Claudius You can have all the lawyers you want but when you have emails literally saying "pay us the money you're not allowed to pay us through entity X so they won't find out", I really don't know why that should matter. A monkey should be able to win the case against City. Then again it's the UK so anything is possible I guess.

As a lawyer myself, I've taken some borderline shameful positions in my career. But reading those City arguments I truly wonder how anyone can make those statements without blinking or bursting out laughing. It's just next level clutching at straws on a level that is too childish even for a high school moot court. "Others are in London and can charge higher ticket prices and that's super unfair so I must be allowed to pump unlimited money in from the Gulf"? Jesus...

    Claudius The other thing that is likely happening here is that City is just tying up the league in legal preparation and fees at a time when the league should be focusing resources on the 115 charges

    The fact they're suing over the delays is a strong sign of this. The whole exercise looks ulterior, they're just hoping to reduce or avoid penalties with this tactic of attacking the league's foundations.

    Introducing the element that the league and its agencies are themselves commercial entities with their own conflicts and hazards is vaguely legitimate. I've been feeling that about PGMOL over the VAR controversies. But again, it's strictly ulterior. City Group obviously couldn't give a fuck about probity.

        Burnwinter it’s called lack of foresight. Too often businesses like to boldly jump into massive revenue opportunities without the proper due diligence. Everyone said bringing in oligarchs and nation states into the ownership community would have dire consequences, but the Premier league focused on the short term gains of accumulating the best players.

        This is what they’ve sown. As much as I loathe City, all of this was very easily avoidable if the league had taken a a principled approach to keep nations and affiliated actors from owning and sponsoring teams.

          A prohibition on certain parties owning clubs would have led to protracted legal action as well, not in the least before the EU courts which were competent back then. I wouldn’t rule out that they would have done something equally stupid as Bosman and rubber stamped the death of football forever.

          The UK government put huge pressure on the Premier League to approve the Saudi takeover of Newcastle too. If states threaten to hold back billions in investment in the UK, they're not going to give a shit about sporting integrity in football.

          Fair enough tbf, that's on the PL for leaving that loophole open when they knew it was already happening in the EFL who then closed it.

          PL only now tried and failed to close that loophole. Apparently they'll try again.

          banduan Absolutely ridiculous but like goon says the fault is with the PL for not tightening their rules.

            It's not all that easy though. You have to keep in mind that from a competition law point of view each club is a separate undertaking and the clubs are considered to be competitors. I.e. every agreement they make is considered to be an agreement between competitors. Many of these agreements are by definition restrictions of competition by object and need to rely on an exemption in order to survive (some kind of overriding principle, to keep things simple). Even e.g. the agreement to sell TV rights collectively, which has been tested and found to be allowed by various courts over time. The PL, in other words the clubs who are competitors, agreeing that their competitors cannot do X or Y otherwise they cannot compete in the league attracts scrutiny. Each time a new type of agreement which has not been previously found to be allowed is put forward, it is open to attack based on competition law and back in the good old days also free movement rules. Scumbags like City know this all too well and exploit it.

              Gurgen I don't see how the clubs can be regarded as pure competitors in business (not football) terms, even if that's how it works legally (which I'm willing to believe).

              The value of each club is impacted by health of the Premier League as an overall entertainment offering, as valued by the rights deals ...

              Seems to me it's in the clubs' owners' average interests to be collegiate with each other, prevent financial meltdowns, allow everyone to make enough money to put together a semi-credible team, and so on. City's dominance has been harmful for the product.

              Football clubs are not ordinary businesses.

                I’m just glad that little City is fighting the “tyranny of the majority” and “discrimination” against Arabs. They’re the justice warriors we’ve been waiting for.

                14 days later

                No surprises to see why Villa and Chelsea are supporting City in getting the rules changed...

                then we have fans complaining how we're not matching Chelski's ability to sell players for high prices. It's all dodgy crap.

                5 months later

                Longest place he's ever stayed by some distance. Either he loves the endless money that much, or he just wants to stay to try his hardest to prevent his former assistant from winning any major trophies. I wouldn't put it past him to be petty enough to be caught up on the latter.

                City can't get relegated soon enough in my opinion.

                please just jail the lot of them. e

                I never bought that he'd leave. He needs a team that's guaranteed to have a limitless budget, the best first XI and a dedication to cheating, dishonesty and subterfuge that almost matches his own. Real Madrid has the best XI right now but they don't want or need him.

                  Qwiss ducktales woohoo

                  Childhood memory unlocked. Thanks for that man.

                    Pretty sure he thinks City will be cleared of their charges or he would never agree to stay.

                      Qwiss

                      His contract is until 2027. It’s fine, if we want to be the best, we have to beat the best

                          Charges aside, I don't feel like City are going in a good direction and I also think Pep's lost his identity.

                          There's little evidence to suggest that even the best managers staying for a long period of time is a positive.

                          Pep might actually be hanging around because they're expecting to get slaughtered over the 115 charges. Hope so.

                          It would be galvanising for our season if City eventually received some meaningful penalty. I just can't quite believe we're suddenly in this position with Liverpool now. Got to drag a few points back on those fuckers before Christmas.

                          JazzG as a kid I thought this guy and Macho were incredible. Now I just see men pumped full of a potent cocktail of coke, steroids and painkillers.

                            5 days later

                            Everyone still confident there's not something going on off the field? They seem absolutely rocked to me.

                            It would be a courtesy if City reacted and clawed a couple of points off Liverpool.