A defence of Manchester City appears in the press, and it is very worrying

By Tony Attwood The Manchester Evening News has evolved a staunch defence of Manchester City in an article under the headline “Man City Football Leaks revelations are missing a key piece of information” The article is by Stuart Brennan who is best known to many of us who watch the ducking and diving of journalists …

And now another major set of football allegations. Who’d have thought it?

By Tony Attwood There is a simple point at the heart of the scandals and allegations so far and that is that Man City and PSG, according to the released documents, have broken Uefa rules and threatened to elminiate Uefa from the landscape unless Uefa is complicit in covering up the affair. And while we …

Why do some home teams commit so many more fouls than away teams?

by Andrew Crawshaw With no Men’s Club games for a couple of weeks and my back now allowing me to sit down in front of my computer again, I thought I would take a look at some of the data I have been recording and see if there was anything new that jumped out at …

Renaming Manchester City to make it sound more in keeping with its sponsors’ activities

by Tony Attwood According to Amnesty International, Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners are “brazenly trying to “sportswash” their country’s “deeply tarnished image” by pouring money into the Premier League club.” And indeed given the level of support that Manchester City has, their success in the league, and the utter reluctance or perhaps inability of any …

Which teams are benefitting most from referee decision making this season?

By Bulldog Drummond As we saw in Gordon’s super-analysis of referee actions earlier this week, Arsenal have inflicted the need for treatment on the opposition 11 times this season while Wolverhampton have inflicted the need for treatment on opposition players 5 times.  So we shouldn’t have too much worry about fouls from them resulting in …

How Infantino, now head of Fifa, fixed FFP on behalf of PSG and Man City.

By Tony Attwood At the heart of the story that has been revealed by the hacking of emails concerning Financial Fair Play, Manchester City, PSG and Uefa, is the involvement of Gianni Infantino who is now the head of Fifa. It is a story that many, I suspect, will choose not to believe.  But before …

How the media was persuaded not to follow Man City / Uefa corruption story

  By Tony Attwood There is so much pouring out from the leaked documents concerning Uefa and Manchester City it is getting hard to follow it all.   But if we thought the complexity was why a lot of the English media has stopped running the story, we were wrong. The media have been directly complicit …

Yet more Man City allegations, Etihad financial problems, La Liga puts complaint to EU

by Tony Attwood The latest round of suggestions of wrong doing by Manchester City takes us into an area that not only concerns Uefa and Financial Fair Play but also that rather tenacious leg biting dog: Revenue and Customs – the British tax collector – and a complaint from Spain to the EU.  It’s all …

FFP, Man City and Uefa. Some of the new allegations that are being reported.

By Tony Attwood This article continues from my earlier piece:  Did Uefa collude with Man City in an FFP cover up across the last four years? Both articles continue from the investigation we did four years ago which resulted in a series of articles, the last of which was  Man City decides to take on Uefa; the …

Did Uefa collude with Man City in an FFP cover up across the last four years?

  by Tony Attwood Now here is a turn up.   The Untold Arsenal Editorial Board (also known as that bunch in the corner of the Toppled Bollard public house, on the Rutland / Northants border, along with our friends in Switzerland and other exotic places) was very much of the opinion that “Financial Fair Play” …

Arsenal to be a founding member of the proposed new European super league

By Tony Attwood According to Der Spiegel Arsenal has been invited to be a founding members of a new European Super League which will launch in 2021.  Of the other PL clubs that gained a place in European competitions this season, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City are also invited, but Tottenham Hotspur and …

You know the one about Fifa doing something bonkers? Well, try this…

By Tony Attwood Here’s the premise.   Fifa is a corrupt organisation which enables fraud and money laundering to be at the very centre of international football.  Pathetically, national organisations such as the Football Assocation bow down to Fifa, throw millions of pounds at it, and no matter how often they are humiliated continue to want …

All the things you are not allowed to say about football because, well, no one does.

by Tony Attwood It is a great tragedy within football, in my opinion, that there are so many ideas and opinions that seem to be beyond acceptable conversation in the media, and indeed for most fans. While it seems perfectly ok to say that (for example) Arsene Wenger was the cause of all Arsenal’s perceived …

3pm Saturday is exactly the wrong time to have football kick offs.

By Tony Attwood 3pm saturday kick offs are sacrosanct.  You can’t show a live football match between 3 and 5pm in the major heartlands of football.  That is England, Scotland and er… Montenegro. And why? Ah well that is where it gets tricky.   There is the suggestion that 3pm was the historic time to kick …

In football, why are individuals called to account, but not whole nations?

By Tony Attwood There are two stories floating around at the moment.   One involves the possibility that the royal family of Saudi Arabia might be thinking of buying Manchester United, the other involving a West Ham coach of their under 18 side who has attended a rally held by a right wing group. Which is …

Would you trust a bankrupt corner store with £600 million of taxpayers’ money

By Tony Attwood When it comes to England games something strange happens to the reporting.  and not just with the delicate way the media handles the FA, suggesting that they might be reasonable decent set of  people trying hard to do their job (as opposed to them being a bunch of charlatans happy to take …

Is Europe sliding back to 1930s? In football the answer looks worrying.

By Josif Broz Those who still watch the car-theft-like international tournaments may still have fresh memories of World Cup 2018 hosted by the human right’s role model, Russia. One of the biggest upsets at the competition was Germany going out after the group stage. They lost 2-0 to South Korea but only few people could …

FA kick tiny team out of Cup over £10 fine dispute, but still won’t reveal Grenfell money

By Tony Attwood On 23 June 2017, the Daily Mail ran the headline “Grenfell Tower: £1.25m Community Shield proceeds pledged” On 18 August 2017 Untold Arsenal wrote “What happened to the Grenfell Tower money collected from the Community Shield Match?”   We published that because in the two months since the announcement in the Mail, there …

The Football League is finally sharpening its teeth over the over-spenders. Maybe.

By Tony Attwood When the Premier League refused to join forces with the Football League over the issuing of fines for running up huge debts there were a few of us who noticed – and a few of the few who were disappointed.   As a result of the PL’s decision not to get involved in …

What’s coming up in the Europa League draw; all you are every likely to need to know and then some

By Tony Attwood Several newspapers are daring to venture into the “All you need to know” department for the Europa League draw, and based on what people like the Daily Beast are saying, that is precious little.  In fact the less you know about it, it seems, the better, at least as far as they …

Top football TV presenter charged with armed robbery

by Tony Attwood I suspect most people are aware of what fake news is.  And are aware of Mr Trump’s turning the phrase on its head by calling “fake news” any seriously reported news with evidence that notes his odd doings as President of the most powerful nation in the solar system. It is interesting …

How we can tell there is still something seriously wrong with Premier League refereeing.

On Monday 20 August Untold may disappear for a while.  For details please see the home page.   by Tony Attwood In March this year, the Sky Sports website opened an article on refereeing with the comment by Keith Hackett that players and pundits criticising referees in the Premier League is “a little bit like …

Critical safety systems: those rather annoying hiccups that get in the way.

By Tony Attwood From my perspective the move from Highbury to the new stadium went rather well.  It was only after we’d got there that I realised just how much impact it was having on the club in terms of its ability to compete in the transfer market.  And since we’d already had the phrase …

Why are two PL managers feeling miffed about the change in transfer window rules?

By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw It is always rather encouraging when one hears managers of other clubs moaning, whinging and whining.  Of course much of the time, the moaning is all made up to cover what is happening, but even so, there seems to be a certain level of uncertainty in one or two …

Untold’s predictions for England results and scores: five out of six right.

By Bulldog Drummond Doing predictions of scores for England international matches is not exactly what Untold is about – after all we’ve railed against the FA, its ineptitude and its catastrophic spending of taxpayers’ money for ten years.  Not to mention the campaign against Fifa which the FA continues to fund and support, exactly as …