Manchester City could not cook the transfer books alone, even if they’re basically being picked out as a thief amongst a room full of robbers.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Some rules should be broken
‘But they broke the rules’!!!! We keep hearing in the mailbox. Waaaaaah.
City didn’t break the rules for when the Red Cartel rose to prominence, they broke the rules that were put in place in a specific time and have frozen the ambitions of all the challenger clubs at said time. Not when Everton were strong in the 80s, Newcastle in the 90/noughties, but at a very specific time when these red clubs were ahead.
It will take multiple decades for any non-red or Chelsea club to catch up. The rules are as wrong as anything City have done. They aren’t martyrs for justice or the ‘little guy’, but it’s no coincidence almost all the joy in the mailbox is from the clubs that benefited most from FFP/PSR. I hope they bog the Prem down in appeals for years and force some reflection on whether the rules need changing. But they won’t be changed as long as the leadership in the league can be vetoed by Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Can’t wait for another 40 years of the same teams winning and any team that gets close immediately being stripped of all their stars and sent back to square one. If Brighton keep this up they’ll be raided in January too. Can’t have them doing too well can we, we don’t want too many Leicesters.
Tarqs NUFC – spending cap, spending cap, spending cap. The only fair and balanced approach to all this.
So much sanctimony over the City thing.
This is the sport where “taking a yellow” is applauded/encouraged. Cheating is cheating. City will take their punishment and we will move on. Their PL titles will mean no more or no less than any other one.
This falls under the “oil money” argument. As if there a “good” billionaire in the world. That one of them somehow made their money through legitimate wholesome means.
Please.
Relax. Enjoy the football for what it is. A distraction.
Dalian (a lot of this is from other Sky Six customers, about reinstating titles, just remember no one remembers Carl Lewis)
City have just been singled out
“It would have been in breach of both the league’s and UEFA’s spending limits by a very substantial amount”
This sentence really sticks with me. Not for the fact that City have been dishonest and fraudulent but for the fact that all the other clubs weren’t a million miles away from city’s spending. The “very substantial amount” piece suggests that it should have been the equivalent of Elon Musk vs Del Boy, instead it felt more like Musk vs Bezos. Does this not raise more questions about the general health of the game?
I’m by no means defending City but it does feel a bit like they’ve been singled out for their corruption in an already grossly fraudulent game. The sums that they were paying for players were not beyond the realms of what other teams paid and yet we’re meant to just sit back and accept that other teams were paying hundreds of millions out on players because they’re “well run”, have a big international fan base or have been historically successful?
I always remember on a course I did years ago being told that when you’re looking for fraud don’t just look at what the numbers tell you, look at the visual aspects too for the full story. If the books are saying the business is failing but there’s a Bentley sat in the directors parking space then look a bit deeper. Conversely if the books say it’s making a roaring profit and there’s a clapped out old banger in the space then again look a little deeper.
You look at United as an example and they’re steaming through cash on player fees and yet they can’t even sort a leaky roof. Barca too, they’re counting the cost of a new stadium but have they missed a beat on player fees? Not a jot but we’re supposed to believe that they’ve pulled on their financial “levers” to alleviate the financial pressures? It does seem to be that one man’s fraud is another man’s financial acumen.
I honestly don’t think there’s a case to answer for City. They’re basically being picked out as a thief amongst a room full of robbers.
Anthony, Kilburn
Will there be repercussions for other clubs?
We know that a large part of City’s cheating was under-reporting transfer costs, but who’s to say they didn’t also inflate outgoing transfers? And what does this mean for clubs who did business with City and were (presumably) happy to conspire with them? There’s a reason we all marvelled at their amazing transfer business – it wasn’t real.
Hold your noses and let’s do a deep dive into their transfer business and see who else could potentially be sweating like a turkey at Xmas right now.
All transfer information was taken from Transfermarkt and converted using annual average exchange rates.
2009/10 – Look, everything about that Tevez (£25m from West Ham) transfer stank. Leaving a double winning team and CL finalists for new money was probably more a reflection of the player, and there was the whole economic rights issue, with his advisors being due part of the transfer fee. But that’s a fairly low transfer fee and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the advisors got quite a lot more from Man Cheaty. I usually hate those childish nicknames but, on this occasion, indulge me. Adebayor’s price (£25m from Arsenal) was arguably a little low too, given he was off the back of a decent season. Ronaldo went to Madrid for £84m that summer, for context.
2010/11 – Andy Carroll (11 goals the previous season) went to Liverpool for £35m that season, so fair enough with the Dzeko (£32m -10 goals) and Balotelli (£26m – 9 goals) signings. However, selling Robinho for £18m was a fantastic bit of business, given he barely kicked a ball the season before. One does raise an eyebrow slightly when you consider AC Milan’s next biggest transfer in that year was a £5m loan fee for Ibrahimovic. If, for example, I was wanting to cheat by overinflating the income I got from transfers, I might sell a player for “£18m” on paper and give the selling club £10m back through other means. Wasn’t Fly Emirates AC Milan’s main sponsor that season? Interesting.
2011/12 – £35m for the 3rd top scorer in La Liga (Aguero), finishing only behind Ronaldo and Messi? We bought Atletico’s GK and had to pay £22m. Yet they let their main man go for only £13m more? Notably there were two transfers out to QPR that season, Onuoha & Shaun Wright-Phillips, both for £4m. You know, the same QPR who suspiciously kicked the ball straight back to City when they were chasing a goal, then parted like the Red Sea to give us the Aguerooooooooo(oh shit we’ve been caught) moment.
2012/13 – A net spend of £12m this year (wink wink), for a team who had just won the PL under “Two Contracts” Mancini. They brought in a couple of new MFs (Garcia & Rodwell) and a CB (Nastasic) for the guts of only £40m. Yet sold off their unwanted dross (relatively speaking) such as Ballotelli (AC Milan again), Adam Johnson, Adebayor and Nigel De Jong (AC Milan again) for £33m. They are working miracles; meanwhile, United can only bring in £7m for Berbatov AND Ji-Sung Park that year.
2013/14 – They spent around £90m on 4 first team players (Fernandinho, Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas) which is a feat in itself. Then you look at two of those, Negredo and Navas – both came from Sevilla FC and both went back to Sevilla a year or two after signing. There’s a game of transfer hokey-cokey going on. Picture the scene, I’m in a laundromat watching money as it goes round and round and round until it’s sparkling clean. Money, what money? Look over here at our new training complex.
2014/15 is fairly uneventful. In truth, I’m getting bored of this. They spent £82m (gross) but it’s the line in the sand when the gloves come off and the spending subsequently starts to ramp up. In subsequent years they spend £150m, £177m, and £278m – greater success is leading to a snowball effect, allowing them to spend more as years go on. Even then, the prices that they are paying per player seem remarkably low at times, rarely paying over £50m for top players whilst recouping decent money for players they don’t want or need. These years coincide with the arrival of Pep, who has not been implicated for the sake of clarity. But the club obviously enticed Pep by promising a massive transfer war chest – no war chest, perhaps no Pep?
It doesn’t stop there, look at the Haaland transfer. £50m for one of the biggest talents on the planet? Now I know he had a release clause, but do we know how much of a signing bonus was actually paid? Other teams simply couldn’t compete with a seemingly limitless off-the-books cheque book.
Nevertheless, back to the original point, if we’re looking at dodgy transfer deals then there are two sides to that coin. Clubs have to be willing to work with City at those prices, knowing there’ll be a briefcase stuffed full of dirhams coming their way. Perhaps there needs to be an investigation into some of the clubs who have dealt with City in the past and held middle eastern sponsorships. Not pointing any fingers of course, just speculating and I’ll let your own imagination take you on that journey; but it shows where City’s lies and deception might take us and this is only transfer fees – what about the other financial transactions at the club?
This particular house of cards has only just started to topple.
Garey Vance, MUFC
Manchester City are like Donald Trump
• Rule Number 1: Attack, attack, attack. (Always go on the offensive rather than defending yourself.)
• Rule Number 2: Admit nothing and deny everything. (Never concede fault or weakness to the public or opponents.)
• Rule Number 3: Claim victory and never admit defeat. (No matter what actually happens or how bad things look, declare that you won.)
As a human being, one can get an occasional laugh out of Trump, one may ocassionally agree with one of his points or policies.
But fundamentally the white wolf inside us all knows with absolute certainty that he is not telling the truth, that he’s lying and that he’s guilty – and when you’re blessed with a moral compass, it will always and ever twitch around him.
I enjoy Joe Hart’s punditry and he’s always seemed a pretty straight shooting kind of bloke, but to come out and publicly support this regime after the outcome of the SECOND independent investigation into their industrial scale cheating can only be categorised as 1) deliberately dishonest out of self-regard or 2) naive/stupid to the point of condemnation.
It’s only a matter of time until a perpetrator of these crimes is overwhelmed by their conscience and publicly admits to the co-ordinated cheating they were part of to relieve the inner consequences.
Players will know, Pep will know, the chairman will know, I know whats true, you know whats true or is it all a conspiracy theory made up by the PL to punish one of the most exciting teams to ever grace the competition?
Please. I recall standing in Trump Tower years ago in New York City, seeing all the gold bits and bobs all around the building and thinking: “I don’t buy it”. 100 points you say? No team has ever done it yet. The one that did was deliberately cheating to ensure unfair competitive advantage. Domestic treble? IT HASN’T BEEN DONE.
It’s the dishonesty at the core that makes it rotten and the continued denial, obfuscation and deliberate aggression to flood the zone that makes everyone sick. Physically sick when I see City trying to lie their way out and threatening to use litigation etc. to defend their guilt and delay justice.
Good luck to Pep Guardiola with his conscience, to David Silva, to Ederson and Vincent Company, to Noel Gallagher and the hard core City fans that watched them in League 2 twenty-seven years ago.
You can have your ego, shielded by lies, or you can have a morsel of your morality back by not feeding the other wolf. I don’t envy you with that struggle.
Mark
Hi there,
Manchester City fans are famous for a celebration called the Poznan, where they join together and jump up and down making a lot of noise, while studiously not paying attention to what is taking place in front of them.
Dara O’Reilly, London
Shame. Shame. Shame
Now then. It’s been a while since I wrote in – in fact, a quick look at my drafts tells me the last time I attempted it was what now appears to be an absurdly hubristic email in August last year about how Liverpool had no excuses and should be walking onto the field expecting to win every game. Glad I never sent that one.
Anyway, to the matter at hand. I thought I’d feel happy – or at least vindicated – if this ever came out (and for a long while, I think we all wondered if it would ever come out). But instead, I just feel angry about it. Not because “We would have won the league” stuff but because 10+ years of competition now feel vaguely pointless in hindsight. Possibly a bit of COVID-induced melodrama in that but the cheating, the constant insistence on their innocence, getting away with the UEFA case on a technicality, all of it. The sham contracts have made a sham of the whole thing.
The sanctions need to be punitive in the extreme because they’ve brought the very credibility and integrity of the sport into severe disrepute. Sponsors of other clubs should be absolutely furious. God knows what the current players must be thinking; not just the likes of Elliot Anderson but what must the kids in their academy be thinking? What about their parents?
I was having a quick skim of the Independent Football Regulator’s roles and responsibilities earlier and I wonder whether they have grounds to strip Manchester City of their license. I also wonder whether the Premier League clubs might vote to expel City. 15 clubs would need to approve it. Could City be confident of getting another five votes in their favour?
And by Christ, this goes beyond football. If they’ve lied to their auditors, they’ve committed fraud. That’s a criminal offence. Someone could go to jail for this.
Ultimately, I think I want City to be shamed. Maybe not to be expelled or dissolved or whatever, but utterly and thoroughly shamed. I was watching that episode of Game of Thrones t’other night – you know, the one where Cersei is stripped naked and whipped as she walks the streets of King’s Landing, with the baying hordes of peasants spitting and throwing stuff at her. I think I want the equivalent to happen here. I don’t know what that would look like but from here to eternity, Manchester City’s name should be tainted. Perhaps they should be forced to compete in the Premier League but start every game 3-0 down with 10 men. We should not only punish them in sporting terms by stripping them of their titles, nor in finacial terms that make them uncompetitive, but perhaps for the next 10 years we should make them a laughing stock too. Hell, we could make it every club’s 39th game and take it on the road. Everyone’s a winner.
Except City. C*nts.
Nick Glover, Scouser in Brum
PS. I wrote this before reading last night’s mailbox. Yes, S. Manchester, that is exactly what I want, but with bells and whistles on it.
£900m!
Dear Ed,
£900m. £900m! Over nine years.
That’s an average of £100m extra per season, except even that understates what the figures appear to show. Looking at Sky Sports’ annualised sponsorship inflation graphic, there is a significant year-by-year ramp-up, reaching £114m in 2015/16 and £124m by 2017/18.
Which brings me to the first obvious question: are we seriously supposed to believe that whatever was happening simply stopped after 2017/18?
Given the scale involved, and particularly the way it appears to have accelerated year after year, that seems extraordinarily difficult to sustain. Much of the discussion has understandably focused on punishment for the seasons covered by the charges, but if the practices established by the evidence continued beyond that period, what happens then? Further charges for post-2018 seasons? Who knows. Perhaps that becomes unnecessary if the Premier League gets the sanction right this time.
And surely that sanction now has to amount to throwing the book at City.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I struggle to see how anyone could look at the scale of the numbers now emerging and still regard this as some relatively minor circumvention of financial rules. I suspect some commentators imagined this might ultimately amount to things like Mancini receiving some extra money under the table, serious, certainly, but relatively contained. What is being alleged and evidenced here is something on an entirely different scale: a systematic distortion of the financial framework underpinning the competition.
I had, and to some degree still have, sympathy for City fans.
As I’ve said before, I spent several years in Manchester immediately after United’s treble in 1999, at a time when City were climbing their way back up the leagues after dropping into the Second Division. It was painful for those supporters. Of course it was.
So, when one billionaire in Thaksin Shinawatra was ultimately replaced by the extraordinary wealth behind the Abu Dhabi takeover, it must have felt like every Christmas had arrived at once. Very few football supporters would have reacted differently. Given that my own Liverpool were being touted as an acquisition around the period of the Hicks and Gillett debacle, I have absolutely no doubt that plenty of Liverpool supporters would have welcomed similarly transformative funding.
So I get it.
But that sympathy only extends so far.
Questions have surrounded City’s finances for years. There have been endless jokes and arguments about sponsorship revenues that somehow rivalled or surpassed those of clubs which had spent decades building enormous global commercial operations. There were questions about the number and value of sponsors with links to Abu Dhabi. There were questions about how some of the world’s most sought-after players could arrive at City on terms that appeared remarkably favourable. Even why the City Football Group could ‘share’ costs across clubs.
Supporters could bury their heads in the sand. They could be too distracted by the extraordinary ride they were enjoying after decades of hurt to care very much. Or they could simply say: “Where’s the proof?”
Fair enough.
But once confronted with evidence, and particularly evidence suggesting wrongdoing on this scale and over such a prolonged period, continuing simply to deny everything, or retreating to “the rules shouldn’t have existed anyway”, is where my sympathy disappears. Even that argument dies because by the end of this period City were 3 EPL titles into their run, they were no longer just plucky underdogs fighting the good fight, if they ever were.
Worse, it demonstrates precisely why state involvement in sport has generated so much concern about sportswashing in the first place.
I’ve seen countless variations of “US money good, Arab money bad”, along with attempts to equate Liverpool, United or Chelsea’s ownership with City’s. But that completely misses the point. This isn’t fundamentally about whether the money is American, British, Russian or Arab. It’s about the difference between a football club being owned by wealthy private individuals (who, yes can be tainted themselves) and one whose ownership is intertwined with the interests and resources of a sovereign state.
Football365 made an interesting point about this: once sporting success becomes associated with national prestige, the incentives involved are fundamentally different from those facing even an extraordinarily wealthy private owner.
If you genuinely cannot see why that distinction matters, and why state involvement presents different problems from a collection of billionaires owning a football club, then I think you’re missing one of the most important issues in modern football.
As for punishment, assuming the findings ultimately substantiate wrongdoing on anything approaching the scale now being reported, I don’t think any meaningful sporting sanction should automatically be regarded as too severe simply because of the consequences for Manchester City.
The question for the Premier League may ultimately be how much damage it is prepared to inflict on its own product in order to enforce its rules.
But there is another side to that calculation.
How much damage does it do to the Premier League’s credibility if a club can distort the competition on this scale, reap the benefits for years, and then receive a punishment that amounts to little more than a cost of doing business?
Because whatever happens from here, the Premier League brand is already tainted by this.
The sanction will determine whether it begins repairing that damage, or compounds it.
Regards,
Lindsay
Ok let’s keep it simple – City artificially raised their funds by £900 million.
They have cheated in a way that is reminiscent of Lance Armstrong. It was plotted, schemed, many people were involved, more money was spent than their competitors ever could. All to one goal – Total domination of the sport.
Financial doping is the same as chemical doping. It gives you an advantage that no one else could match – however hard they work.
Giving these people a fine is meaningless. The kind of fine they’d notice and care about is more than the GDP of some European countries.
So give them something they will notice, something that will send a message to any hovering multi-billionaire parasite ready to play these games – this shop is closed.
First of all, relegate them hard. One religation for every year spent doping. Secondly, strip them of the titles – all of them. They have not earned them , they are not theirs. Give them to clubs who played within the rules. Unfortunately that includes Manchester United, but it’s an imperfect world.
Jurgen made Liverpool a generational team under his management. The only asterisk is because he only won one Premiership. But he didn’t, he won 3! I don’t know whether the Premier League has the spine to really bring down the Hammer of Justice here , they’ve f****d up neigh on everything else.
If they don’t strip the titles, there will be a massive asterisk against everything they’ve done.
They can’t fix all the things that need fixing around relegation. Sides have lost a lot of money because of City doping on this scale.
Fundamentally what’s done can’t be undone- it can only be punished in such a way that no one will ever think about considering to muse upon it again.
James, Liverpool
A load of old Arse
In response to Matthew (ITFC), either you’ve only read the headlines of this report or you’re being deliberately obtuse.
‘Why didn’t Arsenal just buy Haaland?’ you ask and then use buying Jesus as ‘proof’ as to why it should be that easy. What you have wilfully neglected is the reason Man City were in the position to sell Jesus or buy Haaland in the first place. You’ve also completely ignored the ability of funding the player terms which, as is highlighted in the report, City have had no problem with hiding in the past so why aren’t we to assume they still are now? Remember, this investigation only covers up to 2018.
You then go on to list a load of players and attach prices to them like you buy footballers in Tesco for the price on the shelf. All those players come with personal terms and personal ambitions. They wanted to join a team that had been built (illegally) to challenge whilst other clubs were confined by the rules and they wanted to be remunerated accordingly which, again, Man City had no problem funding through nefarious means.
That’s why other clubs didn’t do it. There was a modicum of respect for the rules (Chelsea aside perhaps).
Thanks,
Stew
X% off
Mark in this morning’s mailbox suggests there should be a fund put together from City’s ill-gotten gains, which should be redistributed amongst those teams effected based on “for every loss, x% of the sales revenue”.
Wonderful, as ever, the joke somehow ends up being on Spurs.
TGWolf(Just imagine that 16/17 team with Aguerooooo in it)THFC
Trickle down, inflate up
Hi Matt Ellis,
Pablo Escobar pumped a lot of money into the Colombian economy – and into Colombian football. I’m sure there’s a lovely story about a lower division Colombian footballer who got live his dream with Atletico Nacional. What that doesn’t do, however, is negate the, ahem, rules he broke along the way.
The other consequence of Man City’s illicit money being pumped into the game is not so much trickle down, as inflate up. They caused transfer fees, wages, and agent fees to explode. Do you think that might have affected a few smaller clubs along the way?
A 60 pt deduction and a transfer ban would be a big wet flob in the face to every other club in, not just the premier league, but all of football. They anticipated a transfer ban, that’s why they spent £450m odd in the summer, in a characteristically arrogant attempt to negate it.
I’m happy for Ben House, good luck to him. But City need to be nuked.
Ben
Saka thoughts (there are other stories)
It wasn’t Arteta that broke Saka. It was the failed Panenka against Real Madrid. This was one of those sliding doors moments. If he scores, he goes on to become one of the greatest players of all time. If he misses, he regresses into this iteration of Saka we are seeing now.
Missing a penalty is one thing and Saka has already missed a big one at the World Cup (shame on you Gareth Southgate for letting a child take such an important kick) but missing a Panenka is a different level of disappointment. It’s a humiliation. Take it from someone who has felt this a lot, whether it has been with women, drunken nights out, work events, public speaking… Been there, done that. It eats away at you. It lives with you every single minute of everyday and it’s almost impossible to shake off.
The lad is a brilliant footballer and confidence was never an issue for him, until it became a big issue for him. Long story short guys, hit it straight at the keeper, pull it miles wide, send it into low-earth orbit but never miss a Panenka.
Also, on Man City’s appeal. If Man City deliver a long arduous dragged out appeal process and are still found guilty, shouldn’t their punishment be even harder? An appeal process gives them time re-group and strategize on how to mitigate any punishment handed to them, potentially lessening the blow. Given how uncooperative they were in the first place, surely this should be viewed in the same light and lead to a heavier punishment to offset any advantage they might have gained.
Seamus, Sweden
The England delusion/illusion
We play well against sh*t teams so we should be able to win a trophy right? Our ‘world class’ players can do the business against Mexico, Congo, Croatia and Norway so we should win the world cup right?
If we played Spain every week indefinitely, I wonder how long it would take English people to realise whats wrong with our national team. It would probably take years, 100s of defeats (and some random wins) for the penny to finally drop. Because we only see how crap we really are against elite midfielders a few times a decade while much more frequently seeing our team play well against inferior opposition we will never learn. Our overhyped players will always lose against equal or better midfielders.
We will at times have a sh*t goalkeeper (Robinson, James, Green). But usually we’ll have a goodun: Banks, Shilton, Pickford)
We’ll occassionally have a brainfart in defence but in general (certain ‘non’ right backs aside) English footballers know how to defend.
We always have goalscorers in our team. How will we survive without Harry Kane? Ask the French or ask the Brummie Superstar.
The problem has ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS been our inability to compete against top teams in midfield. Until we solve this problem we will never win anything.
The fact that we often play against top teams without 3 actual midfielders actually playing in midfield is incomprehensible.
We need 2 teams and 2 systems, one to play teams with worse players than us and 1 to play against top teams (we are not a top team).
If u look at our 2 ‘superstars’. Harry Kane will get u through the early stages at times single handedly but then be ineffective. He has gaps in his technique, little in game intelligence and tiny balls.
Jude will leave everything out on the pitch, play 2 positions at the same time, drag the team to the latter stages and then (understandably – not because Im a racist) burnout from the exertion and have nothing left to give.
Our best ever overseas World Cup position was pretty much based on the premise that however inadequate our team is on so many levels, Harry will get us into the last 16 and Jude will drag us as far as he can ie until we play a top team. We always get knocked out by the first top team we play in the knockouts.
The secret to understanding how second rate England really are isnt just watching our midfield being outclassed by top teams. Its what happens when u put a world class midfielder in a shit team at a tournament. In tournamemt football 1 world class midfielder in any team is enough to destroy the English.
We have to start playing 3 real midfielders and judge them on their ball retention and pass completion in tight spaces under pressure.
We will never win a tournament until we can put out a 3 man midfield that can pass the ball to each other.
Ask yourself what positions Jude or Declan Rice would play for Spain. Rice would be right back and Jude would be in Nico Williams’ position.
The English definition of a good midfielder is someome who tackles hard, runs up and down a lot and can kick the ball a long way accurately. We are a clown nation.
Ben
