Simple Question: Do you trust our owner?

[Stiff Little Wingers]

No I don't trust them. They are clearly in it in the interests of marketing Abu Dhabi to the world. I've been happy to take the positives that they have brought to the club (and those memories can't be taken away) but I always feared that there would come a point when they would show their hand and act in a way that is demonstrably against the wishes of the majority of fans.

I agree with comments on various threads about FC United style response to this being the wrong option. Why support a wannabee club when we can support and build up an existing team with City connections: Maine Road FC. If this goes ahead that's where I will be going after lockdown. Couldn't stomach sitting in the Etihad and watching another showing of 'The City is Ours' video because clearly it isn't any more.

All the characters on here who are exonerating City's owners for deciding to shit on the rest of football need to reflect on what being a City fan means (at least to me). It means experiencing real football: losing as well as winning; relegation as well as lifting trophies. It means Barnsley or Halifax away not Barcelona or Madrid every fecking month with kick off times to suit a Chinese or Indian or US TV audience. I tell you what guys, if this happens anticipate movement of 'franchises' in 5 or 10 years time. Why have two teams in Manchester? That does not make sense to a US marketing man. Let's move one of these Manchester teams to somewhere to 'grow the fan base'. How about moving City to Vienna or Amsterdam or Dublin or Copenhagen?

I really can't believe there are so many people on here who are trying to imagine that the owners are doing this for some currently hidden really good reason that they will eventually reveal to us. This is about greed and the draining of every ounce of money that can be had out of this sport.

I know what you mean but the City that I knew of winning and losing, glory and pain has been gone for a decade. With the investment and management if things carried on as they are we would be sitting pretty for at least a generation in the top 4 or 5. So that old City is pretty much gone and its obviously thanks to business. We've accepted it because we have loved the football and the glory......I know I have. And I and many more have accepted it with barely a backward glance.
We've also tolerated and now broadly accepted the CL even though we know what it really stands for. We know its corrupt but bloody hell how could you not live that fantastic response from the team in Dortmund.
Now though this is the straw that has broken the camel's back. We have got into bed with the devil because a closed shop by design cannot be right and just the very fact that something designed to make obscene amounts of money to a select few that no one else can break into cannot be right.
We were never naive enough to think that Sheikh Mansour bought City because he had always been a fan but the management need to explain themselves fast because trust and goodwill is fast diminishing.

 

[mainestand]

Yes 100%

 

[jaiguruKun]

I cannot quite get my head around the fact the people who run the club have done this without any attempt to get the manager, players and fans on board first. It's reckless in the extreme from a business point of view which is very unlike them as they've barely put a foot wrong previously (apart from arguably the FFP bullshit which was down to poor cybersecurity).