- There is a way out of the Manchester City mess
- Telegraph refuse comment from Untold on Man City case…Can a club resign from the Premier League?
By Sir Hardly Anyone
In all disputes there are always knock-on effects, whether it is two neighbours arguing about overhanging tree branches or Premier League clubs arguing with Manchester City.
Goal.com for example is suggesting that, “The EFL were hoping that the ‘New Deal For Football’ would provide a cash injection of £150m per season over six years, (for all the Championship clubs), but talks first collapsed earlier this year, in March, just months after City filed their legal claim.”
But without support from the Premier League, it is difficult to see how the current structure involving three Championship clubs getting promoted each season, can viably continue.
For Championship clubs, the promotion to the Premier League is such a big prize that everything can be risked to get there – including vast borrowings, and large amounts of owner funding (which is of course the most dangerous kind of funding). So along the way Championship clubs run into financial problems as they reach for the sky, (or alternatively fall from on high.)
Of course, the lack of a Football Regulator who was expected sometime soon, but now might not be implemented at all, adds to the sense of chaos. And it doesn’t do much for some ambitious Championship clubs that are dependent on hand outs from the Premier League.
Indeed the BBC have said that the funding deal for Football League clubs could be imposed by the government although of course the general election has for the moment got in the way of that.
But that raises all sorts of questions, not the least of which is why should government be involved in football at all? True, local clubs have often been seen as the heart of a community, but the government did not get involved when local theatres and local cinemas folded as a result of a burgeoning TV industry.
In the days of socialism, yes there was a model in which the state could be involved in all sorts of activities, but we have not seen a socialist government in this country since (in my view) 1951, although some might argue that later Labour governments still had some vestige of socialism within them.
But the big argument continues: the funding gap between the Premier League and the Championship was huge even before Manchester City came along with its legal case which in essence demands that it should have total free reign.
There are several points here. Most of us want the Premier League to be competitive rather than having the same team win most of the time. Most people want a promotion and relegation system also – which was why there was so much opposition to the Super League. But when we have three clubs going down after one season in the top league, it does seem the disparity is too great.
And we have Everton and Forest being investigated for not following the rule, and find the Manchester City response is, “we should change all the rules to suite us,” it just all feels very wrong.
Football was a business made up of private clubs until one Middle Eastern state decided to make it a state business, and the question is simply “do we want that change? Many people seem to think no, it should not be a state business.
There is talk now of fractured relationships – and surely the simplest way to overcome that is for different clubs to go their own different ways. Clubs willing to abide by financial rules can play in the Financial Fair Play League, and those that don’t, such as Manchester City, can play in the City League. Supporters can go where they wish.
Indeed many football leagues are not very competitive. I may have got this wrong but the last time any club other than Celtic or Rangers won the league in Scotland was in 1985, which doesn’t sound very competitive to me.
Of course this could change in a matter of months if, as everyone expects, Labour form the next government, given that Labour MP Lucy Powell said that the next Labour government (expected in the next few weeks) would introduce a regulator.
Whatever else the regulator does, surely she or he cannot allow the current system to continue. If that were to happen, it is more than likely that a lot of clubs would leave the Premier League and set up another League, to avoid fighting a battle in court with Manchester City, who, given that they have so much money, would be able to drag the case out until every other club ran out of money.
As I have said before, the obvious solution is for the rest of the Premier League to resign, leaving Manchester City to play Manchester City and proclaim Manchester City champions. Also as noted earlier I suggested this in a letter to the Telegraph which they refused to publish. When I phoned them to cancel my subscription to the paper it took me 20 minutes to convince them that I really wanted to cancel, as they kept on trying to offer me a discount. As I said, I have no idea why they wouldn’t publish my simple notion that clubs should leave the league, but someone somewhere really didn’t want that idea circulated. Just how far does the influence of Manchester City reach?
Chelsea owner brought two hotels off of Chelsea FC for over £200 million and this was able to wipe off over £200 million off their FFP debt leaving the club apx just £70 million now in debt.
It’s the same money changing hands back and forth. Chelsea were able to capitalise on the FFP Loophole. The FA governing bodies are looking into closing such loopholes for next year. All a little too late.
Tottenham are also scamming by getting a free stadium, financed by local government (brown envelopes etc..) and Man City have their lawyers running rings around the FA over their 115 FFP charges.
Arsenal have to do it the hard way as their financial advisors and Lawyers are below par.
So for Arsenal to overtake Man City they will need world class technical players, and not the so called back up players being mentioned.
Arsenal failing to get Mbappe would need to go for the second best technical clinical striker in the world, and that is Germany player of the year “WERTZ”. A young version of Neymar, highly technical, clinical and very skillful striker. Check him on YouTube I kid you not.
The other player is a two footed forward that is versitle to play right, left or central midfield is crystal Palaces “OLISE”, who I rate better than Saka and on par with Odeguaard, definitely world class in the making if not already there.
So Wertz and Olise, would take Arsenal to a higher level than Man City. Arsenal need to be brave and buy quality not quantity as they did with Declan Rice.
The problem with too many Premiership teams is that they are so busy trying to do Man City down, that they forget to look after themselves. For example; the current limit on the overdraft clubs can have is £105m per three years. That figure was set 10 years ago. If the figure had been linked to inflation it would now be £218m. Considering 17 Premiership clubs have billionaire owners I’m quite sure they would be happy to spend £73m a year to improve their club. How many clubs do we have telling the FA we need changes. One, Man City, with support from two others. Presently the Premier League has a financial advantage over other leagues, although Real Madrid are currently the wealthiest club. To keep that advantage the Premier League needs to keep moving forward. If you stay still the rest catch you up.
This obsession with Man City needs to go. They’re not outspending everyone. Over the last 5/10 years Man Utd and Chelsea have been the big spenders. Two years ago City made a profit on the season ,one of only two clubs to do that. That same season over the previous 5 seasons City had been the tenth highest spender. Even Liverpool spent more!!
Re the 115 charges. The stolen emails seem to be a major factor. But emails do not tell the whole story. It’s like from a book taking a paragraph or a sentence from one page and the same with the next and so on. And believe me when you put your emails together you will get little sense from them no matter how many you have.
daveg
Back on the 25th of May you said:
“Sometimes we need the option in certain games to make a tactical change. It is not a case of sticking to that tactical change, but having the option.”
“We need that tactical option of a clinical, technical Target Man for certain games”.
I asked you to explain why on earth the best strikers in the World would want to come to Arsenal to be a “Tactical change”….”In certain games”?
You failed to explain.
——–
Then on the 30th of May you changed tack with:
“To save money on transfers, Arsenal need to look to their academy and fringe players first.”
But that didn’t last long as we were straight back to:
“Maybe a bid for Florian WERTZ the second best striker in the world( in my opinion) would improve Arsenal to take the league this year”.
So, from saving money on transfers to buying the second best striker in the World in 2 sentences.
———-
Then on the 31st of May you said exactly the same:
“Arsenal must sign the best and nothing short of world class. The striker they need to over take man city is “Wirtz”, The German player of the year. He is gifted and unbelievable talent. Check him out on YouTube.”
But when asked the following by Chris:
“considering the fact that Alonso has refused all offers and stays at Leverkusen, I’d expect him to have ascertained that Wirz stays in his team…. would you not think ? Furthermore, as Untold has shown time after time, a new scorer is not the issue….”
Again you failed to explain.
And yet again today we have this from you:
“Arsenal…..would need to go for the second best technical clinical striker in the world, and that is Germany player of the year “WERTZ”. Check him on YouTube I kid you not”.
One minute we should look at our academy FIRST, and be buying World class strikers as back up. The next you infer we should be buying the likes of Wertz and/or OLISE to replace SAKA, the best player to come out of our academy in years, because they are better than him.
And to top it all you say “……Arsenal failing to get Mbappe”, as if we were ever in with a chance!!!!
You are one of things:
1: Wertz agent.
2: The owner of YouTube
Olise may be injury prone. Why would we?
Da veg
With you running things we’d be skint inside 6 months .
A true recipe for disaster.
Les Martin
Or else, facing 115 charges of our own!!
Say if all clubs did leave and form own league leaving City on their own. Would say the other clubs from championship and below be interested in being accepted to be in same league as City?
@ Ben…
Would you rather be in a league where rules are respected, and the only advantage is that you can only spend what you legitimately earn, or be in a 1 team league where the one team has unlimited funds?
Not a tough question to answer really, is it?!
It’s been repeatedly claimed on Untold, and other media outlets, that Manchester City’s owners have limitless money, but it’s also generally acknowledged Newcastle’s owners are even wealthier.
So what happens to the Premier League if Manchester City and Newcastle’s owners decide to bankroll a European Super League? What if the funding is three, four or five hundred percent greater than the Premier League? Does the Premier League become the new Championship? What happens to Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United if this is the case?
Who might join Manchester City and Newcastle? Real Madrid and Barcelona seem to be good candidates to join, and there might be two or three Italian clubs that would be agreeable – maybe Chelsea and Aston Villa too. It seems like it might be an ideal opportunity for some former European powerhouses of yesteryear, that have had the misfortune of being stuck in leagues that cannot generate anywhere near the revenue of the Premier League, to rise from relative poverty; clubs like Celtic, and Ajax immediately spring to mind.
Actually, thinking about it this might be the next evolution in European football and it could be good for those clubs joining the new European Super League.
@Tim,
I don’t know how you can think that an ESl wity City115 and Newcastle would ever be possible. What other club in Europe except PSG and maybe all clubs belonging to petro-or other- states could form their own league. all of them have unlimited funds and want to sportswash their image.
But why on earth would Real or Bayern for example, want to join such a league in which they’d be out-financed from day one ?
I can’t imagine that for a second.
@Philly the kid – depends on commercial wise if it is beneficial for the other clubs to come in and join City even if they know City are not playing fair. So instead of playing for the championship, they aim for growing commercially.
@Chris
It wasn’t too long ago that Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Liverpool’s owners were more than happy to play in the ESL with Manchester City. Why? MONEY!
You might recall, although maybe you’ve forgotten, but both Bayern and PSG were two clubs that didn’t opt to join the ESL.
The fact that billions of pounds are in professional football yet we have many clubs running at a deficit shows the lack of control by the football authorities & the complete incompetence of those running football clubs, many of whom are multi millionaires who did not become millionaires by running their businesses the same as they run their clubs.
Football in the UK needs a root & branch restructuring and the opportunity arises by the business ethics of the Middle East being brought into the PL by the purchase of City. Wether the FA will take this opportunity handed to them by the Arab’s actions is very debatable.
Given that manky115 and the PGMO both have the ame paymasters and they both want limitless funds to continue , but this time they want the FA premier league clubs to say oh great lets join this wonderful scheme . At what point are we to just give up and play their game by their rules ?