PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Ric said:
We'll get an absolute deluge of articles on Feb 6th I imagine, as it'll be a year since the charges were made. The same old journalists will demand to know why we haven't had a resolution yet, even though they know full well why it's taking so long.
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So you're looking forward to Sky's coverage of the Brentford match the day before?!

Then TNT have the Everton match the weekend after, so each can have their shot.
 
halfcenturyup said:
It does seem as if he got some information from people at the club about "accelerating" what he calls "investment" but what I think was accelerating income to meet FFP when it started in the early 2010s (there was no point accelerating investment because that wouldn't have made any difference to FFP). There is nothing wrong with accelerating income as long as it is done properly, in fact the Board would have been negligent if they hadn't taken all allowable steps to meet FFP. Where he is going wrong is letting this misunderstanding consume him to the extent he can't see reality any more when it comes to City.

A bit sad, really. But still a **** who needs to reorganise his priorities in life.
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I’m not sure why you are predicating what you post on anyone with any meaningful decision making powers at City sharing the club’s corporate plans and strategy with a fucking loser like that, even back then when he was considered slightly less of a loser. It’s fucking laughable.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
I’m not sure why you are predicating what you post on anyone with any meaningful decision making powers at City sharing the club’s corporate plans and strategy with a fucking loser like that, even back then when he was considered slightly less of a loser. It’s fucking laughable.
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Fair enough. I was trying to be nice :)
 
halfcenturyup said:
It does seem as if he got some information from people at the club about "accelerating" what he calls "investment" but what I think was accelerating income to meet FFP when it started in the early 2010s (there was no point accelerating investment because that wouldn't have made any difference to FFP). There is nothing wrong with accelerating income as long as it is done properly, in fact the Board would have been negligent if they hadn't taken all allowable steps to meet FFP. Where he is going wrong is letting this misunderstanding consume him to the extent he can't see reality any more when it comes to City.

A bit sad, really. But still a **** who needs to reorganise his priorities in life.
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I know from my club contacts that the media strategy was to court certain journalists who the club thought were 'opinion formers'. Serious journalists who could write using a more sophisticated medium than a crayon. So probably people like (I'm guessing) Martin Samuel, Henry Winter, Martyn Ziegler, David Conn, Rory Smith, etc. I do know Nick Harris was one of that group. I talked to him and passed on stuff I knew, which the club seemingly had no issue with (I'd have certainly known if they had).

They shared information with them, the intention being that we'd get a more sympathetic and objective hearing in the media, rather than the shite spouted by the red-tops, which we knew we couldn't influence. But even that group of journalists are driven by clicks, and objective articles about City don't generate clicks. Oli Kay, who was at The Times, told me that so I've had it first hand.

But it's no secret that we accelerated investment in the squad before the FFP door was slammed shut in our face. Then, in 2012/13, facing FFP failure, we did as much as we could to bring forward income. We sold the image rights to Fordham, we called off sponsorship revenue early. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with what we did by the way. If Etihad contracted to paying £600m over 10 years, we may have drawn down £300m in the first 3 years, say. That's not uncommon either. I seem to recall united front-loading either their Team Viewer or kit deal, so they got a big payment up-front. Nothing wrong with that. The accelerated investment is all public knowledge - Khaldoon openly said it - so Harris claiming it as a secret he'd been told as part of some inner-circle is complete nonsense.

At some point though, Harris's attitude changed dramatically. I know his wife had a brain tumour (and she died sadly about a year ago), they had two young girls and his mental heath suffered quite badly. That's a terrible thing to happen in anyone's book. But even knowing all this, the club were very puzzled about his 180 degree turn. His hatred of us is seemingly pathological.

Delaney was the same to a large degree. Up to us winning the league at Brighton in 2019 he was OK. By the time we'd beaten Watford at Wembley, just one week later, he'd turned.
 
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Prestwich_Blue said:
I know from my club contacts that the media strategy was to court certain journalists who the club thought were 'opinion formers'. Serious journalists who could write using a more sophisticated medium than a crayon. So probably people like (I'm guessing) Martin Samuel, Henry Winter, Martyn Ziegler, David Conn, Rory Smith, etc. I do know Nick Harris was one of that group. I talked to him and passed on stuff I knew, which the club seemingly had no issue with (I'd have certainly known if they had).

They shared information with them, the intention being that we'd get a more sympathetic and objective hearing in the media, rather than the shite spouted by the red-tops, which we knew we couldn't influence. But even that group of journalists are driven by clicks, and objective articles about City don't generate clicks. Oli Kay, who was at The Times, told me that so I've had it first hand.

But it's no secret that we accelerated investment in the squad before the FFP door was slammed shut in our face. Then, in 2012/13, facing FFP failure, we did as much as we could to bring forward income. We sold the image rights to Fordham, we called off sponsorship revenue early. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with what we did by the way. If Etihad contracted to paying £600m over 10 years, we may have drawn down £300m in the first 3 years, say. That's not uncommon either. I seem to recall united front-loading either their Team Viewer or kit deal, so they got a big payment up-front. Nothing wrong with that. The accelerated investment is all public knowledge - Khaldoon openly said it - so Harris claiming it as a secret he'd been told as part of some inner-circle is complete nonsense.

At some point though, Harris's attitude changed dramatically. I know his wife had a brain tumour (and she died sadly about a year ago), they had two young girls and his mental heath suffered quite badly. That's a terrible thing to happen in anyone's book. But even knowing all this, the club were very puzzled about his 180 degree turn. His hatred of us is seemingly pathological.

Delaney was the same to a large degree. Up to us winning the league at Brighton in 2019 he was OK. By the time we'd beaten Watford at Wembley, just one week later, he'd turned.
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Maybe 'journalists' should have to fill in a 'other interests' declarations just as MPs have to, then at least, you'd see which way the conversation was being driven.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I know from my club contacts that the media strategy was to court certain journalists who the club thought were 'opinion formers'. Serious journalists who could write using a more sophisticated medium than a crayon. So probably people like (I'm guessing) Martin Samuel, Henry Winter, Martyn Ziegler, David Conn, Rory Smith, etc. I do know Nick Harris was one of that group. I talked to him and passed on stuff I knew, which the club seemingly had no issue with (I'd have certainly known if they had).

They shared information with them, the intention being that we'd get a more sympathetic and objective hearing in the media, rather than the shite spouted by the red-tops, which we knew we couldn't influence. But even that group of journalists are driven by clicks, and objective articles about City don't generate clicks. Oli Kay, who was at The Times, told me that so I've had it first hand.

But it's no secret that we accelerated investment in the squad before the FFP door was slammed shut in our face. Then, in 2012/13, facing FFP failure, we did as much as we could to bring forward income. We sold the image rights to Fordham, we called off sponsorship revenue early. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with what we did by the way. If Etihad contracted to paying £600m over 10 years, we may have drawn down £300m in the first 3 years, say. That's not uncommon either. I seem to recall united front-loading either their Team Viewer or kit deal, so they got a big payment up-front. Nothing wrong with that. The accelerated investment is all public knowledge - Khaldoon openly said it - so Harris claiming it as a secret he'd been told as part of some inner-circle is complete nonsense.

At some point though, Harris's attitude changed dramatically. I know his wife had a brain tumour (and she died sadly about a year ago), they had two young girls and his mental heath suffered quite badly. That's a terrible thing to happen in anyone's book. But even knowing all this, the club were very puzzled about his 180 degree turn. His hatred of us is seemingly pathological.

Delaney was the same to a large degree. Up to us winning the league at Brighton in 2019 he was OK. By the time we'd beaten Watford at Wembley, just one week later, he'd turned.
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Thanks for the info PB, whenever I refer to these pages I always scroll through to see if you have posted, always informative and real.
 
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