If you pop over to the daily discussions over on r/soccer, there's a lot more nuanced discussions incoming about the charges and FFP rather than just the usual "durr Citeh bad, Citeh evil, relegate dem, follow da rules, we so pure for picking a different club to support durr" discourse over the past few weeks. Folks are starting to point out that the current rules are definitely in favor of the existing top 4 clubs and theres objectively no chance any of the other clubs would be able to win the title ever. Ofcourse they still want City held accountable for the breaches, but they do understand the need to change the existing laws. This is something I believe will grow into all discussions, online, offline and by the media because its been so bloody obvious for 2 decades now.
In my opinion, City did bend the rules for sure. Its obvious the amount of money that came through wasn't organic and definitely has some dodgy accounting. But I also do believe City did the dodgy stuff within the confines of whats technically allowed and thats what they're going to be going with in the appeal. The rules are there for a reason but it also dictates whats allowed and not, so if City did use loopholes, its allowed regardless of what rival fans and pundits have to say about it. Its also a stark evidence of why the rules need to be changed. Everybody deserves an equal shot at the top and your historical achievements shouldn't be the only criteria.
The fact that Liverpool stealing our scouting data wasnât a bigger deal infuriates me, especially given the backlash to the spying that Southampton did last season. They broke the law by stealing company secrets and got a slap on the wrist for it.
You laundered 900m into the club. This isnât a âsea of billionairesâ. Nobody else has done anything like this other than Abramovich; the scourge of English football
No. Just that itâs an excuse for all your rich clubs to bitch and moan. Worry about actual cheating like liverpools scouting data hack. But no thatâd be hard
You want to play god, I can play it too - POTENTIAL FINANCIAL IMPACT of liverpools scouting hack. City fail to buy for cheap 10 of the next messiâs, which would have further increased eplâs tv revenue
We can play this game all day.
Whatâs real is. Every single club in the best league in the world is wealthy. Wealthy enough to better city. Hell Leicester did as the least wealthy out of the bunch
Your clubs failure to recruit, train, compete is a reflection of your club. Not ours. Get off your moral high horse
Totally agree, insane to have fans from Aston Villa for example crying out about Man City, if the rules were fair you should be able to invest in your own team and consecutive Europe wins or champions/Europa league spots should merit something, currently it doesn't matter one bit. Tottenham being 17th for two seasons in a row is allowed to spend more than Aston Villa, just insane...
I've seen users with Chelsea flairs spouting that nonsense too. I feel like the ones that speak out the most are the ones that understand it the least.
âPissed off the red cartelâ is a funny way of saying did huge unimaginable damage to the sport in general off the back of huge fraud at the expense of the Russian people
Itâs both, thatâs true. Chelsea started the inflation and city accelerated it. I suspect the red cartel was reacting to Chelseaâs previous decade when they supported PSR⌠at about the time it was clear city could spend more than Chelsea did.
As Villa fan- thatâs the point We arenât Lilly White but we wouldnât have had to play money ball - we could have just taken the City route and arguably won titles.
Rules need to be fixed- itâs a shame it took this to get a real discussion
Pretty sure you would have, good manager, good signings. Problem right now is, you can't build on the good performances or signings. Money isn't all though, not like Tottenham and Man United spending billions last 15 years, winning nothing...
âMoney isnât all thoughâ and pointing at Spurs and United as examples isnât an accurate assessment. Those clubs demonstrate that it hasnât helped them (recently anyway). Money is directly correlated to PL titles. In last 10 years no team outside the Big 6 have won. The only exception was outside that decade (2015-2016- Leicester). In more than 2 decades- no team other than the referenced Leicester title has any team outside the big 6 won. So, the fact that one of them (Spurs) never has and United hasnât done well recently are outliers. Spending on players is not only directly related to titles- itâs arguably the only thing that matters to win a title. Spending the most doesnât matter but being able to spend consistently in top tier spending does. MC won 6 of the 10 titles in the past decade.
I hope the real discussion continues. Iâm a yank whoâs followed Newcastle for a very long time. Baseball in USA is looking likely to have a lockout as the owners-players agreement is expiring. Thereâs talk of a salary cap. What I could guarantee wonât be put out as an idea is a squad cost ratio where the Yankees and Dodgers can spend double what the average club can spend. The premier league system just boggles the mind. Why call it a sport, if the real game is having the most money?
The players will not and should not accept a salary cap in baseball. It has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with increasing franchise valuations. The thing that baseball has that the premier league doesn't is a luxury tax and heavy revenue sharing. If teams spend above the threshold, they are taxed heavily on every dollar over that they spend with increasing tiers and that money is split between the teams under the luxury tax. Now some owners invest that in their teams and try to improve their developmental systems or retain their star players, and then some owners take that money and pocket it.
I would love a luxury tax system in the premier league. It would help strengthen the whole league and no owner is just going to pocket that money like they might in baseball, because relegation is the worst possible outcome.
Clubs like Madrid, Barca, Bayern and the red cartel of England would be vehemently opposed though. None of those clubs want true competition. They want the deck stacked in their favor.
Iâm not a MCFC supporter but I think that issue of clubs cemented in tiers is really whatâs going on.
Aston Villa got a lot of money from us for Barry, Milner, and Delph, and their owner pocketed the money instead of reinforcing the team. Not sure how thatâs our fault.
That's simply not true. Lerner spent a ton of money on the team with nothing to show for it, cause Martin O'Neil spent poorly and then wouldn't play any bench players. He then sold the team to a Chinese con man, but that's a different story and after all those moves.
Also, Barry was 12m, Milner was 26m, and Delph was 8m. Villa spent way more in each transfer market than they got back in that time as well and Milner is the only one of those sales which was for decent money at the time.
We got 8m for Delph. He was worth significantly more than that. Barry and Milner were just market rate. Also don't pretend to not understand what's going on. What we did or didn't do with the money is irrelevant, the issue is MC spending money they were not allowed to spend. Stop pretending you're stupid.
You have completely missed the point or are deliberately playing dumb.
Whether we invested it well, or didn't, isn't the point. It was money that you weren't allowed to spend which then gave MC an unfair advantage. Why are you lot pretending that you don't understand what's going on?
Well maybe just maybe, the rules are anti competitive because genuinely good teams like Villa and Newcastle end up having to sell their best players even after hitting CL levels while gutter trash like United, Spurs and Chelsea get to spend money while taking on heavy debt and are in relegation battles. Again not saying City didnt cheat but that the rules are messed up.
I don't think I've ever seen argument that "rules are good" brought up. Rules are shit. I'm a Chelsea fan and I hate ffp for obvious reasons. Then again, teams are still following it, they are getting fucked by "red cartel" as you call it, and then you have City that decided to just play their own game against the rules. You have Newcastle with owners more rich than yours and they can't do shit, cause they play by the rules. Either fight to abolish the rules so it's fair for everyone or just suck it up and do your best I guess. It's not Live, Arsenal and United that truly suffered from City cheating. Sure, they lost some trophies, but they kept their brand and power. It's teams that could have been great, but are not, because they play by the rules that City broke
Weâve just ignored the rules because the club doesnât respect the competition or rather weâre unafraid of the repercussions. Other clubs are.
I donât think the Saudis are as invested in football as we think they are. They already pulled the plug on Liv golf , and the Saudi league seems to be on the outs too.
> It's not Live, Arsenal and United that truly suffered from City cheating. Sure, they lost some trophies, but they kept their brand and power. It's teams that could have been great, but are not, because they play by the rules that City broke
This is nonsense sorry. Between 2000 and 2010, Liverpool, Arsenal, United and Chelsea won 90% of domestic trophies in England and 90% of top 4 places. And thatâs because of 2000-2003 before Abramovich came in and was allowed to spend, Leeds and Newcastle finished top 4.
The deck was stacked long before Sheikh Mansour rocked up. That doesnât happen and youâre just looking at another 15 years of that.
Agree it did impact the ambitious mid table clubs and City should be made to compensate for their sake. But its the goddamn United, Arsenal, Liverpool and weirdly Chelsea fans who are yapping the most. Like bruh, City bending the rules had absolutely nothing to do with your clubs being ass.
The Big 5 should have much less a complaint. They can do what City did (to some degree) without cheating. The remaining 14 teams that could not compete while getting raided have an actual complaint. Especially those teams that could benefit by doing what City did for a decade.
I agree, I just donât think that makes it okay for city to break the rules. We could have pushed for the rules to be changed, and weâd probably have gotten enough support from all the smaller clubs who were being messed around. Instead our owners decided that cheating was the better option, with the arrogance to think theyâd never be caught. They cheated their way into the exclusive club and made zero effort to actually change the rules because now the rules work in our favour.
Your club would get RINSED the fuck out in a decade or so if FFP was removed/changed. The Saudis are orders of magnitude richer than your Emirati owners and would absolutely demolish any sense of sanity in the league the second they're provided a chance to do so.
FFP ain't perfect but it's better than nothing.
Fuck sportswashing. Fuck your team, fuck your war criminal owners.
Buddy you seem a bit pressed coming on to a City reddit to post this, especially since i haven't really insulted or abused any club or fans? Maybe take some time off social media. Spend some time with your family. All that anger and hate will eat you up from the inside.
Any thoughts on the human rights violations that are supported by the Glazers through their funding of the trump campaign? Or the recent finanicial issues from several of those in the Chelsea ownership group
Letâs be sure to hold all owners to the same standards. There are no billionaires with clean hands.
Pretty big difference b/w the glazers donating to a guy who is leading an administration committing war crimes vs City being literally owned by a guy who is part of an adminstration committing war crimes. If something can be done about that, great. I'd be happy to see it. Although I don't really know what that would be.
BlueCo (along with City, Red Bull, etc) should be permanently banned from abusing the multi-league system. Transfers b/w clubs with shared ownership is literally fraud. You can't negotiate with yourself and it opens up room for legal money laundering and skirting FFP rules legally. I don't think they violated any rules though, they seem to be cooperating with the PL unlike City and seem to be using only legal loopholes for a lot of this, but I'd hope they be closed.
Wholeheartedly agree that there are no billionaires with clean hands which is why I'd support a move to the German league model. Even if it means football becomes boring (I'd argue it's boring now, nearly every league has a super dominant team and PSG have won the UCL back-to-back and probably will win again this year), I would gladly support the complete erasure of billionaires or countries owning football clubs.
And again, my disrespect/anger is directed at the ownership of City, and no one else. Massive respect to Pep, massive respect to City's players and to the football they played.
Im sorry, am I supposed to take "Fuck your team" with a "please and thank you sir"? Either ways lad, spend some time outdoors and let us City cheats discuss about our club in our own domain.
Im sorry, am I supposed to take "Fuck your team" with a "please and thank you sir"?
didn't ask for thanks, asked why your owners committing war crimes doesn't bother you. it should definitely bother you more than "fuck your team".
if my club was owned by cheats and war criminals i'd want them gone that instant. it's one thing if you feel the need to defend your players, they are people. i mentioned this in another comment, but i absolutely mean zero disrespect to any of the players or Pep. they played fantastic football and deserve to hold their achievements with pride.
the players are absolutely victims here and don't deserve any hate. but the perpetrators are your owners, not the "red cartel" or the PL, but y'all are not going to be reasonable about the kind of people your owners are so whatever. stay irrational.
Sheikh Mansour, the Vice President and Royal of a country with 1 trillion GDP is the poor victim baby here, right? happy?
If you want to turn this into a non footballing discussion, glad to but not in this forum. Happy to chat over the intricacies of club owners and their political leanings and the butterfly effects over time in my DMs. Lets stick to the footballing aspects here. Our owners have been found guilty with cheating the system and they have an appeal. We'll give them the benefit of the due process and our fans will take the next steps once the result of the appeal is out. Regardless, the owners definitely do need to explain a lot of things, and we'll expect them to. But for now, what we can do is back the club, back the team and try to enjoy our time as this clubs fans. Im sorry but nobody, not even on their moral high horses because they picked a different club to support, has the right to tell us fans how to feel. I genuinely hope this helps.
Spurs can spend more than Villa because they spent 20 years building one of the biggest commercial operations in European football. Levy invested heavily in infrastructure, developed lucrative partnerships like the NFL deal, kept wages relatively low and built the club's revenues sustainably.
That took two decades, largely because Spurs didn't have an owner willing to bankroll unlimited losses.
You can argue the financial rules favour established clubs, and there's some merit to that. But using Tottenham as an example of what's wrong with football finances is bizarre. They're arguably one of the best examples of a club challenging the established elite through long-term investment and financial discipline rather than simply spending an owner's wealth.
Spurs generated ÂŁ565m in revenue in 2024/25 compared with Villa's ÂŁ378m. That's why they have greater spending power,
I just don't bother discussing the FFP stuff with folks who aren't City supporters, unless they are genuinely interested in having a real non-hostile discussion about it and how we supporters feel about it (and of course I can't speak for everyone). Typically those good discussions take place in-person rather than online I've found. Most folks tend to conduct themselves a bit more appropriately when it's 2 human beings chatting face-to-face instead of through a screen and keyboard.
Right now things are just so inflamed that it doesn't make much sense to engage. And something I think all City supporters need to understand is that we are just never going to get along with some of these other rival supporters. No matter what we say or do, our club are cheats and villains, and we've ruined football (apparently). This was the take of many even well before any of the FFP charges came out. It's lonely at the top, particularly when you factor in the ways we made it there.
However, I don't support this club so I can get along with other fans. I support it because it's in the blood. If this all comes crashing down and it turns out the owners have f*cked us over, we can all get more critical of management and do our protesting and soul searching. But our management currently has quite a bit of credit in the bank, and we've faced off-field drama like this before. Until things are set in stone, I will banter and boil the piss and have fun, with plenty of gallows humor to boot. I will never let fans from other clubs tell me how to feel about my beautiful, strange City.
It's hard to know what's gonna happen, but all I can do is support my club, enjoy the football, and hopefully see all this cacophony lead to real structural change in how the Prem regulates finances. The current rules cannot stand, it's entirely unsustainable.
And in the meantime, we gotta play bloody PSG tomorrow. CTID đ
Baseball is possibly going to restructure for next season. I think that sport needs a stronger luxury tax to curb the spare-no-expense clubs, perhaps with a salary cap under luxury tax thresholds. That sport would do well with promotion and relegation but wonât happen ⌠similar to the unlikelihood European football would switch to any caps shared by all. Itâs a shame, both sports have owners entrenched in what gives them advantage. NY and LA donât want to be spent equal to, and other clubs like the Mets, and my Phillies canât afford to keep up. NY and LA want what Madrid and Barca have. On the other hand, ARS, LIV and MU all want a system that keeps other clubs held back.
Youâve had since 2018 to come to terms with Cityâs guilt here. Itâs all there; theyâve sent 24 witnesses to lie on the stand, the CAS decision was due to a technicality.
The city fans who prioritise the health of the sport rather than their clubâs success are getting along fine with other fan bases, who feel the same. Being surprised that thereâs an adverse reaction to doubling down on huge sporting fraud on an unprecedented scale is a different kettle of fish
I feel the premier league are equally as bad. No indication of whats going to happen or punishment. If anything its helping City. The players are playing for the fans. Of course City fans are going to back their team. Just like any other fan base in the same position
I think the story has run out of steam for the time being after they tried and failed to create a firestorm for players and fans heading to Anfield. It was a damp squib in the end.
Some journalists and especially the bitter BBC are just rehashing stuff now trying to keep it the news cycle but most normal people are already bored by it.Â
The next scheduled kicking can commence when the result of the appeal and any sanctions are announced.
its because the entire premise of the argument is shaky once genuine discussion is had.
Any argument that places the share of blame entirely on City begins and ends with "they knew the rules and broke it"
Reality of it is, even if that were true, it calls into question what rules they broke, and whether the rules were fair/functioning as intended.
And, the rules in this case were not fair because it allowed the minority establishment clubs an extreme excess in spending limits not afforded the majority.
To be in favor of such rules, you must then be in favor of allowing an inherent advantage to those already possessing an advantage. Which is just ridiculous.
Also, another argument that is immediately shaky is the notion that City cheated on the pitch and "cheated other teams out of what was theirs". We'll notice a lot of the pundits pushing this narrative. However, this is very disingenuous because the club fairly won their games, and they fairly purchased their players. The club was charged with pumping their books with illegal revenues. However, this brought them on equal footing with the establishment, and the spending numbers were in line with the spend of other clubs during the period. So, for the logic that city cheated their teams out of what was theirs with illegal spending to hold true, they must logically believe that a higher spend automatically equates to titles. Which, is bollocks.
I think this 2nd argument is so heavily pushed by the media is because the argument that higher spend = winning is stupid to begin with, and theyre leaning heavily on emotional arguments and fan bias to convince the masses otherwise.
if anything, the clubs that SHOULD be the angriest are clubs that abided by the unfair rules and took their teams apart and sold their players to abide by such rules.
Its extreme hypocrisy for those who benefited from such unfair rules to cry foul over "900m of illegal revenue" when they were afforded a similarly large allowance of "legal" revenue not afforded to their competitors.
the defense made by those in support of the rules are that such rules prevent owners from mismanaging their clubs. However, ironically enough, Man U fans have been loudly complaining about their glazer owners mismanaging their club while all the same time City owners have been breaking the rules to invest in not just the club, but the community in their shared city.
So I'm gno just say I'm not FFP's biggest fan. However, the idea that a club should spend what a club generates is probably the fairest way to set the rules with the exception of adding a level salary / transfer cap for every Premier League team.
I strongly disagree with your stance, there's no IF in this scenario. Manchester City KNEW the rules and they chose to break them. You could argue about if FFP rules are fair or not but if other clubs followed the rules and City didn't then I don't really see what we're arguing here.
You mentioned "To be in favor of such rules, you must then be in favor of allowing an inherent advantage to those already possessing an advantage. Which is just ridiculous.". I think clubs who built their stature over 100 years shouldn't lose their place at the table because a country somewhere wants to own a football club. Just to briefly expand on this, I don't mean a inherit right to win trophies because as recent years show, top clubs that are run poorly don't win. Man Utd, Arsenal & Liverpool have all had big draughts without winning the title.
I somewhat agree with this statement "another argument that is immediately shaky is the notion that City cheated on the pitch and "cheated other teams out of what was theirs". I agree because there's no way to determine what would have actually happened if City weren't around. Who would their players play for at the moment? How would their impact for their team have impacted the league standings? etc etc. However, I think you're missing the point when you mentioned "However, this is very disingenuous because the club fairly won their games, and they fairly purchased their players". Simply put, they didn't purchase their players fairly. They inflated sponsorship deals to enable them to purchase their squad. There was a time where City just took Arsenals best players, would that have been possible without these fraudulent actions? It's extremely unlikely.
In the latest comment you mentioned that clubs that should be angry are the ones that didn't benefit from FFP anyway. Well that's the whole point, no one has really benefitted from it. Clubs with a higher revenue have just been able to spend more cash, which is just simple economics. If I opened a burger van do I get to complain about not having the same size establishment as McDonalds? No, of course not. For some reason, this coming out has shown an enormous amount of arrogance and entitlement in football but fans will side on the opinion that benefits their club the most. I'm a United fan so my clubs just fucked either way LOL.
There is only really one way to make football 100% fair and that's to give everyone the same amount of money to spend. But then do everyone need to have the same stadium sizes too? Because surely that will influence where a player chooses to play. Where does this "fairness" really end?
Man City knew the rules and broke them, but so did other clubs with ambition. What should we be arguing here? That the fact that the rules are being skirted/broken by other clubs because they were unfair to begin with. Reality of it is, if the rules were fair, Chelsea wouldn't be selling off their own hotels to a shell company and loaning it back to themselves. If they were fair clubs wouldn't have to dismantle their squads to satisfy FFP requirements. These disadvantages that are more easily skirted by the establishment create an inherent unfairness, and as we've seen throughout all of human histories, perceived unfairness is often the motivation for rule breaking. yes city broke the rules, but it falls flat because sure city broke the rules, but the rules were never fair. And the two conversations are linked and im arguing that its disingenuous to pretend that its two separate conversations.
Why does it matter if a club builds their stature over 100 years? This is top flight football with relegation and prize pools. The revenues from being successful over a 100 year period is in itself enough an advantage to build a squad to challenge. Why should there be ANOTHER legacy advantage be granted to them in the form of locking down the opposition spending? It quite literally makes no sense to expect recently promoted championship sides to fairly compete in the prem with a fractional budget and sell it off as a fair competition. Especially considering the snowball effect of additional revenues, it ultimately creates an environment where "established" clubs in their division can spend more to create more revenue streams off the pitch knowing their current revenue streams can sustain a squad that already dwarfs their competitors in value.
What I mean by City purchasing their players fairly is that the transfers themselves once accounting for the inflated revenues were not illegal. They didnt force anyone to make a transfer or tap other players up. City took arsenal's best players but those players approved the move, and they were not paid exponentially more than what they could have gotten on the market. (Perhaps this is less true in the beginning of the investment as I suspect City would have had to pay a premium to attract talent into an unproven program).
In your burger business comparison, the new burger joint should be able to spend as much as McDonalds if they were competing in a competition that attempted to make things as fair as possible. If they weren't allowed to, then McDonalds would have such an extreme inherent financial advantage that they would be able to hire the best chefs, best planners, build the most modern restaurants, etc, and there wouldnt be any fair competition. Now, you could argue that another restaurant could come around and invent such a novel recipe that they "win" the competition by creating a new pioneering item, but the current rules would then leave them in a situation where they'd struggle to pay the chef that cooked the new burger because mcdonalds would be allowed the inherent advantage to pay the chef more and poach the chef.
Yes, the only way to make sure everything is fair is to give level the playing field entirely. Thats unrealistic, but we should at least genuinely try to do as much as possible to equalize the playing field. I dont like to compare it to american sports as its a different system and they have different cultures, but surely the prem/european football could follow some of the salary structures that at least attempt to equalize spending. The current FFP model not only doesnt make things fair, it affirms an inherently unfair system.
Granted, with all this said, I'm not saying City should get off scott free and they should be allowed to willy nilly break all the rules because things are unfair. The point i was trying to make is that the whole system is unfair and punishing City would not stop future clubs from breaking rules to achieve fairness in an unfair system. Thank you for sharing your nuanced opinion and while i disagree with some of your opinions I totally understand where youre coming from. And tbh, no laws are being broken here and the transgressions relate to sports so we sports fans are going to have our biases when discussing this topic.
Brought in by the UEFA finance body and voted for by 53 clubs? Due to over half of European clubs running at a loss? Not really anything to do with âthe red cartelâ is it
It's inevitable - first the anger, fans taking the piss, seeing the big team fall. Then a realisation that the premier league is all about money and if we're not for city you would have a bunch of American owners spending the bare minimum to get CL matches.
City will survive this, with good humour in whatever league we need to be in. The premier League is putting nails in its own coffin.
I won't be surprised if the outcome of all this is going to be a super league I am afraid. No relegation, franchises. The quicker fans realise the prem has fucked it the better for them all.
My point all along has been that the Premier League was started as essentially has a hostile takover and funded questionably by BSkyB. Top clubs figured out a way to game the system to earn more revenue and GET PAID. Seems like the same thing has happened again...
The lack of bot action since ukraine took out the Russian data centres is amazing. I saw two political posts with literally no-one spawning tupple about foreigners coming over.
Lol have you seen the whoppers coming out of r/soccer ? They've dedicated their entire lives to this singular moment of City being found guilty, they're not going to let up that soon.
Iâve been in the trenches fighting people going after the fanbase but it became pretty obviously the vast majority werenât even from England and have likely never set foot in the country and have no idea what fan culture here is like. Those guys would not even be able to recover if someone took them to a Millwall game for 5 minuets lol
Yeah, we broke the rules and will accept whatever the punishment may be. But at the same time, and partly because of the toxicity from the red cartel - it's almost always them, I'd be happy to see the Premier League burn.
Just follow the rules hur du hur du hur, they agreed to play in this league hur du hur di hur. As if there's another league the club could magically go to, like the club has no financial responsibilities to pay for.
Just save your oxygen, it's literally like arguing with 12 year olds.
I believe Vinny was the one who mentioned that there was no restroom door when he first arrived at the club. That's how poor our club was before the take over. Everything we see now came from oil money.
Organic? The money was pumped IN, not sucked out to leave a club in massive debt. What better scenario could there be for a CLUB that wants to exist long term (that is every club and not just City)
They were already proved to have done sham sponsorships. Thatâs currently a legal fact. That the sponsorships didnât actually grow like they claimedâŚ
Sham contracts require both parties to be included in the discussion. The league did not include the other side in the discussion or evidence. The appeal will hopefully allow that to happen
how is it legal fact? the only legal court that has reviewed it, CAS, said the sponsorships were legit. this epl panel isnât legal, itâs internal league disciplinary committee.
I've always tried to contribute to constructive discussion and am glad that some city fans are as well.
I agree that the current rules are in favor of clubs with heritage/large fan bases. I think they need to be changed - "how?"is the interesting question.
If the prem implements salary cap, we lose to la liga, bund, serie a, billionaire money flows there.
If theres no cap, nation-states and billionaires will just mop up the league.
I dont like PSR, but if i were to play devils advocate: it is fundamentally a democratic advantage. People vote with wallets > bigger fanbase = more revenue > more organic spending without owner funding.
If prem switched to a complete fan-owned model, who would the biggest clubs be? unfortunately, the same red cartel. Because their heritage is the result of generations of success and memories.
I havent heard a compelling solution but I think there needs to be change.
The PL spends between âŹ1-1.5Bn more a year on wages than the other 4 major leagues and the gap is growing âŹ100m a year. Per player itâs almost double salary here compared to La Liga, and if the gap keeps growing itâll be triple in 5 years.
The PL implementing a salary cap isnât going to give those clubs more money for salaries, they simply cannot compete. 10 years ago that argument had a tiny bit of merit. Now itâs been blown apart by the wage growth (driven apparently by Cityâs overspending).
The best players are still going to want to earn the most money and thatâs the PL. Tie it to league wide revenue like the Americans do and they donât even stop growing.
Football could be a level playing field in this country quite easily if the people with power wanted it to be.
well thanks for the thoughtful reply. So your essentially for a salary cap in principle?
I'm not against it or for it, I was simply presenting two sides of the argument. I like your argument: to have a salary cap (same for all teams) that increases as the total revenue of the premier league grows.
That would essentially guarantee that as long as the Prem keeps generating the most revenue (which it should because of the english language).
With regards to how to enact this change, I'm a bit skeptical of the "people in power" rhetoric when there are clear guidelines on the voting process. 16 out of 20 clubs if I'm not mistaken.
I think the new squad cost ratio has already got us half way to the solution to this by creating a number that includes transfer costs, wages, agent fees, image rights.
I would take the average of the top 6 squad costs, right now that's about ÂŁ500m, and let owners invest to bring their squad costs up to that limit.
That way you allow people to invest up to the level to be competitive without letting them blow the top off and outspend everyone. SO that would mean Villa or Newcastle get an extra ÂŁ150m a year maximum. That's a lot of money, which just shows how massive the gap they're supposed to be organically overturning is.
Now I'm fine if the PL wants something in return for that, you could either do a luxury tax of say, 20% for every ÂŁ1 over your natural limit, and that can go to grass roots or the general PL pot. Or you can demand a % is matched on infrastructure/womens teams/academies. The current rules don't punish you for investing in infrastructure, I'd rather they actually encouraged it.
And I'd limit it to say 5 consecutive years, or 5 years in any 10 year period. You don't want to create clubs that are constantly being subsidised by owners and at risk if the plug is pulled, you want to let them compete for long enough to build their own revenue.
You have people saying shite like FFP is terrible and needs to be reviewed but City still need to be banished from existence. Even nobhead pundits like Neville is saying that kinda crap.
I don't think that City broke the rules, but I do think that the business end of Abu Dhabi is the same as you might get in a Western boardroom. A lot has been made of Khaldoon and Sheikh Mansour and their connection to ADUG and the Abu Dhabi government, but I think that it's more businesslike than the Royal Family stuff that people imagine.
It works like this: Etihad is the official airline of Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi government wants the airline to do well. CFG have a vehicle to get the airline in the public view. So Khaldoon makes a pitch, Etihad agree to the terms (money is basically a plaything to the UAE) and pay the money. Abu Dhabi makes investments in Etihad, Etihad pay enormous amounts for sponsorship, CFG and Man City use the money to create sustained football success, raising the profile of Etihad, which raises the profile of Abu Dhabi. Everyone benefits from this arrangement, it's just that the money being thrown around isn't tied to shareholder expectations. Etihad are not shopping around for the best value, they do a deal because they're already working together.
Not quite what the PL would expect but a legit way that business is done.
Premier League subreddit is heavily moderating pro City content. Iâve had multiple comments removed by a moderator for mentioning that this is a debate over funding flows between a government and airline that the government owns.
Everything I've heard outside of the red cartel is more anger at the current rules (that only City out of the 'big 6' voted against, by the way, even Chelsea and Spurs voted for them) than against City.
All the hysteria is coming from the red cartel mouthpieces.
Fans of teams like Villa, Newcastle and Forest who've had success lately aren't having it because they are forced to sell their best players to comply with PSR meaning they'll never truly force their way into 'big 6' revenues naturally because they just aren't as big club wise.
City and Chelsea were the only two clubs outside the red cartel that were big enough to force their way in and have sustained success.
Spurs are kind of there but they've never really sustained any success, they're seen as part of the 'big 6' though.
I think all this hysteria is going to backfire massively on the red cartel and PSR will be gone in the next 5-10 years.
City may well be punished for their supposed crimes but they will be back before United win anything of note I'd imagine, we're far too big commercially and run competently enough that we'll probably be gone for 5 minutes.
If a rule is unjust is it wrong to break it? There's an argument (not a perfect one mind) you have a moral duty to fight against it. I couldn't care less if we broke a load of red cartel rules. Obviously I'd rather we don't get hammered with sanctions but whatever. We were in the situation when whatever we did or didn't do it was probably the only option we had to succeed.
How are we in a situation when City = bad when the league has people like the Glazers in it? If the PL is going with that then City are the least of their problems. Remember this entire thing is essentially the richest 1% of clubs on the planet crying because somebody else won trophies.
Youâre right. I think for the locals, I live in Salford, itâs dawning on them that the rules the rushed in to stop anyone else joining their gravy train are impacting their ability to control the transfer market. Hence them being a team of journey men and managed by a bloke who forty years ago would have bought a pub with his savings. Gone are the days of just swooping in with a massive sack of cash a snatching their nearest rivals best players. Newcastle on the up..British transfer record for Cole. Spurs looking decent Berbatov. Sheringham, Rooney, Yorke etc All part of Fergies old twofer transfer policy. Improve your team while weakening rivals. Only works when youâre the only ones with cash.
And pray tell what is it youâve seen specifically that suggests they were doing âdodgy stuffâ within the âconfines of whats (sic) technically allowedâ? Whatâs your expertise to come to this judgement? Or have you just made it up?
Man, you City fans are reaching. Financial doping is not something to be taken lightly in any sport especially to this degree. Nothing was done within the confines of anything and most of the accounting was dodgy. Just accept your fate and move on. I had to accept Ferrari were a cheating team that have been favoured throughout the life of F1, you donât see me underplaying any of that.
I mean, we also know that a range of organisations use bot campaigns to try to influence public opinion, including on Reddit. There will be absolutely loads of them as the regime flails around trying to outmanoeuvre reality.
Correct me if Iâm wrong but owners could still have legally funded
* full stadium infrastructure, owned by club so no rent and 100% of money generated goes back into the club and proceeds from additional concerts etx
* world class training facilities so players have the best pitches, equipment, gym, physio and recovery equipment
* youth academies - expand the scouts, trainers, facilities and equipment to increase the number of kids in the system and improve the quality
* office infrastructure for the rest of the clubs employees
So given itâs not like city were a Wrexham size club, but still reasonably large, it seems a bit disingenuous that you could still do all of the above, and still think that you couldnât organically have ever challenged Liverpool, arsenal, Chelsea , united, t just would have taken longer to get there
Show me a club that has organically grown to a title contender in the 17 years weâve had FFP.
You canât do it. You canât organically overcome the ÂŁ300m a year revenue gap between the top 6 and the rest when the rules are based on revenue.
And remember that Leicester cheated broke financial rules to get promoted. To get promoted fairly theyâd have had to sell some of the players that won them the title. Plus they were being investigated for dubious deals with their owners business King Power but the EFL had to stop that because they got promoted and the PL didnât investigate because it happened in the Championship.
There are many other clubs who have had a lot more time and money than City have had that never ever made it to the top regardless of how well they managed their money. Its a rigged game unfortunately, City would've been lucky to be in top 4 without the additional money and spending when they spent.
Historically clubs could move up and down the table easier. Modern business and the global brand deals created this freeze frame in which clubs became established in their groupings. Look at how Spurs struggle even with being in London, with a top stadium, and lots of superstars coming through their team. Then you also have clubs like Newcastle.
If infrastructure were sufficient, then Atletico and Dortmund would be consistent contenders. The only way to break the hegemony is an influx of cash. I canât speak to the sourcing of the funds (but I imagine thatâs considered by the owners) but one issue I havenât seen discussed is the valuation of sponsorship deals. Silicon Valley is based on investors giving a pre-revenue company a massive investment with the belief of what the valuation will become. This seems no different than Etihad and City.
Canât remember who said it first but if city challenged the establishment from the start, refused to pay fines and kept spending while calling this all out youâd have had way more support from all around the game.
The argument falls pretty flat now. Yes the rules were bs but they did it all wrong.
Breaking the FFP rules is âstark evidence of why the rules need to be changedâ? The rules were created as an attempt to even things out. If those canât even be followed by your team, what makes you think stronger restrictions would help?
"Break the rules" as in the high level version of the rules, what is implied. "Confines of whats technically allowed" using granular loopholes to bend the rules as needed. This is done all the time in corporate law. Not too hard to comprehend imo.
You can't in the same breath say they did dodgy accounting but were within the rules. You can't cook books, inject your own money, claim it's from a sponsor so that you can make your club look more profitable under FFP, and claim it within the rules. It's very black and white.
Their own accounting books prove that they cooked the books by ÂŁ800 million. I know you want to be blind because it's your club, but if it was any other club you'd be screaming bloody murder.
You can't take any sort of moral high ground here. The rules were in place, regardless of whether they were good or not. Your club ignored those rules willfully, in order to gain a significant advantage on the pitch.
And now here you are, demanding that those rules be ripped up. Not because you want a "fair" system, but simply because you want a system where you would be the only big beast in the ecosystem.
Or maybe you want different rules? That would break the red cartel and make the playing field truly level? That your owners would then ignore under the table, so that you can remain at the top.
You are owned by people that cheat as easily as breathing. That cheat the existing rules, and would cheat any new rules as well. They don't even see it as cheating, I suspect. Just doing whatever is necessary to win. There has to be a punishment for that, otherwise rules are meaningless, and the whole structure of the league is lost.
And for what it's worth, I agree that the current rules are unfair. But you don't fix rules by ignoring them.
True, the PL did say that. But the PL also chose to set up these rules in 2008 when it was clear there were people willing to invest into clubs to take them to the top, which threatens the top clubs. City always opposed these rules but majority voted for, so its clear City did break the rules the agreed to be part of but didnt want. Honestly if City does lose the appeal, we will get the sanctions we deserve for breaking said rules. That does not mean the rules are right or for the good of football.
Doesnât matter if the rules are good or bad or whatever. City broke the rules and deserves punishment.
They didnât bend them, they outright broke them and lied. The greater issue is the management ( ownership ) did this with intent. This wasnât a technicality. Giving yourself sponsorships isnât revenue.
Do you have the unreleased appendices which proves this? If the appeal shows we did it within the confines of the existing rules, would you still say we broke the rules?
If City wanted to object to the rules, they made a mistake in voting for them. You can't defend, "we'll vote for these rules and that way other clubs will follow them and we'll just do what we want regardless" surely!
Edit: yeah alright City voted against them in 2013. The breaches go back to 2009, but sure. Then there's the fact that you might not agree with a rule, but if that rule is established your choices are to present alternatives and wait to replace the rule, or leave the competition, or follow the rules. Break the rule shouldn't have been an option.
It's a fact that they broke the rules, not an opinion. Anyone who wants to think they can muddy the waters remember that other clubs and their owners who have been effected by this will take the opportunity when they can to stick the boot in. The rules are the rules, they were broken, therefore suitable punishment ensues. Kapeesh
Did they release all the evidence (i.e the appendices) that provides justification for the verdict yet? If not, its yet an opinion of City bending rules. If City fails the appeal and the evidence is laid out for all to see, City will get the punishment and us fans will accept it and continue supporting our club through the rebuild. Rival fans simply cannot dictate what we feel about our clubs. Kapeesh.
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u/thediecast 1d ago
Because a lot of r/soccer users are asleep atm