English football 2026-27

[Durhamfootman]

I'm with you on that to a fair extent

I think my main interest in the story is that they were actually found guilty. I don't think it ever occurred to me that the authorities would not choose to take the far more simple path of using obfuscation to let all this slide and avoid having to make some really difficult decisions further down the line

[sussexpob]

I'm with you on that to a fair extent. I think my main interest in the story is that they were actually found guilty. I don't think it ever occurred to me that the authorities would not choose to take the far more simple path of using obfuscation to let all this slide and avoid having to make some really difficult decisions further down the line

Indeed. With the money at City's disposal, I expect that any punishments will be met with a stream of litigation in the courts, and it is going to be interesting to see what happens at that stage. At the end of the day can a UK court decide a rule that disbars businesses from investing in their success against competitors is legal?

[sussexpob]

The original revelations were outed from illegally sourced information as part of a huge computer hacking job, the person involved in publishing it publicly is currently facing justice in several countries, and has been found guilty already in Portugal. I find it interesting that in a hack of millions of pages of information, they only got one big club.... Call my a cynic, but I do wonder if this was random. If you look at World Football now and all the reported commercial revenues from elite clubs, they are demonstrate massive shifts up suddenly. Are we supposed to believe that the UKs most successful club was the odd one out doing it illegally, while other clubs winning nothing suddenly became equally popular?

Its like PSG. They have a stadium 15k less than Arsenal, their highest average league ticket price is 45 EUR cheaper than Arsenals lowest priced ticket, they don't sell out everygame like Arsenal, and they played exactly the same games.....And yet they reported to have more match day revenue. How exactly can that be? Barcelona were bankrupt a couple of years ago and had to sell most of their money making arms just to keep existing.... and having sold everything that made them long term revenues, we are supposed to be believe they make more money now? How? They don't own any of the things that apparently generate this cash anymore...

All of the top clubs are doing it.

[Durhamfootman]

maybe this will give them pause for thought over their financial practices

[sussexpob]

Problem is, how do the PL punish City with throwing grenades at them, when Chelsea were given almost zero punishment for doing the same thing? In this case, they simply blamed it all on Roman who had already left, and no one get anything.

[Durhamfootman]

except that Chelsea came clean, knowing they could just blame the previous owner, and seem to have cooperated with the PL. Man C have obfuscated (my favourite word of today) every step of the way; being as unhelpful and as obstructive as they could from start to finish, so I don't think the PL will see the two cases as in any way comparable. I might not be remembering correctly, but I have a feeling the PL noted Chelsea's helpfulness throughout the investigation when they announced their punishment

[andy]

Emi Martinez has been taken to hospital apparently clash of heads with Branthwaite game stopped for 10 minutes... hopefully he's alright

[Durhamfootman]

He’s one of those people that I struggle to give a toss about, tbh

[sussexpob]

except that Chelsea came clean, knowing they could just blame the previous owner, and seem to have cooperated with the PL. Man C have obfuscated (my favourite word of today) every step of the way; being as unhelpful and as obstructive as they could from start to finish, so I don't think the PL will see the two cases as in any way comparable. I might not be remembering correctly, but I have a feeling the PL noted Chelsea's helpfulness throughout the investigation when they announced their punishment

None of that changes the fact that Chelsea benefitted from multiple rule breaking irregularities in a period they won 2 EPLs and a Champions League. Not punishing them sets the PL a very difficult precedent, how can the difference between everything and nothing as a punishment be explained away on simple co-operation? So, what then? Can City just sell up to the Qatari Sovereign Fund, admit all charges and send all the evidence to the FA, and then take their 0 punishment? Because that is literally what happened with Chelsea. What that solve the matter? We cant punish a new owner, so lets just allow a club to keep all the dirty titles they won?

Lets just remember that Chelsea werent breaking football rules only.... their owner was illegally filtering money to beat UN/UK/EU and US financial sanctions on dirty money circulating around Putin and his cronies. City didn't break international sanctions, international banking law, and all the world's international treaties.....

You are right.... they are not comparable. Chelsea's instance was by multiple times worse, and lets be honest here.... we only know about what was leaked. I am sure there are loads of skeletons left in that closet. Chelsea's cooperation was to hand over what was already known.

[sussexpob]

Meanwhile, I guess the PL are too pre-occupied with Man City to focus any of their time on their own employees corruption. Once again at the weekend, we got the usual stream of big club favours being handed out to clubs.

Peak of the lot was Morgan Rodgers knee high, studs up challenge at Everton that wasn't even apparently worthy of a booking (he was on a yellow, and it was a stonewall red card, let alone a booking). Canal Plus in France kindly pointed out on their coverage that the referee ended the VAR check 5 seconds before the replays were available from the broadcaster to the booth, so seemingly the decision not to send Rogers off wasn't based on the footage, which for some reason they didn't wait for. Didn't want to have to explain the smoking gun?

And then there was the Liverpool game which was a folly of mega crap referring. Personal favourite was Jacquet unsuccessfully trying to foul Thiago at every opportunity, leading three times to Jacquet falling over and Thiago ended up 1 v 1 with the goalie, only for the referee to save him each time.

The third instance was the best. Jacquet running in at full pelt from 10 yards away jumps into Thiagos back from behind, bounced off him, and apparently that was a foul against Brentford.

A half objective referee each week would probably have Liverpool relegated. The fact they cant reach 100 points with the weekly service they get is beyond me

[andy]

Tottenham Vs Coventry tonight...De Zerbi close to the exit if they don't win tonight you would think