Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

[Prestwich_Blue]

Read it again Colin, nothing great about it, pure poison actually. A lot of folk take notice of your posts, you need to be more careful.

I'm not expecting Rory Smith to come out fighting on behalf of City. To an outsider, what's happened at the club with FFP looks shoddy, though some of us understand that we might have done nothing wrong technically. But 99% of journalists have no clue about FFP or its workings. So he's going to have a dig at us and I wouldn't expect otherwise but he's hit a few other targets as well, which most haven't.

He's also making the point that some clubs make the rules to suit themselves and their interests, not those of football.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

United paid half and juventus paid half, it was in football leaks. So they paid about £110m in total.

Fair enough. Don't recall seeing that myself.

 

[Newman Noggs]

1. It's just the initial format to implement CWC as soon as possible, creating a platform for a bigger (CL-like) tournament and blocking G14's moves.
2. Share the money, it will create 'depth'.

The second point is key. Every innovation the cartel has introduced to benefit themselves they have been allowed to do not because the rest of the clubs were in favour but because they had no choice.

If we are sensible, we back a competition with a fairer distribution of wealth even if it costs us. As Chippy boy said, it's in no-one's interests for a league to be uncompetitive and in everyone's interest for a fairer system.

We should come out publicly opposing what the cartel are doing.

On another note, it's no longer the G14. PSG were a member of the G14 and they're on the outside with us. And I don't believe for one second that Ajax or some of the other lesser lights of the G14 have any say in this at all.

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

More detailed than Marca/Mediapart was the article "Dirty Deals" by Spiegel from last Friday.
Not sure if already discussed on here.

According to that, City will be one of 11 founding members of a Super League of top clubs .

Scroll down close to the end, starting with "Eleven founders"...


http://www.spiegel.de/international...-for-elite-league-of-top-clubs-a-1236447.html

Sorry, but it's cobblers. The whole point of all of this, is to exclude City. Der Spiegel are just trying to muddy the waters by including our name as a founder, which is pretty much confirmed by Marca

 

[SilverFox2]

Just popped over to Red Cafe to see what they made of all of this (I know, I know I shouldn't). Anyway, I read this, which I thought was a pretty decent post:

"I have a couple of issues with all this, beyond the obvious. That doesn’t mean I’m supporting or ignoring what’s happened but some things need to be said:

Firstly although some of this undoubtedly looks ‘dodgy’ do we really believe the rest of football is clean? Not just today but go back through time and there’s always examples of teams having an upper hand through dubious cash sources and practices. Spiegel even let themselves down (and show their true colours) by quoting Uli Hoeness saying City can buy good players now and shouldn’t be allowed (I paraphrase). This is Hoeness, who, at his trial in 2014, admitted evading €28.5million in taxes, was found guilty of seven serious counts of tax fraud and sentenced to prison for three and a half years. And it’s Bayern who’ve won the league the last 7 seasons.

Then La Liga complain whilst 2 teams share most the cash and have won 13 of the last 14 seasons between them. All during which Real were being investigated (and found guilty) of dodging tax and taking interest free cash off the government. That’s the Real that have just won 3 Chamions Leagues on the back of that money.

Secondly it’s not just the sour grapes and clearly corrupt examples above but do we really want to be like those leagues where only the ones with the mighty traditions (us and maybe Arsenal with the odd whiff of Liverpool) ever get to compete or win? Where the title is done and dusted before it starts? No team has retained the title for 10 years and I love that. It makes the Premier League the most popular in the world (which in turn makes US richer).

Finally let’s face it, they’ve not spent much more than us in the last few years so if it were just about money we’d be smashing the teams that haven’t the cash, in the way they do.

So my bigger point is that us all obsessing on this makes us seem small time. We want them thrown out the league, really?? Titles taken away?
Is this where we’ve fallen to?

Let’s hurt them by beating them on Sunday, making our own money work as it should instead of crying about theirs."

Good find CB, as the post indicates our spent side of the equation was invested as proven by on the field results whereas their spend has largely been wasted.
Their problem has been how to invest which points the finger at those who decide the spend decision.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I hear you, but there's many different ways this can pan out and in the meantime, I'm watching the best domestic football I've ever seen and its intensely enjoyable that our team is the one doing it.

It would be to the long term detriment of football I think if our league became a one horse race, and indeed if the CL was dominated by us for decades. It's obviously like that in Germany already and also the CL to an extent with Real and Barca winning it 7 years out of the last 10.

So the basic idea of some kind of rules to try to level the playing field and make football more competitive, is not terrible. It's just that FFP is not it, and was never imo intended to be. It was not about making football more financially fair, it was about making sure the status quo unfairness persisted.

There is no way any of these fuckers will vote for ANYTHING which takes away their advantage over other teams, which has always been mainly due to their financial position.

What they seek, is the opposite. They want to increase the margin between themselves & any teams who.may be capable of bridging the gap.

Then ideally, they also hamstring City, so they can each comfortably exist without any pressure, picking up.domestic & european trophies as they go along & if one or two of their clique are a bit more successful than others, that's fine, so long as they all get chucked a bone from the table here & there & most importantly, have a place at that table guaranteed.

It's difficult for them to keep City at bay & also keep their advantage over the 'unwashed' clubs.

Any new legislation they agree to, will have to help them cure one or both of those problems.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

There is no way any of these fuckers will vote for ANYTHING which takes away their advantage over other teams, which has always been mainly due to their financial position.

What they seek, is the opposite. They want to increase the margin between themselves & any teams who.may be capable of bridging the gap.

Then ideally, they also hamstring City, so they can each comfortably exist without any pressure, picking up.domestic & european trophies as they go along & if one or two of their clique are a bit more successful than others, that's fine, so long as they all get chucked a bone from the table here & there & most importantly, have a place at that table guaranteed.

It's difficult for them to keep City at bay & also keep their advantage over the 'unwashed' clubs.

Any new legislation they agree to, will have to help them cure one or both of those problems.

It's all mirrors and their only concern is City and to some extent PSG.

If they can ruin both of us the minor clubs will be just cannon fodder.

Football fans should be getting behind us not jumping on the other side.

 

[Cobwebcat]

I’m not sure that our owner giving one of our sponsors money actually makes them a related party does it? Are we not allowed to do business with our sponsors? If city travel on an etihad plane is that not allowed?

Bottom line...this is all about the article Marca published. That is the real story. If anyone has an account with BM and Red Cafe they should post it.

If anyone has Martin Samuels contact details, send him the link.

Get that article out there as much as possible.

 

[laserblue]

On the Mail website today is an article headlined "HMRC warn Manchester City it will be 'relentless in pursuing' club if they have tried to evade paying tax". There's a shot of the inside of the Etiahd with the caption "Manchester City will be 'pursued relentlessly' if they failed to pay their share of tax". Yet no quotes by HMRC mention City at all and refer only to any club transgressing.

I'll leave it to fellow Bluemooners to decide whether there's any agenda or not.

 

[Neville Kneville]

It's all mirrors and their only concern is City and to some extent PSG.

If they can ruin both of us the minor clubs will be just cannon fodder.

Football fans should be getting behind us not jumping on the other side.

They couldn't see through ffp & it's doubtful they'll see through whatever comes next.

But the cartel have a difficult job shitting on City, without shitting on themselves with the same rules. Stuff like this is aimed at pegging us back, to give them all time to regroup & catch up, like our transfer/squad reductions from last time, which gave Utd a lifeline.