I've seen frequent claims in the media that City are likely to 'get off' because we have the money to hire top lawyers to defend us. It seems not to have occurred to any of these clowns that we might just have had the money to engage top lawyers to ensure we didn't breach the rules in the first place. Indeed, we did reportedly do so, hiring employees of UEFA's professional advisers who'd been involved in drafting the FFP regulations.
Journalists bang on about bullshit concepts such as 'loopholes' and the 'spirit of the rules', as if there's something inherently tawdry or grubby about our working to achieve our objectives within the context of FFP. I've even seen the odd supposed Blue on social media take this line. Bollocks to that. If vested interests in football create a regulatory framework designed to protect the established order and saw us off at the knees, we're absolutely entitled to circumvent those rules in any lawful manner we can find.
So, if you want to have recourse to international legal, accounting and financial rules and standards to try to mould a regime to stop us, we'll be peerlessly smart in safeguarding our position by applying solutions found in to international legal, accounting and financial practice. There's no doubt that we've done that in ways that our opponents didn't expect. However, while we stand accused of having gone further and having seriously breached the rules, persuasive evidence to this effect in the public domain is pitifully scant.
The media attitude was virtually unanimous when the original allegations were published in Der Spiegel that the evidence in those articles constituted unimpeachable proof of City's guilt. In their risibly hysterical coverage, I don't remember even one of the gaslighting cunts noting that seeking to work around regulation isn't the same as planning to breach it, or acknowledging that the discussion of a course of action doesn't necessarily entail that course subsequently being taken.
We've had five years now of this frenzied and fundamentally mendacious coverage, in which even issues such as the CAS verdict have been presented by the media with implacable dishonesty. Now, if it does turn out that there's evidence not yet publicly available to indicate that City are guilty of some of the more serious charges against us, then fine - we'll be punished accordingly and will deserve it. The point is that the media, in the utmost bad faith, wants us convicted irrespective of whether the evidence justifies it.
The media coverage - pretty much literally all of it - over the last several years has been utterly deplorable in its sickening chicanery. It's created a febrile atmosphere in which all hell will break loose if the proceedings don't end with City expelled from the PL or, at the very least, suffering a severe points deduction. It's shameful that this should be the case given the facts about the case that are currently in the public domain.
One of the things about modern journalism that I truly despise is the way many of them hide behind ‘confidential sources’ to spread lies. They know there is no meaningful way of challenging what they are saying, because of that putative confidentiality. It’s especially sad because sources used to be a necessary and effective journalistic tool and no sports journalist of yesteryear would have considered abusing or subverting that part of their professional operation in that way."Blinkered crackpots" they called us, at least partly due to us defending the club over the UEFA charges and saying that there was nothing of substance in them. I think it was Delaney who coined the phrase. Oh the irony! When I pointed out to him in some detail why I was confident of a positive outcome at CAS, he replied that his "confidential sources" had told him we were going to be found guilty.
This summarises the bollocks spouted by MSM hacks. A “confidential source” could only make such a claim, bearing in mind the panel hasn’t even been appointed yet if either"Blinkered crackpots" they called us, at least partly due to us defending the club over the UEFA charges and saying that there was nothing of substance in them. I think it was Delaney who coined the phrase. Oh the irony! When I pointed out to him in some detail why I was confident of a positive outcome at CAS, he replied that his "confidential sources" had told him we were going to be found guilty.
As Petrusha rightly said, the line is that we will have the better lawyers, rather than having the better case. It's like the PL can only afford to pay the one-man band with an office over a tattoo parlour.
Even Conn, a man I thought had some integrity, took the line that we won because we "selected two of the three judges". That made it clear (if we didn't already know it) that the Guardian was taking a deliberately mendacious line, without making any attempt to be objective. That line descended into xenophobia and outright racism ("a row of grinning beards").
Even more shockingly, it's become clear that even the supposedly impartial BBC has a totally dismissive attitude towards us.
Pound to a pinch of shit the source doesn’t exist.This summarises the bollocks spouted by MSM hacks. A “confidential source” could only make such a claim, bearing in mind the panel hasn’t even been appointed yet if either
1. the so called source knew it was going to be a stitch up irrespective of due process, and was daft enough to leak the information to Miggy
2.the confidential source is talking bollocks or
3. there is no confidential source and Miggy is talking bollocks.
I‘m inclined to think 3 is the most likely.
It would be especially ironic if he had written "viscous", given he's so thick.Matthew Syed called us viscous rats, which is somewhat ironic.
They do (impliedly at the very least) lay claim to impartiality, although tbf I’ve never seen any of them claim intellectual superiority - and I’m not sure who exactly they would claim to have it over. I certainly don’t think either of us have got anything to worry about in that regard!
Haha! Yes, Sid Viscous!It would be especially ironic if he had written "viscous", given he's so thick.
Excuse me Heinz HP and Branston Sauce does exist.Pound to a pinch of shit the source doesn’t exist.
There was a cockiness around their output at that time that strongly suggests they were confident of a negative outcome at CAS which was plainly based on nothing but a cocktail of speculation and blind hope. If they’d actually done their fucking jobs and undertaken some actual research into the UEFA proceedings rather than wanking each other off ad nauseum, then they might have achieved a more realistic appraisal of the merits of that case.
The fact they are incredulous that football fans will push back when their team is being reported dishonestly by them shows what a fucking sociopathic bubble these cunts live in.
Pound to a pinch of shit the source doesn’t exist.