Man City FFP: They’ve stolen joy from everyone – embrace the chaos of the punishment to come

More anger/glee/frustration/gnashing of teeth as the Man City house of cards comes crashing down.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com. It will be a busy Mailbox for the foreseeable.

Typical macrophage
When I was a young man poring over books in college I came across a little fellow called the frustrated macrophage.

Macrophage go around eating crap in our bodies like little robovacs but this guy decides to try and macrophage something so massive that he explodes in the process.

That’s how I’ve felt trying to comprehend the implications of the City findings. My brain jumps from now verified (but to be challenged) claims of industrial level cheating and fraud essentially for all of City’s state sponsored ownership.

In terms of cynicism and effectiveness in sport only Lance Armstrong springs to mind, in terms of scale possibly East German doping comes close, in terms of money involved you must leave the realms of sport I suspect.

There are so many ways to interpret the effect of this on clubs, competitions, the integrity of the game we love, on titles, individual clubs, managers and players.

But for me the sadness they have created has been in their greed for moments in the past 15 years. They wanted all the moments, all the joy, all the victories at the expense of others.

I remember when Liverpool’s dream of a quadruple came to an end on the final day of the season, I watched the greatest manager of my lifetime achieve impossible things and be called a fraud by rival fans as he only ended up with one title, I watched my favourite player of all time end up without a Premier League title to crown his glorious career and be mocked indefinitely for one slip up (couldn’t resist)

Over and over again City turned joy into disappointment, celebration into despair, pride into shame for rival fans for the past two decades. So what you say so did Ferguson’s United prior to that, and Liverpool before.

But what galls now is the cheating, industrial scale cheating, and like a cave full of goblins they stole, cheated and robbed us of the moments of our lives in the sport we love.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of sanctions and punishments but for the hurt they have caused I have turned to me old school pal William who said:

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

For there’s the ultimate punishment in life. City’s name like Armstrong, Ben Johnson or East Germany will forever more be associated with cheating, lying and fraud. Their achievements denuded of meaning, and in the sweetest of ironies their moments destroyed in the eyes of all but the most one eyes City fan.

I thought I would feel happy, triumphant, justified when this day came but actually the main feeling this morning is sadness for all the things they have taken from those of us who love this game and live for the moments it gives us in our lives.

You guys suck.
Dave LFC 

What about United?
So the chickens have come home to roost and we can all finally stay humble for Man City, while laughing in their collective faces. Rules are rules. They broke the rules so throw book at them. Fake treble, fake champions, fake winners.

That said, as a United supporter, there is something slightly perverse about their owners not being able to spend what they want on their club, when our club has been financially plundered by owners who have no real interest in building the club or developing the area around Old Trafford, other than for their own financial gain.

This is not going to be popular – yes they broke the rules but at least they have owners who have the money to buy the club, the club is not in debt, and they are spending their own money on the club. Obviously there are moral and human rights issues to consider, but let’s just stick to finances for now.

It’s financial doping, but what’s the purpose of FFP – mainly its about ensuring clubs are not bought by owners who come in with questionable motives, no sustainable wealth, who then proceed to asset strip and run clubs into the ground. Hello?

Yes there’s an element of protecting competitive balance, restricting artificial expenditure with a sense of “fairness” in mind. That’s easy for me to say as a fan of a club who already eats at the top table. Otherwise there’s a risk it essentially becomes a closed shop – something we all rallied against when there was talk of a European Super league.

Nevertheless, the rules are there and they have broken the rules. If the punishment was fair it would leave them somewhere near to where they were at the time of the takeover. So take the trophies off them, kick them down a few leagues to make them earn their way back up, and hit them with massive fines.

But let’s also amend the FFP (or profit and sustainability) rules to also target owners who have needlessly sent clubs into debt for their own personal gain – a debt, for instance, that has actually grown over 20 years with no sign of repayment, even in the face of record revenues/profits. Make them clear the debt out of their own pockets/means or force them to sell at market value minus the debt. Let’s clear the decks and actually get financially responsible owners.
Garey Vance, MUFC

Embrace the chaos
Good day for football. Chaos will ensue, that’s fine. “Chaos” based on applying the rules to keep raw power in check is better than “order” based on ignoring them.

There are many legal cases to be made against the club and the management. There is a moral case to be made against the ‘legendary’ coach who tried to defend this nonsense, and the many players and agents who absolutely should have known better.

I feel, however, for the City fans. Had I been in their place, with a trophy glut after decades of drought, and my club swearing blind that it was all above board…. I’d like to think I would’ve still been skeptical, but who knows. I’m sure there are plenty of City fans who were quietly skeptical, notwithstanding the few ridiculous ones who get amplified.

That feeling is part of a broader anger that fans of all clubs have been taken for a ride for ten years (at least). The clubs made money or bought influence, many managers and players made dubious money, the TV companies made absolutely undeserved money, the pundits willing to ‘analyse’ this farce made free money. I suspect voiding titles – however unthinkable until yesterday – is going to be much easier than reversing the torrents of cash that have greased these fraudulent wheels. The fans – all fans – have been taken for a ride.
TG (Arsenal)

Justice for Arsenal
Even though the charges only go to 2018, It goes without saying that City’s actions prior to this will have had a dramatic effect on the fortunes of Arsenal’s title charges in the last few years.

Therefore there should be justice for the Arsenal… perhaps even trophies stripped.

I mean just look at some of the names lured into City, matured and trained under one of the greatest coaches of all time and in expensive world class facilities.

Oleksandr Zinchenko

Gabriel Jesus

Mikel Arteta

Nicolas Jover

Just a purely random sample of course.

So shall we analyse the effect of pre-2018 Man City on Arsenal’s success, say beginning with last season and working backwards from there?

Hey, there’s no need for such gestures!

Really though, without Doc Brown and his flux capacitor, we really couldn’t extrapolate what would have happened had City been well behaved.

What if we had never been taken over? Would we have been sold for parts by the totally fit and proper Shinawatra? Would United have imploded anyway? Would Leicester still have won the PL? Would Wenger not have lost all hope in the fairness of football and turned to the dark side?

Perhaps it is like in Back to the Future 2 where Biff gets the sports almanac, and the source of infinite wealth. Perhaps we’d have a timeline so dramatically different you wouldn’t recognise the footballing world. Is this even the ‘darkest timeline’? Apparently Abu Dhabi also considered Liverpool. Imagine that?

The only certainty is that the Glazers still wouldn’t have fixed that leaky roof yet!
Nick

Hit the club, not the players
I’m a Liverpool fan, so I have more reason than most to want City’s titles stripped. I don’t.

City have been found guilty of breaking financial rules. Punish the club severely. Relegation would be a serious punishment. But the Mailbox’s Lance Armstrong comparisons fall apart when you ask what, exactly, was supposed to have given the players an unfair advantage.

Take City’s title-winning squad and manager and put them at United. United’s historic revenue could have given them the room to pay for an equivalent team within the rules. Same players, same training, same tactics, same opponents. Nobody would be asking the players to hand back their medals. At City, the source and reporting of the money make that team a financial offence. That is a serious offence by the people running the club; it does not mean the players did not beat what was in front of them.

The contrast gets sharper when you look at how the clubs were run. City assembled a vastly better football operation. United had the established revenue, accumulated substantial debt and spent years getting far less from their resources. Yet historic turnover gave United the easier route through rules supposedly concerned with financial health. Apparently it matters more how long you’ve been rich than what you do with the money.

None of this excuses City’s breaches. Make the owners and club face the consequences, and write rules that allow properly funded owner investment without pretending it is sponsorship. But leave the titles with the people who won them on the pitch.

I remember Liverpool finishing second. I don’t need the league to change the record to spare my feelings.
Dhiren

Fit the crime
I’m a long-term English football follower in New Zealand. With the Manchester City findings dominating the discussion, I think the real issue is not simply punishment, but whether the financial rewards of breaking the rules can ultimately outweigh it.

Better players increase the chance of winning. Winning brings trophies, revenue, sponsors and supporters. All of it increases the value of the club.

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak recently valued City at least £7.5 billion. So what would it be worth today had every financial rule been followed?

£7.5 billion?

£6 billion?

Several billion less?

Nobody knows.

If financial rule-breaking contributed to City’s success, the benefit did not end with the trophies. That success generated more revenue, more supporters, greater commercial power and ultimately a more valuable club.

So a punishment imposed years later is not simply dealing with the original advantage.

It is dealing with everything that advantage may have produced since.

The interest earned on it.

That is why punishment must deter, not merely hurt. If breaking the rules can help create billions in lasting value, the consequences must make it a terrible investment.

Otherwise, the calculation for the next billionaire is simple:

Break the rules. Win. Build the value. Pay later.
Colin Varney
Auckland
New Zealand