PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[halfcenturyup]

The 40 million is surely way too high. 40 million for missing a US Tour ? What was the next highest ? Should there not be some explanation in some accounts or submissions ? Have other clubs missed a trick ?

It wasn't just for missing a US tour iirc. It was also for bad debts from existing sponsors, loss of income due to inability to fulfill sponsorship obligations and loss of broadcast income.

Not disputing it's a lot. Not even disputing other clubs could maybe have claimed more had they needed it. Not claiming this doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

But there is a procedure for checking it which I presume the PL followed. If any clubs think they didn't, they could raise it, I suppose. But, afaik, they didn't.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Yet another heavily biased piece, equating City’s struggles to invest in order to compete, with Organised Russian State-doping of athletes. (Interestingly he seems elevate the importance of the non-cooperation charges above the more substantive ones - are they beginning realise the false accounting stuff will fail I wonder ?).
I agree with his main thrust though, which is either totally exonerate or find against City - no fudges or compromises. Maybe that’s why he’s talking up the more subjective issue around cooperation.

The premise is bollocks. There is no reason why the judgment should be vindicated or damned. That's a nonsense.

It's entirely possible the most serious charges won't be proven (and by that I mean the ones that effectively imply a fraudulent conspiracy) but some minor ones may be. I am struggling to think of any apart from non-cooperation but you get my drift.

And no-one is getting "damned" for non-cooperation. Not in the real world anyway.

Edit: Now I think about it, his Everton analogy is also bollocks. Unless I misremember (and I am sure I will be shot down quickly if I do), Everton weren't given a six point sanction for breaching FFP and being less than honest with their submissions. The were sanctioned for the FFP breach and the sanction was increased for a number of aggravating factors, being less than honest being one of them. If there was no breach of FFP, there would be no aggravating factor.

It's interesting that the Guardian can already only get mileage out of this by having two writers disagreeing with each other. How will they keep it up for another six months? :)

 

[M18CTID]

Well, it finally happened to me today.

After playing football on a Sunday as normal the conversation switch to the Arsenal game this afternoon, just the usual good natured banter about who would win and so on, The one Rag threw in the "doesnt matter anyway once you cheating cunts get thrown out of the league" Now we have all heard this before but this time is was said with some venom and not at all meant as banter. There were a few comments back and forth and others suddenly jumped in as well. Within a minute I was facing a full on rant from 3 people with genuine anger aimed towards me. Now these are lads that I have known for years, not close mates but friends none the less. It was very close to coming to blows at one point and it was a very uncomfortable experience for me.

It does make me fear for what will happen should be be cleared of these breaches, there are a lot of very angry people out there who aren't going to be happy should it go in our favour.

Different ways to approach this:

1) Go on the attack and tell the cunts they haven’t got a fucking clue what they’re talking about (which no doubt they haven’t).

2) Politely say to them “Why are you wasting your time worrying about City? I’m not worried so I’m not sure why you should be. If anything, I’d be worrying about your own club when we’re finally cleared.” Then calmly walk away as they attempt to process what you’ve told them.

3) Just windmill the fucking lot of them.

 

[Bluewonder]

Another day, another shit Guardian article. This time by Sean Ingle. He looks as thick as pigshit in his profile pic and his writing confirms it.

There can be no Goldilocks punishment – Manchester City should either be vindicated or damned | Sean Ingle

The seriousness of the club’s 115 charges by the Premier League leaves no room for a result that lets everyone live with outcome

www.theguardian.com

If it's shit, why have you shared it?

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

If it's shit, why have you shared it?

Oh, sorry to have upset you somehow.

It was a misguided attempt to demonstrate a contrived and ridiculous argument against the club but I absolutely won't do it again.

 

[Asa's left peg]

Can we trade some of the descions that weren't given, yesterday for 3/4 charges. Maybe get it down 112 or lower ?

 

[Revolver]

Another day, another shit Guardian article. This time by Sean Ingle. He looks as thick as pigshit in his profile pic and his writing confirms it.

There can be no Goldilocks punishment – Manchester City should either be vindicated or damned | Sean Ingle

The seriousness of the club’s 115 charges by the Premier League leaves no room for a result that lets everyone live with outcome

www.theguardian.com

The Guardian could really save money by simply typing and saving the sentence “Hurry up and find them guilty”

They could then issue this under the name of a different“journalist” each day on rotation.

 

[Cobwebcat]

Oh, sorry to have upset you somehow.

It was a misguided attempt to demonstrate a contrived and ridiculous argument against the club but I absolutely won't do it again.

He’s probably referring to the fact that there are dozens of these every day and some posters come on the thread to get a bit of balance only to be confronted with the same articles they are tired of.

Don’t take it personally though many people continue to click on them and share them. It’s just that it is those clicks that spawn more of them.

 

[slbsn]

Yes Levy is Jewish and so is Joe Lewis the "de facto" owner of the Enic group and Tottenham. His (Lewis) family are named as owners but that is probably because Joe Lewis was convicted by a US court of multiple counts of insider trading yet got off with probation and a $5million dollar fine. So much for them for being the fine upstanding clubs they are purportedly to be. Yet the PL see Lewis as a "fit and proper" owner and see our club as deceitful, conniving, cheating bastards. Yet the real conniving, deceitful and cheating bastards are owning Tottenham.

On the other hand City and their owners have worked with the late Sir Howard Bernstein, who was Jewish, to regenerate the area surrounding the Etihad from a socially and economically deprived area of the City to a thriving residential and business area bringing much needed jobs and money to the area. No anti-semitic attitudes from our owners, just them working together in partnership. But nothing is mentioned about that in the main stream media. That is conveniently forgotten and the narrative is that we're fraudulent cheating bastards who need to be destroyed "for the good of the game".

So yes there maybe a anti-arabian agenda being played by the PL and certain clubs but that will be difficult to prove. But there is a foul smell of it being the case.

Foul smell of racism in this nonsense. The religion of Levy, Bernstein and Bernstein is 100% irrelevant to this complete nonsense conspiracy theory.

 

[oakiecokie]

Utd's UEFA FFP? Fined after UEFA disallowed the 40 million COVID costs. Not UEFA's fault it was ignored by the press.

Utd's PL FFP? 40 million COVID costs would have been reviewed at a high level. I think the costs have to be audited. Nothing really to see here unless you believe in conspiracy.

Utd's share costs? Same as above, would have been reviewed at a high level and audited presumably. They shouldn't have been included in the club's accounts anyway, but I can't see any rule for allowing them as deductible costs. Bit weird.

Liverpool hacking? Settled between the parties.

Liverpool 50 mill Stanley Park costs? Again, would have been reviewed at high level and probably audited. Seems way too high, though. Also a bit weird.

Chelsea off-books payments? Being investigated. It takes the PL a while, bless them.

Chelsea asset sales? No rule against it in the PL so accepted, but will be disallowed by UEFA. But stupid of the PL. Surprise, not.

Strange player sales at year end? Will be reviewed for arm's length under the threshold payment rules but not sure the PL has the strength for more conflict. Threatened with "good faith" rule, but Leicester ruling may scupper that. Anyway, we will see when the accounts for 2023/24 are reviewed by the PL.

Did I miss anything?

Yes we ran out of chips. Offence number 114.