Last night, the football world was rocked (if not surprised) by revelations regarding Manchester City and PSG in Der Spiegel, the German investigative media outlet responsible for Football Leaks.
If you have time, follow that link and read the whole report. It’s genuinely shocking.
They have proven that City, along with the French champions, have systematically and illegally evaded Financial Fair Play regulations with the direct help of both FIFA President Gianni Infantino and former French president Nicolas Sarcozy.
In 2014, Infantino emailed Khaldoon Al Mubarak, City’s chairman, telling the billionaire, ‘You know you can trust me,’ and that he would help City escape a harsh punishment for their failure to abide by FFP rules.
City tried to trick FFP by setting up sponsorship deals from Abu Dhabi businesses, which actually equated to 84% of commercial income in 2014. They also hid £35m worth of expenditure from FFP in their annual reports.
When a member of FFP’s investigatory team died, City lawyer Simon Cliff emailed the club’s ownership with a short, but succinct message: ‘One down, six to go’.
What an absolutely vile football club run by horrible, cheats. We feel sorry for the real fans. Their club has been stolen from underneath them.
Reasonable Punishments For City:
-Point deduction
-Having titles stripped
-Relegation
-Transfer banWhat Punishments City Will Get:
-£50k Fine
-Slap on the wrist— Carson (@WC_LFC_Torres) November 2, 2018
Gonna need to do alot of Amazon documentaries to bury this one aren’t they? https://t.co/Ibn2nHbsSo
— 🇲🇦 (@Omzlfc) November 2, 2018
PSG and Man City are cheats. No surprises there. Sadly they won't be punished.
— Sai (@TheEngancheRole) November 2, 2018
The @FA & @premierleague need to suspend Man City.
Fair enough getting lucky with owners who can buy most countries but paying governing bodies off to hide investment into the team to basically CHEAT for success is a whole new level.
Throw the book at them
— Darwinho (@Dijkinho) November 2, 2018
Man city hid £30.7m from UEFA and threatened to engage the 50 best lawyers in the world and sue UEFA for the next 10 years over a failure to comply with the financial fair play rules.
Stay classy Man City you cheatin dirty corrupt shameless irrelevant franchise #FFP #UEFA pic.twitter.com/HEUWnqV5bE
— Reffy Roberts (@Gaffa_1980) November 3, 2018