The Manchester City Thread

Pretty pathetic to be honest.

Pathetic from who?

As much as I dislike Sydney, I can see the issue.

As the article says, Sydney are already known as the "Sky Blues" and their kit represents that also. You then also have Melbourne Victory wearing a dark blue kit as well. To have Melbourne Heart change their own kit to a blue variation and effectively lose the identity they've established thus far in the league would be somewhat disheartening for fans. It's no real different from Hull fans being against renaming their side or Cardiff having their kit changed from blue to red.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/news/10766475/Manchester-City-to-be-made-to-pay-a-high-price-for-spending-spree-under-Uefa-Financial-Fair-Play-rules.html

City haven't "broken FFP rules". The article doesn't say this at all.
City have done exactly what they planned to do all along. City will initially "fail" FFP. Then they will use the June '10 wage exclusions amongst others to "pass" FFP. Nobody should be surprised about this, it's what they planned to do. You cannot use that wage exclusion or some other exclusions unless you initially "fail" FFP.
Unfortunately this means that the papers get to write the "CITY FAIL FFP" headline they've been creaming themselves over for 4 years.
We will technically fail when they do their initial calculations. Then use UEFA's exclusions to pass with no sanctions.
If you want a primer on next month's headlines, the one they'll all be furiously wanking over then will be "UEFA CONFIRM INVESTIGATION OF RELATED PARTY TRANSACTION BY CITY". People will sort of wink-nudge that this is the Etihad deal and it isn't. City will be investigated for a RPT as they legally declared a RPT in their accounts and it means UEFA have to look into it by their own rules. The Etihad deal was not reported and by the UEFA definition (which is essentially the worldwide definition), is not a related party transaction so won't see any adjustments made.
The press are going to be horrific for the next two months and I'll have to explain this four hundred million times.

No, this is different to that, this is one club moaning because another might be playing in the same colour as them. There's definitely a comparison between Melbourne Heart fans and Cardiff and Hull fans, and they have a far more legitimate reason to complain, but not with Sydney FC's complaint. That's something entirely different and far more petulant, I might be mistaken but as I understand it Sydney FC don't have an exclusive right to the use of Sky Blue in the A-League, City/Heart are applying to change their colours, not to steal Sydney's identity, and if Sydney's identity is literally just the colour of their kits then that's not really City/Heart's issue.I don't really see how they have any grounds for complaint.

Well these new owners want to rebrand Melbourne Heart also, which is conflicting with one of the state league sides who already hold the name that Heart would be renamed as. I can still see Sydney's issue with that fact that they're basically referred to as "The Sky Blues", due to the clubs colours. Sydney have every right to be somewhat annoyed at what could unfold and cause issues with two sides effectively being dubbed the same, if not similar names, all within the same league. It's stupid.

Cos the league owns the copyright's/trademarks/whatever for every club in the league.

City are fighting with it.

PSG getting a wage cap (can't spend anymore than they currently are), and only allowed buy 1 player for no more than £60m, which seems absurd to me.

Limit is lowered to £30m instead of £45m for next 3 years, so I'd believe the fine doesn't count towards that

Isn't this the 'settlement' period where clubs are sitting down with Uefa trying to hammer out a deal both parties agree? After which it goes to an independent body who can issue more severe punishments? Which means discrepancies like PSG's for example compared to yours are based on different deals done with UEFA.

Yep, PSG agreed to their settlement, City are not. They want to go to that independent body thingy, but whatever they say is non-negotiable, so could go either way

Pretty sure this was still City's plan all along though. They planned to fail the first instance because it was set out that if they did, the club can write off contracts from June 2010, which are like Adebayor, Barry, Lescott, Tevez etc and then we'd comply

I don't know about that, but yes, it was obviously the plan.

City failed FFP because they chose to fail FFP, if they had wanted to comply with it they could have done so.

Whether it was a sensible decision remains to be seen.

That's true, but I think City's thinking was get the "base" cost out of the way while they can. Players, stadium, academy etc, whilst knowing that they have that June'10 write-off to fall back on. As well as now having New York and Melbourne as added revenue streams going into the main era of FFP

At any rate, it looks like City's biggest problem is the Eithad sponsorship deal which, tbf, stank. PSG's similar deal has been halved in valuation according to L'Equipe and a similar treatment of your one would presumably be pretty fatal to attempts at passing FFP, alongside the short shrift other creative account might be given.

Its the best sanction, reducing CL squads is the most effective way to ensure teams follow the rules. Don't really agree with the no rise in CL wage bill, I think that could definitely be contested in the courts. City appointed the same guys who set out FFP to try and get around it, so if anyone can find a loophole or a way around sanctions it will be City.

Almost every single news site reporting this is mentioning City falling foul of the rules because of the closeness of the owner to the sponsor. What you're saying simply doesn't tally with that.

Good for them. They've been saying that since it was announced with very little evidence to back it up, they haven't even managed to reach a consensus on exactly how much the deal is worth.