I think the difference with Calcio is it called into question whether what you were watching was even real. They had to get heavy to restore any credibility, but of course they didn't really do anything to fix the issues. It's a bit the same now. Juve have likely been cheating for many years in a diseased league, and eventually it got so bad they got prosecuted by the actual authorities. But this seldom happens in the UK despite obvious white collar corruption all over the place. Indeed in Germany where Hoeness was prosecuted for his swiss bank accounts, including obvious corrupt bung from the CEO of Adidas, it had no fall out for Bayern at all. The EPL is essentially just a thin entity that runs football for a cartel of powerful clubs. This feels more like a situation where the other owners have finally lost patience with City's cheating, especially because it just costs them too much money. I suspect this is a warning more than anything - but it will trash the last 10 years of competition. United fans already asterisk all of Cities titles and I think this makes it 'official'
This is hilarious: A crucial bit of context I raised on last night’s @mcfcspaces (now at 61k listens!):On 13 Jan 2023, the UK / UAE governments signed a MoU deal to facilitate approx. £10BILLION worth of foreign investment in the UK. Whitehall will be lobbying after yday. https://t.co/YMgOriTaOR https://t.co/reSOZHQoaK— Lloyd Scragg (@lloyd_scragg) February 7, 2023
That's why you need a 5 yr refresh, you get a 5 yr window at the very top with each iteration of your team
Jitty is really my brother from another, because this is exactly why I have been cheering on Pep and City making a mockery of it all. Like what a set of stones on any UK media member pretending that the past was some rosy time. I guess when United only ever finished 2nd at worst was a great and competitive time in the annals of UK football. Look man I hope that them Sheiksh tell the Brexiters to f*** off and if they're going down they take everyone down with them. let's get really negative.
It's all so pedantic, and fans are so stupid my goodness I see why the elites continue to rule cause people are just insanely idiotic. I have heard it all, United fans crying about spending, Chelsea fans crying about City, Liverpool fans crying about FSG, my goodness.
He, and about 3/4 other UK based journalist along with some people on the continent working on behalf of Barca/Madrid/Bayern are obsessed with creating this stupid myth of "sports washing" and most fans being about 1 bulb short of a chandelier have run with it like those guys are saying something iluminating. Fans are being deliberately misled about what is going on with City because most fans don't care about the game they just care about their clubs. Which is why the VAR scam in the EPL continues, which is why Barca can do shady deals that are clearly money laundering and Madrid can be a state sponsored club but how dare City win like this?
Don't know how to respond to that. But my take on Tariq Panja continues to be that he's a relatively measured, facts-based reporter. Your mileage obviously varies.
Counterpoint - That there are flaws in various leagues or other teams doesn't mean Citeh or anyone else are exempt from the rules. If they need to let off on a technicality because implementation of the rules has been uneven then so be it, but if they're guilty then they're guilty and should be punished accordingly. Also, given that Chelski was more a personal pet project than a national one, I'm of the impression that Citeh is the first attempt at major sportswashing. I've no idea about the veracity or extent of realized benefits to the owners in these scenarios and frankly don't care. (Often the attention raised on the matter can bring daylight to the political issues at hand.) What I and others should care about is the extent that such ownership types will skew and shift competitive balance: Teams overly empowered to win without regard for cost, and in fact doing so because they're prioritizing brand prestige over sound business, renders trophies out of reach for more and more of the other teams. This isn't to say nationalized ownership or obscenely wealthy owners are ostensibly bad, merely that competitive balance is critical to the business model of each overall league and therefore measures should enforce the same. I don't exactly know where to draw the line, and perhaps this plays out differently if these groups bought existing powers instead of making new ones, but it sure seems there's only so many times you can look at the EPL, with all the legit revenues available, and accept a model whereby each new ownership will simply outspend everyone else in pursuit of a trophy, taking losses or cooking the books along the way. Says I, anyway.
If they win the league, multiply that by 10. They're not going to let him go if they're playing in the CL unless you pony up Neymar level money to make them think about it.
Not to mention they desperately need to get back into the CL because they are so deeply in debt you'd think they're recreating the opening scene in "Blade".
The trick's going to be if they don't have that CL money to help reinvest in the squad. Klopp, et. al. will have to get creative.
The Calciopolli scandal already gave the club the scarlet letter. It's mind-boggling that they actually went there knowing that, if they were caught, no one in Italy would have sympathy for them.
Chelsea got away with their most heinous financial doping before FFP was even a concept, let alone the financial regulations that the PL are charging City with. That’s the distinction—get in before the drawbridge gets closed on you
Just a note on this, as it comes up a lot Unfortunately this was the naive spin the UK media put on it. If you read up on how Putin's Russia works, it is pretty clear to a real extent Putin was the owner of Chelsea at the end of the day. Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund is much more of a legitimate owner than Abramovich
No joke either; finally got the balance right on the 4-3-3 system that I use with Arsenal the other right. Frustrating when you think you've got it correct and then Real Sociedad decides to score 4 goals against you in the blink of an eye.
Uhhhh wait a sec? Are you talking about sponsorship deals on shirts/kits/uniforms? Because I hate to break it to you...
Remember the other hopelessly naive crap that RA bought chelsea as insurance against Putin LOL Similar to how Lebedev was somehow a big Putin opponent
Wow what a coincidence EXCLUSIVE: Qatar-based investment group to bid for Manchester United. Would arm Erik ten Hag with huge transfer kitty aimed at taking club to the top of world football. Excited by the project & confident their bid will be the strongest. Full story: https://t.co/6anXwNBFEm #mufc— Mike Keegan (@MikeKeegan_DM) February 7, 2023
I was fully aware of how RA came about his wealth, but not as familiar with how much Putin may have guided RA's hand regarding CFC. Compared to the many other ill-begotten oligarchs RA seemed comparably personable and devoted to making a life for himself in a more hospitable climate than in the New SSR. Clearly under a transparent, law-based governance none of them would've been created, let alone eff up the balance in the Premiership. Wenger and the Ashburton Grove plan certainly did not account for the introduction of a sugar daddy system.
https://dailycannon.com/2023/02/mesut-ozil-retirement/ Seems somebody jumped the gun. Ozil started last Thursday and is going to play out the remainder of the season.