The All-Encompassing Pro/Rel Thread on Soccer in the USA

... the "more important than the league" bit is different from the "allegedly cheating" bit. It isn't one club that's more important than the league, it's a handful.

Don't you tear into me for doing this right here? Yeah, yeah you do. Wait, let me guess ... you doing it isn't the same or somehow it's right when you do it ...

No, he stated their inaction/delayed approach/allowing Man City to strong arm the process while they quickly deal with other clubs, makes them a joke.

JFC dude, you Crawley'd that to all hell.

The criminal aspects are something else entirely ... this is a "civil" case in regard to EPL/City and FFP. That's all that is relevant to the Prem and dealing with City. The rest is literal criminal court and has nothing to do with what the EPL does in regard to City. MORE than enough time has passed to determine whether or not they broke FFP.

There is NOTHING about the criminal case that would keep the league from dealing with City on a "sporting" term. The answer to the only question that matters to the EPL in regard to City is one word and one world only. It's either YES or NO. Everything is irrelevant to the ramifications to City as an EPL club.

Clearly it's fake news

No, they just give no shits when the clubs do it and don't prevent it. Active VS Passive encouragement (though it's the owners/club FO on both end that decide to do this).

But you know, there's no farm teams in European/Non-American soccer ....
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ated-from-eredivisie-after-18-point-deduction


Also, it's a good thing that sporting merit is all that matters and the only thing that determines who goes up and who goes down in p/r. Otherwise Gateshead would have to ...

... oh wait

 

I didn’t watch any relegation thrillers over the weekend.

 

O what a smart ass comment. Mls is least watched league in their own country and leages thatvare watched have some urgency and pasion about them mls is retirement home even mexicans stsrt chanting ronaldo when messi is playing get destroyed my mexican league in everything but hay ypu got apple tv deal and 22 k average attendance yeah tap your self on a back for that because only fans that care how much m9ney teams have and dont spend it are mls fans

 

The literal tv ratings expose the absolutely ridiculous inaccuracy of this comment.

 

How is the Liga MX relegation battle going?

 

Let's be frank: Liga MX got over 3 million US viewers for the second leg of the Clausura championship playoffs last June. There were under a million watching MLS cup on regular TV. Even assuming spectacular numbers on Apple TV (the real numbers are secret), MLS Cup probably didn't draw that last year.

BOSNAINTER is basically right, even though their English is crap.

 

That MLS is the least popular league in the US?

 

MLS outdraws the NBA and NHL. So, there's that.

 

I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that that is not what was intended.

 

Stream of consciousness idiocy

 

You've not been following his posts.

 

Which other clubs are in legal proceedings with the prem? What have other clubs done that puts them at direct odds with the prem? What other club ignored the rules and then cooked their books to try and cover it up?

Honestly don't know what you are talking about here?

And myself and others have explained why the Man City case is different than the other ones.

Now I also said that systems are different, and an advantage to a franchise league is the League has more power and can force things through that they feel is best for the league as a whole.

There is NOTHING about the criminal case that would keep the league from dealing with City on a "sporting" term. The answer to the only question that matters to the EPL in regard to City is one word and one world only. It's either YES or NO. Everything is irrelevant to the ramifications to City as an EPL club. [/quote]
The two are still connected and will impact how City defend themselves and how the league goes about it. Primarily makes everything slower, have to make sure the t's are dotted and the I's crossed.

And it's just a very complex case with defendants who have made it clear that they will exhaust "all options"

We've already been through this but active vs passive does matter. And it's fundamentally different when an entire league, or even just a club decides to play reserves in the entire competition vs doing it in one replay.

Farm teams unfortunately are coming to Europe it sucks but it's now inevitable. Hopefully a few safeguards will be kept in place.

 

But that's not what's happened. If City had breached the same rules as Everton and Floppers they would have faced the same punishment. But they didn't.

You can't deduct points from Man City until you've established that they broke the rules. That's why they have lawyers and financial forensic analysts going through ten years worth of accounts.

At the moment it's just allegations. Everyone is pretty certain that they broke the rules, over an extended period of time, but it has to be proven. And it looks like that's going to happen in a court of law.

Forest and Everton fans are just whingers. Forest's manager used to hand money to players in brown paper bags at motorway service stations to avoid taxes. Everyone knew it, no-one did anything about it.

Meanwhile the Premier League does away with FA Cup replays, which were a 150 year-old tradition and a financial windfall to a lot of lower division clubs, although you can argue that lower division clubs shouldn't have to rely on windfalls to balance their books.

Back in the old days Coventry fans could be looking forward to a well-earned replay against Manchester United. That would have led to 3 to 10 days of excitement, speculation, anticipation and hope, followed by crushing disappointment as they get hammered 4-0.

It's a tradition.

 

The limited number of players clubs are allowed to loan makes genuine 'farm teams' all but impossible.

There are also limits on club ownership ties between clubs, to limit any dodgy dealings, although there definitely are a number who have some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement.

These limits tend to be on a national basis though, which is why 'partnerships' are with clubs from different countries. The barriers of playing in another country, in another culture, also limit the number of players who can be loaned out.

 

The requests from Patro Eisden and KV Oostende for licenses for the coming football season have not been approved by the licensing committee. The documents at Patro Eisden were incorrect and the license for Ostend, which is in financial trouble, was also not granted.

In addition to Patro Eisden and Ostend, the license for Francs Borains was also not approved. Patro Eisden's request was rejected because the request was declared unfounded.

Ostend was told the following by the licensing committee. 'Decides NOT to grant KV OSTENDE the requested professional football 1A and 1B license and the Flemish Top Amateur Club license for the 2024-2025 season,' the licensing committee shares via the official channels of the KBVB.

 

USSF sanctions divisions, and sets a mandate for pro/rel. Leagues and the market mobilize.

 

And can you imagine the lawsuit when LAFC's owners find out they're set to lose a $1.2 billion investment due to a Victorian sense of fair play?

 

Who said MLS has to participate?

MLS can coexist with a new first division with pro/rel. USSF can do what it wants with PLS.

Oh and btw. What lawsuit? As long as they are compliant with PLS, then there is no lawsuit. The lawsuit would be against Garber and MLS LLC, not USSF. USSF is a regulatory body.

Victorian sense of fair play. LOL. Pro/rel is way more than that.

 

Italy has some U-23 type squads playing in lower divisions. Owners can't own two teams in Serie A, but they can own teams at different levels, for instance the same family that owns Napoli owns Bari in Serie B, and yes, self-deals from time to time. It was looking like Bari might come up and there was speculation as to which team they would sell, but it wasn't to be.

The easy solution for pro/rel with reserve sides in lower divisions is they just opt out of coming up or are prohibited.

 

He said MLS is the least popular league ... and that's not true at all. Outside of Barca/Real and select Bayern matches, MLS is quite a bit ahead in TV ratings over Bundesliga/LaLiga. EPL and LigaMX are the only leagues that regularly get higher ratings than MLS.

He's not even close to anything remotely near being right.

Again, on a simple point of ... did they breach FFP, it's quite simple. In the time they've been investigating (initially started in 2018) they've certainly found the simple answer to that question. Yes, or no.

Considering they were banned from UEFA competitions and fined ... they've clearly done something. So why not take action (the EPL here) accordingly? Why wait for criminal pieces when very clearly there's been "civil" issues uncovered? The criminal stuff, again, is irrelevant to the PREM and the other clubs within it that ManCity, being allowed to trot along banking Prem bucks and keeping clubs out, does affect. It matters within the context of the other EPL clubs being hit with points deductions etc ...

HOWEVER, the trail isn't even set for FALL of this year with the decision set to be handed down NEXT SUMMER!!!!

Absolutely ridiculous, and a joke ...

... yet they were banned from UEFA comps and fined (yes, overturned). I'm willing to bet that in the YEAR AND A HALF before that 2020 decision from UEFA (about FFP mind you) and the FOUR YEARS SINCE that the EPL has found with much more certainty and detail whether or not City breached FFP (especially given the information already on hand from UEFA's investigation).

Well, when you say "mandates pro/rel" .... Or do you not understand the word you used?

... yes, because regulatory bodies/entities don't get sued. Oh wait. And yes, the lawsuit would be against USSF.

 

The ban for breaching FFP was overturned by CAS for exactly the reason I explained. Because they are allegations.

"The CAS said that most of the alleged breaches were not established or time-bound."
- ESPN

The remaining $10 million fine was for obstructing the investigation.

Unfortunately there are pesky laws and more importantly the presumption of innocence, so although everyone knows they did it, it still has to be proven.

 

Which itself seems like something the EPL should take action on, but I'm not sure if the regulations allow it (can the EPL penalize a team for interfering with an investigation by UEFA/FIFA?).

But again, my complaint isn't "they're guilty, penalize them!" no matter what a certain poster might claim I (didn't) say. My complaint is that the league is penalizing some teams while the specter of cheating, at a much more massive scale, still hangs over another team. Unless Man City is found innocent on all charges (which seems unlikely, but it is possible) there's no way to argue that relegation the last few seasons have been decided on "sporting merit". It would have been decided on who got penalized for their cheating when. And in this scenario there's likely more than one team that could make a case that had the penalties all been assessed at the same time, or even in some logical sporting order based on when the cheating happened, they would not have been relegated.

(And that's not even getting into the idea that the EPL suddenly wants to move away from pint deductions as penalties, just as they are getting closer to having to make a decision about City. If they want to change the penalties fine, but it should only apply to incidents that happened after the penalties changed. incidents that happened under the current penalty structure should be penalized with that structure.)

 

The other factor is if the rules they allegedly broke were in place at the time they were allegedly broken too.

As you posted from the CAS' ruling. The CAS is essentially saying that UEFA was trying to punish Man City for something that wasn't actually against the rules during the time period in question.

At the end of the day FFP regulations were put in place to keep the Big Clubs BIG, and to keep the little clubs little, all while under the guise of protecting clubs from financial ruin. IOW preventing another Malaga situation where an uber wealthy owner pumps loads of cash into a team and then gets bored and pulls the funding, leaving the club in financial ruin. The Big Clubs don't like or want their apple cart to get tipped over.

 

The rules say:
3 points for a win
1 point for a draw
0 points for a loss
Breach FFP you lose points.

Everton and Forest published their annual accounts. They breached FFP they lost points.

City haven't breached FFP. Or if they have* it hasn't been proven.

They were fined by UEFA for obstructing a UEFA investigation.

*They have.

 

Again, nobody is debating any of these facts...