Off Topic English football

[danovic78]

Seems like Ziyech is on his way to Chelsea....Always a FMM Great if you can get him 👍

 

[Mr Tree]

Just a quick note to say that I enjoyed my last ever game at the Home of Football, Griffin Park, on Tuesday (despite us getting battered by Leeds!). It seems surreal that we'll be leaving soon, but such is life. New stadium looks mint. But I'll miss the old girl. Genuinely feeling mournful here...

Edited February 14, 2020 by Mr Tree

[FuddledFox]

The race for 5th suddenly looks a bit more interesting!

[Rob]

19 minutes ago, Foxy said:

The race for 5th suddenly looks a bit more interesting!

Can’t believe City fans are whining about it.

[FuddledFox]

5 minutes ago, Rob said:

Can’t believe City fans are whining about it.

This will run and run because Man City will fight it every step of the way.

[Ashez]

Happy Valentine's Day Manchester City 😍

[Ian]

I think it might get reduced to one year on appeal which I don’t think will have much impact. Two years though and it will be interesting.

[samhardy]

It’s bad news for the rest of the Premier League not for Man City... No European distractions for two years!

9 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Just a quick note to say that I enjoyed my last ever game at the Home of Football, Griffin Park, on Tuesday (despite us getting battered by Leeds!). It seems surreal that we'll be leaving soon, but such is life. New stadium looks mint. But I'll miss the old girl. Genuinely feeling mournful here...

Here’s one from the opposite end.

[Ian]

It’s the fact that they won’t be able to just plough money into it for fear of it happening again that is the big thing for me.

[Mr Tree]

5 minutes ago, samhardy said:

Here’s one from the opposite end.

Isn't she beautiful?!

That was our home end for a while, so I've had the pleasure. I always stood just by the first entrance on the right (at the back cos I'm tall). Great times

[Ashez]

Pep looks edgy as is, no Europe for two years and if he walks no one can compare. Poch? I like him but he's no Pep. Could players get restless? Massive issue to overcome when buying as well. 

[Nucleus]

Found guilty of spending beyond their means, so UEFA decide to slap them with a €30m fine. Fantastic logic there.

Let’s hope the other European giants get investigated too because I very much doubt City are the only ones doing it. 
 

Hi everyone by the way  

[FuddledFox]

28 minutes ago, Mr Tree said:

at the back cos I'm tall

How tall?

I’m wondering who is taller the Tree or @Titjes 🤔

[Woody]

Thats what happens when you break the rules... I have no sympathy but a £30m fine is ridiculous. 

[Titjes]

20 minutes ago, Foxy said:

How tall?

I’m wondering who is taller the Tree or @Titjes 🤔

I'm 195cm, what about you @Mr Tree? 🤔😂

[Mr Tree]

203 😮 or 6'8" in old money. Yeah.

[FuddledFox]

39 minutes ago, Mr Tree said:

203 😮 or 6'8" in old money. Yeah.

[Belhote]

Just have pity for Bernardo Silva, not for the club, and I think this should have happened a long time ago, Qatar Saint Germain should be next, clubs without history just became powerful because of the money injected. 

[Gunners Rishi]

I agree with you there mate however i don’t think the history part is fair. PSG was a very likeable and fairly successful club before the money.

[Belhote]

51 minutes ago, Gunners Rishi said:

I agree with you there mate however i don’t think the history part is fair. PSG was a very likeable and fairly successful club before the money.

Not that successful, they were champions of France twice before the money, the only thing they had before the money was mostly French cups, so they started winning everything in France when they bought world class players, before them was lyon and Marseille time, in Europe nothing, even after the money they are chasing ucl but that's not gonna happen, Liverpool with less money won the ucl and got to the final with kloop, but Liverpool has a lot more history, and they are going to win premier this year, and Liverpool plays the best league in the world, the French league if take psg it's equal to our Portuguese league, except they have a lot more money than us. 

[billy2shots]

This is with my Man City hat on so take it with a pinch of salt. 

 

First  I agree with Sam, yes there will be short term happiness from rival fans at the outcome but it’s actually bad news for them. We have seen with Leicester and Liverpool what can happen if you throw all your eggs into one basket and prioritise the League. The only way this benefits league rivals is if they go and win the CL in the years City aren’t there. Then you have to answer the question whether that team would have won it regardless of City participating or not. On the whole I see expulsion from the competition as a net negative to domestic rival teams. 

The fine obviously will aid rivals. However I doubt it will put players off joining the team or make stars leave. Utd have done ok with recent failings to qualify for the CL. 

Financial fair play, whether it’s UEFA controlled or the system the football league uses is a red herring . Advertised as protecting teams from going bust the only thing it really protects is the interests of the all ready big clubs. UEFAS FFP is geared to keep the big teams rich and powerful and prevent others popping the bubble. It never started from a level playing field and as such was flawed from the start. If fairness really was the name of the game then a transfer/salary cap would be the answer. I’m not arguing for that just stating that is the only way to go if ‘fairness ‘ is the goal. 

FFP is also a negative to all fans. The need to raise revenue sees tickets, merchandise and TV subscriptions rise out of reach for many real fans. We can ignore that though and pretend it’s a good thing because city have been banned from the CL  

The elephant in the room is something I have mentioned in the past. City are only spending their own cash, they are not borrowing money and they are not operating in the red. How is spending your own cash wrong but teams such as Utd operating £hundreds M in the red ‘fair’. UEFA do not have s crystal ball, they don’t know that Utd can always service the debt. A relegation or god forbid air accident could destroy their potential future income yet UEFA are happy for them to buy £90m players spending money they do not have .

UEFA have been desperate to penalise City. They claim the higher moral ground and spout fairness yet are happy to use information that was gathered illegally with City’s computers being hacked. Does that mean every club will now employ criminals to hack into other clubs systems to try and find information that could benefit them? Many City fans boycott CL games and those that don’t boo the CL anthem. This is the latest perceived injustice on a long line.

‘Fairness’ the same ‘fairness ‘ that UEFA don’t care about Barcelona or Real holding their league to ransom and pocketing almost all the TV revenue and mopping up all the young talent in Spain. 

‘Fairness’ that Liverpool hacked into City’s IT systems and stole scouting information. Liverpool paid an apologetic sum of £1m in an agreement between the clubs but now the premier league and UEFA are aware they are happy to let the matter slide with ZERO comeback on Liverpool  

So I ask you, in the interest of ‘fairness ‘.  Is Spending your on cash worse than illegally hacking into another clubs IT systems? 

May the end of the day, rules are rules. If City have broken them then a punishment should be given. However let’s not kid ourselves that this is done in the interests of fairness  

 

[Belhote]

11 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

This is with my Man City hat on so take it with a pinch of salt. 

 

First  I agree with Sam, yes there will be short term happiness from rival fans at the outcome but it’s actually bad news for them. We have seen with Leicester and Liverpool what can happen if you throw all your eggs into one basket and prioritise the League. The only way this benefits league rivals is if they go and win the CL in the years City aren’t there. Then you have to answer the question whether that team would have won it regardless of City participating or not. On the whole I see expulsion from the competition as a net negative to domestic rival teams. 

The fine obviously will aid rivals. However I doubt it will put players off joining the team or make stars leave. Utd have done ok with recent failings to qualify for the CL. 

Financial fair play, whether it’s UEFA controlled or the system the football league uses is a red herring . Advertised as protecting teams from going bust the only thing it really protects is the interests of the all ready big clubs. UEFAS FFP is geared to keep the big teams rich and powerful and prevent others popping the bubble. It never started from a level playing field and as such was flawed from the start. If fairness really was the name of the game then a transfer/salary cap would be the answer. I’m not arguing for that just stating that is the only way to go if ‘fairness ‘ is the goal. 

FFP is also a negative to all fans. The need to raise revenue sees tickets, merchandise and TV subscriptions rise out of reach for many real fans. We can ignore that though and pretend it’s a good thing because city have been banned from the CL  

The elephant in the room is something I have mentioned in the past. City are only spending their own cash, they are not borrowing money and they are not operating in the red. How is spending your own cash wrong but teams such as Utd operating £hundreds M in the red ‘fair’. UEFA do not have s crystal ball, they don’t know that Utd can always service the debt. A relegation or god forbid air accident could destroy their potential future income yet UEFA are happy for them to buy £90m players spending money they do not have .

UEFA have been desperate to penalise City. They claim the higher moral ground and spout fairness yet are happy to use information that was gathered illegally with City’s computers being hacked. Does that mean every club will now employ criminals to hack into other clubs systems to try and find information that could benefit them? Many City fans boycott CL games and those that don’t boo the CL anthem. This is the latest perceived injustice on a long line.

‘Fairness’ the same ‘fairness ‘ that UEFA don’t care about Barcelona or Real holding their league to ransom and pocketing almost all the TV revenue and mopping up all the young talent in Spain. 

‘Fairness’ that Liverpool hacked into City’s IT systems and stole scouting information. Liverpool paid an apologetic sum of £1m in an agreement between the clubs but now the premier league and UEFA are aware they are happy to let the matter slide with ZERO comeback on Liverpool  

So I ask you, in the interest of ‘fairness ‘.  Is Spending your on cash worse than illegally hacking into another clubs IT systems? 

May the end of the day, rules are rules. If City have broken them then a punishment should be given. However let’s not kid ourselves that this is done in the interests of fairness  

 

This Fairplay of UEFA is still a joke, if they wanted a fair football, do it like NBA they have the wage thing that does not allow them to get all the good players, so the league get competitive, in football teams buy players for 200 millions and other don't have money to buy for 10, so ucl is winning for almost always the same teams, Liverpool, real Madrid, Barcelona etc... They don't make football fair for everyone because they don't want, a ucl final between Liverpool VS real Madrid for example will be more attractive and will generate more money for uefa than a final between Ajax VS I don't know atalanta, or they cut stuff like that once fo all or take this fair play thing, rich teams can buy players for a lot anyway so, city spent 1 billion to make teams, still no ucl champions, psg the same, football became a business, 40 years ago teams with less money could win ucl now they can't, unless some team managed to get to the final like Ajax almost did last year with a bunch of unknown players, but no one talked about that small budget, what they did was amazing even not winning

[Ian]

If I was a city fan I’d be asking serious questions of the owners. Regardless of whether they agreed with FFP or not they accepted it and decided to go down the sustainable route and lied basically. I’ve read all sorts over the years about the fantastic business model that they’ve adopted, of course I personally never believed any of it but I’m guessing many have including I imagine a lot of city fans and if I was one of those fans I’d be rather disappointed now.

I think if and it’s a big if that they do indeed end up banned for 2 years then they could well be in the shit. If they try to take UEFA to the cleaners and are successful even that could come with a cost in terms of image which could then cause issues when it comes to gaining sponsorship deals and such.

If this was Liverpool then I’d honestly prefer the club to take the ban and then work on the clubs reputation but each to their own I guess and it’ll be interesting what happens.

[billy2shots]

7 minutes ago, Ian said:

If I was a city fan I’d be asking serious questions of the owners. Regardless of whether they agreed with FFP or not they accepted it and decided to go down the sustainable route and lied basically. I’ve read all sorts over the years about the fantastic business model that they’ve adopted, of course I personally never believed any of it but I’m guessing many have including I imagine a lot of city fans and if I was one of those fans I’d be rather disappointed now.

I think if and it’s a big if that they do indeed end up banned for 2 years then they could well be in the shit. If they try to take UEFA to the cleaners and are successful even that could come with a cost in terms of image which could then cause issues when it comes to gaining sponsorship deals and such.

If this was Liverpool then I’d honestly prefer the club to take the ban and then work on the clubs reputation but each to their own I guess and it’ll be interesting what happens.

 

So are you of the opinion that spending too much of your own money is a bigger crime than hacking into another business and taking information to benefit your own business. 

I have no problem with taking it on the chin and accepting the punishment as long as the punishment is ‘fair’ and in line with other clubs misdemeanours. 

[Belhote]

This isn't over yet City will do everything not to be ban, let's see what happens but if city end up paying a huge amount of money or something and they win in tribunal I wouldn't be surprised. One thing I wanted if city really gets ban and Bernardo and cancelo leave they can return to benfica we don't mind at all xd

[Ashez]

Without Champions League money for two years can the club even afford to keep players and stay within FFP? KDB is on a massive wage and in his prime, will he be happy to miss those years without CL football? The same goes for alot of the squad. Yes they're all being paid daft amounts but is that sustainable? Could other clubs rock the boat? Many big clubs will be looking at City and knowing this is the time to strike, especially if Pep leaves. Then we've all predicted they were heading into a rebuilding summer window and now they have to do that under the spot light and without the CL. 

United is a fair comparison but we know what they're worth, we know they make a fortune in other areas but do City? Their stadium looks half empty half the time and like Ian said the owners have basically pulled the wool over the eyes of the fans, the staff and the manager. 

Yes giving them only the league to focus on for two years should scare us and admittedly it does but we don't know what Man City will be in those two years. 

They're heading into a period of doubt across the board after being humiliated in the league, if Madrid knock them out of the CL who knows what the future brings. 

I just hope City aren't saved further embarrassment and don't have a points deduction this season, I don't want our exploits tainted by we win the title the year City get a deduction. Obviously it'll be meaningless but it's a taint I don't want in the history books, but it's an easy way out for the powers that be as City aren't winning the league and their league position is now meaningless. If they have balls they'll enforce one for next year but they've a way out here. 

I'm trying not to take the moral high ground as you never know what's around the corner, we've spent big in recent years but as we've discussed recently our spending is clear to see where it's came from, especially since we spent big we've signed no-one of note fee wise. 

[Ashez]

2 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

So are you of the opinion that spending too much of your own money is a bigger crime than hacking into another business and taking information to benefit your own business. 

Obviously that's wrong but I wouldn't say using a legit login is hacking lol. The difference is did Liverpool approve of such activity or even know about it? Or was it a couple of individuals out for themselves? Are they even still at the club? They were former City scouts so they'd have known too much either way I guess. Two members of staff illegally looking at a spreadsheet isn't a whole club cooking the books and lying to the world. 

City took the hand out and decided not to take it further, so obviously it was flimsy or they didn't care. It was investigated and is now redundant. 

Maybe City could only sign Sterling as they cooked the books, which massively hindered our progress even if we got £50m. City's start focused around destroying close rivals by throwing money around and taking their best players. 

[billy2shots]

13 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Obviously that's wrong but I wouldn't say using a legit login is hacking lol. The difference is did Liverpool approve of such activity or even know about it? Or was it a couple of individuals out for themselves? Are they even still at the club? They were former City scouts so they'd have known too much either way I guess. Two members of staff illegally looking at a spreadsheet isn't a whole club cooking the books and lying to the world. 

City took the hand out and decided not to take it further, so obviously it was flimsy or they didn't care. It was investigated and is now redundant. 

Maybe City could only sign Sterling as they cooked the books, which massively hindered our progress even if we got £50m. City's start focused around destroying close rivals by throwing money around and taking their best players. 

A lot of assumptions there Ash

[Ian]

49 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

 

So are you of the opinion that spending too much of your own money is a bigger crime than hacking into another business and taking information to benefit your own business. 

I have no problem with taking it on the chin and accepting the punishment as long as the punishment is ‘fair’ and in line with other clubs misdemeanours. 

It’s not a crime but against the current rules. The Liverpool incident was settled for not a great deal of money in footballing terms and I often wonder why to be honest.

I can only put forward how I’d like to see City approach this if it were my team and that would be by apologising and taking the punishment. The hard ball approach is what I expect will happen and I don’t really see what can be gained other than knocking it back to 1 year with the clubs reputation more than likely hit even more. My way might be just utterly stupid but it’s the long term affect on the clubs image that I would be thinking of.

No point in me going any further on this and I don’t have any real axe to grind.

[Gunners Rishi]

5 hours ago, Belhote said:

Not that successful, they were champions of France twice before the money, the only thing they had before the money was mostly French cups, so they started winning everything in France when they bought world class players, before them was lyon and Marseille time, in Europe nothing, even after the money they are chasing ucl but that's not gonna happen, Liverpool with less money won the ucl and got to the final with kloop, but Liverpool has a lot more history, and they are going to win premier this year, and Liverpool plays the best league in the world, the French league if take psg it's equal to our Portuguese league, except they have a lot more money than us. 

That’s still history tho