So, the new Manchester United-supporting CEO started last month and almost immediately we have this news. I wonder if that's a coincidence? Or did United and Liverpool have a chance to vet her, as was alleged in the media with regard to at least one previous appointee? And, if so, did the City investigation feature in those discussions?
It seems clear to me that by making the number of allegations the PL has, which cover matters going back to Mancini's contract in 2009, there's a clear aim to throw as much as they can at us in the hope that some will stick. But they've argued that we've filed dishonest accounts for nearly a decade. That's an incendiary allegation and they can't expect MCFC to do anything other than fight it with all the force we can muster.
I don't have any experience of prosecutions of directors for false accounting, but I'm led to believe that it's not conceivable that City's directors would be prosecuted for that offence in these circumstances. Nonetheless, the allegations, if true, presuppose that those directors committed actions that are in some circumstances viewed as a serious criminal matter punishable by several years' imprisonment. I can't see Khaldoon, for instance, taking that lying down.
One key thing to point out, as we did ahead of CAS, is that the reporting of this case fails to acknowledge that it's possible to work within rules to circumvent them. Instead, it's seems enough for our friends in the press that we've probably been in breach of the "spirit of the rules". But this is a bullshit concept that counts for sweet fuck all in the real world.
If UEFA or the PL want their rules to ban some kinds of sponsorship, the onus is on them to draft legal provisions which expressly say so. Otherwise, we're entitled to find whatever workarounds the applicable text of the rules allows. (To be fair, The PL have changed rules down the years to try and close what they see as loopholes).
As a defendant, what you have a right to expect when matters as serious as this are in issue is that there'll be a full and thorough examination by the panel empowered to hear the case. That could take months, if not years. Yet I see that the media this morning are suggesting that clubs want a quick resolution, with a punishment in place that applies to this season. If so, those clubs prove that they couldn't give a toss about due process.
I'm bound to say that, IF we end up being proved guilty of having falsified our accounts over many years, then one would have to say that we'd deserve a punishment of unprecedented force. But that's an extremely difficult thing for the PL to prove. We deny the charges, I believe (from my admittedly biased viewpoint) and, under any concept of due process, we're entitled to have our case heard properly before that assessment is definitively handed down.
The reaction of opposing fans, the press briefings of rival club, and the media glee at what's happened tells you that no one in this constituencies is the slightest but interested in fairness. At the moment, I'm bullish and look forward to the club approaching its defence of its position in the most forceful terms. Let's see how things look when we've done so.
In the meantime, we need to create a real siege mentality. Sometimes when one urges this, people accuse you of being paranoid. Well, in this situation, we know they really are out to try, at all costs, to damage our club irretrievably. Let's all - fans, management, players, directors, other club officials - pull together and really fucking stick it to our detractors.
I like this post and it ends well with a rousing once more unto the breach.
As a feel good it's great.
But there'll be no City siege mentality, getting supporters to sing from the same hymn sheet is like herding cats, it isn't going to happen, we can't even get a proper singing section at the ground! So building a sky blue "all for one and one for all" across a worldwide fan base is a non-starter.
Besides, whatever the outcome, it's millions spent and years away and as we found at CAS, a not guilty verdict brings no redemption.
In the meantime we've been found guilty where it matters, in the court of public opinion, our "brand" badly damaged. Social media is awash with anti City shit, it's a cesspit of wilful ignorance and tribalism and there we're done, the verdict's in, our achievements worthless, our trophies stolen, nothing more than the ill gotten gains of a serial cheat.
Mainstream media is no better, the usual suspects are out in force and now football's Rees-Mogg has spoken.
If Manchester City are found guilty, league must make an example of them
HENRY WINTER
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...d?shareToken=84740393be83237ef772e307bb7372be
The comments section is a delight to behold, but no different to anywhere else.
Guilty, not guilty, that conclusion is years away. What we as fans have to understand is that the outcome, while significant, is not the issue. If we're found not guilty it'll bring no victory, because in many ways the verdict is merely a by-product of the process, the process is the punishment.
I repeat, the process is the punishment, like coppers bringing charges they know won't stand up, in order that the accused go through the interviews, the lawyers, the cost, the anxiety, the months, sometimes years with a cloud hanging over their heads and then, the case is dropped, there's no conviction, but mission accomplished nonetheless.
We're all in the process now, you, me, everyone associated with the club.
But don't kid yourself, existing City fans are immaterial in this, this is football power politics. To our competitors City fans are nothing, insignificant, any grief we suffer is a desirable but inconsequential by product of the process.
Stunting our worldwide fan growth and commercial revenue, getting us out of the top four and deterring others are the prizes here, and I would argue that much of that has already been achieved simply by charging us. There's a good chance the remaining goodies will be achieved irrespective of the final verdict.
If you take a step back and look at this objectively, away from the social media sea of ignorance and partisanship, two things clearly emerge. The mainstream football media know what's really going on, I'm not referring to the talking heads paid to spout shit, though I suspect quite a few of them know what's up, I'm talking about the likes of Henry Winter.
Winter knows this is a power play, he knows the shenanigans that go on in PL boardrooms, yet he feels compelled to write this crap, to tow the line, to give this football gangsterism legitimacy.
And secondly, our club is not well run. We do certain things well, but to paraphrase Oscar Wilde....To be charged once for cheating may be regarded a misfortune, to be charged twice looks like carelessness. What the fuck has Soriano been doing? Buying clubs in the middle of fucking nowhere when he should've been building alliances at home against the Yanky backstabbers.
No one has sprung to our defence, no one of note! How shit must we be to have pissed on everyone's chips!
