Not at all. Wonder how many brown envelopes there were in the room at the time of the decision. "Sir, your briefcase looks a lot heavier than when you brought it in...."
UEFA should be prosecuted over this. They’ve blatantly went after and tried to make an example of City. I don’t understand how City couldn’t have bribed UEFA but somehow managed to buy their way with CAS.
They’ve tried to do City for something their darling clubs like Barca, Real and Juve have done for years. It’s not that City haven’t done it, it’s more that everyone else has as well.
Just goes to prove that UEFA are not fit for purpose. I agree with Nads....others have done this for years but UEFA would never have the bottle to kick out Real, Barca etc etc...The entire governing pyramid in football in FIFA and UEFA are beyond corrupt..sickens me to the core
The punishment for financial doping: Spend more money on 'fines' to cover it up. Seems about right. **** football, it's full of shameless corruption.
Not sure we can point the finger at football - UEFA wanted them banned and punished, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned it on appeal. It's entirely possible it was all above board, it's easy to wiggle out of things if you've got top lawyers combing over the fine print to find a slight error in law or wording by UEFA to overturn the decision. Or, alternatively they genuinely didn't break the rules despite how much they've used workarounds.
There’s no question that Juve were next. No way can an Italian club support signing Ronaldo, 450k week for Ramsey, de Light deal over £100million with salary and many more. There's no TV deal of note in Italy. I genuinely think City’s lack of recent prestige made UEFA think ‘we can get away with one’, then City legal team have minced it. UEFA don’t care about City, City fans know this it’s why they boo the CL anthem, but when your talking about a ‘darling’ club like Juve, UEFA won’t alienate them. They piss of one genuine superpower and we see a breakaway tournament, simple as that. The FA in England could run football on its own, UEFA is just a money skimming fraud house and has been for years. UEFA will be delighted with the outcome, make it look like they give a **** without alienating their cash cow clubs.
Durham cricket club, got demoted by the Southern dominated cricket officials for financial impropriety... Saracens got demoted for financial impropriety... Only in football can a rich club get away with financial impropriety... Just as the richer clubs did not assist the less well off clubs to complete their seasons.. Football is a nasty corrupt business!
Serie A winners get something daft like £4m in prize money and it filters down to just under £1m for finishing bottom, so on TV money they sure are leagues behind. Despite that, they're similar to Real Madrid and Barca (La Liga prize money is bigger, but still far smaller than PL), they make a fortune off their branding, they're also owned by the Agnelli family who are loaded and their sponsorship with the likes of Jeep and Allianz is massive too. Ronaldo's wages are ludicrous, as are a few of their other players but compare that to Madrid with signing Odegaard at 16 on £85k a week or whatever it was and all the other Galacticos (Bale). Italian leagues are financially suspect generally, but it's unfair to say Juventus are financially weak.
I’m not saying they are weak mate, not at all, but they are certainly spending beyond their turnover allowance salary wise, and nobody has questioned it. The wealth of the owners means nothing as FFP is versus turnover, so the sponsorship etc is relevant but there’d be a question as to whether the deals are viable to the sponsors, given the limited exposure Serie A gets globally now. Remember, City were pulled for having an inflated shirt deal in the most watched league in the world, with over £200million of prize money, a huge deal with Puma and Etihad, and the richest club owners on the planet. Juve, they have the prestige etc but commercially are not gonna be competing with a PL club, no way. They are spending more than PL clubs consistently over last 4-5 years. City posted £450million income v £220million Juve for 2019. Juve posted losses of £40million for 2019 v City profit of £10million.