Premier League Financial Rules Discussion - including Man City Charges

Trial set for Autumn 2024, verdict in Summer 2025. Plenty of time for City to win a couple more league titles before then...

Expecting it to be appealed and pushed back another few years anyway.

Everton , rightly appealing ther 10 point deduction this week. Theyd want to sort appeal out quickly, as if it drags on , not fair on other teams around relegation, teams need to know what the points target is as soon as possible. But football organisations such as FIFA, FA ,UEFA don't fill me with confidence that things will be done fairly.

yeah lets just keep penalising Everton, and ignore Chelsea who continue to overspend, CURRENTLY. Everton overspend was 20 million, and given we actually are building a new stadium, and have hardly spent any money for 2 years, and what was spent was pre- agreed with EPL, talk of more fines is bizarre

I thought all City games were sold out and it was impossible to get tickets to any home game

There's been some great investigative journalism on Man City's very dodgy dealings over the last decade or so, especially in terms of their fake sponsorship companies.

I hope someone does something similar soon on their links with Girona ahead of Girona playing in the CL.

The fact that Pep Guadiola's brother is a large stakeholder in the club should set off alarm bells for a start. What sort of deal was done there to let him remain in charge while his brothers employers bought the club. Is Pep a secret owner of the club? And that this is actually an (eventual) off-the-books 'payment' to Pep.

AFAIK Girona are currently under investigation for some dodgy transfer dealings as it is.

The City Groups French team are facing sanctions over transfers and being relegated to the French 3rd division. There fans have had a match abandoned as well The fans hate the owners. They are rotten to the core and destroying football

Regards,

P.

They're a scourge.

Seemingly the ABU Dhabi UAE crowd are holding the UK government over a barrel with threats to not do business with them if City are punished.

Not sure of how true that is but it would be in character, at least for how the majority of us would perceive City's owners to be.

They're essentially bullying everyone they can right now, playing out the legal process for as long as possible, absolutely taking the p1ss.

Of course it's not good for the game, but if they weren't there, fans would be moaning that Real Madrid are getting state aid from Franco to help them win so many CLs.

Fans will always have bogey men to go after.

Football is covered in stains, many of them are there long before any club was bought by the Abu Dhabi football group.

Wouldn't agree with this. Finance at such huge levels coming from outside the game's eco-system only serves to break the eco-system. That eco-system is supposed to cycle with the money football creates. More interest equals more money equals higher wages and fees etc - and less interest equals less money and a deflation of fees. it's a cycle we've seen often throughout the years, where a few years after the massive fees on the likes of Zidane, we had a period where 20m got you a high quality player, before it rose back up.

But when funds are coming in from a bottomless pit that is no longer associated with the actual business of football, everything goes hey-wire - as we saw after PSG's otherworldly fees for Neymar and Mbappe, which threw the transfer market into absolute turmoil. With that industry-skewing money, the other clubs then have to squeeze the machine for all its worth just to try to stay competitive. Ticket prices increase. TV packages increase. Merch gets dearer. Which all ultimately hurts us - the viewer and fan. And it's obviously not sustainable, so is hugely destructive for the sport in the longer term. The stadium crowds are getting older and older, and audiences for things like Champions League are getting smaller and smaller as they go behind steeper and steeper TNT paywalls etc. It's like Barca leveraging the future to pay for the present, except on an industry wide scale.

And on the thing of the 'status quo', nothing sets the status quo more than massive endless outside financing. The status quo now is Man City having one guaranteed Champions League spot, and the rest of the league fighting it out for the other three. Since Man City first got in, every other top side has dropped in and out, in the natural cycle of football, except them. Even with lesser managers than Pep, their CL spot is basically never in doubt because they don't need to worry about the rules of financing others deal with. If the Saudi's are so inclined, Newcastle will take another 'forever' spot before too long. We can only hope they stay distracted by building their own league.

What a load of nonsense.

The top players would stop playing if City didn't break the rules??!!

The rules to date are that teams can lose £15m over 3 years. If you have wealthy owners who want to invest into the club, they can put in an extra £90m over the 3 years. ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal stick to the £15m (apart from the recent investment by Ineos). Over the years, ManU have decided to dividend out tens of millions of profits to their owners rather than spend on players. So the opportunity is there for other clubs to close the gap on the actual financial real earnings if they have owners willing to splash the cash.

Of course the extra £30m per year was not enough for City who had to falsely categorise owner investment as advertising revenues, hence the charges.

Here is a list of football clubs that no longer exist :Bury, Halifax Town, Hereford United, Macclesfield Town, Rushden & Diamonds. That list includes both FA Cup winners and "FA Cup shock" teams. For us, living here in Ireland (the majority anyway), we aren't aware of the emotional bonds these clubs create for their loyal local fanbases. The  football clubs were massive parts of the communities they were based in, and their closures had a huge impact. Before the creation of a money saturated Premier League, these clubs could develop players that could be sold to help with the finances, or could go on a cup run, and hope for that big pay day, away at a top club. Both of these avenues are being shut down now, as even the bottom clubs in the PL can outbid historically "bigger" teams from other countries to bring in international talent to bolster their squads, to try and stay in the top flight. The FA Cup replays being removed is another nail in the coffin for the lower leagues in English football. 

The PL product is such a behemoth now that you can have players jetting off to Australia for more football, straight after the season ends, and before the international competitions begin, because that's another way to hoover up moolah! Letting people just throw money at the game will see it reduced to some global super league where teams will criss-cross the world for "fan experiences" and flogging merch. Manchester City have already killed the competitiveness of the PL due to their endless supply of money. "Seven-in-a-row-bar-Klopp" is the harsh reality. Not a future I want to subscribe to, to be honest. 

Man city's/Newcastle's owners are Trillionaires, there has to be a line somewhere, the fairest way is to limit spending in line with revenue, i don't see a better way of doing it, unless you go back to 100% fan owned clubs and that's never going to happen.

This doesn't make any sense as an argument. I showed above the detrimental affect that outside financing — money that isn't actually created by the football industry — has on top level football. What's your counter? Like, you say finances mean a better product… but why? Let's say across the board you lower the entire top level industry income and expenditure by 20% All the footballers make 20% less, all the tickets are 20% cheaper, the TV package cost is 20% lower, the transfer fees drop by 20%… does anything about the product get worse? The same players receive the same education and are all still playing the same game. Some may end up at slightly different clubs, but the quality at the sharp end remains the same. Is Haaland a worse player if he earns 500k a week instead of 800k a week?

The football industry generates all the money it needs to be a peak level product - what it lacks is balance in sharing that money around. Which is something that outside investment from endless money pits only serves to make much worse. It doesn't improve the quality of the game in any way, it only damages it by breaking the game's financial eco-system.

So if a football club was owned by a Mexican drug cartel it'd be fine because a dollar is a dollar?

Apparently Pep is gonna leave Man City next summer, which of course is in no way connected to the impending investigation results as he has always maintained Man City's innocence and he would never leave them if they get charged.

Anyways, what would people see as an acceptable punishment if they are found guilty? Personally I would be happy with Man City being stripped of any titles/trophies they've won, (like Marseille / Juventus were) and personally I'd have a scenario where there is no champion for any season they've won in those seasons and subsequent seasons which will be under investigation too. I'd also like to see them have a few windows of a transfer ban. Maybe 4 windows.

There'll be a legal challenge to whatever outcome. The Premier League has a problem in so far as they can't create a draconian penalty for the charges and retrospectively apply it without leaving themselves open to a serious legal challenge.

The dealings with Everton and Nottingham Forest have highlighted the fact that the Premier League have been making up the rules regarding punishments as they go along. There was never any serious consideration given to enforcing regulations about finances. It was known in 2003 that Ambramovich was using dirty money and involved in very shady practices. Chelsea flaunted the rules and nothing was done, the results of investigative reporting were ignored. Following Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the matter of Abramovich came to a head and the UK government tried to tip toe around it until there was a public backlash.

When Boehly and Clearlake took control of Chelsea, they began to go back through the financials and found irregularities all the way back as far as 2012. They informed the Premier League and UEFA last summer and didn't look any further after UEFA issued a €10M judgement against the club and drew a line under the matter. The Premier League didn't issue a response, and Boehly's group didn't look back any further. This could blow up in the Premier League's face.

Ignoring what was happening at Chelsea is what led to the situation with Man City. In 2005, the Premier League's Owners' and Directors' rules were introduced in response to Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea. However the rules were not fit for purpose. In 2007, the recently deposed Primeminister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra bought Man City while under investigation for corruption.

In 2007, Dubai International Capital tried to purchase Liverpool FC and were unsuccessful in their bid. That was the opportunity for the Premier League to act and impose proper legal regulations regarding ownership of clubs. But greed and establishing the brand of the Premier League has always been the overriding priority. In August 2008, Abu Dhabi United Group rescued Man City from financial ruin and immediately set about turning the world of football on its head. Remember the crazy transfer deadline day bids for every big name in Europe?

The Premier League didn't have any problem with Man City until the situation was forced upon them by Der Spiegel and UEFA's investigation meant they couldn't ignore the situation any longer.

If they decide to strip Man City of the titles they have won, CFG can point the finger and demand the same punishment for Chelsea. That situation would be a major public embarrassment for the Premier League, 13 of the last 20 Premier League titles have been won by either Chelsea or Man City.

It's an absolute mess and there is no way for the Premier League to untangle it without seriously damaging the brand.

Well the open question is whether it damages the brand more by tackling it and admitting the last ~15 years are deeply tainted; or allowing City to win 7 in 8 with a rubber stamp from the league.

I don’t see the Chelsea situation as equivalent - they have faced sanctions for wrong doing and the club has changed ownership (as much as that was geopolitically forced). In City’s case, they have refused to comply with investigations and the same owners who have cheated retain the club.

The Premier League could ignore this if City weren’t quite so good at it. The idea was that competitive balance would just be magically maintained. English exceptionalism and the great robustness of the Premier League would ensure that it couldn’t be bought and turned into a Ligue One type procession for the State owned wall of money club. That hasn’t panned out. Providing a seal of approval for this potentially eats away at the future value of the product than the uproar that would come with a proper punishment. If nothing else, the latter is good for interest levels!

I remember watching Serie A in the 90s on channel 4.

It was probably the best era of football I have ever watched. 3 foreigner rule for each team, meaning a great spread of talent across all the league, was amazing stuff.

They are not exactly hiding it now are they?

Maybe Girona just borrowed that World Class commercial team from Man City for one hour consultancy and paid them a nice chunk of bookable money for their valuable insight?

….