PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[petrusha]

I’m not stirring or indeed making much of a point, but just an interesting conversation last night with someone who works high up for one of our local rivals (not high, high but fairly high) who is interested in this.

He does not support the team he works for and is an intelligent, articulate guy.

We’ve spoken previously but this time was the first time we have had a real chat on it.

Firstly, I was struck by how much they believe we are guilty, he felt that it is widely considered City enhanced our revenues to comply with FFP. He listened to my argument around the damage reputation and the theory the process is the punishment and acknowledged there are 2 sides.

We pretty much agreed that we hear different things from both sides and in reality City being in a growth stage and needing to maximise revenue, whilst planning to be self sufficient long term where happy to invest in the short term.

He acknowledged Man City are considered very professional and probably took the best advise possible on how to spend the most, whilst keeping compliant. A conversation that now dominates most Board rooms in the PL as all clubs have this problem.

He knew about information and the detail, which I find to be rare. Spoke about the £8 million Etihad deal and agreed that it would be a lot below market value and would be a strange deal to do, not one he would expect our owners to do. He felt that it would be a friendly agreement where we back date sponsorship value to help us pass. Which he felt was not in the spirit of how sponsorship worked (likened it to a successful business man, sponsoring his Son’s grassroots team and getting a bill at the end of the season for whatever they have incurred). Felt it was not commercial reality. I kind of got him onboard with the fact FFP, football has always been short term, but these guys are long term and by supporting the team to grow the value comes in later years etc. He acknowledged that the Etihad deal has proved worthwhile and we agreed to disagree who paid, although acknowledged if Etihad paid then there should be no issue.

The Esislat deal I know less about, despite my time on here and the image rights is also a bit confusing, so I was not comfortable enough talking about that. We did touch on Mancini (he considered it a work around but not as clear). However, seemed to agree those contracts happen in the Middle East.

It was interesting I felt how there is such certainty around guilt, whereas a sensible conversation tended to find the middle ground that probably points to City not being charged.

It was also felt that clubs where getting very frustrated with Chelsea, so expect some pressure on them especially if they start to perform.

This is a few pages back now given that this thread marches on at a furious pace, but I saw it last night and thought it was interesting. It reflects various comments in the media, such as the recent piece by Adam Crafton in The Athletic quoting various sources from rival clubs, suggesting that City are widely seen as guilty throughout football.

However, IMO this is based on a flawed leap of logic. As the above states, the person whose view the poster is quoting believes that "it is widely considered City enhanced our revenues to comply with FFP". I don't have a problem with this opinion. Every club does so. It's precisely the type of behaviour that FFP encourages. However, I do think that the reasoning is deficient.

The assumption among our detractors seems to be that we couldn't have achieved what we've managed to achieve without breaking the rules. IMO, it's entirely feasible that we could. They imposed financial rules that they took wholesale from international finance, accounting and legal practice, so of course people can find workarounds that have been use in the real world.

I assume this is what the poster means when he states that "a sensible conversation tended to find the middle ground that probably points to City not being charged". That it's not widely understood shows how damaging the utterly hysterical media coverage of the whole affair has been.

 

[mancboy]

This is a few pages back now given that this thread marches on at a furious pace, but I saw it last night and thought it was interesting. It reflects various comments in the media, such as the recent piece by Adam Crafton in The Athletic quoting various sources from rival clubs, suggesting that City are widely seen as guilty throughout football.

However, IMO this is based on a flawed leap of logic. As the above states, the person whose view the poster is quoting believes that "it is widely considered City enhanced our revenues to comply with FFP". I don't have a problem with this opinion. Every club does so. It's precisely the type of behaviour that FFP encourages. However, I think that there's a flawed leap of logic.

The assumption among our detractors seems to be that we couldn't have achieved what we've managed to achieve without breaking the rules. IMO, that's entirely feasible. They imposed financial rules that they took wholesale from international finance, accounting and legal practice, so of course people can find workarounds that have been use in the real world.

I assume this is what the poster means when he states that "a sensible conversation tended to find the middle ground that probably points to City not being charged". That it's not widely understood shows how damaging the utterly hysterical media coverage of the whole affair has been.

I have said this all along, the ongoing narrative since the sheikh took over has been three things, the first one was the sheikh will get bored and go away and when that didnt happen it was the narrative that they only win because they spend loads of money and then when they spent loads of money and we carried on winning then it went to it must be that they have cheated.

They cant wrap their heads round the idea that any club with better ideas, more qualified people and more vision can come along and not only emulate what they have done but surpass it so we must be cheating, for them we have to be cheating because if we have done what we have done without cheating it blows the idea that they are special out of the water, it shows that their legacy and their history means exactly nothing, it proves that ANY club can do what they have done with the right people and to their fans and their whole belief system that would be devastating because they really do believe that they are special and for CITY and specifically LICKLE CITY as they have always mocked us with to show that they aint special and that they are just another washed up company trading on when they used to be good is too much for their feeble minds to take so we had to be cheating right?

Wrong and the quicker they get used to the idea that the red tops aint special the less painful this will be for them but you know what i dont want them to get used to the idea i want them to cling that belief till we destroy every last bit of it.

 

[Norman kneejerk]

I have said this all along, the ongoing narrative since the sheikh took over has been three things, the first one was the sheikh will get bored and go away and when that didnt happen it was the narrative that they only win because they spend loads of money and then when they spent loads of money and we carried on winning then it went to it must be that they have cheated.

They cant wrap their heads round the idea that any club with better ideas, more qualified people and more vision can come along and not only emulate what they have done but surpass it so we must be cheating, for them we have to be cheating because if we have done what we have done without cheating it blows the idea that they are special out of the water, it shows that their legacy and their history means exactly nothing, it proves that ANY club can do what they have done with the right people and to their fans and their whole belief system that would be devastating because they really do believe that they are special and for CITY and specifically LICKLE CITY as they have always mocked us with to show that they aint special and that they are just another washed up company trading on when they used to be good is too much for their feeble minds to take so we had to be cheating right?

Wrong and the quicker they get used to the idea that the red tops aint special the less painful this will be for them but you know what i dont want them to get used to the idea i want them to cling that belief till we destroy every last bit of it.

You're on fire there, marvellous stuff

 

[Milesvk]

I have said this all along, the ongoing narrative since the sheikh took over has been three things, the first one was the sheikh will get bored and go away and when that didnt happen it was the narrative that they only win because they spend loads of money and then when they spent loads of money and we carried on winning then it went to it must be that they have cheated.

They cant wrap their heads round the idea that any club with better ideas, more qualified people and more vision can come along and not only emulate what they have done but surpass it so we must be cheating, for them we have to be cheating because if we have done what we have done without cheating it blows the idea that they are special out of the water, it shows that their legacy and their history means exactly nothing, it proves that ANY club can do what they have done with the right people and to their fans and their whole belief system that would be devastating because they really do believe that they are special and for CITY and specifically LICKLE CITY as they have always mocked us with to show that they aint special and that they are just another washed up company trading on when they used to be good is too much for their feeble minds to take so we had to be cheating right?

Wrong and the quicker they get used to the idea that the red tops aint special the less painful this will be for them but you know what i dont want them to get used to the idea i want them to cling that belief till we destroy every last bit of it.

Only cheating to their made rules. If the FFP rules did not exist it means we did it the united way and spend lots of money to assemble a good squad to go on an win leagues.

 

[Eebo]

I have said this all along, the ongoing narrative since the sheikh took over has been three things, the first one was the sheikh will get bored and go away and when that didnt happen it was the narrative that they only win because they spend loads of money and then when they spent loads of money and we carried on winning then it went to it must be that they have cheated.

They cant wrap their heads round the idea that any club with better ideas, more qualified people and more vision can come along and not only emulate what they have done but surpass it so we must be cheating, for them we have to be cheating because if we have done what we have done without cheating it blows the idea that they are special out of the water, it shows that their legacy and their history means exactly nothing, it proves that ANY club can do what they have done with the right people and to their fans and their whole belief system that would be devastating because they really do believe that they are special and for CITY and specifically LICKLE CITY as they have always mocked us with to show that they aint special and that they are just another washed up company trading on when they used to be good is too much for their feeble minds to take so we had to be cheating right?

Wrong and the quicker they get used to the idea that the red tops aint special the less painful this will be for them but you know what i dont want them to get used to the idea i want them to cling that belief till we destroy every last bit of it.

I can understand fans with no idea of how business works not believing that we could ever have done it fairly. However you would think anyone with a modicum of business expertise would know that many established and hugely successful businesses have lost market leadership through being bloated with success and complacent or not taking the threat posed by a new competitor seriously and not reacting to improve themselves.

City under the Sheikh should be a textbook case study in business/marketing/leadership.

 

[cheekybids]

I have said this all along, the ongoing narrative since the sheikh took over has been three things, the first one was the sheikh will get bored and go away and when that didnt happen it was the narrative that they only win because they spend loads of money and then when they spent loads of money and we carried on winning then it went to it must be that they have cheated.

They cant wrap their heads round the idea that any club with better ideas, more qualified people and more vision can come along and not only emulate what they have done but surpass it so we must be cheating, for them we have to be cheating because if we have done what we have done without cheating it blows the idea that they are special out of the water, it shows that their legacy and their history means exactly nothing, it proves that ANY club can do what they have done with the right people and to their fans and their whole belief system that would be devastating because they really do believe that they are special and for CITY and specifically LICKLE CITY as they have always mocked us with to show that they aint special and that they are just another washed up company trading on when they used to be good is too much for their feeble minds to take so we had to be cheating right?

Wrong and the quicker they get used to the idea that the red tops aint special the less painful this will be for them but you know what i dont want them to get used to the idea i want them to cling that belief till we destroy every last bit of it.

If they hadn’t brought in FFP the Rags & Dippers would have been history by now. Instead we’ve done them slowly…..

 

[mancboy]

I can understand fans with no idea of how business works not believing that we could ever have done it fairly. However you would think anyone with a modicum of business expertise would know that many established and hugely successful businesses have lost market leadership through being bloated with success and complacent or not taking the threat posed by a new competitor seriously and not reacting to improve themselves.

City under the Sheikh should be a textbook case study in business/marketing/leadership.

The press and rival fans are an absolute textbook study in confirmation bias, they believe what they need to believe in order to sustain their belief system.

 

[mancboy]

Only cheating to their made rules. If the FFP rules did not exist it means we did it the united way and spend lots of money to assemble a good squad to go on an win leagues.

thats not the rag way, arsenal did it in the 1920s and plenty of other clubs have done it since including city but the pl has never seen the wealth that chelski and then city brought and thats when the red tops decided it had to be stopped so the status quo could be kept. The red tops are endemic of the way this country is run , the riff raff as they believe we are can get a win every now and again just to maintain the illusion that any team can win and keep the great unwashed happy but if any team get to big for their boots or delusions of grandeur the history clubs will do everything in their power to stop it and put us back in what they see as our place, unfortunately we as city fans have never really known our place and as usual stuck two fingers square in the establishments face and said fuck you.

 

[dario2739]

This is a few pages back now given that this thread marches on at a furious pace, but I saw it last night and thought it was interesting. It reflects various comments in the media, such as the recent piece by Adam Crafton in The Athletic quoting various sources from rival clubs, suggesting that City are widely seen as guilty throughout football.

However, IMO this is based on a flawed leap of logic. As the above states, the person whose view the poster is quoting believes that "it is widely considered City enhanced our revenues to comply with FFP". I don't have a problem with this opinion. Every club does so. It's precisely the type of behaviour that FFP encourages. However, I do think that the reasoning is deficient.

The assumption among our detractors seems to be that we couldn't have achieved what we've managed to achieve without breaking the rules. IMO, it's entirely feasible that we could. They imposed financial rules that they took wholesale from international finance, accounting and legal practice, so of course people can find workarounds that have been use in the real world.

I assume this is what the poster means when he states that "a sensible conversation tended to find the middle ground that probably points to City not being charged". That it's not widely understood shows how damaging the utterly hysterical media coverage of the whole affair has been.

The line I found interesting was "he felt that it is widely considered City enhanced our revenues" – Widely considered? Why is it? Reading between the lines there i'd say that the red cartel have been in the ear of other teams telling them what they want them to believe.

 

[mscenterh750]

You’ll just have to roll with it…

That’s what some might say.