Say it with me boys:

“I misinterpreted the rules”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8008205/Manchester-Citys-Premier-League-title-2014-THREAT.html?__twitter_impression=true

This is delicious, imagine if they lost the AGUEROOOOOOOOO title as well

Why should they lose their domestic titles? UEFA's FFP applies only to UEFA competitions, right?

If they lose their silverware then so should Chelsea, after all of that Abramovic money they've used to become a top club. They were the club that lead to financial doping culture.

e: nvm, the article wasn't loading properly and missed the part were it explains the Prem's FFP rules. Obviously there should be an investigation, and if rules were breached then it would be nice to see a punishment properly enforced.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Feb 16 2020 10:13am

that how it would hypothetically work? when Juventus had their titles stripped, the club who finished 2nd place didn’t win Serie A retroactively but this is different of course

that said I don’t see the ban standing after appeal

When Juve lost their titles, the 2005 one became vacant (like in France, when OM were stripped of their 1993 title), but Inter were awarded the 2006 one.

The reason the Serie A title became vacant in 2005 was because the runner-up (Milan) was also involved in the corruption scandal, and the league decided that giving it to the third placed team was pushing it too much. In France, the title went void because the tv broadcaster Canal+ lobbied against PSG being awarded the title, due to Marseille fans threatening to massively boycott their Canal+ subscription if their bitter rivals were awarded the silverware, and the league caved to the pressure of the broadcasting company, which was their main sponsor.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Feb 16 2020 11:30am

Personally don't feel like 2nd place team should be given the title. Just void it and end it there imo. It's not going to feel like a title anyways.

Chelsea and those defining Abramovic years preceded the introduction of FFP, you can't just retrospectively apply laws to periods that preceded its creation.

It feels to me like FFP is there to preserve the dominance of the historic clubs and raise the barriers to entry for other teams to compete with them financially.

FFP as Platini devised it was supposed to level the playing field between the big clubs and smaller ones by restricting transfer fees and wages. Instead, intense lobbying from the big clubs twisted it into break-even requirements that clearly goes after bankrolled clubs.

In a way, the introduction of FFP has been positive as it forces all top flight clubs to be more financially responsible, but is it a coincidence that the gap between the top clubs and weaker ones in the last five years has never been bigger? There is definitely a lot of snobbery from these clubs towards the likes of City and PSG for trying to disrupt their hold on the sport when the reality is the only difference is first mover advantage.

Yeah, I was unaware that the prem had FFP rules, so it just seemed arbirtary that they would strip City of their titles. That's why I said nvm in the edit.



Clubs that have made it to the European elite through legit means like Atlético have been welcomed. Nobody is saying the top clubs must be protected, but rather that it goes against the spirit of the game to reward a team because some random sugar daddy from the other side of the globe decided to inject millions on some random club, while the rest of the teams work their way through years or deacades of careful planning and hard work. It's financial doping.

Clubs like Real Madrid are massive because of factor conditions that allowed them more money and resources than rival clubs. Big clubs are big clubs because they were bankrolled better than other teams which allowed them to grow at a faster rate. Now it's all about stopping other clubs from doing so because we've had first mover advantage.