01 Oct 2026 01:41:56
First point: Manchester Cheaty won all that they did because of their strength in depth. For 10 years, whenever they got an injury, they had a full international replacement player to come into the position with no drop off in performance. This was unprecedented in the history of football. No other team could do this. This is what made it an unfair competition. Financial doping.
The players who took those massive wages to sit on Cheaty's bench should be ashamed of themselves. Spending their peak years where they could have been a first teamer anywhere else to sit on the bench in return for money and trophies. Mercenaries.
Secondly, the sad thing is that we'll never know whether City might have won all those leagues and trophies without the doping. Their funds weren't unlimited (hence the cheating) but they still had massive resources beyond those of their opponents, and they may well have been good enough to win trophies without colouring outside the lines. Its just such a shame that their owners took the decision not to compete fairly.
01 Oct 2026 12:05:18
I imagine they took the risk with either the thought that they either wouldn't get caught or that if we're caught the punishment would not impact the clubs astronomical rise over the last 15 - 20 years.
Let's be honest - pre cheating City were a regular Championship level club, with regular occasional visits to the Prem. The rules now make what they did, and Chelsea before them, impossible.
01 Oct 2026 12:09:19
I'm not going to have a go at the players over this, far be it from them to know much about financial regulation. It's the owners and in some cases the FIFA-regulated agents who accepted dodgy behaviour.
It seems like such a coincidence that these investigations and legal arguments have been going on so long and then just before the verdicts are leaked - Kier Starmer resigns and ex-mayor of Manchester, someone well known to the City owners, involved in a lot of their business dealings in Manchester, vocal supporter and influential voice in the establishment of the IFR is suddenly parachuted in as an MP and subsequent PM. Now that PM is speaking up for the City owners.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the timing is strange especially as Starmer was adamant he would fight the next election as leader. Now he's out of UK politics completely and eyeing a job in 'global politics' ?.
01 Oct 2026 13:15:19
Agree with the first two paragraphs; you can leave that 3rd one to the City fans thanks, couldn't give a rats what they 'could have done' had they done things right.
Good point Ron, never thought of that, it's almost a little too coincidental, especially when you take into account the fact that he had a bit of a Freudian slip, essentially admitting that he's already tried to influence the process.
01 Oct 2026 15:12:17
Worst of all they took a Premier League winners medal from Aly Cissokho. Unforgivable.
01 Oct 2026 18:45:06
TBH in my opinion City should be massively punished as a club for their behaviour but the PL need to draw a line under all the compo claims going in immediately otherwise we'll be dealing with all this noise for the rest of our lives. I've no idea how they do that as I'm not a lawyer but there must be a way.
Time to move on, deduct enough points so that City have a long period outside the PL top 6 (e. g. starting each season on -30) and let's get going again rather than getting bogged down in legal action from players who might have won a £50k bonus in 2015, most of these blokes have plenty cash and don't need money towards another supercar.
02 Oct 2026 00:46:11
It'd be appropriate for the players and managers to repay the money they received that was 'off the books'. Perhaps they could donate it to charity or to getting a more comfortable cell when HMRC have concluded their investigations.