of, most pertinently, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
City have not legally challenged anything, a lie, pure and simple. Meetings between City and UEFA did take place, but this was entirely City's attempts to comply with FFP, something the "author" has already claimed we never tried to do. "Very little has been done to shut down the expansionist ideologies of...Manchester City", and why the fuck SHOULD anything have been done? Is it UEFA's place to say "sorry, you want to grow and become a big club? That's not allowed" Is there any other industry where regulators would actively seek to undermine new businesses, to prevent them from growing, in order to protect those businesses already dominating the market? UEFA has no place trying to shut down anyone's attempts at growth.
clearly it would be unjust to argue that FFP has not dramatically curtailed the spiralling debts in European football. After all, aggregate net losses of Europe's clubs have fallen from €1.7bn in 2011 to €400m in 2014.
Err, no, it wouldn't be unjust, it would be accurate. Correlation does not imply causation. It would be far more accurate to say that aggregate net losses have fallen so dramatically due to the huge increase, across the board, of media revenue within football.
the recent £265 million investment from a Chinese consortium for a 13 per cent stake has valued the club, as a whole, at £2bn.
Again, not accurate. The investment was in the CFG, so the football group as a whole, and not specifically in Manchester City FC themselves. The group is valued at £2b.
Perhaps - like all-powerful oil companies happily absorbing fines for environmental damage rather than abide by the law – a billionaire might be able to build a super-club in spite of the meagre, diminishing powers of those attempting to sanction an industry left unregulated for far too long.
Again, whilst regulation of football is poor and needs addressing, those regulations should have NOTHING to do with a wealthy individual investing their time and money into a club in order to grow it and compete at the highest level, providing the investment, and growth, is geared towards sustainability like at City. Equity and not loans, prevent debt levels being increased dramatically, all good aims, blocking the way City have targeted growth is something that should never have been on the radar, and wouldn't have been if FFP hadn't been designed by, and influenced by, parties with their own self preservation at heart. Also there is absolutely no way the "example" used here, of "all powerful oil companies" is coincidental, it's a dig at City and where the wealth has come from.
Modern football is a world of seething corporate capitalism where profitability has become an obsession to the detriment of the sport’s integrity; it may seem bizarre – it would certainly be wildly unethical and unpopular – but a few years in the wilderness is all it would take to build something menacing.
Profitability ahead of integrity? So, it was ok for City to struggle financially, to languish in the lower leagues, to never have the hope of being a top club again, because we did so with integrity. However now we've got money, and we can compete, we lack that integrity? Get to fuck. How exactly is it unethical to invest money into a football club? Was it unethical when United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and every other successful club in history took their investment over the years? Or does that not count as it was a few years ago and would have involved someone actually having some integrity of their own and doing their research? Menacing? Fucking menacing? City growing and challenging the established sides is menacing? Only to those who don't like a challenge, who want to be perennial top dogs and think it's their right to be there. Menacing? Get to fuck once again.
So, on the whole, a poorly written, poorly researched, totally biased piece of journalism, if you can call it journalism at all.
