PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[J.G.Blue.]

Just another day in the life of being a city fan, thank god its never boring.

 

[Ederson1000YardDrive]

It adds fire to the flames of the general poor refereeing we have to put up with. They have a clear agenda against us all the way down to the refs and pumping up the media.

The irony of it is that we have attracted the best players to the league and probably enhanced the value of the league the process. They should be thanking the club and the owners for what they have done.

Not to mention the investment in the local community.

The way football is regulated is almost anti-business sense, anti-evolution, anti-entrepreneurial.

I just can't get my head around the way they operate. And clearly there has to be more clubs in the league that have broken the same rules. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[come-on-barney]

It's been coming, deep down we all knew that.

Relegation to the Conference would be brilliant, loads of top away days and great fun as we climb through the divisions. The half and half scarf brigade will be off pastures anew and we can win the FA Trophy, FA Cup and League Cup. We will lose some players of course, but the academy is quality and I will still be there every week, because we are City till we die

40,000 fans in the conference, that would show them all who has the plastic fans!

 

[Dazzle84]

So apparently City, our external auditors, Silver Lake and the Chinese government are all in on a conspiracy to pay Bobby Manc a few backhanders?

They just want to get us. That's it. And I think this time they'll be made to look stupid

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Does it make sense for the PL to destroy City as a club? That's doubtful, for City are an important part of the history of the PL, attract big names and make the league stronger. If they strip us of the titles, they strip the PL of iconic moments like Aguero's goal and iconic title races. The PL would lose more from the worst case scenario than win.

But it makes sense for the PL to weaken City seriously and make the league more competitive. Therefore, the most likely outcome won't be expulsion from the league but heavy sanctions which will seriously harm our buisiness for 3-4 years or so: points deduction, no CL, transfer ban, etc.

Try to understand what makes sense with regard to the image of the PL and you can understand better what's likely to happen.

Now, one can argue that it makes sense for the top 6 that City are relegated and stripped of the titles, especially for Liverpool and United. That's correct. But they are not the PL, plus they also care ultimately about the good image of the PL. What makes sense wrt the image of the PL does not (necessarily) coincide with the private interests of the red clubs.

Personally, I expect heavy sanctions for the club, but no relegation and no stripping of titles.

I would suggest the fact that we are where we are, already puts the Premier League beyond the point of no return on that score. You don’t levy 100 serious charges against a club and not even have the courtesy to contact them before publishing said charges in the press, unless your relationship with that club is pretty broken. They would have known full well what the City hating media’s reaction would be, and that a compromise settlement or leniency would be very difficult as a result, without being slaughtered by the same ’red’ lap dogs.
The PL doesn’t give a shit about City or whether crucifying us would be to damage their own product in the process, or at least if it does, they may have other priorities. As an organisation they’ve always operated under the threat of United and Liverpool leaving them, and I don’t doubt that threat is being leveraged against them now. This is total war. If we lose, get used to the idea of being thoroughly fucked. The Court of Public Opinion will demand relegations and stripped titles. We have no friends out there. None. Forget about talk of Khaldoon whispering in Downing Street ears. How would it look for the government to have had a backstage word with the PL? How would it look, on top of everything else, if even a whisper got out of our trying to influence proceedings?
I know feck all about finance (although the Fordham thing worries even a journeyman like me), but I just hope we’ve got all our ducks in a row, cos this is their (and by ‘their’, I mean the American owner backed tail wagging the PL dog) last chance to destroy us, which is what they want. Fines, points deductions, punishments we can ride out for a year or two and then bounce back from, are of no use to them. In the words of John Kreese in the Karate Kid, they want us “out of commission permanently”.
On a separate note - and my apologies if they’ve already addressed the matter elsewhere - I’d be interested in whether @projectriver or @Prestwich_Blue think we’d be better off grasping the nettle and getting the hearing out of the way quickly, or frustrating the process for years (leaving to one side the fact that the complex nature of what’s involved, might point to a long, drawn out affair in the Courts anyway)? Just thinking practically, in the immediate short term, of how we would attract new players to the club, if we have the possibility of having any titles we might win subsequently removed, hanging over our heads. It surely can’t be in our interests to have the stink of this wafting around us in the long term, albeit that the reputational damage is already effectively done, can it? Whatever, fingers crossed that we’re going to get a fair trial and not one of the Speckled Jim variety!

 

[pride in battle]

Can't someone in the south stand bring a bedsheet with FUCK THE PREMIER LEAGUE on it, the fans need to get across what a fucking witchhunt this is, it's a fucking disgrace. .

 

[M18CTID]

They are, in effect, claiming City deceived the PL, their auditors and multiple other bodies and filed fake accounts and fake financial forecasts. For at least 9 years. That's the extraordinary allegation.

It's extraordinary alright. Unless we've got some proper dodgy cunts running our club who are unbelievably stupid to boot, I can't see how we could be guilty of such criminal behaviour. And surely if we were guilty of all that, it would've been picked up long before now by either the PL or UEFA. Even UEFA didn't accuse us of anything remotely approaching that.

Now I will add that I'm not saying we definitely, 100%, aren't guilty of that but I just find it staggeringly difficult to think a club as professionally run as ours would do such a thing. BUT.....if we have then I for one will be seriously pissed off as the club have always insisted there was no wrongdoing and us fans have been fighting the club's corner for years off the back of that.

 

[cheekybids]

What gets me with all this is we have charges against us in a time when Sheikhandour was allowed to do what he liked with his money. Once the regulations come in then yeah its fair game but if its going to be this intense why not go back to when the human rights advocate Thaksin took us over. Also am I supposed to believe not a criminal in at all Abramovich did everything correctly, that Gillete and Hocks weren't a pair of shysters. The Cardiff and Hull owners who took the piss out of there own fans. Why does it only include us, fucking chancers amd criminals running the PL

How did Gillette & Hicks get cheated by FSG? Has that been
Investigated?

 

[skillman]

What is the likelyhood that should (when) we prove that the charges are unfounded and not true, that we sue the PL for damages (and whatever else applies)

Surely this current situation has the potential to take the PL otganisation down in flames

If our club has the evidence to prove no wrongdoing then i want us to go after the PL and whoever else was involved - no stone unturned, none of this passive victory shite

If the PL fails then it’s the nail in the coffin for an independent regulator. They’ve done a double-whammy of panicking and folding under pressure from certain clubs to charge us.

To be told be us that they’d charged us incorrectly is equally hilarious as it is amateurish. A good start for us.

 

[Revolver]

I am not saying I have the answer. But I find the clubs response so far as public relations is concerned to be wholly inadequate.

We have a cartel witch-hunt backed by a compliant lackey press trying to destroy our club. There is no question of fairness and absolutely no consideration to how it effects our fan base. We may joke about it but this could be lethal.

And in response we get a dry statement as though we are dealing with a parking fine.

It may be that our owners background dictates that a measured response. But that won’t stop bullies. It just leaves us isolated. Until the City heirarchy or high profile ex players publicy call out the latent rascism, the vested interest of clubs and journalists it will always be open season on City.

The teams in red with no spotlight on them must be loving this.

After all it may be too late once a kangaroo court reaches its decision.