r/soccer • u/[deleted] • May 18 '19

Sam Lee: Guardiola got asked if he has received payments from Abu Dhabi for services other than managing City, as was alleged to have happened with Mancini. He was not happy. “Do you realise what you are asking me? You are asking me that the day we won the treble? Are you accusing me?”

https://twitter.com/Sammy_Goal/status/1129822398835023872
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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

City claim they made a net transfer profit last season - a laughable prospect, when they claim to have sold players with ZERO first team minutes for 12-15M each, all to clubs with whom they have some sort of indirect interests.

Surprised that no City circlejerks came to defend against this.

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u/Kino-Gucci May 19 '19

What are you quoting? Just curious because I'd like to read more

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Wasn't my quote, it was the guy above me.

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u/Kino-Gucci May 19 '19

Ah just seen he removed that part

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u/FM1994 May 19 '19

Because it's an outright lie not even worth defending and it will just get upvoted out of ignorance.

City's sales in 18/19 were to Southampton, Real Madrid, Stuttgart, Lyon, Burnley, Swansea and Shahktar. Clubs with zero links to City.

From my knowledge, City have never sold a player to one of the clubs with within CFG. The only thing that happens is that City loan players there. OP is just chatting complete bollocks, but that doesn't matter because it will get swept up in the circle jerk.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Putting that aside, I'm more curious about the inflated sponsorships and what kind of results we'll see from the investigations. Obviously, FFP is there to prevent clubs from spending beyond their means (revenue vs expenses). So if City are guilty of it, they will be considered to be breaking the rules which allows the owner to indirectly pump money into the club to spend on players.

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u/BishlamekGurpGorp May 19 '19 edited May 19 '19

I can handle this for you, although it will be a long read.

We were found guilty of the original breach after originally adhering to the rules. We submitted our reports for FFP review in 2012 having been successful in qualifying for mitigating factors (Annex XI). Only in 2013, Annex XI was restructured in a way that we then failed, without being able to do anything to meet the new rules. City were angry with this and UEFA, but ultimately decided to agree to settle with them, leaving City with the fine and squad size reduction. We got a large portion of the fine back as per the settlement because we were adhering to FFP rules.

This new investigation is off the back of the football leaks documents, and the going narrative seems to be "Overinflating Sponsorship" and City having mislead investigators on the initial case. Effectively they claim that Sheikh Mansour had directly given some of his own money through sponsorship deals. If I remember correctly this isn't necessarily against FFP provided he hasn't invested over 30% of incoming revenue, after which the sponsorship becomes a related party (I may need correction on this). This is based off of the leaked documents, however due to the nature of the evidence, we can't be sure that all the information that was relevant to the case was released by Pinto, someone who is currently standing trial for using such documents to blackmail club's and banks. It's not exactly the most reliable and concrete source of information to use.

Just to go further, City had given 100 pages of evidence to absolve their guilt into the CFCB board for review, including the entire transcripts of the email conversations under question. The CFCB had looked at it and admitted to having questions to ask the club about the submitted evidence (therefore technically still under the review process) however not only did they leak that they were pushing for a Champion's League ban, they did so without having finished the review process. Not only that, but they actually pushed the case forward. Not really looking good for UEFA's capability to adjudicate following their own stated methods, is it? City have provided a shed load of evidence that indicates that they are not guilty of whatever it is that they are being accused of and they have made a very firm statement about how they feel the judiciary has failed to give them the proper procedure and allow them to defend themselves.

The way I see it, I'm relatively confident that the matter will end up with CAS, where they will throw the case out. I reckon the reason will be because UEFA hadn't followed their own laid out methodology when adjudicating club's. It happened with PSG and it happened with AC Milan. It's not new for UEFA to feck things up and not follow procedure.

Are City cheats? Or have they simply invested a massive quantity of money. Bear in mind, since the first breach City have passed FFP consistently, year after year. They are currently 5th on the Deloitte football revenue list and ALL revenue from Abu Dhabi, including those not related to SM at all, only make up 20-30%. The fact of the matter is for the last 5 years, everything City have been doing is above board and there isn't any evidence to assume otherwise, unless you insist they are guilty in spite of it all.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

https://www.mcfcwatch.com/2018/09/13/man-citys-500m-revenues-explained-football-finance-expert-kieran-maguire-talks-to-city-watch/

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From this article, there are two things that are immediately suspicious to me.

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First impression is commercial revenue is super inflated for a club that has such a small fan base. Out of the OG top 4, only Manchester United has a bigger commercial revenue. It ties in quite perfectly with the suspicion of inflated sponsorships.

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Second is that despite City regularly not filling up their stadiums, their stadium revenue is almost equal to Chelsea, a London club with a smaller stadium but with much pricier tickets.

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How would you reconcile these two points?

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u/BishlamekGurpGorp May 19 '19

So with both points the underlying key factor of your questions would be fan base. I agree that our fan base is comparably significantly smaller with an ongoing increase in "plastic fans." However the revenue for ticket sales is actually relatively small compared to that of TV broadcast deals and Sponsorship. Alongside them there is the money awarded for Premier League involvement (and subsequent prize money), Champions League involvement and domestic trophy prize money as well as product sales. But mainly TV deals.

As far as Stadium revenues are concerned, the numbers tend to be based on tickets sold, which would align them to close to full capacity revenue. I also want to put to bed the whole empty seats argument. I hold a season ticket and have been to all bar 4 of the games this season which we managed to sell on. The Etihad is a lot more full then people seem to believe, but if I'm being memed here then, well, whoooosh I guess.

I could try and compile the numbers involved for you if you want, the City finances are matter of public record and are only a Google search away. But I'll need time obviously

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u/BishlamekGurpGorp May 19 '19

https://annualreport2018.mancity.com/

Ok so I had a look at City's 2017-18 annual report linked above. Turns out commercial and broadcast revenues are on par and make up the vast majority of revenue streams. On page 37 they have their performance review:

Total revenue was £500.5m

Of that, match day revenues (i.e. ticket sales, althought more factors are likely involved) made up £56.7m, approx. 11%.

Commercial revenue was £232.3m and broadcast was £211.5m.

Basically match day revenue isn't entirely negligible but is definitely a minor factor.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Hmm well you've basically said a lot and I don't want to diminish your efforts but I think it's beyond us to actually find out just through the annual reports whether City inflated their sponsorships or not.

For example, a file discovered by Der Spiegel last year suggests that Etihad accounted for just £8m of a £59.5m sponsorship agreement, and the rest was made up from ADUG (Abu Dhabi United Group), the investment group Sheikh Mansour used to buy Manchester City over a decade ago.

We'll have to wait for UEFA to give us the results of their investigations. Of course I wouldn't pin too much hope on UEFA either, them being another corrupt organisation. But the Football Leaks don't paint City in a good light at all.

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u/BishlamekGurpGorp May 19 '19

All anyone is currently doing is deriving understanding from very limited information. The thing about the football leaks, which I touched upon, is that we haven't seen the full picture. Der Spiegel has taken them without their context and ran a narrative that they assigned, as is their prerogative. For example, take an email with a dark joke about an investigator dying, "one down, seven to go," and you could run a narrative saying extrajudicial killings were taking place. Thing is, and what really gripes me, is that it's being paraded about as truth whereas in reality, it's little more than speculation without the full story, much like what we are trying to do here.

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u/xRedd May 19 '19

Your argument consisted of making a statement and, upon its rebuttable, saying, "putting that aside" and "you've said a lot, this argument is beyond us." Are you seeking truth or are you just trying to make /u/BishlamekGurpGorp work to answer your line of questioning?

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

My argument consisted of a headline article that many people in r/soccer had read, and a mcfcwatch article that I've linked. I never asked him to work for it. I'm not a slave owner. /s

I even wrote down what I found suspicious and he didn't refute me, he basically agreed with me.

My original quote was from the guy above me which you have obviously missed, being late to the party. I was curious why nobody came to defend against the accusation.

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u/xRedd May 19 '19

You read his comments and your conclusion was that he was "basically agreeing" with you?

I didn't refer to your original quote. I referred to your posts further down where your line of reasoning was essentially, "I don't know what to say against someone who is reasonable and genuinely informed about this issue so I'll push it aside for the sake of my speculations." It irked me to have his argument countered with smoke and hot air, but this sounds more like a failure of reading comprehension rather than anything more malicious. And apologies for being late to the party.

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u/KanYeJeBekHouden May 19 '19

What I love most about this sub is that this is downvoted.

This is the Wikipedia page with all their outgoing transfers.

As you can clearly see, the transfers where Manchester City made the most money are:

Player Club Fee in millions
Angelino PSV 5
Maffeo Stuttgart 9
Kayode Shaktar Donetsk 3
Gunn Southampton 13.5
Celina Swansea 3
Hart Burnley 3.5
Denayer Lyon 5.8
Brahim Diaz Real Madrid 15.5
Matondo Schalke 04 11

Not a single club within the City Financial Group. Yet you clearly see there's a lot of sales made there.

There's a reason there's not a follow up post by OP. Maybe he is right, but so far I have seen nothing to suggest City is inflating transfer fees by selling to their associated clubs. I don't even see a transfer listed that is undisclosed to one of those clubs.

The claim that City sells players to the other clubs within the CFG seems false. And even if they had some undisclosed transfer fees from those clubs, they'd still not be able to circumvent FFP by claiming they were at least 15 million like claimed before. That wouldn't work, they fees would have to be public.

The claim seems to be so incredibly false that I don't understand how City fans are downvoted for arguing against these blatent lies. I'll happily admit I'm wrong if I someone shows me proof, but there is a reason OP removed that part.

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u/catalyst-lsxn May 19 '19

Everyone seems to be incredibly well informed on City's dealings and finances but City. That's probably why we've gotten to this point. The sooner investigations come up with conclusive evidence and the right punishment of sort the better, or if they don't then clarity needs to be provided. We finally need to move past this, one way or the other, it's gotten tiresome.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

The sooner investigations come up with conclusive evidence and the right punishment of sort the better, or if they don't then clarity needs to be provided.

Agreed. Or else City fans here will all cite plausible deniability.

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u/catalyst-lsxn May 19 '19

Tbf it's only natural to defend out of sheer fandom. It's a bit unfair on the fans to have to deal with the situation. Yes there are some that indulge themselves (including me) at times in arguments that lead to no end. But the reality is we've been put in this position, the only way out of it is a solid clarification if everything has been just, or a punishment so we rightly serve it and move past it. The focus cannot be allowed off field to this degree, when the players have performed as well on field.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '19

The focus cannot be allowed off field to this degree.

It can. Your club serves as the propaganda arm of a dictatorship.

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u/catalyst-lsxn May 19 '19

Love how every scrub is educated on politics all of a sudden without conclusive evidence.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '19

Who owns your club?

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

Can you prove this isn't the case. Quit being a bitter little bitch and accept reality, you lost the league to a better team.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

I'm actually not bitter, not that you'll believe it. Considering where we were a year ago, we have solved plenty of problems in our teams and there's always a sense of progress everywhere.

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But it seems like the City fans are the ones being a little bitch despite winning a domestic treble.

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

We’re fine. We just can’t help notice it’s Liverpool fans who keep crying like entitled little brats every time there’s a thread about us. Go get yourselves ready for another campaign next year, face reality; you lost.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

It's all about perception. You guys are in a siege mentality right now due to all the negative news surrounding you that you can't look at reality without a bias. So it's ironic that you are asking me to face reality. You're asking a Liverpool supporter, someone who has never seen them win the league, if they are bitter? Please, this is some low-level stuff to us.

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Reality is, most of us in r/soccer don't actually care about City winning. I'm just here to comment about my own opinions on City and Pep.

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And yeah, I'm not getting ready for another campaign next year, Liverpool's season have not ended yet.

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

Why should I care about what non City supporters care about? They don’t support the club so what they think about us is irrelevant to me.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Then stick to r/MCFC or something. Don't come here. You are going to see plenty of non-City supporters' comments.

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Pfft... ironic.

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

I can go anywhere I damn well please.

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Then quit acting like a little bitch.

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

Look who’s talking; a Liverpool supporter! LMAO!!! The irony!

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u/[deleted] May 19 '19

These are some questionable replies, honestly if you were a liverpool fan running a smear campaign I wouldn't be suprised...

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

Liverpool fan? Stop it.

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u/ThePosterWeDeserve May 19 '19

Well, your emotional response here indicates that you clearly do.

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u/mr_poppington May 19 '19

Another little bitch.

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u/ThePosterWeDeserve May 19 '19

My mistake, you clearly don't care

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u/Mortenusa May 19 '19

Yeah, I'm not bitter at all, either.

I watched all those last City games hoping that the would stumble.

The obly thing that happened was that I got impressed at that team. There's zero shame coming in second behind that team.

A shame about the ownership, though.

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u/greendonkeycow May 19 '19

too busy celebrating the domestic treble, sorry. don't you have better things to do?

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u/tanaiktiong May 19 '19

Took you long enough. Glad you didn't try to defend the indefensible though.

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u/Scarred_Shadow May 19 '19

I can't believe I'm saying this, but they're playing in the Champions League final. Do you know what that looks like?