PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Gone for a Burton]

I'm not exaggerating ! My local Tesco is becoming a no go area when I'm in my City gear. This year two plastic rags, one dipper and one spud.

I might just be imagining I'm getting dirty looks but it does feel like I'm getting the eye more, as if they are waiting for me to say something. I just smile :) perhaps I'm abit paranoid !!! Who said that

Stop wearing hot pants and put your tits back in !!

 

[Gone for a Burton]

I've seen with my own eyes as we've gone from being a laughing stock, everyone's favourite 2nd team kind of setup to an absolute powerhouse. I've seen us expand and develop our stadium. I have seen us build a world class training facility, invest goodness knows how much in the local community. I've seen our academy produce talent that is progressing smoothly, not just in to our own first team but with other clubs too. I've seen us appoint the best coach in world football and I've seen us transform the way the game is played in this country. And I've seen our mighty blues become THE dominant team in the league for the last 10 years or so, spending less in the process than our unfortunate neighbours.

Do I think that the people who have delivered all this (and more) would be stupid enough to commit fraud on the scale that is being alleged ? - Absolutely not.

Do I think we've pushed things as far as we can in terms of the rules/sailed a bit close to the wind ? - I bloody hope so.

Do I trust the PL process to give us a fair hearing ? - I could be wrong but right now, no I fucking don't.

Up the Blues.

I now hope we've bent every rule completely out of shape .....but broken none of them !!

 

[DD]

Guess what? City aren't beyond criticism you know. Oh, and what's your excuse for the club not publically backing the fans and acknowledging all the shit that went down in Istanbul instead of throwing City Matters under a bus?

You're entitled to your opinion of course but I'll point out that you sound every bit as much a miserable fooker as you were 20 fucking years ago when you used to post on Talkin' City.

Oh, and a message to everyone else - please don't confuse DD with @Didsbury Dave That's happened in the past which has resulted in the latter getting unnecessary pelters!

I don't even remember 'Talkin' City. :-)

There's nothing miserable about my post, old scout. I'm the one who is sticking up for our club. Trying to be positive about what the club is doing.

This is what our enemies want. Blues to attack their own club. It's Manna from Heaven to them.

Of course the club is not beyond criticism and I too think they could have said more about the Istanbul issues, but this is different. When you get into a legal battle of the likes that we are in, you take the advice of your legal team before issuing statements.

If you believe that our club's legal team are making a complete arse of how they respond to the likes of Ceferin in public, then I'm assuming that you won't have much confidence in them defending us against the PL charges, because you seem to have no confidence in their approach.

Manchester City are now governed in their responses to this situation by their solicitors. This is not the time to go issuing statements without their consent.

 

[Moss Side's Finest]

As an 1894 member (who did not write the post), I want to respond to this (especially concerning UEFA). I actually think you have raised some good points and would even say I agree in parts! However.....

I think you're unaware of the feelings amongst our fanbase currently. I don't need to go into the countless examples where UEFA have wronged City and, most importantly, our fans. But Istanbul strikes a real nerve.

In the days leading to the final, I received a call from an executive at City, who had been involved in a meeting with Ceferin earlier. He asked if we (1894) would 'tell' fans not to boo the anthem before the final. Ceferin had personally asked for it, and City, wanting to cosy up with UEFA, were supportive. Our response was that fans would do whatever they felt and that 1894 couldn't (and wouldn't) tell other fans what to do. We had already planned to try to make the atmosphere as positive as possible, and we pushed that (e.g., Nevizade Street the night before, which anyone who attended will tell you was a huge success). Fans still drowned out the Anthem as we expected.

If you were lucky enough to go to Istanbul, you don't need me to explain how much of a fuck up it was from a logistical point. I can't stress this enough... Some City fans were seriously injured due to the lack of planning and foresight on UEFA's part.

Going back to the build-up, I was involved in meetings with FansEurope AND UEFA execs as early as January 2021, where we discussed logistics and fan safety. It was a huge concern prior to that final being moved, just as it was a huge concern during the same meetings I was involved with in 2023.

UEFA knew how ridiculous it was to host a final at the Attaturk stadium but proceeded regardless. In these meetings, a FansEurope member (who is also a Liverpool fan) explained some of the issues they'd faced in 2005. UEFA promised these things wouldn't happen again. Most of these examples were not properly addressed.

Fans Europe had their conference in Manchester last summer, which we attended. We'd actually had a meeting organised with Ceferin to discuss what had happened in Istanbul. He cancelled at the last minute - more important things to do!

Alex and some of the other City Matters reps produced an astounding report about Istanbul. I'd urge anyone who hasn't already read it to do so. There are some horror stories. City and UEFA (who had read the report) refused to publicly apologise to fans. City is putting their ambivalent relationship with UEFA ahead of 'legacy fans'.

Given the lengths City has gone to with us fans to support UEFA, Ceferin's comments are a betrayal.

You say, 'What Ceferin said is hardly news', but in reality, it's huge news. It's made all the major papers and it's all over social media. It's either a huge misstep on his part (which he could publicly clear up and hasn't) or defamation. If anyone is trying to prejudice our case it's him! Maybe he is trying to help his friends out at Old Trafford and Anfield?

Why are City so spineless and placid with all this? You say it's a dignified silence, which isn't necessarily a bad approach, but the club constantly takes a different approach with us fans. There are numerous examples where the club calls fans out publicly, yet refuses to defend us publicly. It's a contradiction.

You say 'banning dissenters' is the wrong thing to do. However, we are not a despotic regime. We are a Football Club. It was something United felt they should do with the BBC under Ferguson. It's something Liverpool have done with The Sun. So why shouldn't we do it? Let's face it. Our image will ALWAYS be smeared because of these journalists and the fans of our bitter rivals so let's stop giving those journalists a free hit at us. Our reputation is being damaged, which could lead to a prejudiced trial -meaning it either gets thrown out and we are not afforded the opportunity to clear our club's great name, or worse, the trial goes ahead despite being prejudiced. How is that fair?

As for 'other fans wanting to see' City fans having a go at the club. Who cares? There are absolutely tons of negative things City does to us fans. We have a right to call it out. Sometimes we'll get it wrong and other times we'll get it right. Unfortunately, there isn't an organised Supporter's Trust who can do this. Just a bunch of us who are volunteering hours and hours of our free time to give City fans a voice.

I guess in conclusion, the anger internally in 1894 is that City are doing everything to support a person (Ceferin) behind the scenes, despite this person publicly slinging mud. It doesn't wash!

Ever heard the phrase 'keep your enemies close'? It's especially important in business. In the long term it will undoubtedly benefit the club by trying to not let the UEFA relationship completely disintegrate. Love them or loath them, they are our main governing body, the path of least resistance is to try and at least keep the relationship cordial, because they have the ability to causes us considerable long term pain (as we have experienced)

 

[abu13]

The Uefa none co-operation bit still pisses me off, it is constantly used in the media as a tool to suggest that we "got away with it" by not co-operating. In fact we were fined £10million for doing so that proves our guilt.

The reality is we were fined £30 million but is was reduced down to £10 million as CAS agreed with large chunks of our reasons for not co-operating such as leaks etc..

In any legal case the lawyers will always advise only to supply the bare minimum of information required to an accusser. So we were always getting something coming our way just as we will with the PL.

 

[Bald fraud]

They want to destroy us. Damage us so much that we never come back! Then what will they do? Copy our business model. That rat going over to the rags tells you everything you need to know!

 

[Manchester33]

Ever heard the phrase 'keep your enemies close'? It's especially important in business. In the long term it will undoubtedly benefit the club by trying to not let the UEFA relationship completely disintegrate. Love them or loath them, they are our main governing body, the path of least resistance is to try and at least keep the relationship cordial.

Which is fair. Yet it jeopardises City's relationship with its own fans, IMO.

As fans, I think we have a right to create a stink about that. There are people being paid vast sums of money to spin both these plates and keep us happy.

 

[Cobwebcat]

Would be nice for somebody at the club to pull a finger out and start making some public comments about the shitstorm that’s getting worse every day from the media and now even from UEFA.

Ceferin’s comments are a disgrace and cannot be ignored by City. But then we said fuck all after the shambolic fallout from Istanbul so no doubt we will say nothing.

It’s embarrassing that it’s left to Rob Draper at the Mail on Sunday ( who hates City ) to say far more in support of blues in Turkey than anybody running at City has.

The board are too busy this week patting themselves on the back in Abu Dhabi to realise we are being attacked from everywhere on a daily basis.

Sorry but that’s the last thing we need. City know what needs to be done and quite rightly do not get distracted from winning. It’s not what City say that matters it’s what they do.

Our guys are well above public arguments and so they should be.

You must realise that our rivals are dying for City to comment so that the noise is escalated.

Say nothing, give them nothing, keep winning.

 

[John Wayne]

Ever heard the phrase 'keep your enemies close'? It's especially important in business. In the long term it will undoubtedly benefit the club by trying to not let the UEFA relationship completely disintegrate. Love them or loath them, they are our main governing body, the path of least resistance is to try and at least keep the relationship cordial, because they have the ability to causes us considerable long term pain (as we have experienced)

You can be sure as well that if Khaldoon takes any issue with what Ceferin has said then he will deal with it quietly and discretely. We do not want a highly-publicised spat with Ceferin. I do not see how this best serves the interest of the club.

 

[SSL2]

a good thread. just reiterates what a c*nt that cerefin rat really is: