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Football: Better Call Raul


Raja

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It’s a pity that the immediate reaction (mine too) is that the punishment won’t stick.  City have used financial doping for years, and there’s zero question of stripping them of titles or trophies won with that financial doping.  The most they face is prospective, temporary  exclusion from the CL, for which they wouldn’t qualify without financial doping, in which they’ve shown no ability to win anyway, and from which they won’t miss the revenue (because of the financial doping).  It’s a pretty thin punishment considering, and even that won’t stick.  In fact, they were already investigated and punished but managed to evade the investigation to limit that punishment too.  It’s not much of a deterrent to any other club who wants to cook their books to take a fast-track to buying some trophies.

I doubt many of their players could force a move if the ban is upheld.  They have contracts, and there’s limited financial depth and appetite from other major clubs to absorb all of those players at once.  KDB, Sane and Sterling would probably be able to force moves. 

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Another ridiculous (albeit technically correct, by the letter of the law) VAR decision to rob Wolves of the win. It's not even close to being used in the spirit of the game. There is no advantage gained from his cleat being offside when he does a little lay-off. I hope they change the rules or its interpretation.

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7 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

If the ruling sticks, City will really be up for the league next season, and they won't have European football as a distraction.

I don't think they'll lose anyone other than probably Sane, who was likely going anyway.

Really? I can’t imagine some of the world class players would want to stick for 2 years of no CL not to mention Pep. 

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I don't expect the ban to stick, but it would hilarious if it did. 

Its interesting to speculate as to what it could mean for City. I'd say it more than likely would mean that Pep would bugger off, which might well have happened anyway. While he might want to come back for another year to try and amend for this season by buying a central defence, he might think he can't wait around. 

If Pep goes , then whoever takes the seat next could define which players stay and which go. Sure it would be hard to compete with City on top wages but there are a small handful of clubs out there who could do it, and I'm sure Madrid or Utd or PSG would bite your hand off to get hold of KDB.

But then you start thinking about whether the ban would be a good reason to start using more of their youth players like Foden, or recruit younger thinking a couple of years ahead. 

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17 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Really? I can’t imagine some of the world class players would want to stick for 2 years of no CL not to mention Pep. 

If the players are on long contracts then I can't see City letting them go. Who knows what Pep will do, but there are other good managers out there and City have a great squad and system in place, so I'm sure they'll carry on doing well without him if and when that happens.

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9 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

If the players are on long contracts then I can't see City letting them go. Who knows what Pep will do, but there are other good managers out there and City have a great squad and system in place, so I'm sure they'll carry on doing well without him if and when that happens.

Yeah, I think it's totally possible for them to appoint one of the various promising managers atm if pep leaves. It's also possible that the new manager ( and it's a big if that a new manager even happens) will be given more time.

As an aside, I hope Soton trash Burnley today.

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12 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

If the players are on long contracts then I can't see City letting them go. Who knows what Pep will do, but there are other good managers out there and City have a great squad and system in place, so I'm sure they'll carry on doing well without him if and when that happens.

Would they not have to let some of them go anyway to balance the books? If they cant lie about deals anymore, and lose their champions league income, how would they keep everyone? 

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The Athletic has a good article about this whole thing written by Sam Lee and Matt Slater. I'll do my best to summarise:

 

What have City done wrong?

 
  • UEFA's Adjudicatory Chamber says City overstated its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in break even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016.
  • Also alleges the club failed to cooperate in the investigation.
  • Allegations based on hacked emails which implied the club made a cynical and concerted effort to deceive European football's financial watchdog.
  • According to Der Spiegel, City lied about the true source of million of pounds worth of sponsorship income as well as hiding various costs which should have been factored into FFP calculations.
  • It's alleged that £51.5m of the sponsorship money they were meant to receive from Etihad airlines actually came from Abu Dhabi United Group controlled by Sheikh Mansour.
  • The emails also suggest the club got more than £30m in costs off the books by paying former manager Mancini large consultancy fees via Al Jazira (Sheikh Mansour's team in Abu Dhabi) as well as setting up an elaborate scheme to shift the players' image rights payments to a third party who were secretly reimbursed. 

 

On what grounds can City appeal?

 
  • There are two main areas. One is along the lines of the statement City released yesterday saying that they believe the process to have been unfair and that UEFA has pushed for this outcome. They will look to exploit any procedural slip up made by UEFA. Also likely that they will use the result of the investigation against PSG - the UEFA prosector in that case decided that the value of PSG's sponsorships were more or less at the value that PSG declared despite independent valuation saying they were much lower.
  • The other line of attack is expected to come from City having kept a close eye on their European rivals' financial activities and could argue that what they've been accused of doing is no worse than what others are doing.

 

How does this affect City in the league?

 
  • The Premier League investigation is independent to UEFA's and is still ongoing.
  • There could be various penalties one of which is a points deduction. The Premier League also has the power to revoke City's licence to participate in the CL if they are found to have made "a false statement(either verbally or in writing) in or in connection with an application.

 

What does this mean for other PL teams in Europe? 

 
  • If the appeal is unsuccessful and the club finishes in the top 4 this season and next then the 5th place team will qualify for the CL.
  • For EL qualification, if the appeal is unsuccessful and City finish in the top 4 then the 6th place team is granted automatic entry to the group stage alongside the winners of the FA Cup with the EFL Cup winners going into 2nd round qualifying. If either of the cup winners finish in the top 5 or if City win either cup the spots would go to the next best placed side in the league.

 

What does this mean for Guardiola?

 
  • There are two schools of thought. One is that if City are banned, Guardiola could make a case to be released from his contract or simply quit. The other is that Guardiola has previously mentioned his intention of seeing out his current contract combined with him having a close relationship with both Begiristain and Al Mubarak means City are confident of him seeing out his current deal at least.

 

What will happen to City's star players?

 
  • A lot of this depends on clauses in their contracts. The club could have inserted clauses that would lower wages should CL qualification not be achieved however players can now argues that failure to qualify for the CL was not their doing.
  • Players agents may also have thought to insert some clauses into contracts allowing their clients to leave for a certain fee if CL qualification is not achieved. 
  • However whether or not players are sold will primarily come down to the usual factors - how long they have on their contracts, how much they are willing to force a move, how much prospective buyers are willing to pay and how determined City are to keep hold of them.

 

What is the financial hit?

 
  • In short, it's big. City earned £77m from the CL last season excluding matchday revenue. City's total profit for 2018/2019 was £10.1m so there is basically no chance of them turning a profit for the year(s) they are out of the CL.
  • Transfer budget is also likely to be affected since City still have to comply with FFP regulations even if they aren't participating in European competition since FFP calculations are done over a three year cycle. Failure to comply could result in UEFA not allowing them back into the competition until they do.

 

There's more but I felt these were the most pertinent questions. 

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28 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Would they not have to let some of them go anyway to balance the books? If they cant lie about deals anymore, and lose their champions league income, how would they keep everyone? 

City are in much better shape financially now that they've had sustained success so I assume they would be fine as long as they don't splurge too heavily in the market. The FFP issues and the apparent deception all happened quite a few years back

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