The Super League | FA + PL: New Charter & Fines | UEFA: Settlement

[TheThirdDeano]

This is a poker game. For fuck's sake less of the hysteria.

But that’s the only way some of us know how to communicate

 

[berniethebusman]

Lee, Bell, Summerbee? I really dont see your point he made no mention of erasing history.

Ahhh yes. No aguero, no kdb, no Kompany, no Fernandinho. No 93:20

Your right idyllic

 

[goalmole]

Sounds idyllic to me.

I think you mean idealistic.
And idyllic.

 

[Newman Noggs]

Agreed. There has to be an end-game that involves a compromise with UEFA that the "Dirty Dozen" had in mind from the beginning.

To continue the poker analogy, we're considering our cards against one side who have a strong hand but are absolutely desperate to win the pot. Indeed, they're in such shit they need to win it and that makes for poor judgement. They've played their hand and gone all in.

On the other hand, you have another set of hustlers who have been high rollers but now look set to be excluded from the game if they don't win. They've got a decent hand too and have gone all in.

Bayern and PSG have folded.

City and Chelsea hold the decisive hands here and could stitch up one or the other. The one we stitch up depends on which is offering us the best long-term prospects for the club. My bet is there's a whole lot of negotiation going on in the drinks break.

What we should never do is show our hand.until we have to. The statement on our website from Ģlazer served two purposes. It showed who is really behind this and did the required minimum to keep us in the game. So far, we have kept our poker face which is exactly as it should be.

It will be a fascinating few days but all this "our owners are cunts", "I'll never trust them again", "I'm ashamed of our club" etc, etc without knowing exactly how this will pan out and our club's true role in it all smacks of adolescent tantrum throwing to me.

 

[Bandofblues]

Let me get this right...

I’ll start with some facts.

Turnover 18/19
United $764M
City $655M
Liverpool $649M
Spurs $559M
Chelsea $550M
Arsenal $478M
West Ham $235M (7th)
Huddersfield $148M (last)

CL places awarded since PL inception 29 years ago = 96

Leicester (once)
Newcastle (3 times, once knocked out in preliminary round)
Everton (once, knocked out in preliminary round)
Leeds (twice)
Blackburn (once)

So the team placed 6th in turnover (Arsenal) have over twice the turnover of the team placed 7th (West Ham).

FFP is already here and stops clubs using external investment to compete with the big 6.

The CL places have gone to the same 6 teams 92% of the time (over 29 years) and the chances of that growing are high due to FFP. Only Leicester have got in (once) over the last ten years (or since FFP).

Now the same 6 teams want to play in the CL every year, if UEFA just gave the PL another 2 CL places nothing would be said, the outcome is the same.

People now want our major shareholder to leave and chairman sacked?

On top of this the corrupt leeches called UEFA lose a big chunk of money they siphon out of the game (the same corrupt organisation who tried to ban us from the competition and who we boo every game).

Their is a new governing body to be set up, and potential refereeing reforms I for one am desperate to see.

To win the current CL before changes you play 13 games to win it, ESL you’ll play 23. Means the league cup probably gets sacked off (probably good for smaller clubs).

People want to boycott City over this?!? What.The.Fuck.

tldr nothing has really changed other than the PL gets another 2 new CL places and people are losing their shit.

Is that it in a nutshell?

No.

It's about sporting principles.
It's about NOT having a closed shop that irrevocably perpetuates the elite few regardless of sporting merit.
It's about giving all clubs the chance at the dream.

If this had come in ten years ago then City wouldn't have been one of the invited few, how would you have felt about it then?

 

[burning blue soul]

This is a poker game. For fuck's sake less of the hysteria.

I'll see your Hysteria, and go all in with Frenzy and Panic!!

 

[Bluekiwi]

To add to the tidal wave of opinion...

City have absolutely ridden the wave to the upper echelon of European football under the auspices of a Middle Eastern investment fund run, for all intents and purposes, by the rulers of Abu Dhabi.

That said, at almost every turn, they have conducted themselves above reprpoach, with the fans and the Community at the centre of their plans.

Yesterday, that stopped.

At the European level, ESL is a flagrant desire, by what can only be considered the richest clubs in football, to close the door on ANY other club EVER becoming what we have become.

We felt hard done to as UEFA and the ECA sought to exclude us, up to and including our exclusion from their premier tournament. This is that...but to almost every other club in Europe.

At the domestic level, we have literally said we are better, regardless of competitive merit, than 14 other clubs in the current Premier League...or ever in the Premier League. The irony is watching Leeds, a team with far more European history than us not only beat us and take 4 of 6 points, but hold Liverpool to a draw TODAY to keep them out of the Top 6, and barely in the Top 6 TODAY!!!

As Neville said, like United, City are a club built upon the humble and modest beginnings of a church providing a place for working men to go. We have gone through many iterations of the club, most of which have been playing second fiddle to the well run clubs in England. With the move to the COMS, we started a new era, but the foundation of the club..local fans...remained, even though success on the pitch was still out of our grasp.

After a succession of owners seemingly unprepared or incapable of waking the sleeping giant, along came Sheikh Mansour and a cheque book that was open for business. Other clubs had done this before, albeit quieter and behind the scenes, but City were being “in your face“ and unwilling to apologize for splashing the cash to catch up to the Sky Four, thus they became an easy mark for the ethnic slurs and outright racist sentiments associated with our ownership.

Meanwhile, the fans continued to pay their hard earned money (more and more of it every year) to see their club play. The ownership continued to invest in the club. Results followed and it ruffled feathers, both domestically and, more importantly, within UEFA.

Ten years later, after much handwringing and a few legal cases, City were exonerated for their investments (ironic, especially against the backdrop of massive debt loads of other “traditional” European giants) and the on field success led to City being seen as one of the new giants in European football, having finally (and without fear of reprisal) followed their nose into the tent, and become an integral part of the Champions League.

City fans, though, have always sat ill at ease with UEFA and the CL, because of our treatment and the realization that it was being run by our sporting foes in a manner designed to harm our competitiveness...both on the field and off it.

We boo the UEFA anthem, we despise their hypocrisy in denigrating a debt free, cash rich club, while propping up the old, traditional European football powers who haven’t seen success in years.

In recent years, UEFA has continued to tinker with the Champions League in an attempt to assist those old, traditional powers...who just happen to sit on the Executive Board of the organization...in their attempts to restore their clubs to past glories all at the expense of new, vibrant, upcoming clubs such as Dortmund, the Red Bull teams, Atalanta, and the likes of City and even Leicester.

While all of this is going on in the Staff Room, no-one seems to have thought about the kids on the playground, who are the entire reason for there being staff needed at all!

From here, it remains to be seen how these two behemoths of European football are going to both clash and, thereafter, settle out. Currently, it feels like it is a seismic shift in football, but I don’t see it that way.

We have seen “SUPER leagues” developed in other sports, but how that translates to such a foundational, culturally significant sport as football in England remains to be seen.

To be quite honest, I think an ESL could be a success, IF it is tweaked, but that seems unlikely at present. Unless they are completely tone deaf, they will understand that it needs to be based on domestic success EVERY SEASON, not some current and forever notion of being the “big clubs” in their country and in a perfect world, would include the top X number of teams from each top footballing country, with a mix of top teams from other countries and....oh wait...that’s the Champions League!?!

To me, there are big egos and big names aligned on the different sides of what is going to become gladiatorial fight. There is clearly PLENTY OF MONEY TO GO AROUND, but it also appears clear that the top clubs in Europe believe UEFA is siphoning off “their” money, while trying to expand the number of clubs at the trough, which is diluting the competition and also flogging the players unnecessarily.

There is an obvious solution, at least to me, and that is a two-tier CL competition, separated by the Christmas Break. Phase I would be the free for all UEFA seems to want, where more clubs are included, with Phase II being the stage where the big clubs...dare I say ACTUAL Champions and the top #2 teams...enter the fray with the top 4/6/8 teams from Phase I.

Easy peasy, which means there’s no chance it comes to pass! Maybe they could put the Champions AND Champions from prior season into Phase II if you’re looking for some legacy slant to it? Doubtful when you see SIX team from England, THREE from Spain and Italy, and who knows who the other THREE might be?

Whatever they ultimately decide to do, it MUST RESPECT THE FANS, and to this point, both the new CL format AND the ESL fail that acid test!

You have no right to suggest a SENSIBLE compromise for UEFA' s tournament

 

[foxbox123]

A club will bottle this and pull out. I don't believe Perez one bit about clubs not being able to withdraw now.

These owners may be shits in doing this but I can't believe they're so fucking dumb as to not have a way out.

 

[M18CTID]

I suppose the beacon of hope is that when the initial reports came out, City weren't one of the clubs listed to have greenlit this. It was only later on that it emerged City were involved. That would suggest at least that the decision to join was likely a very late one compared to the others.

I'm not justifying it, but it's the most concrete backup to the idea we have that City weren't keen and felt pressured into it. That would give hope to the idea that City would be the first to look for a way out if at all possible, especially now given the backlash.

This is my hope too. Not defending the club on this at all but if we (and Chelsea if rumours are to be believed) were told that it was now or never and the place would be offered to someone else instead then I can see how it came about. Also, haven’t we only signed a letter of intent so surely we can back out of this utter shit show? Maybe the club thought it was best to keep their options open and a foot in both camps.

It was still a staggeringly stupid decision though and they’ve misread the room spectacularly. But there is still time to back out of it. I’m guessing that despite Mansour being the owner, he’s ultimately not the one who signed off on it although he will have been aware of it. He needs to get on the blower and stick a rocket up the fucking arse of whoever did. Could be Khaldoon but my money is on that dickhead Soriano.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

To continue the poker analogy, we're considering our cards against one side who have a strong hand but are absolutely desperate to win the pot. Indeed, they're in such shit they need to win it and that makes for poor judgement. They've played their hand and gone all in.

On the other hand, you have another set of hustlers who have been high rollers but now look set to be excluded from the game if they don't win. They've got a decent hand too and have gone all in.

Bayern and PSG have folded.

City and Chelsea hold the decisive hands here and could stitch up one or the other. The one we stitch up depends on which is offering us the best long-term prospects for the club. My bet is there's a whole lot of negotiation going on in the drinks break.

What we should never do is show our hand.until we have to. The statement on our website from Ģlazer served two purposes. It showed who is really behind this and did the required minimum to keep us in the game. So far, we have kept our poker face which is exactly as it should be.

It will be a fascinating few days but all this "our owners are cunts", "I'll never trust them again", "I'm ashamed of our club" etc, etc without knowing exactly how this will pan out and our club's true role in it all smacks of adolescent tantrum throwing to me.

The poker analogy doesn't work as well for me just because two groups have gone all in -- we don't actually know what their cards are yet, nor do you know what our cards are. The flop was a bad card for everyone -- widespread outrage from all corners of the globe. We haven't seen the turn nor the river and don't know who's won yet.

I do agree that we've kept our poker face better, and that the motivations are pretty clear for those groups who are all in. What I don't know is OUR motivation. All I know is we are in the game. While I agree that those calling our owners cunts or saying trust is forever broken are overreacting with limited information, with that same information I absolutely feel shame -- shame because we are playing this game in the first place (even if we had to). I'm just hoping we aren't the sucker at the table.