Man city (not) banned from Champions league for 2 years [Mod note see first post]

UrbanFret

I see the point your making and there's some merit in it but people talking about not being a "big club" smacks of arrogance.
Newcastle, Leeds, etc all big clubs. Success in Europe shouldn't be the barometer especially as the poster seems to be an Arsenal fan .

PhilipsR

How is Newcastle a big club or is that purely on attendance? 65 years since they won a meaningful trophy.

gimli2112

I think it's fair to describe Newcastle, Leeds and Man City as big clubs. When City were languishing in the lower ends of the football league they were bringing in more fans than some PL teams

UrbanFret

PhilipsR wrote: »

How is Newcastle a big club or is that purely on attendance? 65 years since they won a meaningful trophy.

Well supported, well known, their famous old ground at least it used to be known by all. It ain't all about winning. It's Well I remember just hoping for City to make 40 points and avoid defeat in the Derby. Plenty of years they didn't. Still the crowds came. Maine road was a famous old ground Manys the cup semi final there. Still think semis should be held outside Wembley. Its of course understandable that success in Europe raises a clubs profile. Pre Cruyff I'm not sure Barca would have been as well known outside Spain as real. Bayern pre the early seventies ditto.

j8wk2feszrnpao

gimli2112 wrote: »

I think it's fair to describe Newcastle, Leeds and Man City as big clubs. When City were languishing in the lower ends of the football league they were bringing in more fans than some PL teams

I would agree they are big clubs in an English context. But on the European/World stage, only City (and only in recent years) could be mentioned as a big club, and that's down to the money they have than their pedigree in terms of history (largely based on European success). I'm 42years old, so each of teams were top flight for most of my time watching football, so they'll always be those teams to me.

Sunderland are bringing in a large home attendance in League One, are they a big club? Maybe you could make that argument for England, but not on a wider scale. When people say 'one of the big clubs' it probably depends on the context.

ozzy jr

If you have to try and convince people you're a big club, then you're not a big club.

(That's a general observation, not aimed at any club in particular).

eagle eye

I remember around 2000 when Newcastle were in top 10 biggest clubs in the world.

Nijmegen

They went from "perennial yo-yo team that once put a keeper on as a forward for a laugh" to "top tier record breaking side" without much in the middle other than oodles of cash from a wealthy backer who visited the stadium the one time and had a massive cake done up when they won the league seemingly by someone who'd ever only seen a grainy photo of the team logo. Withdraw that cash (or, the cash linked in some way shape or form to the owner in totally legit deals) and they'd sink beneath the waves tomorrow in a stadium that's too big for them today.

Sure maybe if they're successful long enough it will take on a life of its own. If the Sheikh went away tomorrow however and his businesses weren't as keen to spend quite so much with them they'd look like a person in a suit that's just a few sizes too big.

I guess that's what bugs a lot of folks about Man City. Take Utd... In the PL era they won a lot and the commercial revenues followed through clever deal making to make the most of the gloss of the success. There was a natural progression to it and they won so much for so long that even many of the global "plastic fans" as they're derided have stuck with them through the thinner times. Tho a proxy for this can be looking at shirt sales, where Utd has fallen in recent times to 3rd and in 2019 their sales were down 5% on the previous year.

Remaining in the likes of the CL and winning trophies such that they slowly but surely win lifelong fans is essential to them, but there's no doubt that in an already money-mad footballing world City has just taken the biscuit for zero to hero in a linear cash injected route. And there's big whiffs about the way they did it and continue to do it, they're the Hillary Clinton of football - always being investigated over something!

MD1990

City proposed two of the three judges - in the end, the verdict was 2-1 against Uefa

But this defense is also shaky. As early as 2011, an Etihad manager wrote that a large part of the airline sponsorship would be paid by a third party - which was a key allegation of the process. In this case, the government agency in Abu Dhabi, the Executive Affairs Authority (EAA), is said to have taken over part of the sponsorship amount. It would be further evidence of the club's closeness to the governance of the authoritarian regime. The EAA chairman and thus the strong man of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, is also the head of Manchester City.

The Abu Dhabi authority did not respond to a request for the Etihad email. A city spokesman described a SPIEGEL questionnaire on the new findings as a "cynical attempt" to "undermine and process an orderly and completed Cas procedure" in public. It was the club's position not to comment on documents that were presumably obtained criminally and cited without context.

The Cas documents also show that City proposed two of the three judges in the proceedings and that Uefa accepted both personal details. In the end, the verdict was 2-1 against Uefa.

This also included that the Cas interpreted the statute of limitations in the rules differently than the Uefa association's own lawyers. If the latter had had more than just the documents published by SPIEGEL and EIC available as evidence, it could also have submitted further City documents from 2015 and 2016, within the limitation period.

Uefa was "obviously not satisfied with the outcome of the Cas process," a spokesman told SPIEGEL and the French portal Mediapart. However, the sports court has at least confirmed her in several controversial issues. The Cas confirmed that City had not cooperated with the Uefa investigators, contrary to public protest. The behavior of the club "shows that it has something to hide," complained the Uefa judicial chamber.

The association lawyers are unlikely to be comforted by the fine of ten million euros. You have "invested a lot of money, time and energy," said the UEFA spokesman. The English club may have paid significantly more for its legal armada

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/cas-urteil-zu-manchester-city-interne-mails-stellen-zeugenaussagen-in-frage-a-9ce67020-5f9e-4c3b-b307-cc855f04c0c7


Would not surprise me that CAS were paid off

Joe Exotic

MD1990 wrote: »

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/cas-urteil-zu-manchester-city-interne-mails-stellen-zeugenaussagen-in-frage-a-9ce67020-5f9e-4c3b-b307-cc855f04c0c7


Would not surprise me that CAS were paid off

would not suprise me if UEFA were paid off to bring the trumped up charges in the first place.

See anyone can make unfounded allegations which mean nothing

MD1990

Joe Exotic wrote: »

would not suprise me if UEFA were paid off to bring the trumped up charges in the first place.

See anyone can make unfounded allegations which mean nothing

You do realise Man City admitted breaching FFP back in 2014 after a case from Uefa
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/16/manchester-city-fine-transfer-cap-uefa-ffp

y0ssar1an22

City proposed two of the three judges

what does that mean?

MD1990

y0ssar1an22 wrote: »

City proposed two of the three judges

what does that mean?

It means suggested or put forward to CAS.


It is very dodgy & looks like CAS are dodgy as well & why City were so confident.

gimli2112

it's quite common for parties in a dispute to nominate an arbitrator/mediator or whatever. These are then either accepted or rejected by the other side. It's not fair to be bringing their appointment into question after the fact but it is Man City, so have at it.

MD1990

gimli2112 wrote: »

it's quite common for parties in a dispute to nominate an arbitrator/mediator or whatever. These are then either accepted or rejected by the other side. It's not fair to be bringing their appointment into question after the fact but it is Man City, so have at it.

Its perfectly fair to have impartial judges. Only CAS should be suggesting who the judges considering they are the one's overseeing the case.

Of course Man City come in to question they have previously admitted to breaching FFP. It is on the Owners CV along with the their disgraceful human rights practices.

You have said before you respect City & think they are a good group.
Open your eyes & stop being so naive.

They players sang about Liverpool fans getting battered in the street.

They have a superb team but a disgraceful ownership & have little class all round really.

gimli2112

no what I have said is I like Pep, I've also said I like Sterling but I have never said I like City.

I've also never excused their ****housery last year, if anything I've been very vocal the other way.

Honestly I'm not defending them here but the fact is there's nothing wrong with parties nominating a judge in a civil dispute

Nijmegen

Yeah, the new leaked emails basically show they lied and lied some more. All time barred and so on now so...

https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1288865904307183617?s=20

Joe Exotic

MD1990 wrote: »

You do realise Man City admitted breaching FFP back in 2014 after a case from Uefa
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/16/manchester-city-fine-transfer-cap-uefa-ffp

Yawn
Did you even read the argument city never accepted the finding but accepted the fine.
City have argued that, despite combined losses of over £150m during the two seasons under consideration (2011-12 and 2012-13), they deserved to pass Uefa's financial test. They said that there had been "a fundamental disagreement" about how the regulations regarding players bought before June 2010 should be interpreted.

And when you consider how inept UEFA have been during the latest farce you would have to think they had a fair possibility of being right.

8-10

Nijmegen wrote: »

Yeah, the new leaked emails basically show they lied and lied some more. All time barred and so on now so...

https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1288865904307183617?s=20

That's a weird arrangement there.


City board member says MCFC is owed £99m by Ethiad "of which you will provide £8m" said to Ethiad CEO

And then mentions transferring £91m to Ethiad....to make up the remainder?


What's going on here? This doesn't smell right

Shanotheslayer

Has there been a City fan around that has said they are guilty? Or dis like the owners?

8-10

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

Has there been a City fan around that has said they are guilty? Or dis like the owners?

This is what I find bizarre to be honest. As was said by a City fan on this thread they "back the club end off. Always have and always will."

I get supporting your team but I don't get why that extends to defending the owners and board in this matter against conflicting evidence.

It really sounds like their fans take this same "back the club end of" mentality as if it's a slight on the club to not defend it as it's somehow relating to rivalry or something - I see them defend these board level issues as I see fans of other clubs defend an accusation of diving to win a penalty.

Maybe it's because I'm used to the regular bashing of the likes of Hicks & Gilette, FSG, Glazers, Kroenke, Ashley etc from fans of those same clubs that I'm so surprised at the staunch support of the owners from City fans.

I haven't seen anyone who isn't a City fan suggest that everything in this matter is completely above board and nothing unusual is going on. No, it's "we're a big club so a company spending the most sponsorship money on any club in history makes sense and there's no way it could be propped up by club ownership that has ties to the same sponsor"

Joe Exotic

Nijmegen wrote: »

Yeah, the new leaked emails basically show they lied and lied some more. All time barred and so on now so...

https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1288865904307183617?s=20

Funnily enough the the next sentance says (section 221)
"Mr Pearce did not strike the panel as an unreliable witness, and indeed upholding UEFA's allegations would nessacarily require a finding that Mr Pearce's testimony was false. the Panel does not find such as conclusion to be warranted in the abscence of evidence being presented by UEFA that Mr Pearce represnted ADUG"

Also unteresting section 225

Bascially says that at the time when that email 1 was sent, what was being alleged happened would have been perfectly legal - so why would they hide it ?

ozzy jr

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I totally agree - but it will concentrate the power.

I;d be all for bringing in a salary cap - let them spend as much as they want on players, but if they can only offer so much in wages it makes it harder to simply bankroll everything and the player might choose a less likely club if his wages are going to be the same.

Didn't they pay Mancini a second wage through some company in Abu Dhabi? A salary cap would be easy to circumnavigate.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

ozzy jr wrote: »

Didn't they pay Mancini a second wage through some company in Abu Dhabi? A salary cap would be easy to circumnavigate.

Well, any rule can be cicumnavigated if the will is there.

Where UEFA ****ed up is in not clarifying the rules and penalties in the first place.

Liam O

Muahahaha wrote: »

I read an interesting article a few weeks back that was saying the strategy of Middle East owners is to use their bottomless pit of oil money to send traditional big clubs broke by inflating the transfer market way beyond any kind of affordability. It said the Neymar transfer was part of that strategy, PSGs owners knew it was way off kilter but it served a purpose of inflating the entire transfer market (Coutinho for £140m anyone?). Its an interesting theory and given that Barca are now broke it certainly seems to have borne fruit.

City's plan appears to be to almost monopolise football worldwide. Have a team in every region that is basically a feeder to the Manchester franchise as such. Means they can circumvent certain restrictions with ease.