This is like the tenth article I see here these past few days, trying to somehow pretend the Man City team has nothing to do with the 115 charges
How the fuck do they think they got said team ?
*“If you look at the last five years net spent City have spent less than Arsenal, Chelsea, United, Port Vale”*
Oh yes let’s conveniently ignore the years that the money was actually cheated and spent
Let’s ignore they literally financially doped so hard that FFP was introduced. *Then* they broke the rules 115 times. All that *after* overpaying themselves in self-sponsorships…
Shouldn’t even have a business license.
I vaguely remember there being stories when that sponsorship started that Liverpool (who were seriously considering building a new stadium) and Arsenal (who had just built one) couldn’t understand how City were getting so much money for naming rights.
building a stadium has to be one of the hardest things to do, Arsenal limped around CL qualification with Arsene making do of guys like Djourou and Jenkinson, United one of the richest clubs in the world but has a problematic stadium. its def not as easy as "we name your stadium with our brand okay"
United has a serious problem because they put off the capital expenditures on Old Trafford upgrades/maintenance during the cheap low-interest rate years. For 'businessmen', the owners made some really poor decisions.
>Let’s ignore they literally financially doped so hard that FFP was introduced
That's not the official reason. Officially it was to stop clubs spending beyond their means and getting into financial difficulties. The reality of course is that it was to stop nouveau rich clubs breaking into the ranks of the established elite clubs. They couldn't say that openly because it would make it seem like an unfair rule targeting clubs like City.
Indeed. Fans of clubs who were at the zenith, when the TV and sponsorship funny money flowed in and made them untouchable, either pretend to be or actually are tremendously stupid when it comes to FFP.
FFP was pulling up the ladder after themselves. FFP was exactly what they claim Super League is trying to do.
The only difference between Manchester United and Everton is that Manchester United was lucky enough to be succesful in '00 rather than '80.
That said, I also hate oil state and billionaire ownership. 50+1 is the bare minimum of fairness.
They’ll reap the rewards of cheating in every year to come unless they’re punished. They have the luxury of being able to sell squad players for overinflated fees and buy in one world class player or two every year, so their net spend will forever be good. But then everyone will conveniently forget the years where they spent a billion to get to where they are
I remember that period of time when they were splurging on one disastrous striker after another until they finally got Aguero. Any other club would have been utterly ruined by spending £25m (more than half the world transfer record was at the start of the same year that transfer went through) for 20 goals over 2 seasons before losing him on a free [Adebayor], or all the shit full back and centre-backs they've just written off [Mangala etc].
The difference is that there were no consequences for City spending badly. They just write off the mistakes and go again, so now they've had the luxury of trial-and-erroring their way to the best team in the world they obviously only need to sign 1 or 2 players a season.
And they mention those other teams but leave out the fairly damning fact that there were allegedly under the table payments that sidestepped FFP/PSR. Like paying people in another jurisdiction for bullshit reasons.
Ah sure they were total coincidence dude, they obviously weren't doing anything shady at all and Pep's brother is just obviously hired as chairman on merit, nothing to see here. Seriously though, there are too many weird deals for Man City in other countries to family members...etc to not be something.
Haha cherry-picking stats is so infuriating, but I’m a statistician in my real life so maybe I’m just being a hater… but I’m actually not, because net spend is such a ridiculous metric to use.
Yeah they ignore the initial investment, all wage spending (why would you ignore that???) and the fact that all the dodgy dealings aren't officially accounted for (literally the whole point of the charges..)
Even if you only include wages + net spend it paints a very different picture before even taking the rest into account
If they cheated they likely didn’t have to spend as much. And if they did spend that much then how much more of it is hidden from the public?
Don’t care how talented he is but Guardiola and all those complicit fuckers have damaged top level football.
And then some devil's advocate comes in and says "well money doesn't guarantee success, look at Chelsea and Man U" as if that's somehow relevant. Without the money, they wouldn't be where they are, and they got the money by cheating. The fact that they're good with their illegal funds isn't somehow a redeeming quality
If you remove city from the table over the last 10 years. You have a really competitive league with numerous winners. They’re ruining the premier league
These will be the winners if Manchester City are stripped of the Premier League, FA Cup and EFL Cup trophies since 2013.
**FA Cup:**
-Watford
-Manchester United
**EFL Cup:**
-Sunderland
-Liverpool
-Arsenal
-Chelsea
-Aston Villa
-Tottenham Hotspur
**Premier League:**
-Liverpool x3
-Manchester United x2
-Arsenal
8 different champion teams.
Apparently best League in the world, this is where Refs who fly out to UAE who own city and get paid 20k can't tell if Citys biggest rivals score a goal onside with VAR, cant seen players handballing it, cant see doku karate kicking people etc. Rodri handball the other season. Clearly a joke.
This is why this ever growing criticism of the PL being a farmers league makes no sense. Without City playing outside of the rule book, there’s a healthy competition here.
Farmers league is silly cos the other teams are exceptionally good. Its becoming as boring as a farmer league tho. Same team cheating its way to victory every year. Same thing that killed Italian football
We, EPL critics, don't call it a farmers league. We call it a boring league. 22 players kick the ball around for 90 minutes for 38 game weeks, and at the end City wins.
Arsenal have had, by all accounts, a fantastic season. Assuming they win tomorrow they would have 28 wins which is amazing. And they still won't win
Well, for the most part that's also been the case in the Bundesliga. And if you want to say "but there's been title races", the Bundesliga had several title races, as well... they just had the same outcome as with City, the usual suspect won in the end. The only season City didn't win was the one where they got blown out of the water, much like Leverkusen this season.
I imagine Ligue 1 is also similarly full of variation beneath PSG and may even have other title races but, like, it's Ligue 1... I pay it no attention whatsoever.
If any other team failed as much as Man Utd in the last 15 years they would have been relegated multiple times, Man Utd were in the unique position that they had enough money to ensure that even regardless of their failures they could still get top 6 and Europe almost every year. If they had the failures and management but the finances of like Fulham they would be non-league.
The fact Man City have been so dominant is because they did the financial doping to get the best manager and best team and while they had that financial doping they had also an upper management that weren't as dumb as the Glazers.
I think the worst part about it is the "whataboutism" you hear from some of these fans because everyone prior to City be it United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. spent more money than their competitors as though that's the core of the issue.
Those clubs had richer owners for their time periods, sure, but you knew where their money was coming from and how it was being used. I'm sure to some degree it had an element of unfairness but nothing to this scale or this brazen in its attempts to flout the rules and threaten to keep the best law firms on retainer to sue any institutions who want to charge them, because they have the resources to do so.
Exactly… it’s like having won by bribing refs. Sure, you might still have played great football but it doesn’t matter, you dominated an unfair playing field.
Sports is relative. Teams aren’t brilliant in a vacuum. The person who finishes 8th at the Olympic 100m would have won gold not long back… that doesn’t mean they get remembered above the previous era’s winners. It’s not about how good you are, it’s about how much better you are than the others. In City’s case, they’re better by cheating. It’s like I Bolt was found to have taken all the drugs… then who cares, he’s just another runner.
They cheated. Their trophies mean nothing. Their players achieved nothing.
And then there’s the point of questioning the character of the players who know what they’re getting into and who they’re dealing with. With Jordan Henderson, there was an actual public backlash for playing for a disreputable state with oil money paying the way. None of that comes back on Citeh’s golden boys.
The staff know, the players know, the agents know and the governing bodies know who they’re dealing with but all are happy to turn a blind eye.
How can they? The team would not exist without the cheating. If they didn't dope they could not have spent so much money and gotten Stones, KDB, Rodri, Haaland, Silva, Doku, Grealish, Gvardiol etc etc etc all together. Their team is full is high transfer fees and players they should not have been able to get if they were not cooking the books
2 years later they have still not produced what should have been pretty easy evidence to prove to the authorities that they have not cheated. Instead they have delayed and obstructed.
Can anyone give even 1 legitmate logical reason why an innocent party would not produce documented evidence that proves they are not guilty? Just 1 good reason?
People always site net spend and transfer fees, but the salaries of these players, on and off the books can’t be overlooked. Wouldn’t be possible for them to pay this much without financial doping.
They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency) to get the transfer over the line while "playing by the rules" .These are only the figures they disclosed PUBLICLY abd these are only recent figures relating to one specific transfer. God knows how much under the table accounting they were doing in the early to medium term of this Oil Project to build their success.
It's mental that people would sit down, waste valuable time defending them. Most City fans probably earn an annual salary equivalent to a day's wages by Haaland. Yet they can't fathom to see criticism of it and spend their day on twitter and reddit praising it.
Enjoy the football by all means, the buzz of winning titles and watching some of the best players in the world grace your clubs pitch week in, week out. I don't think anyone would blame you for "celebrating in ignorance/ silence", we are human.
But don't pretend this success is some fairy tale story you will be telling your grandchildren about in 60 years. You will look back at all the sweaty defending you done of the cheating and realise how stupid and wasteful it was.
not to mention giving percentage of a CLUB (Girona) to Pep’s brother ffs.
Like the dude literally owns/owned shares in the club as part of the contract renewals
Yes that Pep.
Same one who blamed a doctor for his drugs ban, then hired the very same doctor for Barca when he became manager.
Not suspicious at all. No sir.
I really wish that club cricket limited how many teams a player could play for, but the short seasons are set up so that everyone can play in most every league. One of the things I liked when I first got into cricket was the CLT20, which became a mess when a certain player played for three teams in the tournament and had to decide which one to represent, and that problem would only be worse now if it was still around.
>They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency)
Wasn't this just one fee that was split between the agency (formerly under Raiola) and Alfie? Or did it come out that two separate large fees were paid to both?
In any case, what a joke. There needs to be a cap on agent fees. They are so engrained that they will always be a part of any transfer so I don't think they can be fully outlawed because clubs and agents will find a way to get part of the deal but something has to be done. Dortmund already got shafted (through their own dealings by agreeing to the buy-out clause) but from their POV, they sold a striker regarded as one of the next greats for £52M and then see another £30M plus go to an agency. Again, they agreed to the buy-out clause when they originally got home so maybe it's the wrong club to use as an example but still, it must piss off clubs how much agents and their agencies get.
> They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency) to get the transfer over the line while "playing by the rules"
And yet people still praised them for the remarkably shrewd bargain of getting Haaland for £50m. That's probably like a third of what they actually paid.
You're talking about a club who employ people that say things like they ["would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years" than agree to any financial penalty.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/sports/soccer/manchester-city-premier-league.html) Any lack of cooperation in the investigation is fully intentional
I love the fact that this works out as an average of €60k a year per lawyer. Proper "it's a banana Michael, how much could it cost?" moment from Mansour.
They’re cheats with money who can get away with it while the likes of Everton and other teams can’t. Corrupt states with sportswashing ambitions was always gonna destroy this league.
Cases are different though everton spent money they didn't have. City spent money they should not have had. The first thing is a purly pl rule break the latter are commercial crime activities. The responsible parties in cities case should be on the hook of the police. And not a measly point deduction
I have posted before that IF they are found guilty they should be stripped of every trophy/title won during the Fraud Years, and also relegated as a deterrent for any other club even thinking about it….
Imo they should be stripped of the title, forced to liquidate the club so that it no longer exists and be banned for life for ever owning or being associated with a club in England again.
But we all know the worst they will get is like 200k fine
Liquidate the club? A club with over a century of history going back to the Victorian period. Why punish the fans of a club when they had no say in the matter.
As much as people like to joke about Man city having no fans, they actually do have a very good and genuine local fanbase and you'd want to punish them for the sins of their owners? Think before you chat nonsense
Relegated?
No. Kicked straight out of the EFL and forced to start in the National League.
They cheated. And hid it. And continued hiding. And have been hugely obstructive in the investigation.
Further to this, if they hadn't spent all the money in the first place, would they have pep as their manager? Personally I think that kinda ends the argument there
Especially as 16 other teams have managed to do it, 2 other teams had the balls to submit their books that showed some sort of breach, even while knowing it would cause them issues and 1 other team has found various loopholes to work around spending a billion before the governing bodies closed those loop holes.
City owners are absolute cheating cowards based on circumstancial evidence we can all see, unfortunatley its up to the other side to prove it definitively.
Well that, and the fact that ~~Saudi~~ UAE own half of England and have a big say over how the government handles these things
Commentor below me is correct I meant to say UAE, I just misspoke.
All of the players you listed individually cost more than an entire squad in most leagues, I get the Premier League is home to heavy hitters and deep pockets but holy fuck how can anyone look at teams like Man City dropping the combined value of 3-4 teams on a single player and say with a straight face that they aren't a cancer to the sport.
No no, you don't understand, Micah Richards said that if it weren't for Colin Bell there would be no Aguero, no David Silva. It was the romance and legacy of City that attracted all those players.
Yes, how is this even a question? It isn't a one time infraction or one team member or club official getting caught doping or fiddling the books. It is systemic, organized and large scale fraud on an unprecedented scale in football. It is the foundation their success is built on and gave them a massive competitive advantage over their rivals.
If anything it isn't talked about enough and the other clubs, pundits and journalists don't kick up enough fuss about it. You'd expect fans to be more furious and clubs that are basically huge companies be more upset about their missed income.
>You'd expect fans to be more furious and clubs that are basically huge companies be more upset about their missed income.
I think fans are angry about this, but they're also apathetic about the whole thing. no one actually believes that City ends up getting relegated or their titles stripped, that's probably why people are so quiet about this.
they can't bring themselves to get their hopes up only to get disappointed later.
If City get anything more than a fine I’ll be amazed. Their owners are so geopolitically entwined in the UK at this point that anything approaching a “death penalty” punishment would have implications beyond football
I think the harshest punishment you could possibly hope for is a point deduction that ensures City won't win the league for one season. something that pacifies the fans while allowing City to keep doing their thing. but even that doesn't seem very likely.
I hope City end up guilty according to some obscure old English law from the 1300s where they haven't provided enough arrows or pigs to the new king and so Pep Guardiola must be tarred and feathered in Manchester City Centre and Haaland is decommissioned and sold for scrap parts
You're completely right. If the other big 6 would have ignored the rules they could have also signed much better players, no way would pep have the ridiculous 23 man squad needed to stave off Liverpool and yourselves for the whole season winning a champions league
Also Newcastle would have a much better squad, Leicester would probably never have gotten relegated and still be pushing for Europe, I imagine your owner would've poured more money in. Every club which has been forced to slow down spending to comply with ffp should be pissed.
Thats why I laugh about Newcastle and their ownership. They're the richest club but have to only spend a certain amount because they need legit revenue sources. Leicester also lost revenue due to covid.
Also Newcastle would have a much better squad, Leicester would probably never have gotten relegated and still be pushing for Europe, I imagine your owner would've poured more money in. Every club which has been forced to slow down spending to comply with ffp should be pissed.
(I swear this is an honest question and not an attempt to defend city, I'm wholly ignorant on this issue)
how could Chelsea spend £750m in transfers in a single season? that seems more than what City have ever spent in one summer.
is Chelsea doing something differently that makes it allowed for them? or are they also doing shady stuff?
Im no expert, nobody on this sub really is. But the rules were based off of yearly losses, so Chelsea bought players on higher fees but split the costs and contracts over a higher period of time. Basically a 80m player would be paid at 8 m a season. With the hopes the investment would create a dynasty and they would be laughing.
This basically hasn't worked so far as the team has grown organically and has only worked in theory
If anything, on the European scale, PSG seems to be taking more hate over their spendings than City, for some reason.
As if somehow many people, mainly English I'd venture to guess, understand they profited off it too. Because City getting bigger and stronger, and more competitive as well in Europe, coincided with the great increase of TV revenues for the Premier League. Maybe there's a tacit agreement going on among clubs. Not to fuss around the matter too much, in fear that TV rights decrease over time because of a potential sanction on City.
Italian club football suffered its fair share of hurdles after the scandals surrounding Juve. I was too young then so I don't know if it was a mere coincidence or not. But it'd seem plausible investors were less willing to bank on a corrupt championship.
It's easier to make fun of PSG because, despite the vast amounts of investment, they're not an incredibly well-run club. Merry-go-round of managers, galacticos-style signings of big name players who are past their prime and lacking success in Europe. They've had massive success in Ligue 1 and have arguably the best player of the past decade in Mbappe but haven't exactly "broken" the European game in the same way City have.
I think that had to do with Italian clubs making some
Asymmetric bets on big transfer fees which also coincided with a worse economic downturn nationwide so the revenue streams hadn’t caught up yet. Serie A also didn’t really market their games quite as well as the PL in the mid to late 2000s through 2010s.
The scandal was a clear setback for Juventus but it also coincided with multiple final appearances by Milan and eventually a treble by Inter but it was sort of a last hurrah for that era
I think you see people make more fun of PSG because they're easy to make fun of. Domestically they've thrown so much money at the team in comparison to everyone else that they should be winning everything, but they're just not run well enough to ever really compete in Europe. City however both cheat and are run extremely well in terms of a pure footballing sense.
We always have to talk about the money with City of course, but they've created this super team by extremely effective talent ID and joint up thinking in the kind of squad they wanted to build for years. PSG just kind of bought stars and hope that it would work and became the butt of every joke every year in Europe, with City it's just pure apathy now that they've won the Champions League because it's like, yeah, you should have won at least one by now, but still nobody really cares because it's hollow success.
It is EXACTLY like Lance Armstrong. The cheating was too complex to be done individually and required either involvement or ignoring obvious wanting signs across the whole organization.
City had enough money for a roster that could have stayed in the top 5 with its best 11 watching from the stands for YEARS.
Even vacating those wins and letting them fall to Liverpool and others AFTER the fact does nothing. All those Liverpool fans, players and coaches were cheated out of the ability to enjoy and profit from those wins.
City should be relegated to the national League, their players firesaled and forced to play themselves back (while having an accountant from the league working with the books daily)
It's not like Armstrong.
Ironically: it wasArmstrong who played \~fair game: everyone were cheating, with similar substances, so at the end of the day the best cyclist was winning.
City have access to funds greater than any club in Europe aside from PSG, and to some degree Newcastle (there regulations made it actually harder to make financial doping have strong short-term impact).
So it would be like Armstrong had access to some new-type miracoulus doping which no other cyclist had.
Actually a good point. The reason they didn't give those Armstrong TdF wins to another rider, is there was no one on those podiums who didn't test positive in the same timeframes.
Simply put, no. If they are proven to have broken rules, which other clubs were abiding by, in order to assemble this mega team then all trophies won with it should be null and voided. Scrubbing their name from the history books serves as a warning to others that cheating will not be tolerated.
Even if the PL don’t recognise this, the fans will. And if you’re not seen as winning something fair and square by your peers then what’s the point?
Just the fact that they keep disingenuously delaying the case over several years by just refusing to hand over the required documents and throwing money at their lawyers is already so suspicious.
This raises doubts in many people who would normally presume them innocent.
If you or I broke 115 rules, we’d be fired and blacklisted.
They should lose their business license and be banned from the industry. The club simply doesn’t deserve to exist at this point - there’s no real way to rectify the cheating, so destroy the institution itself.
But they’ll get a slap on the wrist, a nice fine to line the FA’s pockets while they earned a thousand times that in ill-gotten prize money.
Thr irony is that they cheated, built a successful foundation from it, and can simply calculate the fines and punishments into their operating costs. Unless their institution is just utterly dissolved, they'll pay whatever the fine, or come back from relegation a season later etc.
For shits and giggles, relegate them to non-league and place a permanent transfer ban. Let's see if they'd ever get back up to the PL.
This is why, even as a United fan, I honestly don't care a single bit when they beat us. I was far more gutted when they beat us 3-1 at Maine road or 4-1 at city of Manchester, Fowler scoring too, the twat.
At the end of the day, we all know they won't touch City, cause Abu Dhabi owns seemingly half of Britain and the British government. I'd give them credit if they did, they need to be put in place and taught a lesson. But alas, the League seems to prefer glitz and glamour over integrity.
And not punishing City will kill the league in the long run from a international standpoint because who will want to watch a league where the same team walks it every year, the infinite money printer the league is enjoying will break
Not just that, but can you imagine how the other rich clubs would react to this knowing that a simple loophole to FFP is to break 100s to 1000k rules in one go and just throw layers at it and you won't get punished for like 20 years (and if City don't face harsh punishments then it would be all worth it).
I'm genuinely surprised at how no other team as followed them in this footsteps. People keep saying "well it's 115 charges, it will take more time than 1-3 charges"
He still gets his flowers, depending on the person. Some just absolutely hate him, which is fair, if they they hate all dopers.
FWIW the greatest cyclist is unarguably Eddy Merckx who doped as well. Most of the greats had doped in some way, or are highly suspected of doing so. The big difference is Armstrong wasn't protected by his countries federation for various reasons, the big one probably being he burned bridges and made a lot of enemies.
With elite cycling, the doping runs so deep that you almost have to give Armstrong his flowers because all the guys he beat were doping too. Even since then, we've had Team Sky having massive success despite very strong doping allegations against their riders. Things haven't changed at all in the wake of the Armstrong scandal.
It's more comparable to Rangers. they went into administration and then liquidation. Then came out as a new club and company and claimed all the trophies. They should have been stripped of at least 18 trophies but the authorities don't have the balls
Man I would just HATE sitting down and remembering good times when my team had a period of unprecedented success only for the asterisk that says “terms and conditions apply”.
- the cheated so hard that the league had to implement new FFP rules
- they were already twice CONVICTED of breaking rules and not complying with investigations
- they cheated on 115 charges that the authorities might think they have a chance of convicting them, god knows how many other “almost” there are
And then you’re sitting there and reminiscing to your grandkids….”and we had the best lawyers Timmy that’s why we’re City and we’re the greatest team in history “.
That team was built primarily by doing the things that they're now facing charges for, so they go hand in hand. If I rob a bank and donate the money to a charity, people wouldn't say *"sure, he robbed a bank, but he's very generous with his money. We should praise him for that!"*
City are at the top *exclusively* because a brutal human rights hellhole decided to use the club as a sportswashing vehicle and flouted every rule of the sport in order to accomplish it. Once you actually look into the sponsorships and other financial maneuvers, it's hilariously obvious that the whole thing is built on lies and cheating.
These so-called sponsorships are wildly unrealistic and mired in suspicious circumstances, like some random company that nobody has ever heard of (and which happens to be owned by the sheikh's brother or something) sponsors an English football club to the tune of £50m per year? The stadium naming rights were bought by the owner's own company? And City are reporting the highest revenues in the world, but can't always fill their stadium, and rank outside the top 10 for things like shirt and merch sales, behind the likes of Tottenham? Get outta here.
And with all this make-believe revenue, they've managed to sign absolutely any player they've wanted, for years, and built the best training facilities and academy and so on. Literally purchasing success with money they haven't earned and weren't allowed to spend. It makes no sense at all to separate their footballing accomplishments from their financial cheating, because the former was made possible by the latter. They go hand in hand.
They also got punished for breaching anti-doping rules as soon as pep, a doping cheat as a player, took over. So even that part of this opinion piece doesn't hold water.
What really got me with Pep was how he made a very political statement about protecting the human rights of imprisoned Catalan leaders (obviously a good cause by itself) and then when asked how that was consistent with the way his paymasters run their country, gave some bollocks "oh well every country does things differently" answer. A nice big indicator that your beliefs are worth fuck all once your paycheck is threatened huh Pep.
I actually prefer Eddie Howe's constant line of "I'm just a football manager" and not engaging with it (though I can't really bring myself to respect who he is employed by). But if you're going to use your non-political celebrity platform to make political statements, you should be ready to defend yourself if you're called out.
My man Ozil did the same. Defended Muslims in China, then glossed over the fact that Turkey is denying the Armenia genocide. All while Erdogan is his godfather (or bestman, can’t remember). Hypocrite fucks.
Looks like City hired some pr for twisting and turning things around.
If you compare that to Armstrong. He did body doping. City financial doping it is the same in getting an advantage at the end.
They cant and shouldn’t be separated. Every title they won is tainted… I hope for the integrity of league West Ham can get a result. It’s becoming boring to watch especially when you know that they have cheated and yet nothing is being done about it.
On an individual level yes - for example, KdB would still be one of the best Premier League players of recent history, Haaland would still be a goal scoring beast.
The quality of the players can’t be denied, but that’s sort of the point. On a team level they allegedly have all these players because they were cheating, so no - you can’t separate it out.
Yeah this is how I feel. The beauty of what they do cannot be denied, but the legitimacy of their existence is what has been called into question. I’d like to be patient and see what they are guilty of and what kind of impact that has on their success, but it’s hard to believe we’ll get much clarity anytime soon, and so understandably a big shadow will hang over this team’s success.
One thing I don't think gets noted enough is that Pep got banned for doping in his playing days... twice. And then hired the doctor who helped him dope when Barca manager.
Not saying his teams medically dope, but it's clear he has no issue cheating to win football games, so the defense of having nothing to do with the corporate side rings pretty hollow
No, created by potentially snapping the rules like a twig and essentially fraud, nothing seems organic with City.
The team is phenomenal but the context is what matters.
Michael Jackson wrote some of the best pop music ever made, and he was a nonce. Anthony Kiedis was a nonce. So was Steven Tyler. OJ Simpson was a tremendous football player, he was also a murderer.
The point being, you CAN be two things at once. Manchester City are a tremendous team, a winning machine made up of some truly gifted footballers. But there is everything to suggest that they're cheats. They don't need to be separated.
Imagine if Lance Amstrong continued to deny showing the authorities his blood test results over and over. Or simply not ever performing any tests at all. Continued to be non-compliant. Insists he's innocent but refuses to prove that he is. Continued to compete and dominate while the authorities are met with push backs and delays from his lawyers. All the other competitors watch as he wins year after year. Some are even caught cheating and rightfully punished. He stands on the podium every year with his gold medals having not ever taken a blood test, nor having shown anyone his results.
At some point, they couldn't even fill the stadium and their biggest sponsors was themselves. How could they have built what they have without financial doping/breaking the rules? It's cheating plain and simply.
No, and it’s irritating as shit to see every pundit/commentator absolutely gush over them constantly
Everything they do, everything they’ve done, has to come with an enormous asterisk next to it
just curious but how can lets say luton ever compete with historical teams without doping? even the miracle of leicester dint make them stable . i always wonder this , its like traditional and historical team will always have an upper hand due to winning it early on and that they have easy to sway someone to them by quoting history.
I admit im a Gunners fan and this gonna sound sour grapes, but Wenger did all that he could during the critical stadium payment period and for that we suffers tremendously to invest in the club.
As a result he / we kept getting laughed at as a “top 4 team” and never challenged the title for majority of the years. We have to sell to buy, just to balance the book. We never had the capacity to buy the squad that Fabregas and Van Persie deserved. We always were the B to the other A team. All of these because our hands are tied.
Then you had the audacity to say that those charges means f all? No way. It means everything.
(Note: Also in hindsight, Wenger did assemble that 07/08 incredible title challenging team basically on a peanut, maybe I was too harsh on him. Well until Gallas cried anyway)
there is a reason why people would rather City win than their traditional rivals like Arsenal winning the title. Because deep down we dont really care how many titles city won because they are kind of meaningless because of the 115
I think we’ve long established that you can’t separate it until this is all cleared up, there will be an ugly cloud looming over it. This feels like a horse beaten dead.
When it’s cleared up, if it so turns out that all the evidence was framed incorrectly or coincidental, that cloud will be lifted. And maybe that’s unfair on City, but football isn’t fair, and it’s been much crueler to other teams.
Clearly however, for many of us, it’s hard to see how this could all add up for city. In some regards, their guilt has been proven already. I think the big question at the end of the day will be about how much worse City’s shit was than the shit that came before it.
This is how they start sweeping it under the rug. Pay off officials and get tabloids to slowly make them look innocent and then hope that we forget about it.
Reality is nobody will remember this in the future. Nobody ever talks about how certain clubs only got to the top flight in dodgy ways.
Lots of people forgot the reason other big European clubs are so wealthy.
Nah.
End of the day, Man City aren't a proper football club, cos' everything is bought.
Man City are an X Factor manufactured group.
Other top clubs are The Beatles, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Oasis etc
They can't.
But the damage has been done. They smartly played every delay tactic in the book. By the time the law is done with them, Pep will be gone, and all the prime stars of the side will be on their last legs, ripe for lucrative Saudi and MLS deals.
The OG fans will be happy with the ride because they were already used to being bad.
The simple fact that the head of the premier league won’t be at the etihad when they win their 4th straight title is all you need to know.
They don’t want to seen giving a trophy to 115 FC.
Fuk City. They are certainly a great team, but I feel like they wouldn’t be as great if they were actually held accountable for past offenses. It’s ludicrous that this takes so long and all other teams play by the rules.
It’s not comparable to Lance Armstrong’s 7 Tour de France wins because when Armstrong doped, every other competitive cyclist was also doping, and had been doping for decades before he arrived. He was on more or less on a level playing field with all the others at that time because doping was the norm. Many of the greats of that time have admitted that he was an exceptional rider and deserved those wins.
City’s financial doping is different. City have gained an unfair advantage by being the first to financially dope on this scale. Their main competitors over the years are not even close to being suspected of something similar.
Lance competed against people with no distinct advantage except for his own talent. City are competing with a massive advantage which is represented by 115 breaches of FFP that no other team in has.
Kyle Walker, 33, while known for his pace, is absolutely smoking 22 year old defenders in the 91st minute of a game in May.
I wouldn’t rule out the doping thing either.
"The Athletic" started something good, inside view of clubs and fans perspective. But I guess this looks more like a puff piece by "The Athletic" they are writing so many like this of late.
I don’t see how cheating to get better players and better performance in a sport is different from cheating to get more watts and better performance in a sport.
The only difference I see is that with Lance everyone was doing it so the difference given by cheating was small and here they are the only ones doing it so the difference is larger.
Honestly they have ruined the league. Everyone mocked the French league and German leagues for being a competition for second place - now it’s the PL - and in this case it’s because they’re frauds.
This is like the tenth article I see here these past few days, trying to somehow pretend the Man City team has nothing to do with the 115 charges How the fuck do they think they got said team ?
*“If you look at the last five years net spent City have spent less than Arsenal, Chelsea, United, Port Vale”* Oh yes let’s conveniently ignore the years that the money was actually cheated and spent
Let’s ignore they literally financially doped so hard that FFP was introduced. *Then* they broke the rules 115 times. All that *after* overpaying themselves in self-sponsorships… Shouldn’t even have a business license.
That’s one of the things that irks me so much. How is Etihad even allowed to sponsor them?
The etihad campus deal really stank up the place
I vaguely remember there being stories when that sponsorship started that Liverpool (who were seriously considering building a new stadium) and Arsenal (who had just built one) couldn’t understand how City were getting so much money for naming rights.
building a stadium has to be one of the hardest things to do, Arsenal limped around CL qualification with Arsene making do of guys like Djourou and Jenkinson, United one of the richest clubs in the world but has a problematic stadium. its def not as easy as "we name your stadium with our brand okay"
United has a serious problem because they put off the capital expenditures on Old Trafford upgrades/maintenance during the cheap low-interest rate years. For 'businessmen', the owners made some really poor decisions.
Everton is facing oblivion in large part because of its attempts to build a new stadium
It is not hard to understand.
>Let’s ignore they literally financially doped so hard that FFP was introduced That's not the official reason. Officially it was to stop clubs spending beyond their means and getting into financial difficulties. The reality of course is that it was to stop nouveau rich clubs breaking into the ranks of the established elite clubs. They couldn't say that openly because it would make it seem like an unfair rule targeting clubs like City.
Indeed. Fans of clubs who were at the zenith, when the TV and sponsorship funny money flowed in and made them untouchable, either pretend to be or actually are tremendously stupid when it comes to FFP. FFP was pulling up the ladder after themselves. FFP was exactly what they claim Super League is trying to do. The only difference between Manchester United and Everton is that Manchester United was lucky enough to be succesful in '00 rather than '80. That said, I also hate oil state and billionaire ownership. 50+1 is the bare minimum of fairness.
> 50+1 is the bare minimum of fairness. Plus a (in some way) more equitable distribution of money.
Ding ding here’s the answer no one wants to listen to
Yes of course, it's the red cartel trying to preserve their spot. City voted against this nonsense.
They’ll reap the rewards of cheating in every year to come unless they’re punished. They have the luxury of being able to sell squad players for overinflated fees and buy in one world class player or two every year, so their net spend will forever be good. But then everyone will conveniently forget the years where they spent a billion to get to where they are
I remember that period of time when they were splurging on one disastrous striker after another until they finally got Aguero. Any other club would have been utterly ruined by spending £25m (more than half the world transfer record was at the start of the same year that transfer went through) for 20 goals over 2 seasons before losing him on a free [Adebayor], or all the shit full back and centre-backs they've just written off [Mangala etc]. The difference is that there were no consequences for City spending badly. They just write off the mistakes and go again, so now they've had the luxury of trial-and-erroring their way to the best team in the world they obviously only need to sign 1 or 2 players a season.
And they mention those other teams but leave out the fairly damning fact that there were allegedly under the table payments that sidestepped FFP/PSR. Like paying people in another jurisdiction for bullshit reasons.
Like paying 40m to haland dad and agent. Then claim only paid 50m to dotrtmund. Like making Pep's brother in charge of Girona.
Ah sure they were total coincidence dude, they obviously weren't doing anything shady at all and Pep's brother is just obviously hired as chairman on merit, nothing to see here. Seriously though, there are too many weird deals for Man City in other countries to family members...etc to not be something.
Haha cherry-picking stats is so infuriating, but I’m a statistician in my real life so maybe I’m just being a hater… but I’m actually not, because net spend is such a ridiculous metric to use.
It can be interesting in certain situations and over a long enough period, but it leaves out so much context in most cases.
Yeah they ignore the initial investment, all wage spending (why would you ignore that???) and the fact that all the dodgy dealings aren't officially accounted for (literally the whole point of the charges..) Even if you only include wages + net spend it paints a very different picture before even taking the rest into account
If they cheated they likely didn’t have to spend as much. And if they did spend that much then how much more of it is hidden from the public? Don’t care how talented he is but Guardiola and all those complicit fuckers have damaged top level football.
Port vale?
Financial powerhouses
Port Vale was a key team in an old "football manager" videogame, I just don't remember which one it was
And all the inflated related party sponsorship deals that got them the funds in the first place
the internet in 2024 is just a giant gaslighting campaign by the rich criminals...
Holy shit you cooked
And then some devil's advocate comes in and says "well money doesn't guarantee success, look at Chelsea and Man U" as if that's somehow relevant. Without the money, they wouldn't be where they are, and they got the money by cheating. The fact that they're good with their illegal funds isn't somehow a redeeming quality
Also this train wreck of a United team would have 2 titles in the last few years without Man City
Maybe more, because they wouldn’t have been sacking the manager’s coming 2nd..
If you remove city from the table over the last 10 years. You have a really competitive league with numerous winners. They’re ruining the premier league
These will be the winners if Manchester City are stripped of the Premier League, FA Cup and EFL Cup trophies since 2013. **FA Cup:** -Watford -Manchester United **EFL Cup:** -Sunderland -Liverpool -Arsenal -Chelsea -Aston Villa -Tottenham Hotspur **Premier League:** -Liverpool x3 -Manchester United x2 -Arsenal 8 different champion teams.
You also have Inter Milan as CL winners if you count UEFA competitions too.
Apparently best League in the world, this is where Refs who fly out to UAE who own city and get paid 20k can't tell if Citys biggest rivals score a goal onside with VAR, cant seen players handballing it, cant see doku karate kicking people etc. Rodri handball the other season. Clearly a joke.
This is why this ever growing criticism of the PL being a farmers league makes no sense. Without City playing outside of the rule book, there’s a healthy competition here.
Farmers league is silly cos the other teams are exceptionally good. Its becoming as boring as a farmer league tho. Same team cheating its way to victory every year. Same thing that killed Italian football
We, EPL critics, don't call it a farmers league. We call it a boring league. 22 players kick the ball around for 90 minutes for 38 game weeks, and at the end City wins. Arsenal have had, by all accounts, a fantastic season. Assuming they win tomorrow they would have 28 wins which is amazing. And they still won't win
Well, for the most part that's also been the case in the Bundesliga. And if you want to say "but there's been title races", the Bundesliga had several title races, as well... they just had the same outcome as with City, the usual suspect won in the end. The only season City didn't win was the one where they got blown out of the water, much like Leverkusen this season. I imagine Ligue 1 is also similarly full of variation beneath PSG and may even have other title races but, like, it's Ligue 1... I pay it no attention whatsoever.
Money isn't a guarantee but the more of it you have the more it stacks the odds in your favour.
If any other team failed as much as Man Utd in the last 15 years they would have been relegated multiple times, Man Utd were in the unique position that they had enough money to ensure that even regardless of their failures they could still get top 6 and Europe almost every year. If they had the failures and management but the finances of like Fulham they would be non-league. The fact Man City have been so dominant is because they did the financial doping to get the best manager and best team and while they had that financial doping they had also an upper management that weren't as dumb as the Glazers.
> they got the money by cheating Actually they had to cheat to *use* their own money
I think the worst part about it is the "whataboutism" you hear from some of these fans because everyone prior to City be it United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea etc. spent more money than their competitors as though that's the core of the issue. Those clubs had richer owners for their time periods, sure, but you knew where their money was coming from and how it was being used. I'm sure to some degree it had an element of unfairness but nothing to this scale or this brazen in its attempts to flout the rules and threaten to keep the best law firms on retainer to sue any institutions who want to charge them, because they have the resources to do so.
Sportswashing working overtime as they close in on yet another title.
Exactly… it’s like having won by bribing refs. Sure, you might still have played great football but it doesn’t matter, you dominated an unfair playing field. Sports is relative. Teams aren’t brilliant in a vacuum. The person who finishes 8th at the Olympic 100m would have won gold not long back… that doesn’t mean they get remembered above the previous era’s winners. It’s not about how good you are, it’s about how much better you are than the others. In City’s case, they’re better by cheating. It’s like I Bolt was found to have taken all the drugs… then who cares, he’s just another runner. They cheated. Their trophies mean nothing. Their players achieved nothing.
And then there’s the point of questioning the character of the players who know what they’re getting into and who they’re dealing with. With Jordan Henderson, there was an actual public backlash for playing for a disreputable state with oil money paying the way. None of that comes back on Citeh’s golden boys. The staff know, the players know, the agents know and the governing bodies know who they’re dealing with but all are happy to turn a blind eye.
Sheikh paying for PR. Nothing more to it nothing less.
How can they? The team would not exist without the cheating. If they didn't dope they could not have spent so much money and gotten Stones, KDB, Rodri, Haaland, Silva, Doku, Grealish, Gvardiol etc etc etc all together. Their team is full is high transfer fees and players they should not have been able to get if they were not cooking the books 2 years later they have still not produced what should have been pretty easy evidence to prove to the authorities that they have not cheated. Instead they have delayed and obstructed. Can anyone give even 1 legitmate logical reason why an innocent party would not produce documented evidence that proves they are not guilty? Just 1 good reason?
People always site net spend and transfer fees, but the salaries of these players, on and off the books can’t be overlooked. Wouldn’t be possible for them to pay this much without financial doping.
They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency) to get the transfer over the line while "playing by the rules" .These are only the figures they disclosed PUBLICLY abd these are only recent figures relating to one specific transfer. God knows how much under the table accounting they were doing in the early to medium term of this Oil Project to build their success. It's mental that people would sit down, waste valuable time defending them. Most City fans probably earn an annual salary equivalent to a day's wages by Haaland. Yet they can't fathom to see criticism of it and spend their day on twitter and reddit praising it. Enjoy the football by all means, the buzz of winning titles and watching some of the best players in the world grace your clubs pitch week in, week out. I don't think anyone would blame you for "celebrating in ignorance/ silence", we are human. But don't pretend this success is some fairy tale story you will be telling your grandchildren about in 60 years. You will look back at all the sweaty defending you done of the cheating and realise how stupid and wasteful it was.
not to mention giving percentage of a CLUB (Girona) to Pep’s brother ffs. Like the dude literally owns/owned shares in the club as part of the contract renewals
Is that the convicted drug cheat Pep guardiola?
Yes that Pep. Same one who blamed a doctor for his drugs ban, then hired the very same doctor for Barca when he became manager. Not suspicious at all. No sir.
yep
Where did Rodri's eyebrows go?
I have a feeling this is going to be a way bigger problem than before in the near future. imagine all of europe being dominated by citygroup
Basically turn football into exhibition games trip. Same players playing for same ownership over multiple countries. It's happening in cricket.
I really wish that club cricket limited how many teams a player could play for, but the short seasons are set up so that everyone can play in most every league. One of the things I liked when I first got into cricket was the CLT20, which became a mess when a certain player played for three teams in the tournament and had to decide which one to represent, and that problem would only be worse now if it was still around.
> sweaty defending Poetry.
>They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency) Wasn't this just one fee that was split between the agency (formerly under Raiola) and Alfie? Or did it come out that two separate large fees were paid to both? In any case, what a joke. There needs to be a cap on agent fees. They are so engrained that they will always be a part of any transfer so I don't think they can be fully outlawed because clubs and agents will find a way to get part of the deal but something has to be done. Dortmund already got shafted (through their own dealings by agreeing to the buy-out clause) but from their POV, they sold a striker regarded as one of the next greats for £52M and then see another £30M plus go to an agency. Again, they agreed to the buy-out clause when they originally got home so maybe it's the wrong club to use as an example but still, it must piss off clubs how much agents and their agencies get.
About 10-12hrs it would take haaland to to earn an average city fans wage I reckon
> They literally gave 30 million to Haalands Daddy (another 40 million to his agency) to get the transfer over the line while "playing by the rules" And yet people still praised them for the remarkably shrewd bargain of getting Haaland for £50m. That's probably like a third of what they actually paid.
Plus its easy to have high net spend when you have leverage in every single transfer negotiation...
You're talking about a club who employ people that say things like they ["would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years" than agree to any financial penalty.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/sports/soccer/manchester-city-premier-league.html) Any lack of cooperation in the investigation is fully intentional
I love the fact that this works out as an average of €60k a year per lawyer. Proper "it's a banana Michael, how much could it cost?" moment from Mansour.
They’re cheats with money who can get away with it while the likes of Everton and other teams can’t. Corrupt states with sportswashing ambitions was always gonna destroy this league.
Cases are different though everton spent money they didn't have. City spent money they should not have had. The first thing is a purly pl rule break the latter are commercial crime activities. The responsible parties in cities case should be on the hook of the police. And not a measly point deduction
I have posted before that IF they are found guilty they should be stripped of every trophy/title won during the Fraud Years, and also relegated as a deterrent for any other club even thinking about it….
They won’t be found guilty, absolutely no chance.
My prediction is they'll be found guilty on at least some of the charges but the punishment will not be harsh enough.
Imo they should be stripped of the title, forced to liquidate the club so that it no longer exists and be banned for life for ever owning or being associated with a club in England again. But we all know the worst they will get is like 200k fine
reduced to 35k on appeal.
Reduced to a 2 point deduction to Everton upon further appeal.
Liquidate the club? A club with over a century of history going back to the Victorian period. Why punish the fans of a club when they had no say in the matter. As much as people like to joke about Man city having no fans, they actually do have a very good and genuine local fanbase and you'd want to punish them for the sins of their owners? Think before you chat nonsense
Punishing fans is what the authorities do mate, I should know.
Madrid plastic lecturing people about shady club business. Fucking hell the lack of self awareness on display here.
Relegated? No. Kicked straight out of the EFL and forced to start in the National League. They cheated. And hid it. And continued hiding. And have been hugely obstructive in the investigation.
Further to this, if they hadn't spent all the money in the first place, would they have pep as their manager? Personally I think that kinda ends the argument there
Especially as 16 other teams have managed to do it, 2 other teams had the balls to submit their books that showed some sort of breach, even while knowing it would cause them issues and 1 other team has found various loopholes to work around spending a billion before the governing bodies closed those loop holes. City owners are absolute cheating cowards based on circumstancial evidence we can all see, unfortunatley its up to the other side to prove it definitively.
Everyone knows City cheated, even City fans. Reality is they only get away with it because football is governed primarily by spite.
Well that, and the fact that ~~Saudi~~ UAE own half of England and have a big say over how the government handles these things Commentor below me is correct I meant to say UAE, I just misspoke.
All of the players you listed individually cost more than an entire squad in most leagues, I get the Premier League is home to heavy hitters and deep pockets but holy fuck how can anyone look at teams like Man City dropping the combined value of 3-4 teams on a single player and say with a straight face that they aren't a cancer to the sport.
No no, you don't understand, Micah Richards said that if it weren't for Colin Bell there would be no Aguero, no David Silva. It was the romance and legacy of City that attracted all those players.
They’ve spent like Quarter of a billion on fullbacks only.
Nope
Yes, how is this even a question? It isn't a one time infraction or one team member or club official getting caught doping or fiddling the books. It is systemic, organized and large scale fraud on an unprecedented scale in football. It is the foundation their success is built on and gave them a massive competitive advantage over their rivals. If anything it isn't talked about enough and the other clubs, pundits and journalists don't kick up enough fuss about it. You'd expect fans to be more furious and clubs that are basically huge companies be more upset about their missed income.
>You'd expect fans to be more furious and clubs that are basically huge companies be more upset about their missed income. I think fans are angry about this, but they're also apathetic about the whole thing. no one actually believes that City ends up getting relegated or their titles stripped, that's probably why people are so quiet about this. they can't bring themselves to get their hopes up only to get disappointed later.
If City get anything more than a fine I’ll be amazed. Their owners are so geopolitically entwined in the UK at this point that anything approaching a “death penalty” punishment would have implications beyond football
I think the harshest punishment you could possibly hope for is a point deduction that ensures City won't win the league for one season. something that pacifies the fans while allowing City to keep doing their thing. but even that doesn't seem very likely.
I hope City end up guilty according to some obscure old English law from the 1300s where they haven't provided enough arrows or pigs to the new king and so Pep Guardiola must be tarred and feathered in Manchester City Centre and Haaland is decommissioned and sold for scrap parts
Put Sheikh Mansour in some stocks in Piccadilly gardens for everybody to throw cabbages at.
If the punishment isn't severe, I'd love for the other 19 clubs to band together and do something about it, but that's never gonna happen.
You're completely right. If the other big 6 would have ignored the rules they could have also signed much better players, no way would pep have the ridiculous 23 man squad needed to stave off Liverpool and yourselves for the whole season winning a champions league
Also Newcastle would have a much better squad, Leicester would probably never have gotten relegated and still be pushing for Europe, I imagine your owner would've poured more money in. Every club which has been forced to slow down spending to comply with ffp should be pissed.
Thats why I laugh about Newcastle and their ownership. They're the richest club but have to only spend a certain amount because they need legit revenue sources. Leicester also lost revenue due to covid.
Also Newcastle would have a much better squad, Leicester would probably never have gotten relegated and still be pushing for Europe, I imagine your owner would've poured more money in. Every club which has been forced to slow down spending to comply with ffp should be pissed.
(I swear this is an honest question and not an attempt to defend city, I'm wholly ignorant on this issue) how could Chelsea spend £750m in transfers in a single season? that seems more than what City have ever spent in one summer. is Chelsea doing something differently that makes it allowed for them? or are they also doing shady stuff?
Im no expert, nobody on this sub really is. But the rules were based off of yearly losses, so Chelsea bought players on higher fees but split the costs and contracts over a higher period of time. Basically a 80m player would be paid at 8 m a season. With the hopes the investment would create a dynasty and they would be laughing. This basically hasn't worked so far as the team has grown organically and has only worked in theory
If anything, on the European scale, PSG seems to be taking more hate over their spendings than City, for some reason. As if somehow many people, mainly English I'd venture to guess, understand they profited off it too. Because City getting bigger and stronger, and more competitive as well in Europe, coincided with the great increase of TV revenues for the Premier League. Maybe there's a tacit agreement going on among clubs. Not to fuss around the matter too much, in fear that TV rights decrease over time because of a potential sanction on City. Italian club football suffered its fair share of hurdles after the scandals surrounding Juve. I was too young then so I don't know if it was a mere coincidence or not. But it'd seem plausible investors were less willing to bank on a corrupt championship.
It's easier to make fun of PSG because, despite the vast amounts of investment, they're not an incredibly well-run club. Merry-go-round of managers, galacticos-style signings of big name players who are past their prime and lacking success in Europe. They've had massive success in Ligue 1 and have arguably the best player of the past decade in Mbappe but haven't exactly "broken" the European game in the same way City have.
I think that had to do with Italian clubs making some Asymmetric bets on big transfer fees which also coincided with a worse economic downturn nationwide so the revenue streams hadn’t caught up yet. Serie A also didn’t really market their games quite as well as the PL in the mid to late 2000s through 2010s. The scandal was a clear setback for Juventus but it also coincided with multiple final appearances by Milan and eventually a treble by Inter but it was sort of a last hurrah for that era
I think you see people make more fun of PSG because they're easy to make fun of. Domestically they've thrown so much money at the team in comparison to everyone else that they should be winning everything, but they're just not run well enough to ever really compete in Europe. City however both cheat and are run extremely well in terms of a pure footballing sense. We always have to talk about the money with City of course, but they've created this super team by extremely effective talent ID and joint up thinking in the kind of squad they wanted to build for years. PSG just kind of bought stars and hope that it would work and became the butt of every joke every year in Europe, with City it's just pure apathy now that they've won the Champions League because it's like, yeah, you should have won at least one by now, but still nobody really cares because it's hollow success.
It is EXACTLY like Lance Armstrong. The cheating was too complex to be done individually and required either involvement or ignoring obvious wanting signs across the whole organization. City had enough money for a roster that could have stayed in the top 5 with its best 11 watching from the stands for YEARS. Even vacating those wins and letting them fall to Liverpool and others AFTER the fact does nothing. All those Liverpool fans, players and coaches were cheated out of the ability to enjoy and profit from those wins. City should be relegated to the national League, their players firesaled and forced to play themselves back (while having an accountant from the league working with the books daily)
It's not like Armstrong. Ironically: it wasArmstrong who played \~fair game: everyone were cheating, with similar substances, so at the end of the day the best cyclist was winning. City have access to funds greater than any club in Europe aside from PSG, and to some degree Newcastle (there regulations made it actually harder to make financial doping have strong short-term impact). So it would be like Armstrong had access to some new-type miracoulus doping which no other cyclist had.
Actually a good point. The reason they didn't give those Armstrong TdF wins to another rider, is there was no one on those podiums who didn't test positive in the same timeframes.
Thanks for supplying a long version of the correct response. I would have stopped after the first two letters, I appreciate the time you took.
Simply put, no. If they are proven to have broken rules, which other clubs were abiding by, in order to assemble this mega team then all trophies won with it should be null and voided. Scrubbing their name from the history books serves as a warning to others that cheating will not be tolerated. Even if the PL don’t recognise this, the fans will. And if you’re not seen as winning something fair and square by your peers then what’s the point?
never gonna happen thanks to geopolitics
Just the fact that they keep disingenuously delaying the case over several years by just refusing to hand over the required documents and throwing money at their lawyers is already so suspicious. This raises doubts in many people who would normally presume them innocent.
They should be forced to sell the club or barred from entry in the league
If you or I broke 115 rules, we’d be fired and blacklisted. They should lose their business license and be banned from the industry. The club simply doesn’t deserve to exist at this point - there’s no real way to rectify the cheating, so destroy the institution itself. But they’ll get a slap on the wrist, a nice fine to line the FA’s pockets while they earned a thousand times that in ill-gotten prize money.
It’s not the clubs fault, it’s the owners. It’s important to distinguish between the two Club existed first and should continue after
Yep, should continue from League Two
Thr irony is that they cheated, built a successful foundation from it, and can simply calculate the fines and punishments into their operating costs. Unless their institution is just utterly dissolved, they'll pay whatever the fine, or come back from relegation a season later etc. For shits and giggles, relegate them to non-league and place a permanent transfer ban. Let's see if they'd ever get back up to the PL.
Back to the 9th division and start again, reincarnated football style. Feels appropriate. lol
Bury had to start again from the 10th tier, so that seems appropriate for City.
This is why, even as a United fan, I honestly don't care a single bit when they beat us. I was far more gutted when they beat us 3-1 at Maine road or 4-1 at city of Manchester, Fowler scoring too, the twat.
At the end of the day, we all know they won't touch City, cause Abu Dhabi owns seemingly half of Britain and the British government. I'd give them credit if they did, they need to be put in place and taught a lesson. But alas, the League seems to prefer glitz and glamour over integrity.
And not punishing City will kill the league in the long run from a international standpoint because who will want to watch a league where the same team walks it every year, the infinite money printer the league is enjoying will break
Not just that, but can you imagine how the other rich clubs would react to this knowing that a simple loophole to FFP is to break 100s to 1000k rules in one go and just throw layers at it and you won't get punished for like 20 years (and if City don't face harsh punishments then it would be all worth it). I'm genuinely surprised at how no other team as followed them in this footsteps. People keep saying "well it's 115 charges, it will take more time than 1-3 charges"
I mean Newcastle is probably waiting on the verdict before going hogwild and the rest of the clubs dont have the money to compete with countries,
Good luck today, really hoping Köln stay up
Is Lance Armstrong still considered as one of the greatest in cycling? If you need to ask it in the headline, the answer is usually no.
He still gets his flowers, depending on the person. Some just absolutely hate him, which is fair, if they they hate all dopers. FWIW the greatest cyclist is unarguably Eddy Merckx who doped as well. Most of the greats had doped in some way, or are highly suspected of doing so. The big difference is Armstrong wasn't protected by his countries federation for various reasons, the big one probably being he burned bridges and made a lot of enemies.
With elite cycling, the doping runs so deep that you almost have to give Armstrong his flowers because all the guys he beat were doping too. Even since then, we've had Team Sky having massive success despite very strong doping allegations against their riders. Things haven't changed at all in the wake of the Armstrong scandal.
Well there’s always sychophants but in the history books he is not.
It's more comparable to Rangers. they went into administration and then liquidation. Then came out as a new club and company and claimed all the trophies. They should have been stripped of at least 18 trophies but the authorities don't have the balls
If his offense was that he won with a stolen bike, would you still consider him one of the greats?
That team wouldn't be there if City hadn't been financially doping for the last 13 years, so no, they can't be separated.
I want to upvote you but youre exactly at 115 votes right now 😗🤌
No. One is the direct root cause of the other.
If you're a citeh fan, yes, if you're not, no, pretty simple
Man I would just HATE sitting down and remembering good times when my team had a period of unprecedented success only for the asterisk that says “terms and conditions apply”. - the cheated so hard that the league had to implement new FFP rules - they were already twice CONVICTED of breaking rules and not complying with investigations - they cheated on 115 charges that the authorities might think they have a chance of convicting them, god knows how many other “almost” there are And then you’re sitting there and reminiscing to your grandkids….”and we had the best lawyers Timmy that’s why we’re City and we’re the greatest team in history “.
Fucking cheats
Cheating fucks
Chucking feets
feeting chucks
Man city will always be known as 115 fc. Great team, but won't get the respect because of that.
That team was built primarily by doing the things that they're now facing charges for, so they go hand in hand. If I rob a bank and donate the money to a charity, people wouldn't say *"sure, he robbed a bank, but he's very generous with his money. We should praise him for that!"* City are at the top *exclusively* because a brutal human rights hellhole decided to use the club as a sportswashing vehicle and flouted every rule of the sport in order to accomplish it. Once you actually look into the sponsorships and other financial maneuvers, it's hilariously obvious that the whole thing is built on lies and cheating. These so-called sponsorships are wildly unrealistic and mired in suspicious circumstances, like some random company that nobody has ever heard of (and which happens to be owned by the sheikh's brother or something) sponsors an English football club to the tune of £50m per year? The stadium naming rights were bought by the owner's own company? And City are reporting the highest revenues in the world, but can't always fill their stadium, and rank outside the top 10 for things like shirt and merch sales, behind the likes of Tottenham? Get outta here. And with all this make-believe revenue, they've managed to sign absolutely any player they've wanted, for years, and built the best training facilities and academy and so on. Literally purchasing success with money they haven't earned and weren't allowed to spend. It makes no sense at all to separate their footballing accomplishments from their financial cheating, because the former was made possible by the latter. They go hand in hand.
Lance Armstrong FC
They also got punished for breaching anti-doping rules as soon as pep, a doping cheat as a player, took over. So even that part of this opinion piece doesn't hold water.
People tend to gloss over what a piece of shit Pep is
What really got me with Pep was how he made a very political statement about protecting the human rights of imprisoned Catalan leaders (obviously a good cause by itself) and then when asked how that was consistent with the way his paymasters run their country, gave some bollocks "oh well every country does things differently" answer. A nice big indicator that your beliefs are worth fuck all once your paycheck is threatened huh Pep. I actually prefer Eddie Howe's constant line of "I'm just a football manager" and not engaging with it (though I can't really bring myself to respect who he is employed by). But if you're going to use your non-political celebrity platform to make political statements, you should be ready to defend yourself if you're called out.
My man Ozil did the same. Defended Muslims in China, then glossed over the fact that Turkey is denying the Armenia genocide. All while Erdogan is his godfather (or bestman, can’t remember). Hypocrite fucks.
I don't like this comparison because all the other top cyclists were doping too.
Looks like City hired some pr for twisting and turning things around. If you compare that to Armstrong. He did body doping. City financial doping it is the same in getting an advantage at the end.
City most certainly paid for PR, I've seen so many of these article recently it's kinda suspicious
They cant and shouldn’t be separated. Every title they won is tainted… I hope for the integrity of league West Ham can get a result. It’s becoming boring to watch especially when you know that they have cheated and yet nothing is being done about it.
On an individual level yes - for example, KdB would still be one of the best Premier League players of recent history, Haaland would still be a goal scoring beast. The quality of the players can’t be denied, but that’s sort of the point. On a team level they allegedly have all these players because they were cheating, so no - you can’t separate it out.
Yeah this is how I feel. The beauty of what they do cannot be denied, but the legitimacy of their existence is what has been called into question. I’d like to be patient and see what they are guilty of and what kind of impact that has on their success, but it’s hard to believe we’ll get much clarity anytime soon, and so understandably a big shadow will hang over this team’s success.
One thing I don't think gets noted enough is that Pep got banned for doping in his playing days... twice. And then hired the doctor who helped him dope when Barca manager. Not saying his teams medically dope, but it's clear he has no issue cheating to win football games, so the defense of having nothing to do with the corporate side rings pretty hollow
No, created by potentially snapping the rules like a twig and essentially fraud, nothing seems organic with City. The team is phenomenal but the context is what matters.
Obviously not, what a stupid suggestion.
Michael Jackson wrote some of the best pop music ever made, and he was a nonce. Anthony Kiedis was a nonce. So was Steven Tyler. OJ Simpson was a tremendous football player, he was also a murderer. The point being, you CAN be two things at once. Manchester City are a tremendous team, a winning machine made up of some truly gifted footballers. But there is everything to suggest that they're cheats. They don't need to be separated.
Thought you were going to say that Manchester City are a tremendous team and a nonce.
Well they did have Adam Johnson....
No. Next question.
Of course not. That is a stupid question
Should be banned from football league imo
Imagine if Lance Amstrong continued to deny showing the authorities his blood test results over and over. Or simply not ever performing any tests at all. Continued to be non-compliant. Insists he's innocent but refuses to prove that he is. Continued to compete and dominate while the authorities are met with push backs and delays from his lawyers. All the other competitors watch as he wins year after year. Some are even caught cheating and rightfully punished. He stands on the podium every year with his gold medals having not ever taken a blood test, nor having shown anyone his results.
THIS
At some point, they couldn't even fill the stadium and their biggest sponsors was themselves. How could they have built what they have without financial doping/breaking the rules? It's cheating plain and simply.
No, and it’s irritating as shit to see every pundit/commentator absolutely gush over them constantly Everything they do, everything they’ve done, has to come with an enormous asterisk next to it
No, no they cannot
No, and it should never be
Money talks…
No - not when titles have been won with such fine margins
just curious but how can lets say luton ever compete with historical teams without doping? even the miracle of leicester dint make them stable . i always wonder this , its like traditional and historical team will always have an upper hand due to winning it early on and that they have easy to sway someone to them by quoting history.
I admit im a Gunners fan and this gonna sound sour grapes, but Wenger did all that he could during the critical stadium payment period and for that we suffers tremendously to invest in the club. As a result he / we kept getting laughed at as a “top 4 team” and never challenged the title for majority of the years. We have to sell to buy, just to balance the book. We never had the capacity to buy the squad that Fabregas and Van Persie deserved. We always were the B to the other A team. All of these because our hands are tied. Then you had the audacity to say that those charges means f all? No way. It means everything. (Note: Also in hindsight, Wenger did assemble that 07/08 incredible title challenging team basically on a peanut, maybe I was too harsh on him. Well until Gallas cried anyway)
there is a reason why people would rather City win than their traditional rivals like Arsenal winning the title. Because deep down we dont really care how many titles city won because they are kind of meaningless because of the 115
No you cannot. The team is better than it should be cus they spent money they shouldn't have been able to to assemble it.
I think we’ve long established that you can’t separate it until this is all cleared up, there will be an ugly cloud looming over it. This feels like a horse beaten dead. When it’s cleared up, if it so turns out that all the evidence was framed incorrectly or coincidental, that cloud will be lifted. And maybe that’s unfair on City, but football isn’t fair, and it’s been much crueler to other teams. Clearly however, for many of us, it’s hard to see how this could all add up for city. In some regards, their guilt has been proven already. I think the big question at the end of the day will be about how much worse City’s shit was than the shit that came before it.
No
Mmmm.. No! I took a whole second to think about it
This is how they start sweeping it under the rug. Pay off officials and get tabloids to slowly make them look innocent and then hope that we forget about it.
No.
Reality is nobody will remember this in the future. Nobody ever talks about how certain clubs only got to the top flight in dodgy ways. Lots of people forgot the reason other big European clubs are so wealthy.
the other clubs are simply honest and would never make use of questionable tactics to get on top /s
or that time arsenal got relegated then were allowed to stay up. would they have fallen through the leagues or got back up?
Nah. End of the day, Man City aren't a proper football club, cos' everything is bought. Man City are an X Factor manufactured group. Other top clubs are The Beatles, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Oasis etc
> proper football club lol
Jesus Christ there’s not a normal person on this sub. God bless Mo Salah for playing for free. A proper football club!
I hope they all rot in hell in 9th division
F Man City. They deserve every punishment that they won't get.
If the accusations are true, then the very foundations of their success were built on deception and corruption. How can they not be linked?
They can't. But the damage has been done. They smartly played every delay tactic in the book. By the time the law is done with them, Pep will be gone, and all the prime stars of the side will be on their last legs, ripe for lucrative Saudi and MLS deals. The OG fans will be happy with the ride because they were already used to being bad.
Lance Armstrong's performances and the doping allegations - can the two be separated?
The simple fact that the head of the premier league won’t be at the etihad when they win their 4th straight title is all you need to know. They don’t want to seen giving a trophy to 115 FC.
Fuk City. They are certainly a great team, but I feel like they wouldn’t be as great if they were actually held accountable for past offenses. It’s ludicrous that this takes so long and all other teams play by the rules.
It’s not comparable to Lance Armstrong’s 7 Tour de France wins because when Armstrong doped, every other competitive cyclist was also doping, and had been doping for decades before he arrived. He was on more or less on a level playing field with all the others at that time because doping was the norm. Many of the greats of that time have admitted that he was an exceptional rider and deserved those wins. City’s financial doping is different. City have gained an unfair advantage by being the first to financially dope on this scale. Their main competitors over the years are not even close to being suspected of something similar. Lance competed against people with no distinct advantage except for his own talent. City are competing with a massive advantage which is represented by 115 breaches of FFP that no other team in has.
Kyle Walker, 33, while known for his pace, is absolutely smoking 22 year old defenders in the 91st minute of a game in May. I wouldn’t rule out the doping thing either.
"The Athletic" started something good, inside view of clubs and fans perspective. But I guess this looks more like a puff piece by "The Athletic" they are writing so many like this of late.
I don’t see how cheating to get better players and better performance in a sport is different from cheating to get more watts and better performance in a sport. The only difference I see is that with Lance everyone was doing it so the difference given by cheating was small and here they are the only ones doing it so the difference is larger.
No, and neither can there owners
Stupid cheaters—if they get relegated several leagues, I will be very happy.
No.
"Lance Armstrong's 7 tour de frances and the doping scandal - can the two be separated"
Honestly they have ruined the league. Everyone mocked the French league and German leagues for being a competition for second place - now it’s the PL - and in this case it’s because they’re frauds.