debating City, der Spiegel, and FFP

Just on the debt thing, the issue with us pre takeover was it was unmanageable debt. It would be very difficult to bring debt into a regulation as it’s so hard to assess whether it’s manageable or not (particularly with a business like a football club where revenue is linked to performance on the pitch and so fluctuates).

That doesn’t detract from ffp clearly not being about protection though, as it can’t be when it only looks at profit and loss.

comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 12 minutes ago
Just watched it. It was an interesting debate to listen to and I imagine a lot of people that don’t know some of the details will find it very insightful. I’m not sure they were really answering each other’s questions though as they were coming from a different motive to begin with. I thought Norcroft could have called that out a few times too, but came across a bit like he was very wary that he might offend if he did.

There are two elements to it. One is the legs the Der Spiegel articles have grown and the misinterpretation of it that’s out there, but there are fundamental ethical questions that it raises to that don’t sit particularly comfortably. The problem is the public debate is about the former, whereas the real debate should be about the latter.
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Fully agree with the first point about motives, but it was so refreshing to not see the debate descend down the proverbial rabbit hole as it does on forums such as ja606. In a way, it does bring a balance to the arguments: why do City fans think there's a media agenda? v I thought UEFA has already settled this, why bring it up again?

On your second point. The media aren't going to bite the hand off a potential source of stories and future clicks. It was other clubs and agents prior to City, it will be other clubs and backhanded activities in the future. As long as we continue to consume gossip and hot stories of the day, the media's primary aim is not to inform, but to monetise (I'm not saying that all are like that though).

In the digital age, it's important to get the news out there as soon as possible. To be the first. To hell with fact checking!

Yes, agree on your second point and I get it in the media. The knock on issue though is that fans get (rightly) defensive about the wider point and so also miss debating the underlying issue.

If you take the first question as an example, I've said about the change in FFP regarding offsetting contracted wages a few times and had UEFA not done that, we would have passed. With these allegations though, that's really irrelevent as we'd have only done it by a couple of million, which then brings some of the allegations back into the picture.

It doesn't mean anything in terms of UEFA and their (in)ability to investigate it. It does in terms of how we were going about it though.

Why bring this up? It's not like any of you will think it's anything other than BS or a ploy to ruin your club will you?

I think an independent body needs to be brought in to investigate these claims against likes of City n PSG. Not even Uefa n FIFA can be trusted. They have proven they are on the take too many times.

Surely you'd welcome this investigation to try and clear your name.

Sorry Eric, you’ve lost me. What investigation?

On your first point, that’s the direct opposite of what I am saying in this very thread so I’m not sure how you get to that conclusion?

comment by Eric_the_king (SE85) (U21241)
posted 56 minutes ago
Why bring this up? It's not like any of you will think it's anything other than BS or a ploy to ruin your club will you?

I think an independent body needs to be brought in to investigate these claims against likes of City n PSG. Not even Uefa n FIFA can be trusted. They have proven they are on the take too many times.

Surely you'd welcome this investigation to try and clear your name.
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I think you need to take a breather and actually comprehend and digest what we are saying.

Good luck with that one.

What investigation? The one on the BBC right now Melts.

Exactly my point!!

Just, wow.