Premier League Financial Rules Discussion - including Man City Charges

True. I wonder if they keep winning year after year how long until the broadcasters tap the PL on the shoulder saying hang on here people are getting bored of a one team league we're losing viewers you better find a way to stop them cheating.

An 80 point deduction would ultimately mean nothing tbh. They'd just bounce back from league 1 in a single season given the squad they have, even if some of the big hitters like Rodri or Haaland were to likely leave.

Pep will leave at the end of this season, Haaland plus Silva, DeBryne, Eddison and maybe one or two more will also leave, just in time before they get a soft monetary based sanction.

You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to see exactly how this will pan out.

Newcastle are waiting for the outcome before opening the cheque book.

Corruption at the highest level.

Chelsea selling their own assets to themselves as well as hording every handy 20 year old in world football should have been nipped in the bud years ago.

Multi club ownership should also have been nipped in the bud years ago.

The only punishments that really suffice are stripping titles from each season they’re found guilty of cheating for - not redistributing them, but having the official records have no winner for those seasons. They’ve broken the rules to buy these trophies and the rewards that come with that, so it seems bizarre they should be allowed to keep them.

Transfer bans/restricted spending/points deductions should all be on the table too.

I don’t think the punishment will come anywhere near it though. I would guess the PL would like this to be over as soon as possible, which probably means City finding the punishment somewhat agreeable so they don’t feel inclined to drag it out in the courts endlessly.

They need to be stripped of all titles won in the period of these charges and relegated. That won’t happen they will get a slap on the wrist and a small fine.

Regards,

P.

There is a difference with golf though - football is far more tribal, and Man City are only one team.

I wouldn’t be surprised if City thought that by the time any potential charges came around that they would have been considered an integral part of the PL, something the PL would fear to lose if they treated them too harshly, but at the end of the day they’re just one expensive football team, nowhere near the best supported team in their city, let alone the country. They could leave the PL tomorrow and the PL would be just as popular as ever.

It should be more important for the PL to hammer them and set a precedent to the other teams like Newcastle that competition is a priority. If they don’t then they’re basically allowing the super league to be a subset of the PL - state owned clubs will be allowed to do whatever they want, and it will have all the integrity of WWE.

Yeah the hearing hasn't even started yet. So how is there any talk of what the final punishment will be?

A small club with the best lawyers on the planet. There will be appeal after appeal and then some. Anybody that thinks these charges will be sorted by next year is dreaming.

I agree and hopefully they get punished properly. A detective said to me a few years ago when I worked in a cops pub "evidence doesn't decide court cases, lawyers do" I know it's not a criminal court but the same principles apply.

I can't link I'm on the phone but if you Google can man city appeal you'll come across an article on sky that says either party can appeal the outcome.

This is clearly the most likely outcome.

Marseille were stripped of their titles in France. No winner was awarded for those years.

There is precedence for stripping titles.

If they are found guilty, the titles simply must be stripped imo.

Can say they cheated abd just leave them the trophy spoils of that cheating.

This is completely different to PSR breaches.

I gave my reasons in my post. Example: Everton were found to have cheated in seasons where they stayed in the PL. They were given a points deduction last season. Should the clubs that were relegated from the PL in the years that Everton were cheating be reinstated / financially compensated etc.

You cant re-write history as that history happened.

I do think stripping historic titles fails to be a real deterrent. The capital created by those titles in terms of increased fans and legacy that helped boost the following iterations of the team that won more titles that helped grow the juggernaut that rules football today can't be taken away. There is a symbolic effect, sure. But the club and the front office staff and the manager and the players have all long ago benefitted from the spoils.

Fines obviously are meaningless in this specific context too, a case which is in essence about the owners evading the rules to funnel walls of cash into the club.

The only thing that works is relegation and bans. The executives and front office staff involved should be banned from holding positions with Premier League clubs. Man City should be relegated from the Premier League and forced to reapply for league membership with the EPL (i.e. potentially work up from a bottom league). If there is any indication that Guardiola knew, he should be banned from managing an EPL club. And if there are any former players who can be proven to have taken illegal payments, etc they should also be banned.

That, of course, is what you would do in the fantasy land where you really wanted to sort this all out and lay down a marker so that it wouldn't happen again. The punishment needs to be such that anyone who might benefit from this sort of cheating, understand the risks and constraints it may place on their presence in the game in the future. As others have stated in this thread many times however - the desire here is to put it to bed in such a way where a line can be drawn under it. An agreement will eventually (and I mean EVENTUALLY) that is agreeable to City.

Yes, you can.

Lance got his Tour titles stripped.
Juventus got their title stripped.
Marseille got their title stripped.

Also, breaching a financial cap is not considered to be in the same ball part as deliberately breaking the rules and committing fraud (which is what it ammounts to).

The thing to keep in mind is that they've won more titles after the seasons they're being charged for but that doesn't necessarily mean there has been no malfaesence in that time period, it just hasn't been investigated thoroughly yet.

It's unlikely that they suddenly decided to play by the rules when Pep Guardiola walked through the door.

Even their current status as the world's most profitable football club stinks to high heaven.

In essence, every possible negative that someone could have associated with the Abu Dhabi takeover of Manchester City in 2008 has come true and then some to boot.

The way clubs were taken over back then was a disgrace and has been a blight on football ever since. Of course they closed the gate after the horse had bolted.

City will destroy football if they're not properly punished, but football allowed them to do it to begin with.

City's owners have already started playing the race/discrimination card which is the achilles heel of Starmers Labour.

Chelsea could be in big trouble now the sale of hotels to sister companies won’t count in new UEFA rules.

Regards,

P.

even worse there was a vote on it, and they voted to keep the loophole.

this is where an independent regulator would work IMO.

The case against City starts next Monday

Regards,

P.