All it took was £451.3m spent this summer, three unbelievably fortunate refereeing decisions, and a foundation built off two decades of financial doping. Bravo 👏
This view that City made the league more competitive is… the opposite of the truth. It’s the most dominant spell ever seen in England:
- 100 and 98 points
- two trebles
- four in a row
None of these things had ever been done before
Pep Guardiola inherited a team with De Bruyne, David Silva, Kompany, Sterling and Aguero, and still spent €500m in his first two seasons. For context, in his first 18 months, he spent as much as Arsene Wenger did in 21 years. That’s what £900m of artificial revenue allowed.
Gary Neville & Jamie Carragher complained more about Nicolas Jover standing in the technical area for set pieces than they have about Manchester City being found guilty of 114 financial breaches, by the way. It should tell you everything you need to know.
"Do you apologise to football fans? The Premier League says 'sham' contracts, is this a 'sham' club?"
@RobHarris questions Man City chief executive Ferran Soriano after the club was found guilty of all charges related to Premier League's financial rules
https://t.co/3A2kYsOcCZ
"They [Man City] bought all my players!" 🙃
"If there’s no respect for the rules then it’s not real sport!" 😤
Back to this classic Arsene Wenger interview on FFP 🧠
Man City received £949.94m in commercial income from Abu Dhabi sponsors between 2009-2018. Only £119.25m came from sponsors -- the remaining £830.69m were "Tagged Sums" paid by Abu Dhabi United Group (City's owners)
Arsène Wenger won 21 trophies in his managerial career. Imagine what he would’ve won if hadn’t been competing with Bernard Tapie, Roman Abramovich and Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
You can tell a lot about the integrity of reporters by what they choose to report on. Miguel Delaney has never shied away from reporting on sportswashing and City’s charges, whilst David Ornstein broke the story of their guilt. By contrast, Romano has only shared Rodri’s interview and City’s statement. Choose wisely who you get your news from.