I’ve got two of his books of poetry
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Yeah, he told me about that. He says give them back any time, no hard feelings.
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I’m convinced that City’s relationship with PGMOL members is the bigger scandal.
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Its a reality. The Doku high foot on MacAllister is a case on point. Anyone who thinks that some of those refs aren’t on a payroll from City is deluded.
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Husband cheats on wife. On several occasions.
But he thinks its ok, because he bought her some bangles and earrings and they have a nice home.
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David Kogan right now…
At the level of nation states, everyone has fingers in everyone else’s pies. Of course UAE has investments in the UK that they will try and leverage and of course the Prine Minister is going to be drawn into that (it’s absolutely irreverent who the prime minister is).
This is why nation states should not be allowed to own football clubs. It inevitably makes relatively simple matters of sports governance into geopolitical diplomatic incidents.
So while the Premier League have done well to get it this far, ultimately this whole shitshow is their fault. They should have seen this coming. The UAE was always going to do this - they obviously didn’t buy Manchester City to enjoy the sporting challenge. The Premier League failed in its core responsibility to protect the league because they were so utterly blinded by money and greed.
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Started with Chelsea. Roman Abrahmovitch is a front for Putin. And the PL allowed him in. Everything bad starts from there. And Chelsea somehow weaseled their way out of punishment.
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Why should UK’s prime minister be concerned about those cheats selling up their club? I don’t understand that, and it requires a lot more explanation from him. Yes, he’s the former Manchester mayor, and they might have invested some money in the city, but any billionaire owner coming in would be able and probably willing to do the same. fsg have done it for Liverpool as a prime example.
The slimy way he ‘thanks’ those cheats in the face of the evidence of what they’ve done, doesn’t sit right with me.
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That condemns Burnham for me. Just wants to be popular. He is gone due to that. I’ll judged.
I’m increasingly sceptical that we’re going to see anything like the punishment that they deserve. Money buys influence and power. UAE/City group have their tentacles around the higher echelons, evidently right up to the PM
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Yes. His intervention was stupid. I absolutely loathe him, Labour, Angela Raynor, City, Pep….
The fellow second from the right has got three arms. 
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I found this example really interesting. It would be great if the PL could inspire themselves from that. Yes, they should be dissolved, and allowed to be fans owned and restart from scratch. In the long run, it would be a good thing for the fans and for the city.
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Trouble is now that the PM has mentioned it, will the premier league be under pressure to not be too harsh with city…feels like a deliberate move tbh.
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What has Angela Rayner done?
Anyhow the, this is for a decision for the PL and Man City to contest would have been a better response and for all Starmer’s faults he probably would have said that.
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Andy Burnham is doing what any Prime Minister would do in this situation - having their eye primarily on the Geopolitical ramifications of diplomatic fall out with a major investor in the UK economy.
The Premier League answer to its member clubs, not Andy Burnham. And it’s worth reminding again, that the Premier league did not have to embark upon this investigation, and they did not have to be so scathing in their judgment (via the independent panel)
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That was a depressing watch.
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A lot of this was criticiized at the time because the risk were so obvious. But it’s worth taking a step back to realize how badly they fucked it up and so much they misunderstood the risk
There isnt a rule in the PL or UEFA that per se bars states from owning football clubs. The question that was being tested when reviewing the acquisitions of City and Newcastle was not whether they were owned by the respective states, but whether operationally they were independent of those states - whether the state had power to influence operation at the club. You can laugh at how stupid a concept that is when dealing with gulf states - do we really think its a question worth answering on if MBS is going to be saying “do it, spend the extra 5 million to land Elliott Anderson”, or that Al Mubarak would point to the legal documents that do not include MBZ by name and tell him to but out. But the real risk as we are seeing now was never about their influence on football. It was on using their importance to football to influence matters beyond the game. That is the whole fucking point of sports washing. And now we’re at a place where a dead to rights verdict on the biggest cheating scandal in the history of sport is being assessed in terms of what can we get away with in terms of punishment without upsetting an important economic ally.
It wasnt the the directors test failed, it is that it was never asking the right questions in the first place.
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