Ross Hazard

Gooner. Pontypool, SE London, Norwich.

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@snakyu23 @RafaelH117 The latter is pretty difficult! Take your points. Only objecting to describing us as ‘abhorrent’

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@prgres @RafaelH117 You’re a clueless fool if you think highly skilled professionals like at psg aren’t capable of playing their way back into a game.

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@snakyu23 @RafaelH117 Garbage pal. The accumulated fatigue difference is huge. If you’ve no capacity to understand that then there’s no helping you.

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@F365 This is sublime trolling. Bravo. 👏 👏👏

[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?

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@adamboxer1 We had a previous generation. I hated driving it! Horrible manoeuvrability and sluggish as heck

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@footyspeakerbox And that’s the thing. We’re just not creating enough. From MO8 round to the left wing we’re just not good enough creating from open play.

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@OptaAnalyst Does the supercomputer know that Saka, Havertz, Martinelli and Jesus are out injured?

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@10akhil No. Crap challenge and then kicked him. Not Mortal Combat standards but minimum yellow card

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@gunnerpunner He walked four paces the wrong side of Watkins when he was on the six yard box. Just ridiculous, brainless play. Decent school kids wouldn’t do that!

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@gunnerpunner The data is a decent when it comes to judging chance creation. How many times have we seen a lack of explosiveness and devil in the box though

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@samuelJayC The bump in the road. Time for some players to step up or move on. Time for some tough decisions to be made.
We were bloody unlucky tonight mind.

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@gunnerpunner Spot on. Intent was clear to anyone (bar VAR)

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@JohnBrewin_ Spot on. Clear intent which anyone who’s ever watched or played can recognise

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@henrywinter What if the Saudis offer him 5 on double the money? What if Real offer Trent more money and he fancies a few years in Madrid? It’s not just about what LFC can offer

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@yorkshiregunner He was blocked off by Gabriel. The poor play was Rice, Martinelli and Havertx in allowing him to run free

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@GeoffArsenal Gooooood old Arsenal!!!!!

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@ApsmRugby @distantpod lovely bit of tap dancing here. @elisjames Could use it next hoffi pod to reference changes in the criminal justice system from C20 to C21?

[Ross Hazard @RossHazard]

@bglendenning I’ve got some magic beans in my pocket if you’re in the market for buying….