Manchester City’s reiteration of their “confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence” given their “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” is incredibly at odds with their own behaviour and the intensity in which they blocked the Premier League’s process of investigation at every step since December 2018.
The scale of their obstructing was revealed in a July 2021 British court judgment. City simply refused to supply information and documents requested by the league, which then issued a disciplinary complaint in August 2019. The club challenged the disciplinary process and the commission that was set up.
The league proposed an ad hoc procedure of appointing a new commission, but City objected to that too. The PL were forced to bring legal arbitration against the club, to be decided by a tribunal of three senior lawyers.
City countered the PL had no power to do that, and challenged the impartiality of the tribunal. That was rejected and the club were again ordered to submit all the documentation and info.
City then appealed to the high court to strike the tribunal down. In March 2021, a judge ruled against the club and that her findings should be published.
City unsuccessfully fought against it being made public knowledge; the judgement published in July illustrated just how hard and long they resisted providing information.
With all that confidence, intent and irrefutable evidence, why the YEARS of non-cooperation and active, intensive blocking?
Man City fans thinking that the Premier league will fold if they aren’t in it lmao
The premier league was at its best before you got the oil money and started cheating to win it
This always failed the "smell" test. Now in light of the announcement yesterday, the relationship between Michael Oliver, these officials & Abu Dhabi regime needs further scrutiny.
https://t.co/o0wvRes7HV
🚨 José Mourinho: “Pep Guardiola said something to me yesterday… he won six trophies and I won three, but I won fairly and cleanly”.
“I don't want to win by dealing with 150 lawsuits”.
“If I lost, I want to congratulate my opponent”, says — via @MailSport.
Let's be honest, City struggling to sell out a then 48k stadium each week yet also matching Real Madrid for revenue was clearly dodgy, the only miscarriage of justice was its taken over a decade for them to be found guilty
Exclusive @TheAthleticFC
Manchester United have conducted internal assessments of possible financial losses incurred during period in which Man City guilty of Premier League rule breaches, including missed PL title wins & a missed CL qualification.
https://t.co/Lf5RH9IruF
Manchester United have conducted internal assessments of the extent of the economic losses the club has incurred which could be attributed to Manchester City’s breaches of Premier League financial regulations.
The Athletic reported earlier on Friday that an independent disciplinary panel had found City guilty of all but one of 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, according to sources briefed on the matter who spoke anonymously as they were not authorised to do so publicly.
Exclusive story from @AdamCrafton_ ⬇️
🔗 https://t.co/x1ELUdpRZ7
Genuinely believe only Manchester United could have survived the consequences of the Glazers leveraged buyout for two decades & counting…
It’s crazy we’ve even survived tbh.
There’s a line from Roy Keane autobiography in 2002, where he talks about the mentality of the United team in the first 15 minutes of games. I’m paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of “we know we have more quality than any other team, the only thing the opposition could ever be better at than us is intensity and fight. So for the first 15 minutes we always go out high intensity, starting from the tunnel. We let them know within 15 minutes that they won’t even beat us at duels and battles, then when we’ve killed their spirit, we start playing football”.
That was a treble winning captain talking about running and dueling first, before anything. No great team is 20th in running.
A disgrace.
🚨 Michael Carrick: “I am happy with the energy we show today. I think we can take a lot from today”.
“I think we can learn a lot as well. We can be better at certain things, that is pretty clear, but there were some good signs”.
Every aspect of that goal comes down to PURE AND UTTER LAZINESS.
ZERO INTENSITY IN THEIR PASSING.
ZERO INTENSITY IN HOLDING OFF A DEFENDER.
ZERO INTENSITY IN CLEARING THEIR LINES.
ZERO INTENSITY IN CLOSING DOWN PLAYERS.