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

citytillidie

gstack166 wrote: »

Don’t think they had a choice in that. I think it was agreed by a majority that voted for it, City weren’t one of them obviously,

Remember Khaldoon saying years ago in one of his end-of-season interviews that he didn't agree with UEFA's version of progress (FFP) and City's way would be more viable and more successful.

Says to me that City never agreed to FFP, suspecting a majority vote got FFP through.

Who made up the rules?

Who changed the rules? (To ensnare City initially)

Who changed the rules again to suit mainly the Italian league?

Is there a bias connecting the G 14 on the FFP committee that was responsible for the rule changes?

And what curious goings on involving Juve sponsor Fiat and Bayern's Audi & Adidas deals who all have a take in the clubs. This I think is City’s grievance and why they refused a plea deal that would of seen them not banned just fined for admitting guilt.

Maybe if City showed the right books like PSG they would have just been fined

gstack166

citytillidie wrote: »

Maybe if City showed the right books like PSG they would have just been fined

Or maybe if their chairman was on UEFAS executive board like PSG’s they would of escaped it too.

citytillidie

gstack166 wrote: »

Or maybe if their chairman was on UEFAS executive board like PSG’s they would of escaped it too.

PSG were fined after being cooperative, Man City were fined, claimed to be cooperate and then were found to be lying about how cooperative they were and are now being punished for that.

LineOfBeauty

citytillidie wrote: »

PSG were fined after being cooperative where as Man City were fined, claimed to be cooperate and then were found to be lying about how cooperative they were and are now being punished for that.

One club integrated themselves into the corridors of power of European football and the other club remained outsiders. That's basically what's happened.

citytillidie

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

One club integrated themselves into the corridors of power of European football and the other club remained outsiders. That's basically what's happened.

If City had not provided false books then they would not be in this situation no matter who or what is in power, they care competing in UEFA comps so have to follow UEFA rules to compete in those comps

LineOfBeauty

citytillidie wrote: »

If City had not provided false books then they would not be in this situation no matter who or what is in power, they care competing in UEFA comps so have to follow UEFA rules to compete in those comps

If City had people in powerful positions in Uefa maybe they would also not face as harsh a punishment.

LuckyLloyd

https://theathletic.com/1610797/2020/02/18/manchester-city-mancity-uefa-champions-league-ban/?source=shared-article

For those of ye with an Athletic subscription this is an essential read. City are going to have a hard time arguing away the charges of non co - operation. City’s owners might have the money to ultimately try and sideline UEFA in totality and set up a super league or something to achieve “victory”.

City fans should have a long hard think about whether they want to be just another pawn in a high stakes game over how much power and international influence a corrupt regime can wield in the world. It’s not going to be worth it in the long term.

citytillidie

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

If City had people in powerful positions in Uefa maybe they would also not face as harsh a punishment.

Cities own fault for providing false books, I dunno why you can not see that.

Provide the correct information at the time and this would have died with the previous fine.

gstack166

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

https://theathletic.com/1610797/2020/02/18/manchester-city-mancity-uefa-champions-league-ban/?source=shared-article

For those of ye with an Athletic subscription this is an essential read. City are going to have a hard time arguing away the charges of non co - operation. City’s owners might have the money to ultimately try and sideline UEFA in totality and set up a super league or something to achieve “victory”.

City fans should have a long hard think about whether they want to be just another pawn in a high stakes game over how much power and international influence a corrupt regime can wield in the world. It’s not going to be worth it in the long term.

City Football Group owns or has stakes in 7 football clubs. Yet it seems it lives rent-free in the head of supporters of an 8th. Lol.

If I don’t like something, like Liver & Onions for example, I don’t eat it & I don’t try make people who do like to eat it feel they support animal abusers, the same way you should feel about Manchester City football and also it’s supporters.

LineOfBeauty

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

https://theathletic.com/1610797/2020/02/18/manchester-city-mancity-uefa-champions-league-ban/?source=shared-article

For those of ye with an Athletic subscription this is an essential read. City are going to have a hard time arguing away the charges of non co - operation. City’s owners might have the money to ultimately try and sideline UEFA in totality and set up a super league or something to achieve “victory”.

City fans should have a long hard think about whether they want to be just another pawn in a high stakes game over how much power and international influence a corrupt regime can wield in the world. It’s not going to be worth it in the long term.

As a City fan I hope we take it all the way and I hope we expose Uefa's bo**ix ,for lack of a better term, for what it is.

LuckyLloyd

gstack166 wrote: »

City Football Group owns or has stakes in 7 football clubs. Yet it seems it lives rent-free in the head of supporters of an 8th. Lol.

If I don’t like something, like Liver & Onions for example, I don’t eat it & I don’t try make people who do like to eat it feel they support animal abusers, the same way you should feel about Manchester City football and also it’s supporters.

You should read the article or get someone with a subscription to copy and paste it for you. It’s a good one.

LineOfBeauty

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

As a City fan I hope we take it all the way and I hope we expose Uefa's bo**ix ,for lack of a better term, for what it is.

As a football fan I hope Man City stop cheating.

gstack166

[Deleted User] wrote: »

As a football fan I hope Man City stop cheating.

That’s the most ignorant argument of the whole situation.

ozzy jr

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

City earning more money by playing lucrative friendlies around the world instead of CL. I don't know, that's why it's interesting.

This keeps coming up. Who would these games be against and where? Would there really be a market for a friendly game in the week of CL football?

LineOfBeauty

ozzy jr wrote: »

This keeps coming up. Who would these games be against and where? Would there really be a market for a friendly game in the week of CL football?

There's always a market. And say City win the CL this year (not beyond the realms of possibility at all) who wouldn't want to see Europe's best team play in in their city?

ozzy jr

gstack166 wrote: »

That’s the most ignorant argument of the whole situation.

Why have they got a 2 year ban?

citytillidie

ozzy jr wrote: »

This keeps coming up. Who would these games be against and where? Would there really be a market for a friendly game in the week of CL football?

Middle-east or somewhere else like that will then have a knock on effect on follow weekends league game. Or are they saying City will be like the Harlem globe trotters going around playing one of the other teams they own

Muahahaha

Good article on the City fight back here

n 2011 Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, received a letter. It came from a group of Emirati intellectuals inspired by the recent wave of pro-democracy protests sweeping through the Middle East and north Africa, and requested a range of modest reforms, including an extension of the voting franchise which at the time encompassed just 2% of the country’s population.

No marching on the streets. No popular unrest. Certainly no disorder of any kind. Just a letter. Nonetheless, with a regime petrified to the point of paranoia by the spectre of political Islamism, the reprisals would be swift and merciless.

Within weeks the arrests had begun, rounding up most of the 160 letter’s signatories, who were designated as “terrorists” plotting to overthrow the regime. Citizenships were revoked. Hefty prison sentences were dished out. In 2014 Abu Dhabi enacted Terrorism Law No 7, reclassifying peaceful opposition as a terrorist act punishable by death, and criminalising a whole range of hazily-defined acts, from “antagonising the state” or “stirring panic among a group of people” to “carrying explosive crackers for a terrorist purpose”.

Now: does this strike you as a group of people that is going to be intimidated by the fine print of Article 56, section (a) of the 2018 edition of Uefa’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations?

Full article
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/17/manchester-city-backers-are-not-the-sort-to-take-punishment-lying-down

gstack166

gstack166 wrote: »

That’s the most ignorant argument of the whole situation.

And I think the whole "Man City are victims, the rules were changed, they've been nice so far but now there are findings and penalties the gloves are off, and we know how nasty the owners are" whine laughable.

The bottom line is, they were caught, and all the "but..but...other clubs do bad things, and we disagree with the rules being applied to us and we are going to be mean from now on" doesn't change that.

Muahahaha

TitianGerm wrote: »

We can quite clearly see sports washing in full flow now. The lengths the City fan base will go to protect their owners is amazing.

I'd say it's mission successful so far from the owners point of view.

Funny you say that because the above linked article says exactly the same, namely that the Arabs are in war mode and as a result so are the fans too. I presume the online messageboards it refers to can only be Blue Moon

These are just some of the ways of understanding Manchester City’s current dispute with Uefa, one that for all its clear footballing repercussions carries far more sinister overtones. Trawl the City messageboards in the wake of Uefa’s decision to ban the club from the Champions League for two seasons, and it won’t take you long to stumble across the rhetoric of scorched earth: of traitors and revolutionaries, violence and purgation, shady cartels and subhuman scum.

This is the language of existential threat, the register of total warfare, and it is fed by the incendiary invective coming out of the club. One little snippet to emerge is the fact City’s appeals to the court of arbitration for sport have been dubbed “Cas One” and “Cas Two”, as if they were military campaigns, rather than ringbinders being delivered to a courtroom by clerks in TM Lewin suits. Witness, too, the assertion of the club’s lawyer Simon Cliff in the Der Spiegel leaks of 2018 that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, that a lawsuit against its auditor could “destroy the entire organisation within weeks”. City talk about their footballing enemies the way Abu Dhabi talks about its real ones.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/17/manchester-city-backers-are-not-the-sort-to-take-punishment-lying-down

Muahahaha

Muahahaha wrote: »

Funny you say that because the above linked article says exactly the same, namely that the Arabs are in war mode and as a result so are the fans too. I presume the online messageboards it refers to can only be Blue Moon

They'd be far better off asking that their club stop cheating, instead of shrieking that there will be wars and scorched earths to cover it up and maintain a fiction.

Morzadec

Is anyone expecting Guardiola to resign? His integrity will be sorely damaged if he doesn't.

Jonathan Wilson on Football Weekly made a great point.

When questioned on this in the past he has always said he trusts his owners that everything City have done is above board. Fair enough. He's a football man, not a money man, I think this is an entirely reasonable response.

However if Guardiola was being truthful then his owners have essentially lied to him - he has been duped. That's surely a huge strain on the working relationship, his reputation has been damaged due to the trust he put in the owners.

If Guardiola was not being truthful then obviously he is implicated in all this as he knew about it.

I would give him the benefit of the doubt. But that would surely mean that he should come out and say something like "What happened isn't right. I genuinely didn't know about it. If I had I would have spoken up as cheating and fraud is unacceptable and has no place in football. The owners lied to me. That makes our working relationship untenable. I don't want have anything to do with owners who have lied to UEFA and lied to me and therefore I quit."

Him not doing the above is at best tacit acceptance of the owners shady dealings and at worst admittance that he knew about it all along and perpetuated the lie.

Or else just a delusion that it's all a conspiracy against them?

Muahahaha

Deleted User wrote: »

They'd be far better off asking that their club stop cheating, instead of shrieking that there will be wars and scorched earths to cover it up and maintain a fiction.

Yeah agreed but the City fan base seems to be in the same war mode as their owners. They cant or wont see the wood for the trees that they broke the rules, promised to follow them and then broke them again anyway by lying to UEFA.

Morzadec wrote: »

Is anyone expecting Guardiola to resign? His integrity will be sorely damaged if he doesn't.

It could happen this summer or else the moment that the CAS hearing is over, presuming the UEFA ruling is upheld. His contract will allow him to walk away with compensation if City get kicked out of the CL. Same goes for the players, no CL football =no ability to earn the CL bonuses in their contracts = ability to walk away because City cant perform the contract.

Its all down to when this CAS case is going to take place. For everyones sake it is best that it happens before the CL draw for 2020-21 which happens around the end of June iirc

gstack166

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah agreed but the City fan base seems to be in the same war mode as their owners. They cant or wont see the wood for the trees that they broke the rules, promised to follow them and then broke them again anyway by lying to UEFA.



It could happen this summer or else the moment that the CAS hearing is over, presuming the UEFA ruling is upheld. His contract will allow him to walk away with compensation if City get kicked out of the CL. Same goes for the players, no CL football =no ability to earn the CL bonuses in their contracts = ability to walk away because City cant perform the contract.

Its all down to when this CAS case is going to take place. For everyones sake it is best that it happens before the CL draw for 2020-21 which happens around the end of June iirc

That is some amount of scutter talk. Where is your source for any of it? It’s simply just not true what you’ve said, you’re making things up as you go along because you don’t know what’s going to happen.

ozzy jr

I would guess (note the word guess) that Guardiola is on a similar pay scheme to Mancini (at the very least). I would be very surprised if the declared wages on citys books are all he gets. The same could be said for a lot of their players too.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Muahahaha wrote: »

Its all down to when this CAS case is going to take place. For everyones sake it is best that it happens before the CL draw for 2020-21 which happens around the end of June iirc

Last Friday in August for the group stages. Until then, no English clubs are involved. Just a lot of uncertainty for whoever finishes fifth.

There was also talk of City taking this to the ECHR, because apparently it's been done before. and THAT will take time.

ozzy jr

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Last Friday in August for the group stages. Until then, no English clubs are involved. Just a lot of uncertainty for whoever finishes fifth.

There was also talk of City taking this to the ECHR, because apparently it's been done before. and THAT will take time.

Do the owners feel their human rights have been violated?

How ironic!

Trigger

Morzadec wrote: »

Is anyone expecting Guardiola to resign? His integrity will be sorely damaged if he doesn't.

Jonathan Wilson on Football Weekly made a great point.

When questioned on this in the past he has always said he trusts his owners that everything City have done is above board. Fair enough. He's a football man, not a money man, I think this is an entirely reasonable response.

However if Guardiola was being truthful then his owners have essentially lied to him - he has been duped. That's surely a huge strain on the working relationship, his reputation has been damaged due to the trust he put in the owners.

If Guardiola was not being truthful then obviously he is implicated in all this as he knew about it.

I would give him the benefit of the doubt. But that would surely mean that he should come out and say something like "What happened isn't right. I genuinely didn't know about it. If I had I would have spoken up as cheating and fraud is unacceptable and has no place in football. The owners lied to me. That makes our working relationship untenable. I don't want have anything to do with owners who have lied to UEFA and lied to me and therefore I quit."

Him not doing the above is at best tacit acceptance of the owners shady dealings and at worst admittance that he knew about it all along and perpetuated the lie.

Or else just a delusion that it's all a conspiracy against them?

Guardiola has absolutely no problem with cheating, as evidenced by the failed drug test and ban in his playing days

LineOfBeauty

Trigger wrote: »

Guardiola has absolutely no problem with cheating, as evidenced by the failed drug test and ban in his playing days

Subsequently overturned it should be noted.

ozzy jr

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

Subsequently overturned it should be noted.

Hmmm, not as simple as that if you look into exactly what happened.

Muahahaha

gstack166 wrote: »

That is some amount of scutter talk. Where is your source for any of it? It’s simply just not true what you’ve said, you’re making things up as you go along because you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Scutter talk :rolleyes: Aren't you the lad who said to close this thread because Man City were definitely getting off scot free? Now that was scutter talk.

If City cannot perform their side of the contract then the players and managers have an out and can walk away, which they will if there is no CL football for two years. Why would world class footballers hang around for 2 years of their limited career because the City owners decided to cheat the system? Its not the footballers fault and their contract will allow them to walk when their owners behaviour has meant then are denied the CL bonuses in their contracts. Sorry you dont like hearing this but it is the reality of modern footballers contracts.

It works the other way around too, you'll remember Adrian Mutu whose contract was terminated at Chelsea because he couldnt perform it due to being banned for cocaine. Then on top of that Chelsea sued him and he had to pay them £14m in compensation. It was perhaps the worlds most expensive line of coke.

ozzy jr

Muahahaha wrote: »

Scutter talk :rolleyes: Aren't you the lad who said to close this thread because Man City were definitely getting off scot free? Now that was scutter talk.

If City cannot perform their side of the contract then the players and managers have an out and can walk away, which they will if there is no CL football for two years. Why would world class footballers hang around for 2 years of their limited career because the City owners decided to cheat the system? Its not the footballers fault and their contract will allow them to walk when their owners behaviour has meant then are denied the CL bonuses in their contracts. Sorry you dont like hearing this but it is the reality of modern footballers contracts.

It works the other way around too, you'll remember Adrian Mutu whose contract was terminated at Chelsea because he couldnt perform it due to being banned for cocaine. Then on top of that Chelsea sued him and he had to pay them £14m in compensation. It was perhaps the worlds most expensive line of coke.

I wouldn't be too concerned by that, the sponsors paid up on them winning the FA Cup, the year they lost to Wigan in the final

LineOfBeauty

ozzy jr wrote: »

Hmmm, not as simple as that if you look into exactly what happened.

Shades of grey eh? Makes you wonder what kind of shades of grey are involved in this case too.

Muahahaha

Just for you gstack

The grace note is the growth in broadcast income. Crucially it is here City stand to lose under the Uefa ban. Third in wages, fifth in income might look wonky but without their Uefa income the balance goes through the floor, with some estimates suggesting a loss of European football could cost between £100m-£150m per year.

This would leave an apocalyptic hole, one that makes the current squad simply unsustainable. City recently handed new deals to a rump of first-team regulars, which hardly eases the basic problem of how to keep the lights on.

Perhaps worse, a significant number of City’s most desirable assets will enter the last two years of their deals during the ban. Fernandinho, Leroy Sané and Sergio Agüero are all out of contract in June 2021. Gabriel Jesus, Riyad Mahrez, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gündogan are free to leave in 2023.


Good luck trying to persuade a crop of high-class, mid-career elite level players to miss two years of top-table football. Plus agents come into this. Contracts will contain force majeure clauses. Nobody wants to become cold product or to lose the bonuses associated with the Champions League.

At the same time the squad is ageing. City’s best midfielder is 34, their best striker 31. This was always looking like a time to rebuild. Instead it looks like a moment of total flux.

There aren’t enough takers out there to house all of these supremely well-paid players, raising the vague threat of an unseemly jostle for the door, of expedient loans, of captive princes on draining contracts.

If the ban sticks it is hard to see past this disaster scenario. The greatest decade in Manchester City’s modern history is over.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/16/champions-league-ban-manchester-city-butterfly

So yeah, if the ban sticks the players will want out and their contract allows them a way to do it. Notwithstanding that City wouldnt be able to pay their high wages anyway when there is a massive hole in their balance sheet due to having no CL football. That FFP is a bitch, eh?

GLaDOS

Hypothetically, say City do get the ban and fine, presumably UEFA won't be happy to let them back in if they're still running things the exact same way?

Surely that will require a restructuring that goes way beyond the immediate financial issues that will occur. City could be done as a major force for some quite some time.

8-10

GLaDOS wrote: »

Hypothetically, say City do get the ban and fine, presumably UEFA won't be happy to let them back in if they're still running things the exact same way?

Surely that will require a restructuring that goes way beyond the immediate financial issues that will occur. City could be done as a major force for some quite some time.

I'd imagine they would have to open their books and hit agreed targets before getting back in.

I've always wondered about City. They have some great players like Aguero, Silva, Kompany, Yaya, Fernandinho....etc etc the past decade....but no other big club ever seems linked to them. Barcelona, Juve, Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern etc....never linked. It's not because they're not good enough, but why couldn't they be pryed away? Who have they lost that they didn't want to sell?

The financial power they have must be massive. If they did pay their manager a double salary by employing him twice then is it mad to think they might be doing that with players or the current manager?

Then you have to consider this is a club who can't even sell out Champions League games...where is the cash coming from?

marklazarcovic

City will just say "we'll pay double the fine and no ban,how's that?"

Muahahaha

GLaDOS wrote: »

Hypothetically, say City do get the ban and fine, presumably UEFA won't be happy to let them back in if they're still running things the exact same way?

Surely that will require a restructuring that goes way beyond the immediate financial issues that will occur. City could be done as a major force for some quite some time.

Yeah that will be their biggest problem. If the ban is upheld then they cannot afford to pay the wages without CL football. Players want out and the players who replace them will have no CL football, ergo tier 1 and 2 players wont go there because they cant be paid higher wages to compensate for lack of CL again because of FPP. So CIty could end up chasing tier 3 and 4 players in the transfer market. All the while United, Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea are already 12-18 months into their rebuilds.

So its not just the two years out of the CL that will hit them. It is trying to get back into it when everyone around them has strengthened while at the same time they have been weakened. If the ban is upheld it could mean City out of the CL for 3, 4 or even 5 seasons.

gimli2112

Souness, Kerr and Quinn fighting the good fight for Man City, not sure what the RTE lads are saying. This is going on ages, is there a match on tonight?

rob316

I don't agree with FFP and as a Liverpool fan I'd argue the Man City takeover has been good for the premier league. Who wants the same teams winning over and over? Money is no guarantee of success, City have spent big on some doozies and United have outspent them over the last while and haven't got close. City so far haven't got near winning the UCL.
FFP is fine in theory but owner investment should be allowed just not a free for all.

But the reality is City signed up to this with all the other clubs and broke the rules. They gained an advantage there is no doubt.

marklazarcovic

marklazarcovic wrote: »

City will just say "we'll pay double the fine and no ban,how's that?"

I think the optics of the owners buying off the problem would be bad for UEFA and for CAS.

eigrod

gimli2112 wrote: »

Souness, Kerr and Quinn fighting the good fight for Man City, not sure what the RTE lads are saying. This is going on ages, is there a match on tonight?

Kevin Doyle strongly supporting City - asking why PSG, Chelsea & Real etc not being investigated. Liam Brady & Richie Sadlier backing UEFA’s position.

~Rebel~

Muahahaha wrote: »

Just for you gstack


https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/16/champions-league-ban-manchester-city-butterfly

So yeah, if the ban sticks the players will want out and their contract allows them a way to do it. Notwithstanding that City wouldnt be able to pay their high wages anyway when there is a massive hole in their balance sheet due to having no CL football. That FFP is a bitch, eh?

While this is true, I would expect the compromise to be that since the club's own actions have stopped them being able to earn the various CL related bonuses, that they'll agree to pay all the CL related bonuses in full (which of course would cost a fortune, but I still think they'd do that rather than lose players en-masse).

You're right also on them having to make up the shortfall of the CL money, but I'm sure they'll find a way, especially with the expanded World Club Cup coming up with potentially massive payouts.

Will be a very interesting case though.

Generally speaking, I'm actually fairly shocked by the sheer level of vitriol and conspiratorial nonsense coming from non-BlueMoon places. Like, even just looking at the profile's of the QC's that were on the investigating committee for 5 minutes tells you this isn't some faceless anti-City agenda. These are serious independent law-makers and judges who won't be tarring their careers with nonsense like that. By all accounts, while the publicly available emails were the touch-paper of the investigation, they're not the spine of it. They simply informed the investigation committee on where to look within the officially submitted accounts so they could corroborate everything. It seems like they spent a year on this to make sure it was absolutely watertight, and I don't see CAS being an easy ride for City with that being the case.

gstack166

rob316 wrote: »

I don't agree with FFP and as a Liverpool fan I'd argue the Man City takeover has been good for the premier league. Who wants the same teams winning over and over? Money is no guarantee of success, City have spent big on some doozies and United have outspent them over the last while and haven't got close. City so far haven't got near winning the UCL.
FFP is fine in theory but owner investment should be allowed just not a free for all.

But the reality is City signed up to this with all the other clubs and broke the rules. They gained an advantage there is no doubt.

A Liverpool fan with a balanced point of view. My eyes must be deceiving me!

Just on your last point, is it not fair to say Liverpool gained an advantage playing an ineligible player in the league cup this year despite agreeing to the rules not to?

Did they not gain an advantage by tapping up VVD while under contract at Southampton?

Did they not gain an advantage hacking a scouting data network?

Did they not gain an advantage by failing to comply by FFP themselves but having not qualified for a Europe escaped a charge?

We can pick holes in every club.

c.p.w.g.w

Trigger wrote: »

Guardiola has absolutely no problem with cheating, as evidenced by the failed drug test and ban in his playing days

His Barca team also used a famous cycling Dr too...who is the center of operations Puerto

~Rebel~

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Like, even just looking at the profile's of the QC's that were on the investigating committee for 5 minutes tells you this isn't some faceless anti-City agenda. These are serious independent law-makers and judges who won't be tarring their careers with nonsense like that.

You have to enjoy the City fans clinging to the "now we're gonna get serious" idea. They've had a high powered legal team fighting this all along. They lost, and lost heavily. They have to appeal, the punishment means they can't just shrug their shoulders about it. And lawyers being lawyers will always talk up an appeal, their client was treated badly, the procedures were all wrong yada yada yada.

gstack166

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

His Barca team also used a famous cycling Dr too...who is the center of operations Puerto

I think he super glued his Egg to his spoon in his national school egg and spoon race also, the filthy cheat. Or so UEFA claim so has to be true.

gimli2112

gstack166 wrote: »

A Liverpool fan with a balanced point of view. My eyes must be deceiving me!

Just on your last point, is it not fair to say Liverpool gained an advantage playing an ineligible player in the league cup this year despite agreeing to the rules not to?

Did they not gain an advantage by tapping up VVD while under contract at Southampton?

Did they not gain an advantage hacking a scouting data network?

Did they not gain an advantage by failing to comply by FFP themselves but having not qualified for a Europe escaped a charge?

We can pick holes in every club.

I had to look up the last one as I couldn't remember it and found this.Liverpool were themselves cleared of breaching FFP rules in 2015. ... The governing body accepted that Liverpool had spent £49.6 million on stadium costs which is allowable expenditure.

We were punished for all the other ones and rightly so, except the league cup one but I'll happily accept a two year ban.

I'm honestly not bothered if City or punished or not but they deserve to be.

c.p.w.g.w

gstack166 wrote: »

I think he super glued his Egg to his spoon in his national school egg and spoon race also, the filthy cheat. Or so UEFA claim so has to be true.

I think you should read about operations Puerto...it will open your eyes about football & tennis

j8wk2feszrnpao

eigrod wrote: »

Kevin Doyle strongly supporting City - asking why PSG, Chelsea & Real etc not being investigated.

Every club is investigated/checked for FFP. City were found to be fraudulent with what they submitted.