Wouldn’t suprise me if some of the transfer prices reported are also low compared to what was actually paid via alternate means
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My eyebrows were raised when David Luiz was sold to PSG for 50m then bought back for 30 by Chelsea.
Also Neymar’s Barca contract was paid out by a 3rd party so he could join PSG.
They’ve actually been doing it quite openly and getting away with it.
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Yup. All these clubs are not just individually guilty but have also colluded with each other.
A fine as punishment for those clubs is like giving a kid that has been wagging school a suspension.
Just introduce a fucking salary cap and abolish agent fees or something.
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This really put things into perspective really. 5bn for a vanity project? It’s shameless really, if I were a City fan, all this would leave a bitter taste
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The press so far here have run away from this story. All the ex players on twitter basically the same and football fans in general dont want to face up to it.
We can all hide and blame faceless men in company suits. We can all use throw away lines and say thats the way it is now.
For me now though thats a cop out by us the fans, and just an excuse to carry on watching and questioning nothing.
I accept where pretty powerless but surely our outlook to City here should change. Fuck the fact they play good football. Fuck the fact they stop United or Chelsea winning a few more titles. In fact they stop most teams including Arsenal reach our own targets by manipulation.
They should be given a poor reception at every ground and ridiculed on a regular basis now after this revelation imo.
The ostrich syndrome now just wont wash with me anymore. The club is rotten to the core and that reflects badly on the English Premier league.
Wenger for all his faults was the only man I can recall speaking out about their naming rights on the stadium being wrong. Silence will be shameful if nothing is done this time.
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hear hear
Hah. Wenger is contracted as a pundit by the same people that sponsor City. If he had any principles against them he wouldn’t get paid by them.
Dont turn this into a Wenger debate lads. Its bigger and more important than that.
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I don’t think it is necessarily cheating, we have a football landscape right now that is hugely unfair either way, it’s just this particular unfairness is a bit more painful because it directly screws us over.
City are no more getting in the way of Arsenal as Arsenal are getting in the way of Everton. Do Arsenal deserve to be above Everton forever, because Arsenal were managed better in the 90s and 00s? Do United deserve to be above everyone else forever, because they had the best marketing department?
Wealth doesn’t come as linearly as play well, win stuff, get money. For a club to be successful is about marketing, social media, getting a good price when buying or selling a player. We can say these are just things that good old fashioned football clubs like Arsenal do, but at the end of the day it’s still just “men in suits” trying to maximize revenue.
Either we make fundamental changes to rebalance football with stuff like wage caps and give every club a fair chance, or we leave it as the richest club wins, but doing that means clubs are always going to try and be the richest club and the richest club is always going to spend all their money and end up inflating prices.
I’d rather wage caps as at least then clubs who manage things really smartly would win over just outright sugar daddy type set ups. Although it will never happen unless it’s across the board all over Europe, but no point discussing it really as it will never come into fruition.
Ummm Yes.
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Agree with most of your overview on this. Id have to say though I think the leaks on City go beyond a bit of clever accounting. I think theres enough revelations in their for a full investigation by Uefa and the Premier League.
A side issue here is how do we now see Pep. Brilliant coach who stands for all the best things about football on the pitch. For me his integrity has been checked having seen the paymasters he serves.
Carnt really judge pep he’s paid to make sure the players performed sure he didn’t go into the interview an asked to see the clubs accounts to make sure everything above aboard.
Well he knows now of these allegations.
Because a wage cap would never work. For the same reason as FFP.
If you have enough money you can find a way to circumnavigate the rules.
Yeah sadly I agree, clubs would find the way around the system with brown paper bag payments.
Hopefully city are canned from the 19/20 CL ( virtually no chance I know) and then 5th place in the PL would get qualification 
.
That would be the only thing that would be a punishment. A fine or transfer embargo would be pointless.
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