Sorry if you thought your thread had been hijacked Duggie. However, the subject is much wider than just talking about Man City. The Premier League has fair play rules which are nothing like as stringent as those set by EUFA - so, to an extent, the Premier League is on trial here and not just Man City. Are EUFA firing a warning here at the rest of the Prem. ? I would like to think that were the case because City may just be the tip of the iceburg here - others could follow. Will the Premier League be jolted into action here to launch an enquiry of their own ? The case is also open as to what happens with the 4 alloted English places for the Champions League - does this offer a route for Sheff Utd ? Or will EUFA cut their allocation to 3 for the duration of the ban ?
We need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Man City are being accused of wrongdoing by one of the most crooked organisations in the world with a long history of bribe taking. It needs to be proved that attention on UK clubs is no different to other big beasts in Europe. About eight clubs have been sanctioned recently for similar failure to comply with the rules. Each are handled on a case by case basis as sponsorship is a grey area. It is only fair to wait to see this played out before some rejoice in damage to UK clubs.
It's not a case of rejoicing SH. I feel sympathy for the fans of any club involved in something like this, and it is not the fault of Pep Guardiola or the players that they find themselves in this position. If British clubs are being singled out then it is because the Premier League's financial fair play rules are not as strict as those of EUFA.
What we shouldn't forget is that Man. City have been under investigation by the EPL since last March, and from what I read the situation is far from simple. The EPL clearly wants to protect one of it's largest names, but many of the smaller names have been saying that they are not getting the same protection. The EPL has got itself into a mess and now we wait to see if it can get out of it.
F1 is my first love in sport , but the fact they are looking to have a race in Saudi Arabia says it all IMHO .
As far as I can see, the only real complaint that citeh have is that the FFP rules slow down their ability to buy success. The 'rich' clubs at the date the rules were implemented had significantly larger income streams and so could protect their situation as long as they continued to succeed. Citeh were just in too much of a hurry to join them.
Yes, I would like the charges to be unsubstantiated. If not I would like Man City to receive similar punishments as handed out to the many other clubs charged with the same kind of misdemeanours. Man City's punishment seems harsh in comparison.
Does it appear harsh in comparison to Luton or Glasgow Rangers ? The Premier League rules on fair play are more lenient than those of EUFA but there are enough similarities to suggest that if they have broken the rules of one then they have also broken the rules of the other. If it is found that they are also on the wrong side of Premier League rules (as seems likely) then more punishments are to come.
Weren't there clouds over Bournmouth's financial fair play conduct in the year they got promoted. Nothing could be done then when they got promoted, but if they get relegated this year, then that could be re-opened.
I think it could be a long drawn out legal battle. There is an interesting article on the BBC sport website which includes an important case involving a current Watford coach who recently won his 10 year court case against the Turkish FA which was won based on the fact that the Turkish FA did not invite an independent panel to investigate, instead just investigating it themselves therefore making their decision biased. That is basically the case as I understand it and they are saying that City will use this as one of their defence strings.
That is completely different. If Bournemouth go down then the EFL is waiting for them! When QPR got relegated they were fined 49m by the EFL and other clubs who broke the rules such as Forest have received punishment. The EFL and the EPL are different entities.
The City case is that ''Simply put, this is a case initiated by Uefa, prosecuted by Uefa and judged by Uefa'' and, therefore, biased. But the Champions League is an Uefa competition in case the Sheikhs have not noticed and, therefore, their word counts. They have been found guilty on evidence of overstating sponsorship revenue in accounts between 2012 and 2016, ''serious breaches'' of financial regulations, and failing to cooperate in the investigations of this case. They can appeal to one body after another but the facts don't change. What is a 2 year Champions League ban ? Does it destroy them as a club - in the same way that Luton or Glasgow Rangers were nearly destroyed ?
There is, of course, the added point that if they lose their appeal then the Premier League may have to punish them as well.
We live in an era in which football clubs are a continuation of the strategic ambitions of oil-rich states; in which geopolitical tensions are transposed onto the pitch; and in which countries seek to buy cultural capital by investing in teams in foreign lands. Example A for all of the above could be Manchester City, a club bankrolled by the bottomless pockets of Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour. A Premier League club is an attractive prospect these days, but for reasons far beyond simply being a footballing asset. For those such as City's Abu Dhabi backers, it offers the chance to purchase a brand as cultural capital, to project a new image to the world (particularly in the face of criticism over human rights issues), and to bolster national pride – not least in the context of regional rivalries, such with as the similarly ambitious Qataris. The biggest parallels will be drawn with Paris Saint-Germain, whose rise has been similarly primed by petrodollars, in their case flowing from Qatar. It’s unlikely that any in Qatar will shed tears that City have fallen foul of UEFA financial rules, given the enmity between the Qataris and City’s backers in the UAE – which was among the states to impose a blockade on Qatar in 2017 over accusations it supported terrorism. Of course, PSG’s Qatari benefactors and Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi backers are far from football’s first mega-spending owners, and their rise has not occurred in a vacuum. Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich arguably changed the sport completely when he swept into London to buy Chelsea in 2003, lavishing vast amounts on players and managers to bring unseen glory to the club. But while in Abramovich’s case acquiring cultural capital may have been a consideration, Chelsea was primarily a playground to indulge his passion for the game, rather than a battleground for bigger ambitions. The above quotes suggest that this is about a power game that is simply using football as a place to carry out the struggle.