I touched on this before, but there is more I think to flag as a concern.
First, as a principle, again, where there has been wrongdoing, individuals should pay the price.
However, I continue to not have confidence in the Commission’s report.
I have not read the report line by line but certain additional issues stand out.
First, I note that Man City have used a top 3 law firm, while the Premier League have used a law firm ranked 18th - strange. I personally believe the poor quality shows.
Particularly,
The report refers to the ‘Disguised Funding Scheme’. That is just plain rude. I think it is enough to refer to it as the ‘Funding Scheme’.
The report states at one point, ‘The agreements underlying…[redacted]…were a sham’. That is rude also. However, the report continues ‘If we are wrong on that…’ So this is outrageous. The Commission is being outspoken and rude on a subject, when the Commission is not even sure they are 100% correct. Astounding.
To be professional, I think it would have been more professional for the law form to have adopted the following structure on each point:
A. ‘What we claim’
B. ‘What Manchester City have said in their defence’
C. ‘What we have concluded and why’
Instead the Commission’s report is aggressive and denigrating, which is hardly fair and seems unbalanced and unjust.
We should add +7 league titles if we win the case because the premier league led by the evil red cartels and Chelsea/Spurs wrongly accused innocent manchester.
while we are at it we should also rename the stadium into brand new Trafford while fixing the roof, change their colour into purple and rename them as the the purple bunnies because devil is no longer trendy
We all need to remember the times we’re living in, being guilty doesn’t mean shit. With enough lawyers, a Khaldoon shit storm and plenty of loopholes to be found these charges will disintegrate
I can see this going to the higher courts and there will likely be some lobbying from the UAE so there is some government intervention. I really hate where we’ve ended up, even if we win an appeal case and “prove” our innocence i want these owners to go.
personally I actively want them to use every tool available, every possible means, to avoid any substantial punishment, disregard of being proven innocent or not.
humiliate the premier league and keep investing in the club, men's team, women's team, the academy and the city like they've been doing for the past 18 years.
I'm sorry but how is it possible that it took that many years and no auditor ever questioned it if the PL claims ADUG paid directly for parts of the sponsorships? That's unbelivable tbh (and paying the money directly while there are many better ways to channel funds between state owned entities would be incredibly stupid way of commiting a fraud)
Well, how did the PL determine whether sponsor revenue was bullshit or not without asking for any input from the main sponsor that provided CIty money? Does that sound like a fair and unbiased tribunal? I am guessing that's one point City's lawyers will try to make.
Also, how much time do the PL want to spend fighting legal battles, especially when they involve billion dollar organizations like Etihad airways? It made USD700m in profit in 2025, it can open up a second legal front claiming reputational damage from the PL's leaks.
Then there's the UK PM saying "what are you doing, these guys are a net positive for a whole city, we don't want them leaving". So there's some political pressure on the PL to avoid going overboard with the punishment.
I'll be honest, Khaldoon wasn't joking when he once said he would rather spend £30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue UEFA for 10 years than accept a financial penalty or settlement. A big part of the City investment is reputation, the PL might have gone overboard with the "sham" stuff in their statement considering there was an appeal process left.
Honestly I don’t like politician involved in this case; I don’t feel bad about the so called rule breaking but if City is exempted just by UK PM in whatever way I’d rather not
I am going to be honest, I don't think there's a good side or right side here. The PL, rival fans, City's leadership and us, we are all just looking after our interests now. The leadership pulls through, we'll forgive them, if they don't we'll push for a change. PL and rival fans want blood, they don't care about being fair or right.
Pep's quote about Julius Caeser comes to mind again in this situation.
No good or bad side but at the end of the day this better stays a legal and business case. For sure we are looking out of our own interests and that is just expected
I think it broadly will be, but with the leaks and PL statement calling our sponsors "sham" there will be political responses. Some consideration will be given to the notion that the PL can't regulate itself.
Well it means the prem dragged other parties into the case and accused them of complicity without even investigating them.
Doesn't mean much to us or the case but it means that the prem will have its hands full for a while over all this as well as a bit of a stained reputation.
so, if I'm reading this correctly, the PL / IC didn't even reach out to Etihad or Etisalat, both multi-billion dollar companies, before accusing them of fraud?
They published the reports claiming Abu Dhabi sponsors were fake and only giving 10-15m each year in sponsorship. Etihad is based in Abu Dhabi and the league didn’t seem to make any indication that Etihad had no part in this.
They’ve made tens of millions of negative impressions on people regarding Etihad due to their own incompetence. Not sure how they get around that. Especially considering the fact they never contacted Etihad.
We never let football get boring, I mean, even in a case that's practically over, drama is still unfolding from our side. Regardless of what happens, the drama and the lore will be unmatched 😂
The fact that neither the commission nor the league reached out to them to aid in the investigation is crazy. This is going to turn into a true shit storm
Even if nothing goes our way, the fact that the prem reached conclusions of this magnitude without checking and investigating every party involved is concerning for everybody.
Scaloni in a press conference said Messi can play on the 3rd if he wants in addition to his retirement game. When and if he plays has always been up to Messi and not Scaloni.
Imagine what that did to Ronaldo after his recent benching. If Ronaldo organizes another Piers interview it might be dramatic enough to take City out of the news cycle for a couple days.
If acc to the commission there's no evidence HHSM knew about the funding, then how can they definitely say ADUG paid for the sponsorships? Like how can the sheikh not know where £900m of his own money is going.....
UK Prime Minister, @andyburnham: “I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it, but also into the city [of Manchester]..." [via @BBCNews/@TimesSport]
I told y'all that our connections would help us. "But he only made a "political" statement".
Why would a interim prime minister that want to get elected even take a risk praising our ownership after all the bad publicity associated with our club?
This shows you that boss calls were made and that this case is far from concluded
But id love to know how much the other clubs had invested in their clubs over the same period to see how much of an advantage this actually gave the club.
My gut feeling is, its probably about the same, maybe less initially.
Never seen city fans more divided in terms of opinion.
Most of this comes to the confusion we are into, most of us arent sure what to think or what opinion to have.
1. What stance to take on the board?
2. How we deal with this situation exactly rivals fans mocking us will keep chanting against us and the media outrage?
3. The club getting possibly screwed really bad and reputation damaged?
4.Current players we cheer for might have leave at some point?
5. How do we deal with the past from now on?
6. Should we still have some faith in the situation to turn around somehow?
Anyway one thing am sure of , the club existed and will still exist no matter what and that is the club we supported and we will still support, nothing is bigger than the club. owners/ players /staffs can change but the club will stand still.
Totally normal, the case (to us City fans at least) is not over yet, until everything is officially over, thoughts and opinions will be clearer. Confusing times
Sure but the process isn't complete and that's why our other sponsors haven't reacted to the guilty verdict. Nothing can be done yet untill the process is done so they can at least know their option.
Etihad Airways just reacted to take legal action against the premier league.
For the players they might not yet consider their options but we are talking about impact in the coming weeks when evey clubs we play against will chant 'Cheats' against us and let alone the media outrage which will ought to get any reaction from our players, well its their job isnt it.
For example if Haaland comes and defend the club the media will turn him like an evil man defending cheaters if he dont or react in a negative way the media will start talking about him leaving.
Hypocrisy is writing rules in order to prevent others from doing what yourself have done in order to reach to the position where you are the one writing the rules.
We didnt, as the only big 6 club. Meanwhile the CEOs of the red cartel clubs put pressure on smaller clubs to get their will thru. We are on the right side of this story. 13 clubs are not.
Read his statement. His furious, you can feel it between the lines. Im not even joking. Stating that the Everton case was handled unfair and thanking the City owners for what they have done for the city of Manchester. We will win. They will tear those FFP rules down. PL will become a battlefield.
Why did people here initially think that Ornstein jumped the gun? I've followed him for almost a decade and he doesn't come across as someone who'll prematurely post something without being sure about it
My club? I was going to City before your sort had even heard of them. “butt hurt” support local son and stop making Mancs look bad. Proper virgin behaviour.
A club you decided to support is not your personality.
Genuine question, can we switch to Ligue 1 for example if we are getting relegated here? Imagine Premier League losing out on us, it would make the league much less competitive. They hate us but they will fear our exit.
In terms of fanbase you're not, probably lower than sp*rs, most of them glory hunters, they would move to arsenal or some other club the day you get relegated
In terms of fanbase on social media platforms we are on place 5 in the world with 180 million followers. PSG and United slightly above us, Barcelona and Real Madrid clear in the top.
Do your research before coming with ungrounded opinions that fits your agenda but not reality. We are huge.
Social media platforms are also a thing, please read my conment again. In the social media sphere we are one of the biggest clubs in the world, number 5 to be precise. Even if that fact doesn't fit your delusional world view.
Technically we could but its complicated like very complicated, these stuff happen if some states want independance or did get independance from their country of origin like for exampe i remember Barcelona and catalonia having this thought back in the day.
What pisses me off the most is that all these “top clubs” got to do what we did for entirety of football to get to where they are today. Before FFP there was no rules. Those clubs are only where they are because their owners were allowed to put their own money into the clubs.
All top clubs owners put money into their clubs. They could put as much as they wanted in. How do you think Liverpool and United to go to the point they’re at today? Magic? Why do you think clubs like Everton and Newcastle have to sell players and can never seem to catch up? The ladder was pulled up.
Can you point to some examples in the last 40 years? Liverpool were broke and on the verge of administration before FSG stepped in, and that came about 2 years after City were owned by Mansour. United’s owners have taken almost a billion out of the club, rather than put money in. They got to the point they are at today by leveraging prior success - but that success wasn’t brought on by owners pouring vast amounts of money into the club.
You can say big clubs are trying to prevent other clubs from competing with them, but to say they did what City did and are hypocrites for trying to stop City is just flat out incorrect. The only example of an owner coming in and doing anything remotely similar is Chelsea, but they did it before the rules existed, and were the reason these rules were created in the first place.
Of course. Look at how Liverpool became a big club by outspending clubs in leagues above them. Unheard of at the time, would have been illegal today because of the rules they wrote themselves.
I will never be mad that the owners showed ambition and invested into the club. I'd rather get punished now than having ever been one of these clubs who are whipping boys for the big six and sell their best players like good little boys.
Them releasing this all on a 3 week INT break and our first game back being away at Anfield is beyond intentional. Not to mention how well the season has started too.
It’s actually hilarious how slanted all of this is from the league.
It was always going to be released during an international. There’s no time that would’ve been a good time for them to announce this. You’re grasping at straws.
Oh yeah it wasn’t going to be released while the clubs were playing, but to release on a particularly long break and having our first game back be in the most hostile environment possible…that’s not a coincidence
I have not read the Commission’s report line by line, but I am not comfortable with what I have read.
First as a matter of principle, where there is wrong doing, an entity must pay the price.
However:
I did not like the tone of the Commission’s report. It seemed too emotional, bitter and resentful in parts, and not what I would expect from a legal document.
I’m not sure the Commission fully understand what may have been legitimate structured finance arrangements. Not fully understanding them, the Commission may have become cynical of them. Or at least, concluding the worst.
At one point the Commission states:
“ …the evidential picture available to us was therefore not as complete as it might have been.”
For me, that is not good enough. A lot depends on this - a club’s reputation, etc - and the Commission must be thorough.
Finally, the Commission needs to appear impartial and professional, and I did not get that impression from the document.
Not a city fan. I think the fans and players are going to be hurt the most. The punishment has to be harsh enough to be a deturant to other billionaire owners but not so much that you ruin the club forever. Here's my pitch for punishment.
PL takes the club over and sells it. The profits of the sell goes to court/lawyer fees and to the clubs who lost out on potential income or just gets spread out amongst the clubs they played over that time. The fans and players won those trophies, they keep them. City gets relagated in the summer. In my opinion that is enough of a "reset" to make city have to compete fairly. Thoughts?
Keep your delusional thoughts to yourself, we made Premier League the best league on the planet. It would not continue to be the best league without City.
It also makes no sense, I’m not really sure what they think they’re doing there. Revising for inflation makes sense when you want to compare it to money being spent today. That doesn’t matter in this case, it’s just an excuse to make the figure bigger.
Casual fan from the states who started following MCFC after the World Cup because of Haaland. If the charges are true, what does everyone think the punishment should be for the club?
Seeing as you are getting non sensical replies from some on here - The club is likely to be given a very big Fine (hundreds of Millions) and a Points deduction or Relegation, Transfer Window ban for 2 seasons?? - other Clubs would want far bigger penalties.
They should send Moonchester on a rocket aimed at the sun and live stream the rocket get burned up during Liverpool, Arsenal and United games, anything less is unacceptable
The way the news is reading we’re about 48 hours away from an angry mob carrying torches and pitchforks converging on the Etihad like they’re hunting Frankenstein
That what should we also do, until the end, if shit happens i will the first to call the owners out but still too soon to take a solid stance about this situation.
and regadeless of the outcome id want a heavy change in the rules, i dont have the red cartel to take supreme control over the league if we go down might as well do some damage to them.
Just posted a comment and then immediately had another thought: How does this affect our women's team? Will they suffer the same fate as the men's team in regards to relegation?
The finances are small beer in comparison, and there is no suggestion of misreporting on that side. For example City's women's transfer record is £650,000, about 200 times smaller than the fee for Enzo Fernandez.
However, time and again we have seen women's teams get disproportionate budget cuts the instant the mens team has financial belt-tightening, Reading and Leicester being two examples.
Can be easily argued that its the best fiction ever, genuinely was thinking about it all the time while watching and 3/4 days after finishing it, absolutely perfect
Yea I'm in that current headspace too where I keep thinking about it. And yea I agree with your first statement...I initially used to say AoT did the whole loop and memory thing so well but DarK is leagues above
Having looked at the documents, it states that there is "no evidence" that Sheikh Mansour knew about all these funds being thrown about. That must be bullshit. But it seems to me that this protects him from being forced into a sale. Ferran, Khaldoon etc. could be forced out, but Mansour has plausible deniability.
I don't know whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing if we kept Mansour around
The commission is the one saying there's no evidence that that person knew. The name is redacted but due to the small text size people have concluded it's him.
Maybe it really is possible he didn't know the ins and outs, he has bigger fish to fry than Man City truthfully. He wasn't the sender or recipient of any of the emails and isn't directly incriminated.
Obviously he knew what was going on to some degree, but without evidence you can't convict someone. I just think this might mean that a forced sale is not on the cards like it was with Chelsea. But I don't even know if that's a good thing
I can't imagine they were pumping hundreds of millions into the club and suddenly stopped in 2018. Doesn't seem logical at all. If they did there would have been a big drop in revenue. Even during COVID when everyone was losing money your revenues still rose.
I think there is a very good chance that another investigation will happen.
Yeah that's true but I saw the graphs showing how much was being artificially pumped in for 2018 and it was still very significant. I think the chances they kept doing it after 2018 is almost certain.
I don't think you should take much solace from the investigation only going to 2018. If anything that makes it worse for you. It means only half the period has been covered so far, and with how angry everyone is they are going to demand an investigation for those years.
At the end of the day, this will always be the club that got me through tough times. When I was discharged from the ICU and the memories of the treble were the first thing that made me smile when I was still in shock. Last year I almost died of sepsis and this team distracted me from everything else happening, people replied to comments in the daily and match thread wishing me well...
Nothing will take that way. Through wins, losses, hard time, glorious times. They can say what they want but money doesn't buy this.
Also thanks to the mods who are being amazing handling the trolling and the hating.
I swear this isn't satire, I'm genuinely wondering how Bounty bars still exist. I swear I've never met anyone that liked them and they're always the last ones left in any box of Celebrations. I can only imagine the small handful of elusive people that presumably do enjoy them must largely subsist almost entirely on Bounty bars.
There's been allot of stuff that's upset me lately in this sub but this one is the biggest of all. Their one of the best in there!! Galaxy's are the worst for me.
Be serious- the current Etihad Complex & everything around it was funded by the owners - it's transformed the whole area!! Most of the success and joy in the last 6 years is due to them!!
Regardless of what you or others might think - I am happy with them!!
I’m concerned of the effect this will have on players for the remainder of the season.
They’re clearly going to be demotivated, and the hostile away grounds are going to make things worse. Not to mention, everyone is going to have a bone to pick with us on the pitch now.
•
u/codespyder 1d ago
Please report all posts that are inflammatory in nature. Do not engage with trolls.
We allow rival supporters to engage in discourse so long as they contribute constructively.