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[Transfer News Live @DeadlineDayLive]

🚨 Manchester City sponsor fined £381m over money-laundering breaches.

Read more ⤵️

https://t.co/bZy6NKI110

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

🚨 Laurence Stewart will leave Chelsea as co-sporting director by mutual consent, as first called by @Matt_Law_DT and @NizaarKinsella. Not an immediate departure, so still expected to be around at some games.

Amicable exit that was decided in the last few weeks following talks between Stewart and Behdad Eghbali.

Paul Winstanley, Sam Jewell and Joe Shields will now all be sporting directors on equal footing.

Winstanley has responsibility for all areas including transfer negotiations, player contracts and different Cobham departments (Medical, Performance, Operations etc.).

Shields oversees the Academy and player pathways and many of his day-to-day tasks align with a traditional technical director.

Jewell also has wider responsabilities across Strasbourg/BlueCo.

Seen as a natural evolution of the sporting model, with discussions over a new structure starting in April and accelerating following the arrival of Xabi Alonso. Eghbali had said in April, "You tweak a model, you improve, you learn...".

Stewart had overseen investment in data analysis, but this area of the business has been used more by Jewell and Shields due to their expertise in scouting and talent ID.

Dave Fallows remains in his current role, which is more remote and advisory comparative to others in the sporting leadership team.

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

✨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jude Bellingham: “Kane is fantastic, as a person and as a player. Nothing he ever does surprises me”.

“Such an amazing role model, amazing guy and an honour to share the pitch with him”.

Ballon d’Or? “Yeah, who knows. Definitely possible…”.

[Legion HQ @LegionHQ_]

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Manchester City has informed Enzo Fernández’s agent that the player will not be sold even if the club faces relegation. The club intends to retain top talent to secure an immediate return to the Premier League by 2029.

According to reports, Fernández would need to buy out his current contract to force a move, requiring full reimbursement of the entire fee previously paid to Chelsea.

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

A goal and two assists for Lionel Messi on his final game for Argentina.🇦🇷

Messi retires from international football with 208 caps, 126 goals and 67 assists having won the 2022 World Cup and the Copa América twice (2021, 2024).🏆

[GroupChatTVUK @GroupChatTVUK]

History!!!!

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

Lionel Messi’s last goal for Argentina.🩵

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Harry Kane when asked if he has reached his ceiling: “I hope not. I hope there's still mode to go."

“I still feel like I've got room to improve; I've just come from my best season ever at 32 years old”.

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

🗣️ Lionel Messi on his final game for Argentina. "There are so many emotions going through me right now. I'm surely forgetting many things I would like to say because this is a very difficult moment for me. The first person who comes to my mind is my dad.

"I leave grateful, proud and at peace. Thank you for everything.

"I have nothing left to do but thank this shirt.

"For 20 years, even through the worst moments, I never stopped fighting, pushing forward, giving everything I had and wanting to be here.

"Not coming here any more and no longer being with the Argentina national team is going to hurt a lot. If it were up to me, I would love to be here for my entire life, because playing for Argentina is the most beautiful thing there is.

"I think I'm talking more than ever today because I simply don't want this moment to end.

"But I think the time has come for me to retire. The last World Cup took a lot out of us after everything we went through. We arrived in the final with just enough left in us, but we fought until the very end, like we always did.

"We came very close to winning it again, and despite everything that was said about us, nothing strange happened. The match against England took a lot out of us because we gave absolutely everything.

"In 2022, we had the dream of fulfilling not only my dream, but the dream of an entire country: becoming world champions again. And we did it."

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🌕✨ Harry Kane on Ballon d’Or: “I think every player wants to be the best player in the world”.

“It's one of the most pleasing things when you get to acknowledge all those awards”.

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

Two interesting points in the #MCFC statement. City refer to the verdict as from "the Premier League Commission".

The decision came from "an independent Commission", as per the wording of the EPL statement.

City also note the time as yesterday at 19:00, showing they put in the appeal before the October 2 deadline.

Understand City would have preferred to have confirmed at the time their statement gives in order to provide clarity as early as possible, rather than on the deadline itself.

[Chelsea Finest Queen @Chelsea_Queenn]

@JacobsBen This is the smoking gun. They realized in 2009 that their real organic growth couldn't sustain their spending, panicked about FFP, and chose to engineer 'commercial revenue' instead of balancing the books. Every title won off the back of that scheme is built on a fraud foundation

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

Some interesting context in the Manchester City verdict is an allusion to 2009/10.

The panel say City had "real concern" their total losses for that year would eclipse a record set by Chelsea in 2006 of £140m. "The Club was adamant it should not break [it]."

This led to concerns "large losses" were also on the horizon for the next five years, and fears the club would not be FFP compliant.

The panel say it was against this backdrop that the "disguised funding scheme" was born. "The Club devised a plan to disguise shareholder funding as ‘commercial partner revenue.’"

[GroupChatTVUK @GroupChatTVUK]

@DanisMCFC only fake news here is you not accepting it

[Transfer News Live @DeadlineDayLive]

🚨 Manchester City spent a staggering £896M on players between 2009 and 2018, with some of the biggest names from their trophy-winning era arriving during that period.

🔸 Aymeric Laporte — £57M
🔸 Kevin De Bruyne — £55M
🔸 Benjamin Mendy — £52M
🔸 Kyle Walker — £50M
🔸 Raheem Sterling — £49M
🔸 John Stones — £47.5M
🔸 Leroy Sané — £46.5M
🔸 Bernardo Silva — £43M
🔸 Sergio Agüero — £38M
🔸 Ederson — £35M
🔸 Fernandinho — £34M
🔸 Eliaquim Mangala — £32M
🔸 Nicolás Otamendi — £32M
🔸 Wilfried Bony — £28M
🔸 Edin Džeko — £27M
🔸 Gabriel Jesus — £27M
🔸 Danilo — £26.5M
🔸 James Milner — £26M
🔸 Carlos Tevez — £25.5M
🔸 Emmanuel Adebayor — £25M
🔸 David Silva — £25M
🔸 Yaya Touré — £24M
🔸 Samir Nasri — £24M
🔸 Mario Balotelli — £22.5M
🔸 Joleon Lescott — £22M
🔸 Stevan Jovetić — £22M

[Chino @ChinoUTD]

🚨 Sir Alex Ferguson on Manchester City being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules:

“I read the news and the first person I thought about was Carlos Tevez.

Funny, isn’t it? After all these years.

We wanted Carlos to stay. David Gill spoke to his representatives, we made our offer, they said we’d left it too late and eventually he went across Manchester.

Then City put up that bloody ‘Welcome to Manchester’ poster.

I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘They haven’t just signed one of our players. They want us to know they can.’

That was when I called them a small club with a small mentality.

But there was something else happening around that period that people forget.

Suddenly City could walk into conversations for players that previously would have been choosing between United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Madrid, Barcelona.

I remember one summer hearing that Adebayor had agreed to join City, then apparently his people were still contacting us and Chelsea.

I thought, ‘What a strange situation. Players who would rather be somewhere else are signing for City anyway.’

At the time, you simply accepted that they had enormous financial power. You competed with it.

That’s football.

But if you then discover years later that rules were being broken during the period in which you’re trying to compete with that financial power, you’re entitled to look back differently.

Because people will say, ‘Ferguson was just angry because City became successful.’

No.

I was angry before they were successful.

I was standing there in 2009 watching them take Tevez, chase players everywhere and put his face on a building to celebrate taking him from us.

Imagine telling me then, ‘Alex, one day the Premier League will investigate how all of this was being financed.’

I’d probably have pointed at the poster and said, ‘You might want to start there.’

And that’s the part people miss when discussing what happened afterwards.

Once you change the financial strength of one club, you don’t only change that club.

You change where players go.

You change what everybody else has to pay.

You change which manager gets which footballer.

You change title races before the first ball is kicked.

People can spend the next twenty years asking whether this player would’ve joined United, whether that player would’ve joined Chelsea, whether somebody else would’ve gone to Arsenal.

Nobody can prove those alternate histories.

But I know this much.

When I was fighting them, I thought I was fighting Manchester City.

Apparently I should’ve brought an accountant.”

[Chompy @lukestanley03]

115 verdict not soon? Here’s to another boring few months of lazy media and bad jokes 🍻👍🏻

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

What's next for #MCFC?
- Can appeal verdict by 2 Oct
- Sanctions hearing to come
- 'Sham' commercial deals, hidden player/manager payments and non-cooperative witnesses part of a damning report
- Soriano insists owners never self-funded commercial deals

https://t.co/SzzqfCyH43

[David Ornstein @David_Ornstein]

🚨 Morgan Gibbs-White called up to England squad for international break. Nottingham Forest midfielder was on holiday with family in Dubai but has returned to join camp; likely to underline high regard for #NFFC captain @TheAthleticFC post @JPercyTelegraph https://t.co/ivund8rXPg

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🔴🔵🇪🇸 7 goals as Paris Saint-Germain player for Ferran Torres, 5 in the last 3 games.

[David Ornstein @David_Ornstein]

🚨 Cole Palmer poised to withdraw from England squad due to load management. Marcus Rashford will be assessed for hip issue handled by Man Utd since World Cup but expected to pull out. Kobbie Mainoo also among likely absentees through injury @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/ivund8rXPg