I am a sad bastard, but I have also written to Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC.
Good afternoon,
today I have lost faith in the BBCs impartiality. Interestingly, there is no person named with the article.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgrjv9ydv31o
This article was posted
today and either needs editing properly for accuracy or deleting altogether.
First issue is this section...
What do the 115 Man City charges mean?
Effectively that Manchester City cheated.
In UK law people and organisations are innocent until proven guilty. This section of the article is misleading and inaccurate.
The next concern is this section of the report
When will Man City be punished?
Man City have not been found guilty so this heading is loaded and biased.
Equally, why isn't there a paragraph that asks the question - will Man City be found guilty or cleared of the charges?
The next issue relates to misinformation regarding the CAS tribunal where Man City were cleared of any financial wrong doing. Yes, some allegations under consideration were time barred, but the CAS tribunal said very clearly in their report that Man City were not guilty of disguised equity funding. Additionally, Man City were fined by the CAS tribunal for non-cooperation - this is a fact. They were not fined 'largely for non-compliance' with the rules and instead they were only fined for non co-operation.
The statements used in this report are loaded and present an inaccurate description of what happened. I wonder if the writer of the article has actually read the CAS report. In the CAS report it says 11 times that there was no evidence of wrong doing by Man City in regard to allegations of financial impropriety.
My next issue relates to the section headed - why is the case taking so long? There is no mention in this section that the Premier League opened the case in 2019, I think the day after UEFA opened the case against Man City. Why is it not asked in article why the Premier League took more or less 4 years to charge Man City?
In the timescale at the end of the report there is no mention as to when the Premier League started their investigation into Man City in 2019. Why is this not mentioned?
My next issue is why is there not a section later on called "Will Man City be cleared?" with some reference to the CAS tribunal finidings as a guide.
I could go into more detail, but I suspect you will not even see this email and pass it on to the complaint handling team.
I think the least that should be done now is for the article to be withdrawn for rigorous editing and fact checking or a new article is written following proper research having been done into the CAS findings.
The BBC have lowered their standards
today with poor quality journalism and they have shown a lack of rigour and impartiality. This needs to be put right please. Thanks in advance.
Best Regards