General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

The Rooster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121384966#Comment_121384966

Utter nonsense.

Success breeds success, but the success was derived from hugely inflated deals from Ethiad and related companies.

Pretty much everyone knows City are cheats. Downright absolute cheats. But like Lance Armstrong before he was caught, there’ll always be a small loud deluded minority claiming innocence

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121385691#Comment_121385691

Is there somebody saying they did nothing wrong back at the start?

It doesn't matter though because nothing will be done about it. Nothing will be done to Chelsea either.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121385691#Comment_121385691

All we need now is a link to a charity and some wristbands.

POKERKING

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121386650#Comment_121386650

There are lads half following the debate and jumping in on points without following whats been said already and what the point of the discussion is.

Anyway I already said I was done on this topic so am definitely bowing out now.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121386920#Comment_121386920

I'll jon you on the sideline. 🖕

noodler

Scary how the indefensible can be defended.

SlickRic

Haaland injury 'not serious' despite pulling out of the squad.

Rodri training with Spain despite 'discomfort'.

Ederson likely fit.

Pep is a master puppeteer, I'll give him that.

davemckenna25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121388300#Comment_121388300

He's no different than most managers in that regard. They pretty much all carry on like that.

Fitz*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121388300#Comment_121388300

The first 12.30 KO he has in the season, and he pulls the troops out! Ake will be fine too IMO, and maybe even Stones.

Ottoman_1000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121388300#Comment_121388300

Its ridiculous, City get one 12.30 kick off on the Saturday after the international break and Pep starts making noise. Watching everyone of those "injured" players to be togged and flying it on Saturday morning.

I don't see the problem tbh.

It's a big game at the weekend. Why would a player and his manager not want the player to be 100% for it?

A nothing story imo. Any manager worth their salt wouid do the same, and probably have.

Manager wants his best players for big game shocker. Ffs!

ronjo

This may sound like a stupid suggestion but is there any reason why they cannot say move forward with Citys charges and potential punishments say 5 cases at a time or something?

I have read a few times that it will take so long because there are so many and Everton just had 1.

IncognitoMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121390874#Comment_121390874

Also we are at a stage in the qualification process where a lot of the better teams are there or basically there.. So it is maybe easier to pull a few of them out

IncognitoMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121386650#Comment_121386650

I don't follow... Was your point all along that City cheated at the start but are now fully legit?

You can't rob a bank, set up a business with that money and then claim that the business is fine because it came afterwards. That is absolute lunacy.

I've seen nothing to suggest that the City sponsors are legit now either - the numbers just don't add up. As has been said here many times I would love to see the other bids for sponsorship that failed to the conveniently owned companies willing to sponsor. What were they valuing the market rate at?

IncognitoMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121385054#Comment_121385054

They didn't just throw a few million on top. They doubled the global stadium naming rights deal at a time when they hadn't won a single thing -

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/jul/08/manchester-city-deal-etihad-airways

The previous record, JP Morgan Chase's $300m (£187m) for the new Madison Square Garden. City got £400m for naming the stadium the Etihad.

And this part is key

To put it into context, the deal Arsenal struck with Emirates in 2004 was valued at £90m over 15 years. Around £48m of that came via shirt sponsorship, with the naming rights worth only £2.8m a year. Chelsea and Tottenham have both scoured the market for a deal in the region of £10-15m a year but found no serious interest. Newcastle have also been unable to find a sponsor since the club's owner, Mike Ashley, tested the waters with a short-term arrangement in the 2009-10 season that resulted in their ground taking the name of his sportswear business as the sportsdirect.com@St James' Park Stadium.

MSG being one of the world's most famous sporting venues and the you have a a relative unknown team on the global stage with no success to their name and a mostly local fan base doubling that.

Arsenal being one of the country's biggest and most successful teams in the 2000s with some of the leagues biggest stars during that period found no such market when they went looking for rights a year later in 2012. Emirates and Arsenal agreed to a new deal worth £150 million in November 2012.

So how did City pull off that £400m deal?

It's outrageous

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391167#Comment_121391167

A blind man could see they were cooking the books early on.

I suggested earlier that with all their success they have become a lot more popular and now have the option to make deals with companies where they sponsor City, it'll help their businesses greatly, and then get a sizeable portion of the money back from Mansour in deals struck between businesses completely unrelated to City.

There's nothing that can be done about that.

IncognitoMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391243#Comment_121391243

It can be regulated though - once there is an appetite to do so.

I know you will ask me how - I am not nearly qualified enough to give an in depth answer but going the line of an independent adjudicator for this stuff would be wise I'd say.

You want to sponsor you team's stadium for 2x, 3x the current highest bid then you better have a good case to present

SlickRic

there is a reason a lot of City fans make a lot of noise about their present financial health - it's a tactic to drown out the noise about cooking the books in the early years. 

i don't think even the most one-eyed rival fan could argue that City aren't NOW a massive club.  new City fans are popping up in schools everywhere, and when they go on overseas tours all over the world, they are followed by a huge amount of fans.

Nobody with a brain really disputes where they are in the football period now.

But how did they get there?  

and this is the thing ... they KNOW they cooked the books.  so many will say 'how else could we compete?' or 'if we didn't, it would be the same teams competing' - and those are used as justifications for whatever they did in those early days.  and they are weird justifications - because the implication is blatantly that cheating is allowed because other clubs are too strong after years of success.  well, tough.  nobody has a divine right to success.  it is earned.  does the local grocery store have a divine right to compete with Tesco?  no, it doesn't.  The Premier League is already incredibly equitable, hence we're seeing how competitive the likes of Villa, Newcastle (even with more financial restrictions than City had), Spurs etc can be.

This argument of ‘the same 4 teams are awesome, so we should be allowed to cook the books in order for that to stop’ is a mental one.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391328#Comment_121391328

They are a huge club now and gaining rapidly on Barca, Real Madrid and United.

I pointed out earlier that they sold out two games in Japan and one in South Korea in the summer in under half an hour. They ran out of merchandise in Japan.

One of the Japan games was against Bayern Munich so with two big clubs you'd expect the game to be sold out very quickly but a game against Yokohama and one against Atletico Madrid would be all based on City's popularity.

De Bruyne has been a huge name worldwide for the last six or so years and he carried City to a much bigger audience. Even United fans and other haters of City like Kevin De Bruyne.

Now they've got Haaland whose exploded onto the scene and is a huge and massively popular name in world football. The fact they won the Champions league helped a lot but the fact they won it with Haaland makes it stupendous.

Now loads of people won't like this post because they hate City. They'll ignore my last post and think I'm pro-City because of what I say here but I'm just unbiased. I can look at things from every angle.

It's all pretty plain and obvious stuff. Any team that's top ten and climbing in popularity is a very serious business. City are definitely top five in popularity now.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391296#Comment_121391296

What I suggested may be happening cannot be regulated because businesses that have no relation to the team cannot be investigated.

I'm saying that team X sponsors City. Team Y owned by the man who owns the soccer club, but which has no contact or relationship with the club, gives the money back through deals with team z who have no relationship with the club.

Mitch Connor

With the potential ineos investment into united, will be interesting to see what sponsorship crops up, and the values.

United don't have a training ground sponsor, like they used to, or an automotive partner. Can see ineos sport training ground and Mercedes (or ineos grenidier) car sponsorships.

In light of all this discussion of the city deals, I wonder how uniteds will be handled.

K-9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391167#Comment_121391167

That's sportswashing in a nutshell.

It's why @POKERKING asking "well what's wrong with this years accounts?" is diversion tactics (I don't think he's knowingly doing it).

Basically, forget all that stuff previously, what's wrong now? That's the end goal of sportswashing. For fans of The Wire, it's no different to Stringer Bell laundering drug money.

Suvarnabhumi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391412#Comment_121391412

This fella has to be a WUM. Huge club, big club, huge name, huge and massively popular.

It reminds me of this classic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWSj1X6FRw

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391678#Comment_121391678

You are calling me a wind up merchant?

Did you see my post about City cheating to get to where they are and most likely still at it but in a smarter way?

How about you go and check out my posts immediately prior to one you quoted. Of course you didn't read this part of my post.

Now loads of people won't like this post because they hate City. They'll ignore my last post and think I'm pro-City because of what I say here but I'm just unbiased. I can look at things from every angle.

Suvarnabhumi

I don't think you're pro city, I just think your a WUM. I don't hate city either, but I hate cheating in sport.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391824#Comment_121391824

And I said they were cheating. That doesn't mean they haven't become popular worldwide.

It's really only in the UK and Ireland that people care about what's going on behind the scenes.

Same as you don't hear many going on about PSG over here. We don't care nearly as much about that.

Success and great players increase popularity and the Premier league is the most watched league in the world. They keep winning it and now they've added a Champions league. On top of that they have had De Bruyne for what 8 years or so now and now Haaland.

Barca are the biggest club on the planet. They are still living off of having Messi for so long. Xavi was a huge name as well and he's the manager now. And they've always brought in a couple of big names. Lewandoski keeps them up there and Yamal looks like another superstar in the making.

Real Madrid are huge, second most popular club. The signing and performances of Jude Bellingham are drawing more fans to them, they also have Vinicious Junior whose another huge name.

Bayern Munich signed Harry Kane which will at least maintain their current status.

Can you name another club with lots of recent big tournament wins and bigger names than I've mentioned above, outside of the Saudi clubs?

Suvarnabhumi

Your posts are so long and full of full of waffle (with all due respect), that I don't really know what you're trying to say most of the time.

Most of the stuff you point out as fact are just your opinions.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121392263#Comment_121392263

I'll shorten it for you.

City cheated and probably still do.

Success brings popularity and City are one of the five most popular clubs in the world as a result of success.

jacool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121392368#Comment_121392368

They scrape into the top 10. Of course, for many football fans who judge them by their ill-gotten gains, they will never be a "big" club.

1. Manchester United:

Instagram: 63 Million Facebook: 82 Million Twitter: 32.7 Million Youtube: 8.1 Million Subscribers

2. Real Madrid:

Instagram: 99.5 Million Facebook: 111 Million Twitter: 37.5 Million Youtube: 6.52 Million Subscribers

3. Barcelona:

Instagram: 97.5 Million Facebook: 103 Million Twitter: 36.9 Million Youtube: 11.8 Million Subscribers

4. Juventus:

Instagram: 49.3 Million Facebook: 44 Million Twitter: 9.2 Million Youtube: 3.44 Million Subscribers

5. Chelsea:

Instagram: 27.3 Million Facebook: 49 Million Twitter: 17.1 Million Youtube: 2.9 Million Subscribers

6. Paris-Saint-German:

Instagram: 35.8 Million Facebook: 42 Million Twitter: 9.1 Million Youtube: 3.03 Million Subscribers

7. Bayern Munich:

Instagram: 26.8 Million Facebook: 52 Million Twitter: 5.5 Million Youtube: 2.3 Million Subscribers

8. Arsenal:

Instagram: 19.4 Million Facebook: 37 Million Twitter: 17.5 Million Youtube: 2.3 Million Subscribers

9. Liverpool:

Instagram: 31.2 Million Facebook: 37 Million Twitter: 17.4 Million Youtube: 5.81 Million Subscribers

10. Manchester City:

Instagram: 24.4 Million Facebook: 40 Million Twitter: 10 Million Youtube: 3.3 Million Subscribers

Suvarnabhumi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121392368#Comment_121392368

In no particular order,

Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich are more popular. I could name more, but I won't bother.

If they were the 5th most popular club in the World, they would sell out every game they play, even the CL group games.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391328#Comment_121391328

I'd absolutely say that they still aren't a massive club.

Loud and visible at the minute, sure, but its all smoke and mirrors, nothing about it is real. If the sportswashers walked away tomorrow City would drop right back down the divisions to where they started.

Yes they might still have the infrastructure they inherited but their so called fanbase would disappear into the winds.

People separate the historical cheating and the new deals happening today, but I have little doubt that their accounting is every bit as dodgy today as it ever was. Something tells me Pep still has plenty of lucrative side deals conveniently ongoing..

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121392405#Comment_121392405

You need to check ranker.

I remember when this success = popularity guff was to be "dropped" yet here we are still incorrectly banging that trope drum.

doc_17

City are the biggest small club. Or the smallest big club.

Fitz*

Whenever I think of side-deals, I always think of Xavi coincidentally winning the Doha lotto while playing for a club based in Doha!

I would go looking up if the same people were involved in the bank/club but there's no point as it's too much effort, and we all know the answer really.

Xander10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391167#Comment_121391167

Sounds like Sinn Fein

JRant

Outside of stripping titles along with relegation, like Serie A did, they any other punishment opens the flood gates for Newcastle and whoever else comes after them.

Same goes for Chelsea really, who aren't even bothered trying to hide it anymore.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393555#Comment_121393555

I'm not sure there are any breaches in Chelsea's recent stuff (just hugely risky choices) - their investigation is looking into all their dodgy dealings from Roman's time. But yeah, regardless, they need to go as hard as they can on City or it'll just become a shïtshow.

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393782#Comment_121393782

Weren't they already done for dodgy dealings with underage players and given a transfer ban?

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393833#Comment_121393833

Yup, I think there was probably no end to their shenanigans throughout their time under Roman tbh - by 'more recent stuff', I mean under the new ownership.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393782#Comment_121393782

Be honest though, you know nothing will happen. They are bigger than the Premier league, Mansour I mean.

They have so much money they could keep this thing in the courts until all the people investigating it are dead from old age.

It used to really bug me but I've seen this powerful money show it's power too many times now and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about it.

These Newcastle owners can do what they like, murder, war crimes, kill members of the LGBT, treat women like **** and still come in and make a deal to buy the PGA tour, which for years has proudly stood as an honourable, non-profit organisation.

Mansour controls nearly £300 billion. He can do what he wants when he wants and nobody is going to stand in his way. The best outcome if someone does is that they'll end up broke. The Premier league will end up broke if they try to take City down.

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121392368#Comment_121392368

Ehm they're not even one of the top 5 most popular English teams I'd have thought

McBain11

I'll be shocked if City aren't relegated when all is said and done. The level of cheating they have been involved in for over a decade is astronomical. Was it Arsene Wenger who coined the phrase 'financial doping '? Never has a phrase been more apt.

The thing about City since Mansour and co came in though isn't even the financial cheating, breaking every rule the PL and CL have to try and keep some lid on how teams operate financially, it's the fact that they effectively took their d*ck out and waved it in everybody's face while doing so. It has all been so brazen it's almost comical - stadium sponsorships multiples of the going rate, made up shell companies sponsoring City for this that and the other, managers being paid in offshore accounts or to do phoney gigs etc. The list is actually endless for anyone who has delved deeper into this topic.

I have to say one of my favourite moments in football is after the 2019 FA Cup final, where City achieved the first ever domestic treble in English football. One of the press asked Guardiola was he being paid under the counter like former City manager Mancini was. It was superb. Imagine in a moment like that when most should be celebrating a historic achievement and the victors should be revered, that some of the media felt the need (absolutely correctly btw) to sully the moment by asking what everyone and their dog knows - that City are complete and utter financial cheats. It summed up that every City success that had gone before was pointless. Everybody knows and feels this, the same thing happened for the CL treble last season. The sense that everybody is just waiting for these City cheats to be dealt with appropriately.

It is scandalous that such an open secret of their financial cheating has been allowed to go on effectively unpunished for over a decade (there has been minor slaps on the wrist from UEFA leading to the hilarious boos of the CL anthem for years from City fans now - you have to hand it to their fans really, they're almost as brazen as their owners). I think in the end they will be relegated. I just hope that there is far more than that done or it will be a massive cop out considering the level of cheating that has gone on. They should either be relegated down a number of divisions, or relegated to the championship with no possibility of promotion for a few seasons (football purgatory effectively). They should 100 percent be stripped of every trophy domestically won in the years found cheating (that should be every year since Mansour came in if the PL have done enough solid investigating). No need to award other clubs those trophy's, those asterisks left there for no winners wil always be a reminder of English football's greatest ever cheats in those seasons. There should be a massive financial fine. There should be a long term transfer embargo. There should be a ban on qualifying for European competition if and when City get back in the PL (I believe that is an if btw as I can see the owners fleeing like little cockroaches if most of the above came into play).

I don't agree with some of the nonsense being posted in this thread by eagle eye and company, that nothing will be done in the end. Can anyone remind me the last time the PL or FA or any governing body hit a club with 115 charges? I'll be amazed if they aren't relegated at a minimum as I said above. I can see it going a lot further than that though. It's all just a waiting game now.

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394166#Comment_121394166

I was talking worldwide. Spurs are huge worldwide and not a lot know it. The UK market is only a small part of the business these days, you'd need a microscope to find Ireland in world accounts.

From the Guardian,

In China, United are out in front on Weibo, a Twitter-like site and a well-used if crude metric, with 11 million followers; Chelsea and Barcelona are close behind. City are fourth with 9.25 million, double that of Real Madrid and Liverpool.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394287#Comment_121394287

As an Arsenal fan, being beaten by City and Chelsea over the years hasn't bothered me as much as others. To me, they were always playing a cheat card so losing to them didn't really count as a defeat. It just didn't hurt the same way.

giveitholly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394310#Comment_121394310

But if City weren't cheating then Arsenal would of won the league last season. Does that not bother you in the slightest?

AdamD

I'd be willing to wager that City's 2022 accounts are just as dodgy as their 2015 accounts.

jacool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393302#Comment_121393302

The OP said they were top 5 in "popular" clubs, so I looked purely at the empirical data on "popularity". I never linked it with success, there are obvious ways to measure that. Unless you're reading something in my comment that I can't read. No drum, no banging from me.

Suvarnabhumi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121391678#Comment_121391678

@eagle eye apologies for calling you a WUM. I didn't realise it was outlawed here. No offense intended.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121395108#Comment_121395108

Oh it wasn't directed at you, it was the poster you were refering to.

IncognitoMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394071#Comment_121394071

Honest question here...

What courts exactly will City be able to keep this ticking over in while they compete in the PL?

If the PL rules that they broke their rules and or FA, UEFA or FIFA rules then Man City's membership can be revoked.

It's on the PL website :

"Any serious breach of the Rule Book results in an independent three-person tribunal sitting to hear the case, ascertain guilt and set the punishment, which can range from fines to points deductions and, in extreme cases, expulsion from the competition (this has never happened in the history of the Premier League)."

If the PL rule to expel City then who exactly are City going to bring this to?

CAS is out and there is no time barring to save the day here. UEFA? Not likely to get involved.

FIFA can never be sure of but again what can they realistically do. The rules are clear and so is the punishment for breaking those rules.

I've no doubt City and their crooked legal team will try all the tricks but I just don't see how they drag it out once the PL charges them.

The only question is the severity of the punishment. A 10 point deduction for Everton seems like they can only go down the more extreme routes for City now.

There no way this just goes away. Hopefully City as a football club doesn't end up folded because of this.

That would be a concern - at the end of the day Mansour can just walk away from the club if it no longer fits his purpose. Buy another European club and take aim at the PL that way.

City fans have been obnoxious over the last few years and their head in the sand approach has been infuriating but they don't deserve to lose their football club.

Especially the fans that never asked for this