HahaJesus I’m an admin on a football rivals forum and the abuse I’m getting on there from Liverpool and a United is hilarious. I’m splashing them with facts and batting them away but they still come back with same s**t. I posted the CAS letter and then a scouser called me a Thick c***t and have the intelligence of a special needs kid ( bit harsh ) because it says we got fined and therefore guilty. I have firmly put him in his place explaining the fine and have had no come back since. The vitriol from them is a sight to behold
Probably been asked/answered a million times but when can we expect the full report?
Bit annoying that they couldn't just release Monday
If you can plough through the embittered united and Liverpool fans crying, this letter in the Football365 mailbox today is worth a read. Talented chap whoever wrote that...
https://www.football365.com/news/mailbox-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-man-united-moyes
The absolute States
As a City fan it has been both entertaining and illuminating to read some of the reaction to the CAS decision from supporters of other clubs – and certain sections of the media whose buffoonish incompetence, haughty hubris and self-destructive personal prejudice against the club and it’s supporters has been laid bare for all to see in brutal fashion (hello Delaney, MacKenna, Syed, Herbert, Corbett, Conn, Panja, Evans, Nakrani, Glendenning and pretty much any hack with the surname Harris).
Much of the reaction has been depressingly predictable. Blinded by tribalism and self-interest to even the most cursory reading of the factual decision of an independent judicial body, many are clinging vainly to the ‘time-barred’ element of the judgement as some sort of consolation prize – while choosing to ignore the fact that CAS also found that many of UEFA’s allegations- for that is all they were – simply were not supported by the evidence.
We all await the full detailed ruling with interest, which may hopefully shed some more light on the issues rather than the heat generated by hysterical smacked arses over the last 48 hours, but for CAS to come down so firmly in City’s favour would at least seem to suggest that the club refuted those of UEFA’s allegations which were not time-barred with some ease.
So it follows that there is nothing to say that those specific allegations which were not discussed at CAS by virtue of being time-barred could not also have been dismissed in similarly perfunctory fashion by City and their legal representatives.
If you’re hoping for a smoking gun to prove your “got off on a technicality” consolation tales, lads and lasses, then you may be disappointed.
Perhaps now the UK sports media, including the aforementioned rabble, might use this episode as an opportunity for reflection. To consider the fact that engaging in witch hunts and pile-ons against an individual club or fanbase (“sewer rats”, anyone?) does both themselves and their profession a disservice. That their journalism should be fair, honest, balanced and evidence-based, rather than churning out emotion-fuelled clickbait to appeal to rival supporters from the Meme/BANTZ generation.
They could perhaps start by asking who pressured UEFA into pursuing what City and its supporters knew all along was a doomed endeavour, a spiteful tilt at a windmill?
The old G14 may no longer formally exist but it is naive and disingenuous in the extreme to think that these old, long-standing political alliances between the entitled establishment clubs don’t exist and, indeed, continue to flourish today (see Agnelli’s shameful recent comments about Atalanta’s Champions League qualification at Roma’s expense as just one example).
Most Tory MPs and Peers have long ago left Eton and Oxbridge but does anyone honestly believe that the alliances and connections they forged at that time don’t influence their conduct and values in later life? Same thing.
The media could ask those rival Premier League clubs (aka ‘The Hateful Eight’) what on earth possessed them to write that ludicrous letter to UEFA demanding City’s immediate punishment despite the fact an independent due process had yet to run its course? Quite why the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley got involved with the red-shirted mob is beyond me. They are fully deserving of scorn.
Finally, the media could just stop being so credulous and gullible. They could apply the principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? Who had the most to gain from this grandstanding pursuit of an upstart rival?
Enter American-owned LFC, MUFC and Arsenal. There is an infamous photograph doing the rounds for a while now of their owners and senior officials all laughing along at a dinner table. It’s not a massive stretch to imagine that using the blunt instrument of FFP to fatally damage a rival might have been a subject for chit chat over the breadsticks.
With compliant mouthpieces in the press and broadcast media, extensive lobbying operations and even reports of murky connections to social media dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns, the redshirts and their owners have managed to convince a depressingly large constituency that while white American hedge fund money is good, brown Arab oil money is bad.
Persuading the gullible to “Look over there at what those nasty Arabs are up to” means nobody is looking too closely at their own values and conduct. Leveraged buyouts. Huge debt levels which they convinced UEFA to exclude from FFP. A cultural desire for sport as a closed shop – a cosy system where promotion and relegation on sporting merit is utterly alien and something to be resisted at all costs if it threatens the flow of money. You could even throw in the proven on-field cheating culture apparently condoned by other sports clubs in their broader organisations. Or perhaps the hacking of a rival club’s databases and the personal information contained within – criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act. Instead of disciplining those responsible, they get promoted instead. How does that work, la?
I would suggest that these factors mean US owners pose a great existential threat to football as we know it than any amount of upstarts from what their glorious Commander in Chief referred to as ‘shithole countries’.
It is a classic bait and switch and a great many people – journalists and rival fans alike – have been taken in completely. Completely conned like the doomed rubes who still think they can beat a street corner card sharp at Find the Lady.
There might be a sucker born every minute but there are literally thousands of them tweeting every second. And that just goes to prove that this cabal of septic Americans have done their job depressingly well.
- from Scooby D, Manchester
Agree with everything you said APART from your last paragraph.The UAE is a conservative monarchy who are now pursuing a knowledge based economy (see Hope mission to Mars). They are using their historic oil wealth to re-position themselves and want to exploit science, education and technology to become an advanced nation, and that inevitably pushes then closer to China and South Korea. The Hope mission is a partnership between US universities and UAE universities. The UK is becoming irrelevant and I don't think Arab states trust the diplomacy of the Western powers. Rulers like Saddam, Gadafi, Assad even the Ayatollah (installed by Western intelligence agencies to head off a radical revolution) are supported one minute and then dropped the next. The answer for these regimes is gradual independence from their historic sponsors.
I think liberal journalists dishonestly use the oil-state link to justify hostility towards Manchester City when their real interest is just to curry favour with Manchester United and Liverpool supporters.
No point picking fights with lesser clubs but their stance will not be forgotten. They’ve done the pre-match team talks for Pep already for the forseable future.No. Hateful eight includes 'minor clubs'. No point trying to pick them off. I would highlight the main movers behind it all.
If you can plough through the embittered united and Liverpool fans crying, this letter in the Football365 mailbox today is worth a read. Talented chap whoever wrote that...
https://www.football365.com/news/mailbox-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-man-united-moyes
The absolute States
As a City fan it has been both entertaining and illuminating to read some of the reaction to the CAS decision from supporters of other clubs – and certain sections of the media whose buffoonish incompetence, haughty hubris and self-destructive personal prejudice against the club and it’s supporters has been laid bare for all to see in brutal fashion (hello Delaney, MacKenna, Syed, Herbert, Corbett, Conn, Panja, Evans, Nakrani, Glendenning and pretty much any hack with the surname Harris).
Much of the reaction has been depressingly predictable. Blinded by tribalism and self-interest to even the most cursory reading of the factual decision of an independent judicial body, many are clinging vainly to the ‘time-barred’ element of the judgement as some sort of consolation prize – while choosing to ignore the fact that CAS also found that many of UEFA’s allegations- for that is all they were – simply were not supported by the evidence.
We all await the full detailed ruling with interest, which may hopefully shed some more light on the issues rather than the heat generated by hysterical smacked arses over the last 48 hours, but for CAS to come down so firmly in City’s favour would at least seem to suggest that the club refuted those of UEFA’s allegations which were not time-barred with some ease.
So it follows that there is nothing to say that those specific allegations which were not discussed at CAS by virtue of being time-barred could not also have been dismissed in similarly perfunctory fashion by City and their legal representatives.
If you’re hoping for a smoking gun to prove your “got off on a technicality” consolation tales, lads and lasses, then you may be disappointed.
Perhaps now the UK sports media, including the aforementioned rabble, might use this episode as an opportunity for reflection. To consider the fact that engaging in witch hunts and pile-ons against an individual club or fanbase (“sewer rats”, anyone?) does both themselves and their profession a disservice. That their journalism should be fair, honest, balanced and evidence-based, rather than churning out emotion-fuelled clickbait to appeal to rival supporters from the Meme/BANTZ generation.
They could perhaps start by asking who pressured UEFA into pursuing what City and its supporters knew all along was a doomed endeavour, a spiteful tilt at a windmill?
The old G14 may no longer formally exist but it is naive and disingenuous in the extreme to think that these old, long-standing political alliances between the entitled establishment clubs don’t exist and, indeed, continue to flourish today (see Agnelli’s shameful recent comments about Atalanta’s Champions League qualification at Roma’s expense as just one example).
Most Tory MPs and Peers have long ago left Eton and Oxbridge but does anyone honestly believe that the alliances and connections they forged at that time don’t influence their conduct and values in later life? Same thing.
The media could ask those rival Premier League clubs (aka ‘The Hateful Eight’) what on earth possessed them to write that ludicrous letter to UEFA demanding City’s immediate punishment despite the fact an independent due process had yet to run its course? Quite why the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley got involved with the red-shirted mob is beyond me. They are fully deserving of scorn.
Finally, the media could just stop being so credulous and gullible. They could apply the principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? Who had the most to gain from this grandstanding pursuit of an upstart rival?
Enter American-owned LFC, MUFC and Arsenal. There is an infamous photograph doing the rounds for a while now of their owners and senior officials all laughing along at a dinner table. It’s not a massive stretch to imagine that using the blunt instrument of FFP to fatally damage a rival might have been a subject for chit chat over the breadsticks.
With compliant mouthpieces in the press and broadcast media, extensive lobbying operations and even reports of murky connections to social media dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns, the redshirts and their owners have managed to convince a depressingly large constituency that while white American hedge fund money is good, brown Arab oil money is bad.
Persuading the gullible to “Look over there at what those nasty Arabs are up to” means nobody is looking too closely at their own values and conduct. Leveraged buyouts. Huge debt levels which they convinced UEFA to exclude from FFP. A cultural desire for sport as a closed shop – a cosy system where promotion and relegation on sporting merit is utterly alien and something to be resisted at all costs if it threatens the flow of money. You could even throw in the proven on-field cheating culture apparently condoned by other sports clubs in their broader organisations. Or perhaps the hacking of a rival club’s databases and the personal information contained within – criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act. Instead of disciplining those responsible, they get promoted instead. How does that work, la?
I would suggest that these factors mean US owners pose a great existential threat to football as we know it than any amount of upstarts from what their glorious Commander in Chief referred to as ‘shithole countries’.
It is a classic bait and switch and a great many people – journalists and rival fans alike – have been taken in completely. Completely conned like the doomed rubes who still think they can beat a street corner card sharp at Find the Lady.
There might be a sucker born every minute but there are literally thousands of them tweeting every second. And that just goes to prove that this cabal of septic Americans have done their job depressingly well.
- from Scooby D, Manchester
Death by a thousand cuts.I'd like to see us pick them off one-by-one, find their pressure points and just see them wilt away.
Won't happen, since the announcement i've had Villa, Birmingham, West Brom, Newcastle, Forest and Cetic fans all saying "City are still guilty as they were fined".Hopefully fans outside of the hateful 8 will read Martins piece and realise what is actually happening and spread the truth. Keep retweeting it Blues!
Won't happen, since the announcement i've had Villa, Birmingham, West Brom, Newcastle, Forest and Cetic fans all saying "City are still guilty as they were fined".
The media on the whole have gone with that line too.