mirek zero

[Aston Villa Updates @avfcbreaking]

There was a time when a European final belonged to the supporters who dragged their club there.

Not anymore.

When Aston Villa were handed roughly 11,000 tickets for a Europa League final in a 70,000-plus stadium, the number itself told the story. UEFA can package the event however it likes — “festival of football”, “European showpiece”, “global celebration” — but the modern European final is no longer built around supporters. It is built around clients.

The supporters fund the journey. The corporates inherit the destination.

Villa fans will have spent thousands following the club across Europe. Flights, hotels, time off work, loyalty schemes built over years. Yet when the final arrives, huge sections of the stadium are reserved for sponsors, hospitality guests, executives, delegates and “neutral” allocations that often end up on resale sites within hours.

And supporters are expected to accept it.

UEFA’s defence is familiar. Sponsors fund competitions. Broadcasters need space. Hospitality drives revenue. All true. But football crossed a line when the event surrounding the final became more important than the supporters inside it.

The optics are awful because fans can see it themselves.

A finalist gets 11,000 tickets while corporate packages costing thousands remain available. Genuine supporters scramble through ballots with lottery-like odds, while neutral areas fill with tourists taking photos during the warm-up.

And UEFA wonders why resentment grows.

Supporters are constantly called “the lifeblood of the game” until ticket allocations are discussed. Then they become an inconvenience to work around premium inventory.

Football did not become Europe’s dominant sport because sponsors created atmosphere. The noise, colour and emotion UEFA sells globally every season is generated by match-going supporters — the same people increasingly pushed aside at the biggest games.

The “neutral fan” concept is perhaps the biggest fiction of all. In theory it promotes access. In reality it fuels resale markets, inflated prices and thousands travelling ticketless out of desperation.

UEFA could change it tomorrow. Finalists could receive 70 per cent of the stadium combined. Corporate sections could shrink. Hospitality would still exist.

But that would mean sacrificing revenue.

And modern football has shown repeatedly which side wins that argument.
#AVFC #scfreiburg

[Michał Chmielewski @Ten_Psycholog]

Kiedy Musk wyłącza X? Dzisiaj na całym świecie jest tylko jeden temat: pedofilów powiązanych z Epsteinem, Trumpa, Muska, Gatesa i innych asów.

Ps. Ten twitt złapie jakieś zasięgi czy już poszły w ruch magiczne algorytmy populistów?

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

🧵 THREAD: Manchester City, the charges, the evidence, & how justice was delayed.

Manchester City weren’t charged because rivals complained or because they 'spent big'. They were charged because evidence shows a decade-long system designed to hide owner funding, inflate revenue & deceive & obstruct investigations.

The Premier League’s case didn’t appear overnight.
It began in late 2018, triggered by Football Leaks documents - internal emails, invoices, contracts - that contradicted what City had been telling UEFA & the Premier League for years.

Those emails are the backbone of everything that followed. At the centre of the case is a simple allegation: Manchester City repeatedly disguised owner funding as commercial revenue.

FFP rules require sponsorship income to be real, independent, and market value. What the emails suggest is that City’s biggest 'sponsors' weren’t paying what City claimed - Abu Dhabi was.

Take Etihad as an example. Leaked emails show City executives discussing Etihad paying only a fraction of headline sponsorship deals, with the shortfall quietly topped up by Abu Dhabi government-linked entities.

One email explicitly references ensuring funds 'come through the correct channels' so they are not detected as separate sources of funding. That is the definition of disguised equity. This wasn’t a one-off.

Emails show Etihad deals where shirt sponsorship, stadium, training kit & campus naming rights were all inflated wildly out of line with the market at the time - later confirmed in the actual contracts, not just drafts.

The numbers in the leaks weren’t hypothetical. They were real. UEFA auditors suspected this as early as 2013–14.

They found £47m of 'intellectual property' sales boosting income, a £5m 'win bonus' paid for an FA Cup final City lost & sponsorships from Aabar and Etisalat above market value.

City were fined & restricted - but crucially, UEFA never saw the full records. Why? Because City refused to provide them. This becomes a pattern.

When UEFA charged City again in 2020, they imposed a two-year Champions League ban. City appealed to CAS & had it overturned. City fans shout 'INNOCENT', shared out of context screenshots. They're wrong.

CAS did not rule that City were innocent. CAS ruled that UEFA could not meet the burden of proof - largely because City did not co-operate. City were fined €10m specifically for obstructing the investigation.

Even City's own expert witness was denied access to key information that could have disproved disguised funding. 'No evidence' doesn’t mean nothing happened. It means the evidence was withheld.

CAS explicitly stated that disguised equity funding could not be excluded - only that neither side could conclusively prove their case. That vagueness was entirely engineered.

After CAS, new emails emerged suggesting Simon Pearce, a senior City executive & Sheikh Mansour adviser, had given misleading testimony under oath. City declined to comment. Again.

While all this was happening, the Premier League had already been investigating City for years. City’s response? Delay. Delay. Delay. Obstruct. Litigate.

Court filings later revealed City challenged the legality of the investigation itself, filed repeated procedural applications, refused to hand over documents, forced arbitration, then challenged arbitration & tried to keep the entire process secret.

A High Court judge called it out in 2021. “It is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made.” That’s legal spiel for stonewalling.

This obstruction accounts for 35 of the 115 charges alone & that’s before we get to the secret payments.

City declared Roberto Mancini's salary as £1.45m per year. On the same day he signed with City, he also signed a “consultancy” deal with Al Jazira - a club owned by the same man who owns City - worth £1.75m per year. That deal was explicitly marked confidential.

Emails show City executives arranging the payments. Same signatures. Same people. Same day. The allegation is obvious: City paid Mancini off the books.

Leaked documents allege undeclared payments for Yaya Touré, including via third parties. These aren’t rumours. They’re contracts, emails, invoices. This is why there are 14 charges relating to manager and player remuneration.

Then there’s image rights. City told UEFA they sold player image rights for a £24.5m lump sum to comply with FFP. Later, they quietly resumed earning millions from image rights again.

The buyer? A company whose directors included City’s own senior legal officer. Independent journalists couldn’t even establish its genuine commercial purpose.

All of this feeds into the core allegation across 54 charges: City failed to provide accurate financial information in good faith. Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly, over nearly a decade.

Now add politics. UK government departments discussed City’s charges with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. Those communications are sealed - because releasing them could 'damage relations with the UAE'. City insist they are not state-backed. Then why is the state involved?

Yet still, the delays continue. A 12-week closed-door hearing. Half a million documents. Years of silence. City remain 'innocent' - not because the evidence disappeared, but because the verdict hasn’t landed.

This is why the case matters. If City walk away with a fine, it tells every club to cheat cleverly, obstruct endlessly, spend on lawyers, not compliance.. & the rules collapse.

This isn’t about jealousy. It isn’t about success. It’s about whether financial regulation in English football is real - or optional for the richest club in the league.

The evidence exists. The emails exist. The delays are documented. Now only one question remains, do the rules apply to City or not?

[Szymon Janczyk @sz_janczyk]

Jagiellonia pracowała nad transferem Sergio Lozano 3 miesiące 👀 Ale nie dlatego, że trzeba było go do ostatnich chwil nakłaniać, bo to kolejny piłkarz, który poznał metody Siemieńca i stwierdził:

- Robimy to.

Oto mistrz prostopadłych podań prosto z 🇪🇦:

https://t.co/4CMQD9fJc8

[mirek zero @MiMirak72]

@przeglad P

P. PpppPpppp
P
09

[Arkadiusz Myrcha @ArkadiuszMyrcha]

Ten „bezfunkcyjny” urzędnik #Szmydt został Naczelnikiem po kilku dniach delegacji w MS, a jego sprawy miały często charakter „Pilny”.
Podpisy Piebiaka, Wójcika czy Ziobry.
Sędzia #Szmydt był w wąskiej grupie osób współpracujących z politykami PiS .

[Mirkowy 🇵🇱 @mirkowy]

Pamiętacie akcję, w której udało nam się zdobyć prawie 350 tys. wyświetleń w sprawie donosiciela Tarczyńskiego (link w komentarzu)?

Musimy to powtórzyć. Niech wszyscy wiedzą, że Paweł Rybicki to kapuś i kłamca, który donosi na Polskę do oligarchów obcego kraju.

Człowiek ten stwierdził, że "polska reżimowa policja" weszła do siedziby "niezależnej" stacji TV Republika, co jest kłamstwem.
Zróbmy mu zasięgi, niech wszyscy się dowiedzą z kim mamy do czynienia.

🔁❤️Polajkujcie proszę i udostępnijcie. Nie możemy sobie pozwolić na szerzenie pisowskiej dezinformacji.

[Przemek Langier @plangier]

Jestem fanem tego, jak progresowała ta akcja w defensywie 😀

[Koto Wojtowski @OttoWoj]

@PanZolty https://t.co/pNpiOGY6xA

[KR Jagiellonia Białystok @kr_bia]

PODZIĘKOWANIE I POŻEGNANIE PREZESA WOJCIECHA PERTKIEWICZA‼️

Prośba do wszystkich o podanie tego dalej, niech jak najwięcej kibiców dowie się o tej akcji!

Więcej info poniżej ⏬️

[Dariusz Goliński @GolinskiDariusz]

To posłowie PiS doprowadzili panią referendarz, żeby przyszła w sobotę do pracy?

Na tej prezentacie brakuje godziny.

Czy dla każdego obywatela biuro podawcze czynne jest w sobotę, czy tylko dla posłów PiSu.

To jest skandal

[Dorota Brejza 🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦🇬🇪 @Dorota_Brejza]

Przeraża mnie obecna w mediach akceptacja dla ułaskawienia polityków (wówczas szefów służb), którzy nadużyli swojej władzy po to, by zniszczyć człowieka - politycznego oponenta.

Przeraża mnie to, jest to pozbawione jakiejkolwiek empatii dla ofiar takich procederów. Za tym stoi często zniszczony człowiek i jego rodzina. Jest to także antypaństwowe, demoralizujące społecznie, skrajnie niemoralne. Przestępcze nadużycie władzy nie ma żadnego usprawiedliwienia.

Miejsce przestępców jest w więzieniu. W państwie prawa obowiązują prawomocne wyroki sądów. Ułaskawienie jest prerogatywą nadzwyczajną, a nie glejtem dla kolegów z partii.

[jozefmoneta🇵🇱💯 @jozefmoneta]

Prawda.

[Jarosław Królewski @jarokrolewski]

Czytam od czasu do czasu po wywiadzie z @cwiakala epopeje specjalistów, ekspertów i znawców użycia danych, matematyki, statystyki w sporcie, często „metaforycznie” etykietowanych przez nas AI.

No ręce mi opadają jak w tym kraju mamy momentalnie specjalistów od wszystkiego.

Michał Listkiewicz, były prezes PZPN pisze publicznie, aby „jajogłowi” odczepili się od piłki nożnej i zajęli się grami komputerowymi - w 40 mln kraju, który modli się, żeby nie przegrać z Estonią czy Wyspami Owczymi.

Niektórzy z tychże specjalistów trenowali już modele w latach 90, kolejni myślą o terminatorze, jeszcze inni krytykują sięganie po nie, a kolejni że to jest to bez sensu i na pewno nie jest to dostępne dla tak małych klubów jak @WislaKrakowSA 🔵⚪️🔴

Dzieje się tak dlatego, że obecnie większość ludzi ogarnęło takie wskaźniki jak np. xG i na tym opiera wszystko z czym kojarzy data-driven podejście.

Wielu pyta czy @WislaKrakowSA bazuje wyłącznie na heurystykach? Otóż nie. Jesteśmy jednym z pierwszych klubów w tej części świata a może i w Europie, który stosuje wszystko co dziś najbardziej ambitne np. w computer vision w sporcie / w tym ML/DL współpracując https://t.co/BsBTYwfEzA wspólnie z partnerem @RespoVision i teamem super zdolnych ludzi, który uwaga! jest 🇵🇱 firmą.

Tak Polacy robią niesamowite rzeczy w tym zakresie. W skrócie dla nagłówków: komputer ogląda mecze Wisły Kraków, postawy zawodników, formacji, podania, jak biegają i dostarcza na ten tamat wniosków. Uczymy się jak to dobrze wykorzystać i powiązać z doświadczeniem, które mamy.

Obecnie może to nie przynosi jeszcze efektów ale będzie przynosić. A już nic mnie tak nie wkr jak pieprzenie, że przecież polskie firmy czy naukowcy nie mogą robić nic wyjątkowego bo są mocniejsi i potężniejsi w branży. Zwykłe biadolenie, którym samym ustawiamy się jako kraj na bycie podwykonawcą idei innych.

Sposób patrzenia na piłkę się zmienia. Czy tego chcemy czy nie.

W @WislaKrakowSA będzie tego więcej z każdym dniem, tygodniem i miesiącem.

Pierwszą mocno wspieraną danymi decyzją będzie wybór nowego trenera w WK.

Dla inspiracji załączam ciekawe papers (nie AI) z Labu @FCBarcelona z 2020 roku.

[Crap 90s Football @Crap90sFootball]

🫡

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

OK, the Visegrád cooperation is now officially dead. Viktor Orbán's political director Balázs Orbán (Hungary's rumored possible next foreign minister) launches a smear campaign against the new Polish government, accuses it of being part of the 'Soros conspiracy'.

There's a lot to unpack here. First, Viktor Orbán claimed a few days ago that, since the Visegrád Group has fallen apart, he is "working on (to figure out) how we can put it back together". Since all political messaging within his government are closely coordinated, his lieutenant's recent attack on the Polish government clearly indicates he wasn't telling the truth. The V4 was instrumental to Orbán as long as it had been an axis of 'illiberal' governments and likeminded leaders (like Andrej Babiš). But it's no use to Orbán anymore, and he's more interested in undermining the new Polish government than trying to mend ties and find some common ground for possible cooperation. These undermining efforts won't hurt Poland much – on the international stage, the country is playing in a very different league than Hungary – but it will further isolate Hungary for sure.

Second, both Viktor Orbán and his (current) foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said it many times that "we do not interfere or intervene in the internal political processes of other countries" and do not comment on other countries' internal affairs. Obviously, it is also a lie, however, going as far as attacking Poland's minister of justice based on where he graduated, or shaming the marshal of the Sejm for hosting refugees... well, that's a new low for sure in Hungarian-Polish relations. What's completely new here is that, regardless of their differences on Russia and Ukraine, Orbán's government has so far not applied its super aggressive, completely undiplomatic rhetoric when talking about Poland. Now the gloves are off.

Third, about Hungary's 'sovereignty efforts', and who is orchestrating what: Árpád Habony and Századvég, Viktor Orbán's long-time spin doctor and the Hungarian government's main advisory/policy think-tank, have been secretly working for the Law and Justice campaign, as we revealed in our latest @VSquare_Project newsletter. Polityka had already wrote a story on how some within Law and Justice blame their election defeat on unnamed 'Hungarian campaign advisors' who pressed for divisive, aggressive messages in the later stages of the campaign – which inadvertently resulted in firing up opposition voters, a huge election turnout, and Donald Tusk's return to power. Now it clearly looks like the Orbán government is unable to learn from its mistake, and still thinks that pushing Law and Justice into even more radicalisation - through feeding them with Hungary-cooked bogus conspiracy theories - will somehow pay off in the end.

As someone who deeply cares about Polish-Hungarian relations, I find all this extremely harmful and stupid.

[mirek zero @MiMirak72]

@dlamniepodoba Ten zapach ryb na meczach Jagi 🙊

[mirek zero @MiMirak72]

@dlamniepodoba Jurowiecka?

[mirek zero @MiMirak72]

@stopthatfooty ) l