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Naughty Emirates Marketing Project - Spot of Compo??

Muttley said:
I think the "shoulda, woulda, coulda" arguments will soon get put to bed with all other clubs.

However, this potentially brings the super-league one step closer. There is still some ill feeling between Europe's biggest club and Ceferin's lot. Putting the Sheikh in a position where he has to get creative may not be good for us.
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The british government has said that teams can only play in competitions agreed by the pl and fa. Otherwise they will not get a licence to hold games.
Not going to happen.
 
Lilbaz said:
The british government has said that teams can only play in competitions agreed by the pl and fa. Otherwise they will not get a licence to hold games.
Not going to happen.
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Why the PL and not the EFL though? I wish the government would just remove the PL from that equation. Surely it is time to run all football governance through our FA.
 
They're doubling down again. But I guess they have no other option. It's too late for them to admit anything. It won't help their case and would not be seen as mitigating circumstances. He even has the balls to say they won the CAS case. They did not. They still got fined. The reason UEFA didn't win on all points, was because that case was presented as a sort of "short highlights" of what the premier league is now investigating, and they didn't bring all the evidence to the case, and some of it was time barred according to the CAS ruling. GHod knows why. But it meant City managed to twist their way out of some of it. They won't now!
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Muttley said:
This is one of the missing links for me. I had assumed that the Sheikh owned a football club and an airline and had sponsored the former with the latter to create very high sponsorship incomes. As much as other footballer stakeholders can get all jealous about that, it is a model that brings money into football. However, it turns out the airline isn't funding 80% of it at all. It's just been posted that way in their accounts whilst the money comes directly from the Sheikh. Then City clearly non-cooperated so nobody could see the payer and payee. If it was an individual then it would be a taxable capital gain. If it is a business then it doesn't seem much different from our owners putting these £150m injections into their company. We do that, and correctly account for it. They hid it as sponsorship.

For me, this is false accounting and that is a criminal offence in our country. As football laid down some guidelines then I understand why they are investigating. What I'm still not understanding is why HMRC, The Serious Fraud Office and a bunch of forensic accountants aren't digging up 7 years worth of posted accounts and going through them with a fine tooth comb. To @DeanoAustin point above, it makes no difference whether City are publicly traded or not to me. It is still false accounting and sits above football governance. Looking at it from a government perspective football runs on consumer spending whether it is broadcasting subscriptions or gate receipts. It is still something they should care about.

When it comes back to the word "sustainability", you can see the risk. The question becomes in 2017/18 what would have happened if City lost their owners and their sponsorship. Well their revenues were £500m and their "sponsorship" was £135m. So their organic revenue was £365m and perhaps they could have picked up normal level alternative sponsors of £50m or less. That means with the same running costs they would have posted £85m loss against whatever P&L they posted. That is massively relevant.
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Your question was what the difference was between City and Enron. The fact Enron were publicly traded is the main one when it comes to prosecutions. Also, Enron went bust through fraud, City didn't.

False accounting is an offence but is it worth HMRC conducting a lengthy investigation if what they find is "no tax fraud/avoidance has occurred"? As far as I'm aware here, there is no suggestion that City's false accounting was to defraud anyone - it was to get around PL rules. It's still wrong, granted, but is it worth the effort for the likely outcome if that is the case?
 
DeanoAustin said:
Your question was what the difference was between City and Enron. The fact Enron were publicly traded is the main one when it comes to prosecutions. Also, Enron went bust through fraud, City didn't.

False accounting is an offence but is it worth HMRC conducting a lengthy investigation if what they find is "no tax fraud/avoidance has occurred"? As far as I'm aware here, there is no suggestion that City's false accounting was to defraud anyone - it was to get around PL rules. It's still wrong, granted, but is it worth the effort for the likely outcome if that is the case?
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I still can't make my mind up on this one. Clearly there is a massive difference between posting £100m as revenue (sponsorship) into your P&L versus treating the £100m as a capital investment which changes the valuation of your company.

Our own owners have put these chunks of £150m into Spurs as capital. If the auditors decide that all City's direct investments weren't sponsorship (as they came from their owners) and City are forced to treat it as capital then the club has to redo something like 7 years worth of accounts. If it is treated as capital then my guess is that could change the profit and loss numbers posted as it reduces the revenue.

Where you're probably right is that revenue reduction doesn't help HMRC as it reduces profit and increases loss.
 
Muttley said:
I think the "shoulda, woulda, coulda" arguments will soon get put to bed with all other clubs.

However, this potentially brings the super-league one step closer. There is still some ill feeling between Europe's biggest club and Ceferin's lot. Putting the Sheikh in a position where he has to get creative may not be good for us.
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Every club has a coulda, shoulda, woulda case, that's what makes it so damaging.
The scramble to who has been cheated the most must not be a distraction.
Every club was cheated and city should be punished.
 
glasgowspur said:
Every club has a coulda, shoulda, woulda case, that's what makes it so damaging.
The scramble to who has been cheated the most must not be a distraction.
Every club was cheated and city should be punished.
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Its one of the biggest things to hang over it, if I take our bias out of it, how many clubs lost out, clearly without doubt, the WOULDA, is a cert

The other part fans have been complicit in IMO, which is the overspend and the "just pay what they want", if people like it or not, that has fed into the market City created. Even to last summer which was seen as the best window ever, the fees are ridiculous even before the over spending, which is claimed to be a symbol of ambition, I see it as more an example of the legacy left by 15 years of inflated wages and fees bought about by clubs like City and Chelsea.
 
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MartyFunkhouser said:
Its one of the biggest things to hang over it

The other part fans have been complicit in IMO, which is the overspend and the "just pay what they want", if people like it or not, that has fed into the market City created. Even to last summer which was seen as the best window ever, the fees are ridiculous even before the over spending, which is claimed to be a symbol of ambition, I see it as more an example of the legacy left by 15 years of inflated wages and fees bought about by clubs like City and Chelsea.
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I still find it disgraceful that the media have not went fully in on them and Chelsea.
It's cheating, it's created a narrative that cheating is acceptable and the fans have lapped it up.
It's hit fans in the pocket and taken away enjoyment of the game.
Where's the enjoyment from winning when you're cheating or from knowing that you are getting beaten by cheats.
City and Chelsea are just two of the guilty parties here, the media and the governing bodies are culpable as well.
 
glasgowspur said:
I still find it disgraceful that the media have not went fully in on them and Chelsea.
It's cheating, it's created a narrative that cheating is acceptable and the fans have lapped it up.
It's hit fans in the pocket and taken away enjoyment of the game.
Where's the enjoyment from winning when you're cheating or from knowing that you are getting beaten by cheats.
City and Chelsea are just two of the guilty parties here, the media and the governing bodies are culpable as well.
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Agree and this post sums it up

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He isn't wrong
 
glasgowspur said:
Every club has a coulda, shoulda, woulda case, that's what makes it so damaging.
The scramble to who has been cheated the most must not be a distraction.
Every club was cheated and city should be punished.
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I get it, but there is too much subjectivity to create a set of rules to who won what, who should have been promoted / relegated, who should have been in CL etc.

The interesting area is FAPL Ltd (= The Premier League). I thought that company run with 20 club directors and they vote to appoint the leadership group that we call the PL e.g. the head of the PL is Richard Masters. Well doesn't Masters report to the board which is guys like Vinai now Levy has left.

I'm wondering what role the other 19 clubs have in the punishment determination. They already said that the sanctions body is different from the investigation team.
 
glasgowspur said:
I still find it disgraceful that the media have not went fully in on them and Chelsea.
It's cheating, it's created a narrative that cheating is acceptable and the fans have lapped it up.
It's hit fans in the pocket and taken away enjoyment of the game.
Where's the enjoyment from winning when you're cheating or from knowing that you are getting beaten by cheats.
City and Chelsea are just two of the guilty parties here, the media and the governing bodies are culpable as well.
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It is a massive, massive story but I'm not sure what the media can do. It's been reported and lots of pundits and journalists have hammered City especially. They can't veer into the territory of hysterical or their credibility goes and that's not their job.

City will be viewed like Lance Armstrong and Ben Johnson. Armstrong became a byword for cheating 20 years ago, Johnson was 40 years ago. Everywhere they go, they'll be ridiculed and abused. In 2066, people will still remember that they are cheats. Their history is forever stained.

This won't go away for them. This won't be forgotten. All football fans now have a common enemy.

City are a pariah football club.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
Well, brace yourselves gentlemen because I don't think any of the things discussed in this thread will ever happen, bar for a hefty point deduction and a hefty fine.

The game's no longer about glory, it's about money (I'm writing like an AI now!). The whole transfer market has been on a meteoric upward curve for years now and the sad truth is, a lot of clubs need Emirates Marketing Project - or their money, at least. It's like a house of cards: if you pull them out of the equation, you run the risk of a massive collapse, even more so in football because payments have spread on a number of years.

Everybody knows Barcelona, Real, PSG, Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea don't play fair, but they need their money. Professional football is already on the verge of collapse in France, where clubs aren't allowed to run massive debts, and some people already claim Italy is next.

It was the same with Champions League money. In lesser competitions, they knew it would completely tip the scales and the first clubs to do well there would dominate their local league for years, if not decade. But... they would also spend money, buy players from your club or maybe your club would one day qualify for the Champions League too and then you'd get a slice from the cake.

It's a difficult balancing act between giving the fans the illusion that you can't cheat (when, in reality, you have to cheat to be successful) and making sure our Gulf States friends aren't scared away because despite inflate TV money, football is spending a lot more than it generates, which means someone has to pump money into football and Europe is running out of billionaires.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. The reason why clubs go to, and indeed beyond, their financial limits is to try to compete with the clubs you mentioned. Those clubs have done more than any others to distort the market. Clubs have to pay players huge salaries because another club will if they don’t, it is the same story for transfer fees.

If Emirates Marketing Project ceased to exist then nobody but Emirates Marketing Project fans would really even notice, and I would imagine that AFC Emirates Marketing Project or some such club would be formed, be well supported and rise through the leagues over a not too lengthy timeline.

if football runs out of willing billionaires to invest then that would be brilliant. Football doesn’t need an ever expanding level of financial backing to survive, and indeed, thrive. In fact I think the product would be better if there were no billionaire owners.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I'd like to see them get their due, but I'm not holding up my breath. Also, no disrespect, but Rangers are but a speck in the grand scheme of things. It would be interesting to see how much they contributed to Scottish football's money pot, but City are in a different league (see what I did here?) - their downfall would impact a lot of clubs in England and all over Europe.

The Spanish gouvernment once saved Real Madrid from bankruptcy. I'm pretty sure a lot of people who never attended a football game in their entire lives would do a lot of things to make sure people like us continue to get their weekly dose of entertainment...
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WAY more as a percentage than Emirates Marketing Project contribute to England’s pot I’d imagine.
 
DeanoAustin said:
This won't go away for them. This won't be forgotten. All football fans now have a common enemy.

City are a pariah football club.
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In some ways this is the biggest fallout City face.

It would do them a favour if one sanction is the owners are disqualified from owning the (or a) club. (And thinking about it I can't see how that won't be one of the outcomes, you can't systemically act and behave like they have and still be welcome, it would be ridiculous)

City can rebuild from lower down, with a clean slate, albeit with that shadow of the past.
 
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