For those who don’t really know about the Man City charges, let me summarise for you, especially what the 115 charges are.
The whole summary of this case is that Man City were spending more than they were earning for 9 years (2009-2018)
Their Arab owners were pumping money into the club, but they were covering it up as sponsorship deals and legit revenue.
In fact, in that 9 years, they had an Abu-Dhabi sponsorship for instance, that paid about £120m, but City declared about £950m.
Let’s not forget why FFP & PSR rules exist. The idea is make sure that clubs are not spending more than they’re earning. Man City wanted to spend more than they were earning, so they inflated their sponsorship revenues.
The way City were caught was even funnier. A hacker stumbled on an email in 2018 and that’s how it got out. If not for this hacker, maybe nobody would have ever known.
The Premier League & UEFA began investigation. UEFA found them guilty, banned them for 2 years and fined them €30m. City went to CAS, think of CAS as the Supreme Court in Sports, they’re also independent.
CAS lifted the ban UEFA gave City & reduced the fine to €10m. The €10m was because City did not cooperate with the investigation.
Regarding the shady sponsorship deals, CAS said UEFA had insufficient evidence. Secondly, UEFA has a time limit where they can only prosecute within 5 years (their own rule). One of the main sponsorship deals was an Etisalat deal in 2012/13, and UEFA were bringing it up in 2019.
CAS said it was more than 5 years and that’s how UEFA kinda lost the case. On the other hand, Premier League does not have a time limit, hence, they can investigate cases as far back as 2009.
Many of you always say “115 charges”, but do you know what these charges are?
1. Failure to provide accurate financial reports for player and manager compensation (2009-2018) - 14 charges
2. Failure to provide accurate and up-to-date financial information (2009-2018) - 54 charges
3. Failure to comply with UEFA's regulations, including Financial Fair Play Regulations - 5 charges
4. Breaching Premier League Profitability and Sustainability (PSR) regulations (2015-2018) - 7 charges
5. Failure to co-operate with Premier League investigations (2018-2023) - 35 charges
Most of these were not under Pep. They happened before Pep. It’s reported that they were under Hughes, Mancini, and Pellegrini. In this timeframe, Man City won 3 premier leagues, first was the AGUERROOOOOOO moment. They also won 1 FA Cup and 3 League Cups.
For the 14 charges (number 1), I read somewhere that City were paying a manager a different wage from what was reported, for 4 years (only Mancini spent 4 years, so it’s allegedly the one).
For Pep Guardiola, the major breach that happened under him was the cooperation part (35 charges). City were not cooperating with the investigation.
Lastly, City has 14 days to appeal which is due this Friday. The appeal will go to an independent panel for review. Don’t forget what the Premier League called all of those deals, “sham” deals.
I watched City Group’s CEO earlier today, Ferran Soriano. He said they have irrefutable evidence that they did nothing wrong. He’s standing on business.
Anyways, I’d leave you to what City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak said in 2014. He said he would rather spend £30m on the best 50 lawyers in the world and sue UEFA for the next 10 years than agree a financial penalty for alleged FFP breaches. He might want to apply this to the Premier League.
There are different punishments if City lose the appeal, but the premier league does not have standalone punishments per breach for now, so it’s how they deem fit.
What is most likely to happen is Points deduction and fine just like that of Everton, maybe a transfer ban too. I might be welcoming Enzo and Haaland to Bramall Lane next season, I’ll definitely get a picture💃🏼
Hope this was easy to understand?
Paul Labile Pogba is one of the best footballers I have ever seen in my life.
Pogba made passes I have never seen anyone attempt or make.
By far a better footballer than Jude.
18-year-old Wayne Rooney debuted for Manchester United in the Champions League and casually dropped a flawless hat-trick and an assist.
We will never see a teenage footballer with that level of raw power, technical genius, and absolute fearlessness ever again. The streets will never forget 2004 Wazza.