The 2022-2023 Football Thread

[fanboy-ish]

To my mind, (if found guilty) they should suffer a maassive points reduction, and severe financial penalties (such as a prohibition of operating in the transfer market for a year or two, and and serious - stratospheric - fines).

However, firstly, I don't think that they will be stripped of their title, - I'm not keen on retroactive penalties - and nowhere have I suggested that this course of action should be entertained, or taken.

Points reduction in the next season would be acceptable in my view, it would be a way to level the playing field - considering they already have a phenomenal team - , I have no idea how many points of course (30-ish?), and no new signings for two years.

I agree that fines need to be outrageous, that's the only way to hit them, they're way too wealthy for a normal fine.

That is, if those in power want to hit them that hard, my guess is that Manchester City is making a lot of money to TV networks, UEFA and the Premier League itself.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Let me be the devil’s advocate for a minute here: should the fans and players be punished for their executives’ wrongdoings? (Or their fans’ actions, for that matter)

Any meaningful punishment will hurt everyone- the fans, the players, the staff, the ownership, the league. It will cost everyone money.

Which is why the league is extremely reluctant to impose meaningful punishments. Profit is far more valuable to them than integrity.

 

[daneoni]

Fans should shoulder the punishment too. Not a fan of this lack of accountability from fans. Cant eat your cake and have it.

They're currently revelling in their club's overwhelming success and bantering every other club supporter.

So if the hammer comes down, they should also bear it.

IF that is. I still think they'll get off scot free. As Blackadder says, profit>integrity.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Fans should shoulder the punishment too. Not a fan of this lack of accountability from fans. Cant eat your cake and have it.

They're currently revelling in their club's overwhelming success and bantering every other club supporter.

So if the hammer comes down, they should also bear it.

IF that is. I still think they'll get off scot free. As Blackadder says, profit>integrity.

Agree completely.

 

[laptech]

Reading the response to my post and the fact no one is advocating for title removal(s) just points reductions, transfer bans and fine, do you think Juventus being stripped of their titles by the Italian FA due to corruption was justified or heavy handed? Is it a case the punishment must fit the crime and thus the charges laid against City are not at the level that would warrant their titles being removed?.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Reading the response to my post and the fact no one is advocating for title removal(s) just points reductions, transfer bans and fine, do you think Juventus being stripped of their titles by the Italian FA due to corruption was justified or heavy handed? Is it a case the punishment must fit the crime and thus the charges laid against City are not at the level that would warrant their titles being removed?.

I think the problem with titles being stripped is it’s meaningless. Taking the title away from City this year means what? Arsenal won it, no one won it? What about 5th place? Does that become 4th (with CL qualification)?
It just becomes madness.
Better to impose point deduction and transfer bans (including loans).
Even that would take a few years to hurt them.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Reading the response to my post and the fact no one is advocating for title removal(s) just points reductions, transfer bans and fine, do you think Juventus being stripped of their titles by the Italian FA due to corruption was justified or heavy handed? Is it a case the punishment must fit the crime and thus the charges laid against City are not at the level that would warrant their titles being removed?.

Juventus are serial cheaters. I say this, not as a snide opinion, but as legally established fact. They deserve everything they get and more.

Points deductions, transfer bans, and retrospective stripping of silverware are pretty much the ONLY punishments that will put a stop to the big issues in the game, to wit: shady ownership, financial doping, crowd racism/hooliganism, match fixing, tax evasion, and sporting corruption.

Fines are a terrible alternative to those punishments. At lower levels of the sport, they threaten the very existence of clubs (some of which date back to the 19th century) as punishment for the current ownership's misdeeds. At the upper level, fines are just seen as part of the cost of winning. Man City can pay virtually any fine - just think for a moment...you are trying to punish them for pouring money into the game by...making them pay you? That plays directly into their hands. They see all 'rules' as something that can be bribed away. The only punishment that will stick is to take away from them the stuff they are trying to buy - players and silverware.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Juventus are serial cheaters. I say this, not as a snide opinion, but as legally established fact. They deserve everything they get and more.

Points deductions, transfer bans, and retrospective stripping of silverware are pretty much the ONLY punishments that will put a stop to the big issues in the game, to wit: shady ownership, financial doping, crowd racism/hooliganism, match fixing, tax evasion, and sporting corruption.

Fines are a terrible alternative to those punishments. At lower levels of the sport, they threaten the very existence of clubs (some of which date back to the 19th century) as punishment for the current ownership's misdeeds. At the upper level, fines are just seen as part of the cost of winning. Man City can pay virtually any fine - just think for a moment...you are trying to punish them for pouring money into the game by...making them pay you? That plays directly into their hands. They see all 'rules' as something that can be bribed away. The only punishment that will stick is to take away from them the stuff they are trying to buy - players and silverware.

Couldn’t agree more.

 

[daneoni]

I’d like City to feel the FULL brunt of sanctions. But I’m also not naive enough to think the EPL or UEFA will desecrate their cash cow.

So it will be a slap on the wrist at best and City will largely come out unscathed

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I think the problem with titles being stripped is it’s meaningless. Taking the title away from City this year means what? Arsenal won it, no one won it? What about 5th place? Does that become 4th (with CL qualification)?
It just becomes madness.
Better to impose point deduction and transfer bans (including loans).
Even that would take a few years to hurt them.

Well said, and I agree completely with you.

Juventus are serial cheaters. I say this, not as a snide opinion, but as legally established fact. They deserve everything they get and more.

Points deductions, transfer bans, and retrospective stripping of silverware are pretty much the ONLY punishments that will put a stop to the big issues in the game, to wit: shady ownership, financial doping, crowd racism/hooliganism, match fixing, tax evasion, and sporting corruption.

Fines are a terrible alternative to those punishments. At lower levels of the sport, they threaten the very existence of clubs (some of which date back to the 19th century) as punishment for the current ownership's misdeeds. At the upper level, fines are just seen as part of the cost of winning. Man City can pay virtually any fine - just think for a moment...you are trying to punish them for pouring money into the game by...making them pay you? That plays directly into their hands. They see all 'rules' as something that can be bribed away. The only punishment that will stick is to take away from them the stuff they are trying to buy - players and silverware.

An excellent and closely argued post.

Couldn't agree more, as @Apple fanboy has already said.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

So it will be a slap on the wrist at best and City will largely come out unscathed

The awful and cowardly concept of 'too big to fail' comes to mind here...FIFA/UEFA/FA suits clearly think that punishing Man City will hurt them more than (or at least as much as) it will hurt Man City, and to an extent they have a point. Man City have the resources of an entire nation behind them and, if cornered, they can take a lot of people down with them. Especially if the people going after them have some skeletons in their own closets....and you can be sure Man City's owners have dossiers on all that.

If we want to see financial doping and corruption rooted out it will have to be through empowering some independent body to enforce the rules - composed of a group of more or less honest people not implicated in current football business and largely beyond the power of even state actors to threaten or corrupt. Not an easy task, to be sure. Which is why it hasn't happened yet.

 

[fanboy-ish]

Reading the response to my post and the fact no one is advocating for title removal(s) just points reductions, transfer bans and fine, do you think Juventus being stripped of their titles by the Italian FA due to corruption was justified or heavy handed? Is it a case the punishment must fit the crime and thus the charges laid against City are not at the level that would warrant their titles being removed?.

They couldn't pinpoint even one single match that was fixed, years later, wiretaps of inter executives calling the referees and asking for favors, saying the same things Moggi was saying, were discovered, too bad that those wiretaps were discovered once the violation was already statute barred. How convenient. Moggi and his lawyers had brought those wiretaps to the federal court years before, but were ignored. Years later we discovered that everyone was calling everyone else asking for favors, but only two clubs (Juventus and Milan) were punished.

Now Juventus is being punished because of capital gains on inflated players' values, something clubs in Italy have been doing for years, if not decades, in order to keep their balances in check, yet only Juventus is being punished for that. Juventus is also being punished because they made secret agreements with some players to postpone payments to some players, yet we had clubs in Italy that didn't pay players' wages for months because they didn't have the money. Again, only Juventus is being punished.

In the late 90s, early 2000s, Juventus was investigated for alleged usage of performance enhancing drugs, however, while they did use some medicines, those medicines were allowed at that time, years later Italian TV even showed a video of Cannavaro, while he was with Parma, receiving medicines via an IV. Even back then, only Juventus was put on trial.

Smaller clubs do get regularly punished, though, to the point that several smaller clubs were brought on the brink of extinction by some verdicts.

Was Juventus' executives' behavior unethical at some points during history? Yes, definitely true. Was that same behavior widespread and common to almost every other professional club? Yes, definitely true as well.

I really don't know how things work in England, but in Italy sport courts, particularly football, don't have exactly a record of being fair and cool-headed, they seem unable to thoroughly investigate things, that's because they let themselves be influenced by the fans' emotions, and people in power shouldn't be ruled by emotions.

What I can say is that, over the last 40 years, European courts don't seem to be very good at investigations and verdicts when it comes to football matters. When there are problems they want to get rid of those problems as soon as possible, even if that means half-baked trials and unfair sentences. They're in a hurry because, sometimes, thorough investigations and trials would call for the stoppage of the championships, and nobody can afford that, neither from a financial perspective, nor from a popular one.

 

[fanboy-ish]

If we want to see financial doping and corruption rooted out it will have to be through empowering some independent body to enforce the rules - composed of a group of more or less honest people not implicated in current football business and largely beyond the power of even state actors to threaten or corrupt. Not an easy task, to be sure. Which is why it hasn't happened yet.

Or you put a stop to this madness and enforce a hard salary cap, along with a ban on transfers, except for swaps and signing players once their contracts are over.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Or you put a stop to this madness and enforce a hard salary cap, along with a ban on transfers, except for swaps and signing players once their contracts are over.

FFP failed because football governance is weak and corrupt at almost every level. No ideas about sustainability, whatever their merit, can be implemented as long as that remains the case.

The issue is not what model we need to adopt, the issue is that the people running the game are being paid/bribed/intimidated to maintain the crooked free-for-all status quo. We need to clean house before we can improve it.

 

[Corefile]

Juventus are serial cheaters. I say this, not as a snide opinion, but as legally established fact. They deserve everything they get and more.

It's been like that since 1973.

 

[fanboy-ish]

FFP failed because football governance is weak and corrupt at almost every level. No ideas about sustainability, whatever their merit, can be implemented as long as that remains the case.

The issue is not what model we need to adopt, the issue is that the people running the game are being paid/bribed/intimidated to maintain the crooked free-for-all status quo. We need to clean house before we can improve it.

Then, I think the system needs to implode first, and I'm not even sure that will be enough, just look at Barça, even though they're in a dire financial situation, they kept spending money like there's no tomorrow.

 

[fanboy-ish]

Going back to the game, this year's Serie A season has just ended.

Congratulations to Napoli, they were splendid, well deserved.

Now my hopes go to tomorrow morning, while I'll be sipping my tea I would love to read that Massimiliano Allegri is unemployed.

 

[daneoni]

Who's gonna take the Juve job especially with the club in its current state

Juve and Allegri are probably stuck together until the dust settles

Speaking of Serie A, Zlatan retires from football aged 41

 

[Apple fanboy]

Who's gonna take the Juve job especially with the club in its current state

Juve and Allegri are probably stuck together until the dust settles

Speaking of Serie A, Zlatan retires from football aged 41

Big Sam. Apparently he is as good as Pep, Klopp and Mourino

(According to himself!).

 

[laptech]

Now that the season is over in many countries, let the merry-go-round and spectacle of transfers begin

oh and the spectacle of the football media has already begun with the media saying that Man United will be signing Harry Kane, Mason Mount, Neymar, Kim (Napoli), Declan Rice, Costa (goalkeeper), Pavard, Sofyan Amrabat, Jurrien Timber, Rasmus Hojlund, Dusan Vlahovic

and that's just for starters lol

 

[fanboy-ish]

Who's gonna take the Juve job especially with the club in its current state

Juve and Allegri are probably stuck together until the dust settles

Speaking of Serie A, Zlatan retires from football aged 41

Juventus needs a complete overhaul.

Around ten days ago Juventus' head of the sport division said that Juventus doesn't need to sell players, so he's either lying or this means that the owners are willing to inject money (again) into the club and, technically, our owners could afford to burn money for the team, but I really can't see them doing that. Maybe we don't need to sell, but we'll have to see how many players are willing to stay without the Champions League, I think Vlahovic will go to Bayern, I hope we can keep Chiesa, Rabiot he's a goner for sure, Di Maria too, we may also sell Szczesny, make Mattia Perin the starting GK (and he's very capable) and buy a young GK, Carnesecchi, he's promising, Buffon even vouched for him.

Yesterday Allegri said some truths, he said that this season was psychologically tough because we never knew what we were competing for and, without the points reduction, we would have qualified for the Champions League; true, but what is also true is that the team has been playing poorly, both technically and athletically, since he came back.

What we need, in my opinion, is a director that knows football, there have been rumors for weeks that Juventus will hire Napoli's Cristiano Giuntoli, he's proven he can scout younger and lesser known good players, so that would be a good start, but I don't think Napoli will let him go that easily, especially to Juventus.

Our under 23 team has produced some promising players, Samuel Iling-Junior, Mathias Sulé, Niccolò Fagioli, Miretti, Rovella, but they need to play consistently, the Italian under 20 National team is doing very well, maybe there's someone interesting there.

Unfortunately we have some players with enormous wages, like Alex Sandro, that have been playing poorly for years now. Then there's Pogba and if, and that's a big if, he's healthy he can bring something important, the few times he played this year the team was improved, play was definitely faster and more fluid.

We do need a coach, though. We need someone who can teach football, someone who's not established yet, someone that can work with younger players and, maybe, rejuvenate older players that look on a downward spiral, someone like De Zerbi, but I don't think he's leaving the Premier League, someone like Fiorentina's Italiano is doing a very good job; according to some journalists Juventus may hire Igor Tudor, he resigned from Olympique de Marseille, he was Andrea Pirlo's assistant coach, but Pirlo had CR7, and Cristiano masked many of the team's problems on his own.

I'm afraid we'll be stuck with Allegri, he earns 9 million € per year, and that's net, and he still has 2 years left on his contract, if the owners can negotiate with him a lower severance pay he may leave, because if we sack him, we'll have to pay two managers.

 

[pachyderm]

I may have posted this all ready.. oops if I did!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I’d like CIty to feel the FULL brunt of sanctions. But I’m also not naive enough to think the EPL or UEFA will desecrate their cash cow.

So it will be a slap on the wrist at best and City will largely come out unscathed

There are too many charges for City to emerge with a mere tap on the wrist.

If found guilty, the penalties will have to be seen to be severe.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Speaking of Serie A, Zlatan retires from football aged 41

Zlatan was a genuinely great player.

 

[laptech]

There are too many charges for City to emerge with a mere tap on the wrist.

If found guilty, the penalties will have to be seen to be severe.

If City is found guilty of many of the charges laid against it and are not docked points but given a fine and transfer embargo instead, I think the following clubs will have have something to say about it (all were given points deduction):

2022/23 Wigan - 3 points for late payment of player wages
2022/23 Reading - 6 points again for late payment of player wages
2021/22 Reading - 6 points due to breach's of FFP
2021/22 Derby - 9 points due to breach's of FFP
2020/21 Sheffield Wednesday - 6 points due to breach's of FFP
2019/20 Macclesfield Town - 17 points due to various rules breach's
2018/19 Birmingham City - 9 points due to breach's of FFP

but to name a few. Source: https://www.footballsite.co.uk/DYK/DYK29-PointsDeductions.htm

The above falls within the time frame that the Premier league have labeled charges against City so if City walks away with anything less than what the above suffered then I think those club's would be making protests towards their respective league and the FA.