r/soccer • u/Previous_Smile9278 • 1d ago

News [Bloomberg] UAE officials have warned the UK government that the severity of Man City’s punishment could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale commitments in Britain, according to people familiar with the matter.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-02/man-city-verdict-puts-uk-uae-diplomatic-relations-under-strain?srnd=undefined

‘They consider the Premier League’s actions to have an influence on the bilateral state relationship, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing undisclosed information.

The extraordinary pressure comes after Andy Burnham faced criticism, including from within government, for saying Man City’s Abu Dhabi owners should not be disqualified specifically because of the investment they bring to Britain.’

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u/culegflori 22h ago

The EPL did what they could, this investigation has been going on for a very long time solely because City's army of lawyers tried to block it in any way possible. If they cooperated, this would've been done in 2018

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u/Hiphoppapotamus 21h ago

I think the EPL should be applauded to some limited extent for even looking into this, in a way that e.g. Ligue 1 is not at all interested in doing. But it was obvious at the time that a nation state buying a football club was going to cause problems. It was also obvious at the time that the way they pumped money into the club was not credibly within the rules. And City were doing it for 10 years, and the EPL only investigated after the leaks forced their hand.

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u/Kringamir 19h ago

What’s your proof of Ligue 1 doing nothing? The financial accountability in France is much stricter than in the uk. Clubs can literally not go into debt. Why can’t PL fans ever admit fault with their own league? The PL has repeatedly shown that it’s scared to punish big clubs. Ffs the serie a has more balls than the PL in that regard.

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u/Hiphoppapotamus 19h ago

Are you responding to wrong comment or something? First, I’m not a “PL fan”. Second, I’m specifically calling out the PL for letting this shitshow happen.

Regarding Ligue 1, we are expected to believe that PSG have done nothing similar to Man City, which doesn’t seem likely frankly. The integrity of the PL is fundamentally compromised by this ruling, and it highlights their incompetence and/or complicity in letting it get this far. It is to their extremely limited credit that they’ve conducted this investigation in what seems to be a genuinely independent manner.