Its Going To Get Ugly / Ganging up [MERGED]

[carl_feedthegoat]

The only way to beat a cheat is to fuckign cheat , and thats what we will do to get round all of this shit.

[Beefymcfc]

John68,

Fear not, everything is well in hand

http://www.isportconnect.com/index.php? ... Itemid=177

The MEN re-confirmed today that we will have no problems complying with FFPR.

I don't doubt that Beefers Mate. Whilst we are mainly groping in the dark with what little knowledge and info we have been given, I have no doubt that our club has ben working on this shit with teams of informed experts for some time now.

THAT IS NOT THE PROBLEM...The problem is and has been largely ignored by all and sundry on here and it is how it has already affected our club, how it is currently affecting our club and how it may affect our club whilst we are pursuing a policy of compliance. Everyone seems to be concentrating their thoughts on 3 years time. THIS SHIT HAS ALREADY AFFECTED US AND IS CURRENTLY AFFECTING US.

....and that my dear Beefers is what I have been banging on about for fucling ages.

I am not so much worried to much whether a transfer embargo may be imposed by the Prem or UeFA in the 3 years time. But what about the club's SELF IMPOSED transfer embargo of the last 2 windows?

I know mate, we've had toread it ;-)

We all know that it is affecting us, that's why the Chairman stated that we had to rush things with regard to the project. We got our targets and we move on from there. I think the summer was a different issue, it was more about not getting the targets we wanted so reverted to Plan C. This was made even more difficult as we had no realistic chance of moving certain players on.

It has been a big issue but I feel that it's one that is being monitired and managed by our team. We're still in a very strong position and to be honest, with regard to these issues, many want to just get on with the football, they're getting sick to the back teeth of all the duplicitous goings on behind the scenes with regard to UEFA and certain Premier League clubs. That's why I don't think too many City/other fans are that interested, they just want to see the football mate.

Forza Sheikh Mansour, Forza Manchester City.

[john68]

...and another thing.....the title of this thread..."GOING TO GET UGLY"

We've had the Chuckle Bros, the ginger whinger, Luke Chadwick and now Phil effin Jones. Just how much uglier can it get?

That is scary.

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

Piccs,
What a lovely rosy picture you paint, sadly, it doesn't stand quite so rosy when studied a little deeper mate. I wish it did, it would save us all a lot of messing about....I get headaches when I think too much....:-)

Our turnover did indeed improve dramatically from £153M to £231M last years but that is only part of the picture. The balance sheet also shows that wages and operating costs rose dramatically too. Wages from £174M to £201.8M alone. The club were clever to ensure they sidestepped most in depth or critical analysis by releasing the figures late on a Friday and most of the media simply regurgitated the clubs more positive conclusions.
The truth remains that even with such a huge improved turnover, City still made a loss of around £100M and that has to be offset within the timescale given (both for the Prem and UeFA FFPRs).

Though City announced an improved performance of almost £100M, those figures don't fully reflect the truth. One off payments in the previous figures (£34M) and a one off income the latest figures (£12M), somewhat skew the true position and a truer reflection of our improvement would be around a little more than around £50M.




The point being that as a ball park calculation, our huge improvement in turnover was not reflected quite so well in the profit/loss sheet.

I don't doubt for one moment that our owners, backed by their teams of lawyers, accountants and advisors willfind some strategy to sort this problem out, but from the figures we know, we would wrong to consider the ladder already pulled up with us already secure. We are far from that position yet.

Sorry if that pisses on your chips...have a pie instead...:-)

John.
Ultimately it has been decided that turnover is the all important factor.
Our turnover is higher than ever, up in the elite group and is going to get bigger.
That's the measure decided on and we measure up fine.
That's why it will suit us.

[AG7]

Someone at the club sooner or later will realise that one way to increase the revenue is up the prices a bit and there is a huge gap between how Arsenal/Scum and Chelsea are pricing their tickets at vs our prices ... I feel that even unwillingly we'll see a price increase of £5-10 per game coming our way.

[Ted Hughes]

The only way to beat a cheat is to fuckign cheat , and thats what we will do to get round all of this shit.

We haven't even scratched the surface.

The Etihad Campus sponsorship has no figures saying what the limits are (where it can expand to) & no precedent for these corrupt cunts to establish what they consider to be a 'market value'. It's a unique deal & there will imo be more sponsors coming onboard in that area. That's before all the other shit starts.

The rags, scousers, Arse etc all complained about that deal & said it should be investigated, then all did deals themselves in which the 'market value' for certain aspects, such as shirts, was higher. How could they complain about us getting 'X' for our shirts when they already knew they had bigger deals in the pipeline ? Answer: corruption, they are all in it together. All this stuff is evidence of what these cunts are up to; stitch us up then cash in & do all the stuff they accuse us of.

It's fucking obvious to anyone what is actually going on. They have been given the rope & are hanging themselves in public.

We are keeping our powder dry & will load up & shoot the cunts in the head over & over & over. They will not have a leg to stand on as far as opposing it other than desperation, because they are all establishing the value & we can top it, by a long way, without breaking any rules .

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

Just had a peek over at The Dark Side and their take on FFP...amongst the predictable arrogant bile, there's a poster called Finneh, for whom it seems, the penny has dropped. Fair play to the rag:

http://www.redcafe.net/f7/so-these-fina ... dex13.html

Scum.

Indeed, PD.

Sorry Goataldo, I am not clicking on that.

From, Tzu's "Art of War" - '"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

Come on lads, not asking you to support the rag bastards.

I wonder if we'd have won the war if we hadn't wanted to decode German messages, cos they were nasty and German and smelled of sausages.

Goataldo, my response was to having read what some of the scumbags on there have to say and how much they don't give a shit about football, just winning trophies for themselves.

[Blue Since 76]

What we'll see is a continual trimming of our wage budget over the next few years. We're now a top 4 team and players will therefore want to come. We won't therefore need to pay the wages we had to originally to get the players in to get into the CL.

That was why de Jong was allowed to go, as he wouldn't accept realistic wages. The likes of Barry won't have their current contracts extended. I'm sure we'd be happy to keep him, but he'll get something similar to what he'd get at Everton or Spurs. Why pay players more AND let them win stuff. The rags rarely pay over the odds on wages as most players will take the bit less for the likely success. It may mean a 'lean' few years in terms of league wins, but what's new? And it's not like we'll be paying under the market, so if a player wants to be in the PL there's no reason not to pick us.

For a truly top quality play, we may pay a huge amount, just as the rags do. But the majority of the squad will be on wages most of the PL couldn't afford but not two or three times what they should be on.

The last two windows have shown us being much tougher on transfer fees to the point and the same will happen with wages. We've got the turnover we need, we just need to reduce costs without risking top 3 finishes. Add in extra TV money and additional ticket revenue in a few years when the ground has been extended and we're safely in that elite group.

As for the best players we need eg a Falcao I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't accept surprisingly low wages whilst finding that Abu Dhabi based companies were really keen on sponsoring them. Maybe. If they signed for the right club.

[Ted Hughes]

What we'll see is a continual trimming of our wage budget over the next few years. We're now a top 4 team and players will therefore want to come. We won't therefore need to pay the wages we had to originally to get the players in to get into the CL.

That was why de Jong was allowed to go, as he wouldn't accept realistic wages. The likes of Barry won't have their current contracts extended. I'm sure we'd be happy to keep him, but he'll get something similar to what he'd get at Everton or Spurs. Why pay players more AND let them win stuff. The rags rarely pay over the odds on wages as most players will take the bit less for the likely success. It may mean a 'lean' few years in terms of league wins, but what's new? And it's not like we'll be paying under the market, so if a player wants to be in the PL there's no reason not to pick us.

For a truly top quality play, we may pay a huge amount, just as the rags do. But the majority of the squad will be on wages most of the PL couldn't afford but not two or three times what they should be on.

The last two windows have shown us being much tougher on transfer fees to the point and the same will happen with wages. We've got the turnover we need, we just need to reduce costs without risking top 3 finishes. Add in extra TV money and additional ticket revenue in a few years when the ground has been extended and we're safely in that elite group.

As for the best players we need eg a Falcao I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't accept surprisingly low wages whilst finding that Abu Dhabi based companies were really keen on sponsoring them. Maybe. If they signed for the right club.

We will still pay top wages for top players; just not 50 of them. We could not go on & on just signing more & more players every year. We have only so many spaces in the squad. People seem to have forgotton this detail. At some point we had to take stock.

Our wage bill has always included some players signed by past managers who are not good enough for where we were at the time & some players signed by the then manager at the time who are not good enough. It's the same still now.

Get rid of them, sign a few quality players, use more academy players to fill the gaps & increase sponsorship. Better squad but similar or smaller wage bill plus more income to pay for it= job done.

[Blue Since 76]

We will still pay top wages for top players; just not 50 of them. We could not go on & on just signing more & more players every year. We have only so many spaces in the squad. People seem to have forgotton this detail. At some point we had to take stock.

Our wage bill has always included some players signed by past managers who are not good enough for where we were at the time & some players signed by the then manager at the time who are not good enough. It's the same still now.

Get rid of them, sign a few quality players, use more academy players to fill the gaps & increase sponsorship. Better squad but similar or smaller wage bill plus more income to pay for it= job done.

We'll still pay wages with the top English clubs for the right players. Feel bad picking on Barry, as he's a good player who I rate, but he's an example of someone who will be overpaid. He was probably on about £40k at Villa. Liverpool would have increased that, plus offered him better prospects. For us to convince him to join us instead, the only option would have been to pay him much, much more. Right decision at the time, but it's still costing us now. Going forwards we'll still need the likes of a Barry in the team but they will get wages in line with their worth. We are where Liverpool were when they were after him - a top 4 side challenging for honours and as such players will want us, more than we have to persuade them.

We've got another year or two to clear out the overpaid and wastes of space (Bridge) but that should give us a smaller bill without affecting the quality of the squad.

[AG7]

From The Guardian:

Manchester City manager hits out at impending cap on players' salaries

Roberto Mancini makes plain his displeasure at new Premier League reforms to limit the amount clubs can pay their stars

Roberto Mancini has made plain his displeasure at the new Premier League reforms involving the impending introduction of a salary inflation cap.

"I do not agree," said Manchester City's manager. "If I am a rich man I want to spend all my money for my team; it's my job. It's only my personal opinion but I don't agree with the idea in general or these rules.

"We need to buy good players. If you want to buy good players you have to spend money. This isn't only for us, it's the same for every team but we will work hard and find a different way."

While clubs with annual player costs of more than £52m a year will now be limited to a £4m salary increase in 2013-14, they must also limit overall deficits to £105m over the next three seasons or face points deductions. These reforms promise to make it effectively impossible for a future billionaire club owner in the shape of City's Sheikh Mansour to lavish a fortune on their team in order to "buy" swift success.

"It is clear with this rule it is more difficult than 10 years ago," acknowledged Mancini. "In football, if you work well, you can find good players without maybe spending £30m on one individual, but it is also true that every time Manchester City move for a player, if his value is £10m, Manchester City will be asked for £30m. There should be other rules for this because sometimes you want to buy a player for £8m but it's £25m-£30m for Manchester City. This is the problem."

Mancini's most pressing difficulty is closing the nine-point gap on Manchester United at the top of the table and somehow retaining City's title.

"With 13 games to play I think it's important that we believe and continue to try to win all the games," he said before Saturday's trip to Southampton.

"In three months everything can change, like last year. If Manchester United win all their Premier League games from now until the end of the season they deserve the title but I'm sure we will have another chance. Last year nobody believed we could win the title but in the end we won it. This year could be the same. We are a strong team.

"If another team is better than you, you should accept this but I don't think that, in these past two years, there is a team that has played better than us. Manchester United is a strong team, Chelsea is a strong team but I think, that in the last two years, Manchester City is the team that has played best in the Premier League."

[Socrates]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

[Goataldo]

Just had a peek over at The Dark Side and their take on FFP...amongst the predictable arrogant bile, there's a poster called Finneh, for whom it seems, the penny has dropped. Fair play to the rag:

http://www.redcafe.net/f7/so-these-fina ... dex13.html

Scum.

Indeed, PD.

Sorry Goataldo, I am not clicking on that.

From, Tzu's "Art of War" - '"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

Come on lads, not asking you to support the rag bastards.

I wonder if we'd have won the war if we hadn't wanted to decode German messages, cos they were nasty and German and smelled of sausages.

Goataldo, my response was to having read what some of the scumbags on there have to say and how much they don't give a shit about football, just winning trophies for themselves.

I know mate, they are mostly a set of complete and utter arrogant dicks. But my point was, that even some of THEM realise what a corrupt joke they are trying to turn the league into. Which if you'd have overcome your quite understandable and logical aversion, you would have seen. Sorry for trying to sully your retinas with filth!

[carl_feedthegoat]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

Players have been payed in "other" ways as a sweatner in the past to ge tthem to sign on , we will get round it by playing "our own" game of monopoly.

Fukcing wankers the scum are.

[Im_Spartacus]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

There is an aspect though which puts us at a clear advantage.

Infrastructure and development is outside the tariff in both ffp measures. The clubs with the sugar daddies can afford to invest in the very best youth system, wheras clubs like united who are commercial in nature cannot just throw money at that aspect because their owner doesnt have the money. United are one of the fortunate ones as they can use profits, but at clubs like Liverpool where the owners have shown no inclination to even invest in the playing staff, this is a very worrying development

[Socrates]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

There is an aspect though which puts us at a clear advantage.

Infrastructure and development is outside the tariff in both ffp measures. The clubs with the sugar daddies can afford to invest in the very best youth system, wheras clubs like united who are commercial in nature cannot just throw money at that aspect because their owner doesnt have the money. United are one of the fortunate ones as they can use profits, but at clubs like Liverpool where the owners have shown no inclination to even invest in the playing staff, this is a very worrying development

only worrying for Liverpool if they are not content with just getting back in the top 4 / staying in the top 6 / making a profit... yes we have an advantage that we can build the best academy but we cannot be confident it will produce as much as we need and the target for it to do is a long way off anyway - 2028?

[Ted Hughes]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

Players have been payed in "other" ways as a sweatner in the past to ge tthem to sign on , we will get round it by playing "our own" game of monopoly.

Fukcing wankers the scum are.

Indeed.

Nobody has stopped us from doing anything yet, so why would we take them to court ?

We have absolutely no need whatsoever to challenge anything in the courts. We are signed up to abide by the rules of the competitions we enter, the Champions League being 'by invitation' anyway.

We are not however signed up to any rules which allow some random panel to tell us how much of our sponsorship money we are allowed to use in developing our business & who our sponsors should be.

We will probably watch PSG push through a £100 million a year deal with Qatar & see how Platini & Co deal with that before deciding which particular avenue we will go down. If they can't stop PSG, it's all fucked anyway & we don't have to do anything at all.

Just to add; the bloke who came onto our board last year is a specialist in 'arbitration' of such matters.

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

It's bad for us. Not because we cannot meet it, we can. But because meeting it will restrict our ability to invest further if needed to achieve our aim of being the country's most successful club. Our ability to buy any player who we can afford and who wants to come will be hit. The changes are doubtlessly legal in terms of their right to set the rules of the competition however they see fit and my opinion is that any legal challenge will be be restricted to the application of the rules in the early stages if clubs are failing because of older contracts. Longer terms these rules will stick, as I'm sure will the UEFA rules. I keep reading that City have access to the best legal minds around. That has been true since the start of FFP so why are we trying to comply? The answer is surely, sadly, that those best legal minds are telling us that we have to because UEFA, and the FA, can legally set their own rules. The precedent for those rules to include financial aspects is well established. In terms of our position in the top 4/5/6 it isn't bad news but in terms of our ability to push on and be clear number 1 it is very bad news indeed.

The reason we have not legally challenged these rules is that they make business sense, especially if you don't want to continue throwing money at players and on fees. If we can position ourselves suitably, the club will become successful and self-sustaining. Not good for the health of football, but good for our owners.

[john68]

Thanks Socs, at last someone else seems to want to pick up the baton and run with the real issue that affects us. I have banged on about this to a point beyond boredom, trying to drag the debate from what might happen, which I believe the club will be able to deal with, to the reality of what is happening. Whether we will ultimately meet either of the two FFPRs being imposed is almost a none issue. The club have had a long time to plan to deal with this.

This is probably the first time that we can see the more immediate interests of the fans and the financial interests of our owners being at odds with each other. I can only liken us to an athlete who has moved from the back of the field to the front. But just as he has the opportunity to kick on and take the gold medal, he stops to tie his shoe laces, allowing his nearest rival to go ahead again and the chasing pack to close up.

The Academy is a longer term issue which even with such great planning comes with no guarantees. Our enemies know what they are doing. The UeFA FFPR was designed to slow our European journey, the domestic FFPRs designed to stop our domestic progress and buy them time.

[Beefymcfc]

Do you know, the biggest thing for me in all this is how much we've seen of the goings on and politics that come with football. The little things like 'Invitation Only League' that nobody really understood until it was stated in regard to our club. Then there's the letter from the 'Gang of 4' which tried to force through issues before the agreement had even been signed.

Us, as fans, pretty much go down the line of just wanting to see the game on a Saturday afternoon but what we have been seeing lately has been a real eye-opener for some. The old 'G14' (now ECA) forcing the issue and the old 'Sky 4' (now Gang of 4) bringing things back in-line for their own means.

These are very much draconian measures to keep things in check after certain clubs forced their hand. They closed shop and colluded to ensure their place at the top table for many years to come. And, still, some believe there is no underhand dealings with regard to EUFA and/or the Premier League. You only have to look back to the WC Qualifiers where they changed the system so it seeded the likes of France who then went on to the finals with a very seeable and very dubious handball by the one and only Thierry Henry.

The whole lot of it leaves me with a feeling of derision. It's just a piss-take and one that has proved that it's not about football, it's about businessmen making money.

You've got to laugh haven't you.