Man City win their Uefa appeal

Sort of thing I need to defer to Paul the Esk to get his take on. But I cannot abide Twitter, so if anyone sees anything, please post!

"Uefa notes that the CAS panel found that there was insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold all of the CFCB's conclusions in this specific case and that many of the alleged breaches were time-barred due to the 5-year time period foreseen in the Uefa regulations."

So, they lost on points, to a 'technicality', then? That would suggest FFP remains intact, especially as part of the fine remains in place, confirming they did some naughty things that merited a slap on the wrist.

City collapsing would leave the field open for another era of monkey island domination a thought more blood curdling than runaway covid

Given the large amount of time it takes to collect the evidence about something that happened years ago and present a case, then presumably a lot of time is allowed for the defence to organise their rebuttal, a rule like FFP is dead, and furthermore there is now precedent to follow.

Unless they can change the rules, much of FFP as a criminal offence in this form must be dead.

Seeing Man City dismantled and Liverpool to be unopposed over the next few years, or more, would be unbearable. Plus we'd only embarrass ourselves in Europe again.

I'll break it down into simplest terms: the established elite clubs, such as United and LFC, rose to preeminence in European football just as TV was exposing more people around the world to the beautiful game. That meant those clubs were "first to market" in building fanbases beyond their own backyards, so that when Sky TV money came along, they were well poised to exploit their global fanbases via the sale of mechandise, growing their brand at a rate the likes of City, Chelsea and ourselves could only dream of.

The ONLY way we could ever hope to make up that ground is through a means of bridging the fanbase gap, i.e., through the help of a generous benefactor. The whole purpose of FFP is to shut down or greatly limit that possibility, with the unambiguous but well obfuscated aim of maintaining the status quo in European football, with Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Juve, United, LFC, et al dividing the spoils between them and keeping newcomers like City - or Everton - from winning the European Cup. Ever.

Accordingly, no Toffeeman in his right mind should support FFP or take any pleasure in City or anyone else being punished for its breaches.

I must be missing something. I don't see many Evertonians who are upset with this. The rest of your post jives with how most contributors to this site have despised FFP on numerous previous threads.

Still, good reminder for any readers who may not be familiar with this particular snake-pit.

Initially I thought it sounded like a good initiative that could potentially level the playing field.

However, in hindsight and typical of UEFA, FFP is really there to maintain the elite "club" of Europe and try to prevent young upstarts like City challenging their status. The Champions League concept was the start of that, FFP seems to be a continuation dressed up as something that makes things more equal. All clubs are equal but some are more equal than others.

They did not waste time, the cartel. Within hours of the Court of Arbitration announcement, there was a remote scrambling of Manchester City's elite rivals and a discussion about the next plan of action.

This is not over. There is still a Premier League investigation into City ongoing.

There is still the chance to pressure and influence those proceedings, as was attempted with UEFA's case, when nine leading Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Leicester, Wolves, Newcastle and Burnley — wrote to CAS on March 9 to argue City should be excluded from Europe while their appeal was heard. They hadn't a clue.

Hateful 8

That's the cynic in me. In fairness, with the exception of Newcastle, all have near term European hopes that would have been assisted with a ban on Man City, I suppose.

Mr Usmanov can now come down from the fence and turn us into a football superpower.

Can you really believe that Liverpool FC – as part of the group of 8 – would want the authorities to take divine retribution on Man City for wrongdoing?

That being the case, those bastards should have been banned for life after Heysel!!
Obviously Klopp, as spokesman, hasn't a clue....

Didn't Furlough FC get found guilty of hacking the computer at Man City and were fined ٟ million, how come this didn't warrant a ban? I guess we learned nothing from the Leverson inquiry about hacking by national newspapers.

I would love City to win the FA Cup and the Champions League to go with their League Cup trophy, then that would quite clearly state who were the team of the year for 2020.

2) Hacked Man City's scouting systems and illegally entered it on numerous occasions.

3) Illegally approached Virgil Van Dijk without Southampton's permission.

No prizes for guessing who I'm talking about. Uefa, you've got the wrong club!!

But then again, historical recollection is selective and airbrushed.

Because Uefa will now be looking for another club to make an example of to show they mean business with FFP, we have every reason to worry. Look at what happened with the draw and the refereeing last time we dared to try and crash the Champions League private party.

FFP was designed to stop a Leeds type situation from happening again. In a way, Its to protect the club from it's own irresponsible owners and poor club management.