Yeah I dont get it. Maybe I am misunderstanding something important, but I would have thought there was a standard accounting period that would prevent this sort of “ok, the clocks start from now” sort of tactic. But if the league is happy with it then ok. It seems wrong, and I would suggest the only implication it has for City’s case is the existence of such silly seeming loopholes, others of which they might find.
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On the one hand the Cheaters have ignored the rules which are in place, on the other hand, the money they have spent on transfer fees for example, will no doubt have pleased these same rule makers, who would see it as cash being injected into the game itself, as a good thing. Maybe this is why such reluctance appears to be evident, to bring them to task.
The impatience of the Cheaters, to circumvent going down the snakes and up the ladders, in order to go from ground zero, to the Emptyhad penthouse in as few moves as possible, in the shortest amount of time, has trampled over the decades and decades of devotion/dedication of numerous clubs, whom followed the correct procedure, not only to become established in the modern era, but have had the generational patience, to build up the history of their club.
Throw the book at them, and then throw them out of the PL, is what I say.
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I don’t have any faith in the premier league to give a punishment which mean dropping out of the league. They punished Everton and Nottingham Forest but it was a punishment that still gave them a chance to stay in the league. It looks like throwing a team out of the league hurts the brand more than a club breaking the rules.
Can see City getting a punishment where they will say to themselves it was worth breaking the rules for.
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To be fair that’s stupid since there are bigger teams in the Championship… 
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I feel I’m talking to the wrong audience, and I certainly won’t get any love here by saying it, but I don’t actually agree with the idea of clubs using their generationally strong support to exert influence (and therefore, honours). Should a club like Real Madrid have a much greater chance of winning the next 50 titles because they have won 36 titles previously? Fuck that. That’s basically using your might to shut down competition.
There are sports that are far more interesting simply because the teams at the top change so regularly: you can call AFL a small time sport but what they’ve got dead right is that finals and titles have been shared pretty much across every club in the league over the last 30 years (sorry Freo!), whether they are a traditionally strong club or not. Funnily 2 of the 3 big traditional clubs have probably been the weakest over that period.
Even as a Liverpool supporter the exerting of our power to keep weaker teams at arms length is not cool. I personally have no problems with a team like Newcastle having an owner willing to bring their team up to the standard of a Liverpool or United, but I do have a problem with that threat of using that newfound wealth to go well beyond what we are capable of delivering: I am happy for clubs to compete (to build up their fanbase, history etc), but not to eliminate our ability to compete.
You could say I would be in favour of a hard ceiling salary cap that basically ignores revenue.
This feeling probably stems from me being a diehard supporter of the absolute minnow of minnows in the AFL: North Melbourne.
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Nor do I. But any owner who does so must abide by the rules.
And said owner should pass the “fit and proper person” test first. Nation states should not be allowed to own clubs, even through investment arms and the like.
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Being a lifelong supporter of one of those 2 big AFL clubs, this post makes me sad.
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Thing about Nation states or related entities is that the likes of City and Sandcastle can get sponsorship deals from related Airlines which can be way above what other teams get. This will be very hard to police. If an Arab sheikh decides to pump money in through those Airlines and says the sponsorship is worth 1 billion a year , how the heck do you police that ?
Best thing to do is not to have Nation states own clubs
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Real Madrid want Rodri. Hope he agitates for the move, knowing fine well that it’s probably his last chance to play for a big club in Spain.
City are going to have some big changes coming. I reckon Pep is off at the end of this season - no singings of note, brought back Gundagon, probably for a push at a last title without having to really bed him in.
KDB, Walker, Rodri will all be off soon given their ages. If the charges stick, Halaand and Bernardo Silva will probably leave too.
Reckon the lack of activity might be in prep for the worst news (for them - best for us!) re charges.
Surely not a coincidence that their spending appears to have slowed right down.
Don’t think so. They have enough in the youth academies right now.
Just want to comment on the historic nature of clubs. If they build it up, by fair means, good luck to them. If they steward their fan base to help keep them at the top - passionate crowd, tv viewership, merch, etc. good luck to them.
A line is crossed if the advantages are leveraged to keep others down. Everyone should have a chance to make the most of themselves.
And at that point, you can’t cheat, and you can’t bypass the process by installing a nation state to fast forward your way to the top. The blood, sweat and tears that is a prerequisite for significant achievement helps to give a club its soul over the years.
Apart from the significant objection to shortcut cheating to get to the top, it is also desperately hollow. Witness Man City’s ‘parade’ whenever they win the biggest prizes. They don’t have many fans, and the whole thing is met with a shrug of the shoulder because few people care.
So building something up, organically, is the way to go. And everyone should have a shot at maximizing their potential. But no cheats. No shortcuts. No nation states.
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Agree. Reckon they know Pep will be off, so its pointless them bringing in loads of players - too much uncertainty around them.
I reckon Foden stays with them even if they end up in the Championship and without European football for at least 2 years, maybe more.
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But they rarely play for the first team and get sold instead, so i dont think that is the reason.
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I understand that it seems unfair that an owner can have money they want to spend on making the team better but are restricted from doing so by spending limits, but the unfairness of that pales in comparison to the consequences of a new owner spending the club into the red and it going wrong. And that is before you even consider issues like the destabilizing effect on the rest of the game of a large influx of outside money, or even the well documented performance issues that come with companies who try to grow at a pace that isn’t manageable.
I think we should be open to constant evaluation of the specific ways we are regulating spending to see if there ways it can be better enforced to control the specific issues of concern, but we should never be swayed by complaints from clubs having to take evasive measures for managing the existing regulations poorly.
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I think it should understood that part of the strategy for clubs like PSG and City, and probably Newcastle once they get the green light, has been to deliberately destabilise the market for footballers as a way of suppressing the opposition. If you can make buying and paying footballers much more expensive for everyone, you suddenly have a massive advantage.
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Wasn’t that something PSG deliberately targeted with Neymar?
That is Mascot’s pet theory, but it’s more like a gang land hit to announce a new player in town than that sort Machiavellian 3d chess move.
They had a player Barca wanted (Veratti) and PSG were insistent that it was not going to happen. Barca took that as an invitation to show the upstarts what it was like to take on an established giant and so put proper resources into unsettling him refusing to take no for an answer. PSG’s response was not get angry, but to employ the Sean Connery Untouchables philosophy - they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of their in the morgue - and so went out and acquired a player who had been thought to be untouchable.
It was very definitely a move intended to send a statement, but I dont buy they had intentions of distorting the market.
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Barca still got a huge sum for Neymar. The fact that they spent it all and more on Coutinho (bless them) and Dembele was the reason for them getting fucked.
Now that I think about it, I remember reading around that time that the main reason prices had gone up wasn’t actually the Neymar ripple effect so much as the increased revenue from TV packages, that more than anything else giving clubs more money to splash, which ultimately doesn’t really matter when it’s such a closed market.
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