Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

[jrb]

Another snippet from my contact at the club.

Pep's singed a contracr extension.umtil 2021.

If I get anymore info I will post it.

Seems to have gone under the leaks radar.

 

[shemnel]

I largely kept my powder dry on this because I wanted to see all four parts of the story before forming a view, but given part 3 was so piss poor I think I have enough to articulate my thoughts.

The biggest criticism seems to be the complaint that City inflated sponsorship deals to circumvent FFP. Except they didn't inflate the sponsorship deals. The sponsorship deal with Asabar, for instance was £15m. Not £3m, or any other figure, but £15m. That's the amount that Aabar were contractually obliged to pay.

There is absolutely nothing in the FFPR that requires that any third party sponsorship money must, for instance, come from distributable profits. Where a third party gets the money from to sponsor a team is neither here nor there: what matters for the purposes of the FFPR is the sponsorship income. And in the case of Aabar, the amount of sponsorship income was £15m.

The complaint, when properly understood, cannot be that City overstated the sponsorship deal, because they didn't. They reported sponsorship from Aabar of £15m, which is exactly what the contract said. The complaint must be that Aabar would not have entered into that contract in the first place if it had not been made clear to them that £12m would be provided from elsewhere. So in other words, the value of the sponsorship was artificially inflated (assuming the emails are genuine).

That however does not contravene the regulations. Nowhere does UEFA get to impose its own 'true and fair' valuation of the sponsorship deals other than in the case of related party transactions, which IIRC Aabar wasn't. So, assuming the emails are genuine, and the additional sponsorship money actually originated from HHSM, did we breach the spirit of the regulations? yep. Did we take advantage of what the regulations don't say? Absolutely. Did we actually breach the regulations then in force? Absolutely not.

So the complaint when you boil it down to its bare essentials is that we found a way round the regulations, and didn't tell UEFA what we had done.

Well cry me a fucking river. We all know these regulations were designed as a means of ossifying the status quo and making it more difficult for a team to progress in that competition. Der Spiegel actually say that in terms - they say that City could (and they imply should) have lowered their on-pitch expectations. So if people want to cry about it now because we found an immoral way round regulations that were immoral from the get-go, me my guest.

For my own part, and if you are reading this Matthew Syed, I'm talking to you, I have an absolutely clear conscience. The club I support has breached no regulations, and the worst that can be said of them is that they have fought fire with fire. If you have a problem with that, feel free to write more of your sanctimonious shite. I have no problem with it whatsoever.

I love the word ossify.

Where are u based @Chris in London ?

 

[The Stockport Iniesta]

That snide rag **** should have been banned by the club after Pep's first press conference for what he said.

 

[Chris in London]

I love the word ossify.

Where are u based @Chris in London ?

Stockport, mate, like all blues.

 

[citytill1die84]

Another snippet from my contact at the club.

Pep's singed a contracr extension.umtil 2021.

If I get anymore info I will post it.

Seems to have gone under the leaks radar.

He signed till 2021 anyway didn't he?

 

[kalouk]

I'm simply saying the mud is sticking around the globe and if you haven't noticed the club are trying to expand our global support.

I understand your point but I really don't think people think that deeply about supporting a football team. I believe for a lot of people who start to support a team it's more likely a player or winning that will draw them in. This is being hyped by rival fans and journalists so there was never anything to be gained there anyway.

 

[Chi-town blues]

Another snippet from my contact at the club.

Pep's singed a contracr extension.umtil 2021.

If I get anymore info I will post it.

Seems to have gone under the leaks radar.

Thanks for the itk . Any news on cvnt who leaks our line up right before the kick off?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I presume that’s because they knew FFP was on dodgy ground and that we’d knock the cheating edifice into oblivion

I think that's an obvious conclusion but most of these so-called "serious journalists" don't seem to either understand FFP or realise the significance of the various changes to the rules.

The only thing shocking about these stories is that not one has mentioned the sneaky change to Annex XI, even after Khaldoon talked about it in his statement when the sanctions were announced.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

tbh this is what playing the best football ever brings. Crazy jealousy

 

[blue b4 the moon]

There has been a tremendous shift in attitude from Sky towards us in recent months. I suspect the gun tattoo debacle over Sterling brought things to a head.

Sky have been getting exclusive steers on some stuff it would seem. I assumed Sterling verbally agreeing a new deal was via his agent Aidy Ward. It could well have come from City.

When you think about it, you don't need to brief anyone else if you have the main TV platform onside.

Just need to fuck Stelling & a few more front of housers out.

As for all these ****s producing shit articles, well apparently we've got thousands of empty seats, WiFi & they'll all have a mobile.......put the fuckers in random seats all around the ground so we can have friendly chats with them oh and make them drink/eat the stuff we have to put up with.

Preferential treatment for these shits who never ever say a good word & hate us while 'we' end up with no perks apart from the football...(I'm sure you know what I mean).