Sportswash! - Let’s oil stare at Manchester City!

[Jonesy7211]

Just playing devil's advocate, as I think City are the definition of cheating, but have they been forced into cheating? With FFP lifting the drawbridge to the elite level, how else could they have got to the level they are?

I want Villa to get there too, bit we'll never in be in the market for players at the top clubs unless we develop them ourselves. I'm not saying we should cheat, but rather I don't know how to close the gap.

The money the regular sky 6 get from Europe, consistently higher league finishes, and much greater sponsorship, just increases the gap between them and everyone else.

I personally think clubs should be able to spend what they like so long as the debt is leveraged against the owners, rather than the clubs.

[LondonLax]

23 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Seriously? That’s exactly what they are doing.

Firstly over inflating sponsorship deals in extra payments covered by the owner to falsely increase their revenue,  thus allowing them to spend more within FFP rules. Secondly paying backhanders to reduce their outgoings in order to stay within FFP rules.

They are absolutely spending money that other teams can’t spend, and not because those teams don’t have the money.

That’s not what I was saying. If Madrid, Man U and Man City all spend 1 billion on their squads only City would be punished for that. And currently the biggest teams spend similar amounts on their squads. 

Even if Man U and Man City spend the exact same amount each season on transfers and wages, the exact same amount to the last penny, Man U will not be punished in that scenario but City would be. 

The whole reason why Man U, Madrid and the other super league clubs proposed the rule was so they would not be challenged by an outsider spending similar amounts as them. They came up with the financial fair play restrictions when they saw what Abramovich was doing but they didn’t get it through UEFA until it was too late to stop Chelsea. They got it passed in enough time to hamstring City but City obviously worked around it to be able to take a seat at the top table. They will now be punished for that.

The main point I was making though is that their success isn’t just down to spending money, they are also very well run.

If you swapped Cities Sporting Director and Manager for Man U’s set up I have no doubts that it would be City that would be the misfits sacking their managers every 18 months while Man U would be untouchable at the top of the table and winning trebles.

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

2 hours ago, villa4europe said:

2nd one

There's nothing fair about it, the big clubs have protected themselves and will remain big and the gap is getting worse not better, you look at spurs having 3 times the revenue of us for example

Secondly I hate that football has become a whore, official bed and pillow partners... Who wants that shit?

And lastly the cost has been passed on to the fans, you look at rising season ticket prices, stuff like this holte terrace and ever increasing kit prices it's all squeezing revenue because of FFP

 

FFP did not stop Spurs sprinting ahead of us from a financial perspective from a similar base. FFP has its flaws but should be no excuse for how inept the running of our club was under Lerner. 

The bigger problem has been the champions league itself and the inequal sharing of tv resources and prize money towards the top clubs. This has destroyed leagues throughout Europe and any solution is not easy.

 

[fightoffyour]

23 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

That’s not what I was saying. If Madrid, Man U and Man City all spend 1 billion on their squads only City would be punished for that. And currently the biggest teams spend similar amounts on their squads. 

Even if Man U and Man City spend the exact same amount each season on transfers and wages, the exact same amount to the last penny, Man U will not be punished in that scenario but City would be. 

The whole reason why Man U, Madrid and the other super league clubs proposed the rule was so they would not be challenged by an outsider spending similar amounts as them. They came up with the financial fair play restrictions when they saw what Abramovich was doing but they didn’t get it through UEFA until it was too late to stop Chelsea. They got it passed in enough time to hamstring City but City obviously worked around it to be able to take a seat at the top table. They will now be punished for that.

The main point I was making though is that their success isn’t just down to spending money, they are also very well run.

If you swapped Cities Sporting Director and Manager for Man U’s set up I have no doubts that it would be City that would be the misfits sacking their managers every 18 months while Man U would be untouchable at the top of the table and winning trebles.

Fair enough, I do mostly agree with that now you’ve clarified. City are well run from a sporting perspective yes, especially compared to Utd.

Though I have no doubt that owners with that amount of wealth (limitless) would still get the club to the top eventually. See Newcastle, assuming they haven’t broken the rules too. they can still apparently just sponsor themselves what they want (obvious caveat being the allowed sponsorship level has been already set by City, based on the cheating).

[LondonLax]

10 minutes ago, Kuwabatake Sanjuro said:

FFP did not stop Spurs sprinting ahead of us from a financial perspective from a similar base. FFP has its flaws but should be no excuse for how inept the running of our club was under Lerner. 

The bigger problem has been the champions league itself and the inequal sharing of tv resources and prize money towards the top clubs. This has destroyed leagues throughout Europe and any solution is not easy.

 

It’s not just the Champions League revenue and prise money, it’s also the massively inflated sponsorship revenue that the top clubs can command from companies compared with the less globally recognised sides.

[LondonLax]

5 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Fair enough, I do mostly agree with that now you’ve clarified. City are well run from a sporting perspective yes, especially compared to Utd.

Though I have no doubt that owners with that amount of wealth (limitless) would still get the club to the top eventually. See Newcastle, assuming they haven’t broken the rules too. they can still apparently just sponsor themselves what they want (obvious caveat being the allowed sponsorship level has been already set by City, based on the cheating).

Yes, having a lot of money means you can make mistakes over and over without getting too badly burnt. Then at some point presumably you’ll get it right. That’s the point City are at, they have gotten it right on the pitch since they set themselves up with Barcelona’s former back room staff. They were fumbling around before that and may well go back to a period of decline/rebuild when this period is up.

[Keyblade]

While it makes no difference to the likes of Man Utd if City cheated or not given that they spend similar amounts, it definitely hurts clubs like us who play within the rules and are hamstrung by it. We have owners rich enough to spend as much as anyone, but can't because of our revenue. You could even argue we got relegated and almost ceased to exist as a direct result of this inability to compete with City. I'm sure other clubs can argue the same.

[DCJonah]

I can only assume that the people in here who seem to defend them have never read the leaked emails. 

They've built success on a decade plus of pure financial fraud. 

If you've no issue with that then I don't really get why you're into sports. If cheating is fine then what's the point. 

 

[duke313]

8 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I can only assume that the people in here who seem to defend them have never read the leaked emails. 

They've built success on a decade plus of pure financial fraud. 

If you've no issue with that then I don't really get why you're into sports. If cheating is fine then what's the point. 

 

Not defending them, but I think the argument is they are only breaking rules that were set by a cabal of elite clubs to keep anyone else from getting to their level. 

[villa4europe]

10 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I can only assume that the people in here who seem to defend them have never read the leaked emails. 

They've built success on a decade plus of pure financial fraud. 

If you've no issue with that then I don't really get why you're into sports. If cheating is fine then what's the point. 

 

I'm not sure anyone has defended them, they're cheats and should have the book thrown at them

Doesn't mean the rules that they've broken are good though, they're not, they're the death of football

Man City have broken rules that are shit and should never have been introduced

[The Fun Factory]

25 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

While it makes no difference to the likes of Man Utd if City cheated or not given that they spend similar amounts, it definitely hurts clubs like us who play within the rules and are hamstrung by it. We have owners rich enough to spend as much as anyone, but can't because of our revenue. You could even argue we got relegated and almost ceased to exist as a direct result of this inability to compete with City. I'm sure other clubs can argue the same.

No that was just down to utter incompetence. We still had a healthy mid-table Premier League budget in the later Lerner days, we just were completely useless. 

[duke313]

27 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

While it makes no difference to the likes of Man Utd if City cheated or not given that they spend similar amounts, it definitely hurts clubs like us who play within the rules and are hamstrung by it. We have owners rich enough to spend as much as anyone, but can't because of our revenue. You could even argue we got relegated and almost ceased to exist as a direct result of this inability to compete with City. I'm sure other clubs can argue the same.

I'm sure it matters to them that they've not won the league in 10 years whilst Man City have won it 6 times since then.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I'm not sure anyone has defended them, they're cheats and should have the book thrown at them

Doesn't mean the rules that they've broken are good though, they're not, they're the death of football

Man City have broken rules that are shit and should never have been introduced

People seem to be having a hard time holding two thoughts at the same time:

1] City appear to have broken FFP rules over many years in a repeated pattern of intentional rule-breaking, and they should be punished proportionately to the offence* for that. At the same time:

2] The rules they have broken were not written on tablets of stone by Solomon, they were an attempt by a cartel of rich clubs to pull the drawbridge up after them, which was extremely successful. 

We don't have to excuse City to dislike the rules they broke. We particularly don't have to excuse City if they broke rules that the rest of the league did not break, because by their rule-breaking they will have gained an advantage over those who did play by the rules. 

But none of this means the rules are perfect, beyond reproach etc. We can still aspire to changing them and having a more competitive league.**

 

*As I've said before, the appropriate punishment is a forced sale of the club to new, unrelated ownership. 

**Few things in life are free, and most things have trade-offs. People also need to accept that 'a more competitive league', achieved via billionaires pumping clubs with their cash while they shoot at the stars, is also a league in which every club is a financial disaster and beloved community institutions regularly go to the wall due to financial mismanagement. 

[Zatman]

19 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Not defending them, but I think the argument is they are only breaking rules that were set by a cabal of elite clubs to keep anyone else from getting to their level. 

FFP started 2011/12, they hired Mancini in 2009 and were paying him off the table from beginning

[DCJonah]

6 minutes ago, Zatman said:

FFP started 2011/12, they hired Mancini in 2009 and were paying him off the table from beginning

Kind of destroys the argument. 

[DCJonah]

23 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

People seem to be having a hard time holding two thoughts at the same time:

1] City appear to have broken FFP rules over many years in a repeated pattern of intentional rule-breaking, and they should be punished proportionately to the offence* for that. At the same time:

2] The rules they have broken were not written on tablets of stone by Solomon, they were an attempt by a cartel of rich clubs to pull the drawbridge up after them, which was extremely successful. 

We don't have to excuse City to dislike the rules they broke. We particularly don't have to excuse City if they broke rules that the rest of the league did not break, because by their rule-breaking they will have gained an advantage over those who did play by the rules. 

But none of this means the rules are perfect, beyond reproach etc. We can still aspire to changing them and having a more competitive league.**

 

*As I've said before, the appropriate punishment is a forced sale of the club to new, unrelated ownership. 

**Few things in life are free, and most things have trade-offs. People also need to accept that 'a more competitive league', achieved via billionaires pumping clubs with their cash while they shoot at the stars, is also a league in which every club is a financial disaster and beloved community institutions regularly go to the wall due to financial mismanagement. 

We're in the man city thread. 

I agree there is a discussion to be hard regarding FFP. 

But in the man city thread it certainly comes across as we don't agree with the rules as some sort of excuse for what man city have done. 

 

[villa4europe]

14 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Kind of destroys the argument. 

Destroys what argument?

That FFP is wank? How?

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

We're in the man city thread. 

I agree there is a discussion to be hard regarding FFP. 

But in the man city thread it certainly comes across as we don't agree with the rules as some sort of excuse for what man city have done. 

I think my post is very clear that it is not excusing what Man City have done, and frankly I think that's true for other people's posts as well. It's an emotive topic, but people should still read carefully and charitably. 

[DCJonah]

13 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Destroys what argument?

That FFP is wank? How?

That man city only cheated to get around FFP set up to make them struggle. 

[Genie]

2 hours ago, Jonesy7211 said:

I personally think clubs should be able to spend what they like so long as the debt is leveraged against the owners, rather than the clubs.

Me too. The argument for FFP was to protect them from themselves racking up tonnes of debt gambling on an improved finish. If any money pumped in by owners is gifted to the club then it resolves that issue.

My only concern with that is that we’d see player wages and transfers fees get another shot in the arm and go astronomical.