Final reply from the BBC. Utter, utter wankers.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us and we appreciate that you felt strongly enough to write to us again. We have noted your points on the matter of your perceptions about our coverage of, and references to, Manchester City and we are sorry to learn you were not satisfied with our earlier response.
We are sorry to tell you that we have nothing to add to our previous reply where we explained that such things are entirely subjective in nature. We therefore do not believe your complaint has raised a significant issue of general importance that might justify further investigation. We will not therefore correspond further in response to additional points, or further comments or questions, made about this issue or our responses to it. We realise you will be disappointed to hear this but hope this explains why we are not able to take your complaint further. If you remain dissatisfied about our decision you can appeal to the BBC Trust, the body which represents licence fee payers. The Trust has asked that we should explain to complainants that the BBC's Royal Charter draws a clear distinction between the role of the Trust - which determines the overall scope of the BBC's services and sets its standards - and that of the BBC Executive - which runs the Corporation and decides what to broadcast and publish.
The Trust does not investigate every appeal submitted to it. It will normally hear appeals about the Executive’s decisions only if a complainant can show that they involved a potential breach of the BBC's published standards, or that an operational decision has raised significant issues of general importance. The Trust is the final arbiter of which appeals it should consider. For the full information about the BBC Trust’s appeals procedures please visit
www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/governance/complaints_framework/. If you wish to submit an appeal you must write within 20 working days of receiving this reply, explaining why you wish to appeal. You can contact the BBC Trust at 180 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QZ, or by emailing
trust.editorial@bbc.co.uk. Please would you include for them the relevant case reference which you may have been given.
We're sorry not to have referenced the Tweet you mentioned -
. The fact of the matter is that tickets were indeed still available for that match, however later in the day you will have noted that we contextualised this by reporting "
Manuel Pellegrini was quizzed about the lack of a sell-out at Manchester City earlier on this afternoon but their Champions League tie with Paris St-Germain is likely to break the club's European record. Around 51,400 tickets have been sold - and continue to be sold - with the capacity at the Etihad reduced to 53,000 for European games. City's record crowd for a European game is 50,363 (v Juventus in September 2015)" thus giving the full and ongoing picture.
You've now mentioned another Tweet -
- and we can clarify that the comparisons between Leicester City and Manchester City were made to highlight the disparity between how much each team have spent on players, but also to put into context that Manchester City’s starting line-up was the most costly in the Premier League at the time. We feel that it was a fair, accurate and legitimate comparison to make and was done with the aim of illustrating a key component of the Leicester City eventual title. The post was in no way indicative of any bias or targeting of Manchester City. We posted this in the build-up of the Manchester United v Leicester City match purely due to the fact that all Leicester City needed to do that evening was to win the match to take the title. We’re sorry that you’re unhappy about this and we can assure you that the BBC Sport team are aware of the concerns you’ve raised.
