Open Letter to Man City and newspaper further coverage proposed

[LongsightM13]

Personally I don’t think it’s a great idea. It just screams disconnect between fans and club and the press will be all over that.

Plus NOBODY at Uefa will read an advert in the 7,000 print copies the MUEN sells these days

 

[WARBABY]

if that letter is published it will feed the social media that city fans are blaming the club and not UEFA, for the shambles

 

[the blue panther]

Don't bother. It's at Wembley next year - Etihad South!
I'm surprised that you were so obviously surprised and disappointed.
No pain no gain. Be thankful you were there at all!
Let it go. Life's too short. We won the treble and you were there, you lucky bastard.

 

[Gone for a Burton]

The club ARE gathering information from fans, and have a growing and comprehensive catalogue of 'evidence'.

It is established club policy NOT to comment on rumour and speculation etc until facts and evidence are confirmed and verified.

The club WILL respond and WILL hold UEFA to account and will do it all in a professional and rational manner.

Giving money to the MUEN should be out of the question, requesting that the club accelerates its enquiries/actions is perfectly valid !!

 

[LongsightM13]

The club ARE gathering information from fans, and have a growing and comprehensive catalogue of 'evidence'.

It is established club policy NOT to comment on rumour and speculation etc until facts and evidence are confirmed and verified.

The club WILL respond and WILL hold UEFA to account and will do it all in a professional and rational manner.

Giving money to the MUEN should be out of the question, requesting that the club accelerates its enquiries/actions is perfectly valid !!

Plus we have a bit more class and dignity than automatically holding the collective begging bowl out for compo. Which of course was the very first response from liverpool fc supporters

 

[FootballSense]

I have set this up away from the main Istanbul thread to get thought and traction so hope that is ok
I spoke to the Manchester Evening News and they are willing to publish an open letter from the fans to the club asking them for comment on how fans were treated in Istanbul. The cost of the advert (incl. VAT) is £480 for a half page advert. However... more importantly if the "letter" is agreed then they also want to follow up with interviews etc which in turn will make the item more newsworthy and take up far more space in the paper. Some people may now of course may just be thinking 'let sleeping dogs lie'
Anyway - I said I would get back to them but my thoughts are this : -
We could set up 'crowdfunding' for the 480quid and get the letter sent but it is better not coming from me but a more 'official' Man City supporters area (1894 etc) and also I had it 'bad' but nowhere near as bad as others (at least I got the metro to the ground and got in the ground early so only got the shit coming back)
Anyway...... :-
I have the contact - I have agreement that if the letter passes legal (we obviously can't be libellous:-) then MEN also want to give it more publicity but I think it needs someone (1894 group / Gary James etc) with more clout than me to move this forward (please no tribalism about what you think of MEN - that isn't the point)
I would appreciate whether there is any demand for this and also whether any official group (who would be better sourcing the right people interviewed) were interested in pursuing this and I will 'hand over the contact' etc.
cheers

(For info - my fourpenneth at the open letter below - but again, there are better wordsmiths than me (although there are also a few shitter ones.. :-) )


Dear Manchester City
This is an open letter from many of the fans who went to Istanbul for the culmination of possibly the greatest season in the history of the club. Whilst we would all like to thank the owners, the manager, players and all who contributed in creating wonderful indelible memories of the season, it is very disappointing how badly so many fans were treated at the Champions League final and how (it appears) the club appear somewhat disinterested in even commenting, never mind looking into what happened?
Last year in Paris, Liverpool fans were treated (admittedly) worse and understandably there was uproar across all media as a result, resulting in compensation for all fans, but whilst there has been considerable press coverage this year, the difference between Liverpool FC and their very public vocal support of their fans and Manchester City FC is markedly and disappointingly different
As most people are aware the way the fans were treated was somewhere between poor and almost inhumane. Some (but not all) of the key issues which have been well reported included : -

• City fans were told to use a bus to and from the venue which took on average of 3+ hours, including not leaving the car park for an average of 2 hours and many fans either ended up walking or struggled (due to disabilities) in even getting across the gravel car park in the dark to find a bus
• Failure at the ground (and fanpark) to provide appropriate places for food and drink meant queues of over an hour with only one concession stand in the ground for 20,000 fans
• Water being charged (illegally) at 5 euros for 225ml especially when a number of retailers in the ground demanded ‘cash’ even though it was a no cash venue
• Toilet blocks only for 20 to 30 people
• Horrendous queues into the ground whilst still having 2 hours before kick off

There are many more horror stories and even the Uefa president made the following statement :-
"We are well aware that in Istanbul not everything was perfect…..I'm thinking in particular transport links to and from stadium, the hosting of the stadium supporters and access to water and toilets for everyone." which somewhat reminds the older fan of the Monty Python sketch “what have the Romans ever done for us” given pretty much all the necessities of hosting a game other than the match itself were called out as failures

However, despite all this, there appears to have been complete silence from the club. We appreciate Manchester City do not pick the venue and have limited (if any) liability over what happened in Istanbul, but despite that, the fans expected at least some form of public comment of support, as we do not have any clue whether you are looking into this and supporting us or simply dismissing us as ‘legacy fans’.
Therefore all that we are asking is – please will you comment on what happened to give us an indication if you are looking into it or simply ignoring it
This is not about compensation it is about feeling valued as a fanbase, Pep often asks us to contribute and provide more noise and support the team, can we see some back please?

Do not trust the media.
This would be spun negatively, picked up by other media outlets and used against us.
My view is that this idea of an open letter in the MEN should be dropped now.
There must be better channels.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Don’t work with them

 

[SanPellegrini]

The club gets enough negative media without its own fans publishing open letters in the local paper (which social media will latch onto).

I was in Istanbul too and whilst I had no such issues (I got the metro to and from the stadium and it was easy), I do appreciate that lots of fans of both clubs had issues which were primarily caused by poor Turkish infrastructure and poor UEFA planning. I do see the point in the idea and if enough others like it, I say go ahead - happy to defer to the thoughts of people actually affected by the matchday issues.

I agree that we should try to get the club to comment, but I think the better way is by “internal” lobbying via the OSC. The only advantage of publishing in print newspapers is the public aspect of it - ie let’s put pressure on the club by putting something the media will latch onto and use as a stick to beat the club with unless they listen to us. I think it’s a bit aggressive.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

It has to be paid for?

Fucking hell, the Dippers got wall-to-wall coverage for making it go wrong, we have to pay for UEFA fuck ups?

And in our very own paper.

Fuck ‘em, don’t give them a penny as they’ll only turn it against us.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

The club ARE gathering information from fans, and have a growing and comprehensive catalogue of 'evidence'.

It is established club policy NOT to comment on rumour and speculation etc until facts and evidence are confirmed and verified.

The club WILL respond and WILL hold UEFA to account and will do it all in a professional and rational manner.

Giving money to the MUEN should be out of the question, requesting that the club accelerates its enquiries/actions is perfectly valid !!

Who have Club officials interviewed to get their experiences from Istanbul? How have the Club communicated this evidence gathering? Has it been palmed on to City Matters?

I don’t agree with the adverts in the MUEN but it’s very difficult to hold UEFA to account without media interest.

I try to see things in a positive light but when you read about Blues falling out of wheelchairs and breaking bones, the appearance being given is that some club officials don’t care. I hope I am wrong.