Systematic fraud – there is a threat of forced relegation: is YB opponent Manchester City now on the hook?

class=”sc-29f61514-0 dXbCZE”>

YB opponents Manchester City rush from success to success. Seven championship titles in the past twelve years. Three cup wins. And finally Olympus in 2022: the first Champions League victory in the club’s 143-year history!

Is everything fraudulent and a lie? When it comes to the Premier League, the answer is a resounding yes! UEFA had also made it clear that all was not well at the Citizens since the club was sold by former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for around R200 million in 2008 to City, which was founded specifically for the takeover by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Already. Nahyan Football Group was sold. The majority of this group is owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group through the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Limited. Mansour is a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and vice president of the United Arab Emirates. The Nahyan family has been on the list of the richest in the world since 2022, when they displaced the Waltons (Walmart) from the top spot. Assets: $300 billion.

So much for a better understanding of dimensions.

The city spends much more than it officially earns

Regardless of this obscene amount, the sheikhs have no desire to adhere to the rules that apply in Europe, especially UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules. It stipulated that the relevant expenditure for clubs, measured over a period of three seasons, could not massively exceed the relevant income. The regulations will be replaced in 2022 by the new Financial Sustainability regulations. But the most important principle remains the same: you cannot spend significantly more than you earn.

In 2020, UEFA concluded that City had not adhered to the rules in force at the time. In concrete terms: that the English champions valued sponsorship income excessively between 2012 and 2016 and therefore deliberately misled them. The violations are ‘serious’. The punishment: two years’ exclusion from all European competitions. The club quickly went to CAS, the European sports venue in Lausanne, which overturned the verdict. On the grounds that the evidence was insufficient and that some crimes were time-barred. The indignation of Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp (“That was not a good football day”) against José Mourinho (“That is a scandalous decision”) was enormous!

115 charges!

Three years have passed since then – City have gone from strength to strength – and research is still ongoing. By the English Premier League, which has set up an independent investigative committee, which has been “in charge” for four years (!). To determine if the master had broken their own financial rules. Since the answer was the aforementioned big yes, charges were filed in February 2023. There have been 115 charges between 2009 and 2018. 115! This number seems almost as obscene as the wealth of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.

The misconduct would almost always have been the same: a large part of the sponsorship income would consist of hidden equity financing. Sponsorship money is vital to have a chance of keeping income at the level of (terrible) expenditure. This concerns, for example, donations from Etisalat, the Saudi state telecommunications company, which actually come from the Abu Dhabi United Group. Another example: the sponsorship contributions of the state airline Etihad amounted to 35 million in the books. In fact, Etihad only paid 8. The difference came from the Abu Dhabi Group itself…

In total, City have spent around R2 billion on transfers since the takeover.

It’s about “fraud and dishonesty”, nothing else

Everyone in England agrees that the accusations are perfectly substantiated and airtight. “They are so massive that there can hardly be any other verdict than forced relegation,” says, for example, “The Sun” star reporter Charlie Wyett. And it is not about financial fair play, but about “fraud and dishonesty”, nothing else, wrote the “Independent”.

This time there is no way out for City via a sports field. Because the Premier League does not provide for an appeal outside the league. The only option is to appeal to the subdistrict court judge. Secondly, the accused club cannot appoint two of the three judges itself, as is the case with CAS. And third, the league does not provide for a statute of limitations.

Everyone agrees: Manchester City will either receive a huge points deduction or be forced to be relegated immediately because the club has cheated on its license! According to Sky Sports, all other English top clubs expect this punishment.

Because City have been systematically cheating since the sheikhs took over! The ruling could come next year.

Pep leaves when they lied to him

And what does coach Pep Guardiola say, the shining light in all the darkness? “I am completely convinced that we are innocent,” the Spaniard said. However, he told those responsible: “If you lie to me, I’m gone.” City could probably start looking for a new coach sometime in 2024…

Source : Blick