timeEd32

If we have the energy and intensity of the City game then we will win. If we lose and Minteh scores I'm going to need to not come here for a couple weeks and I don't want to do that.

Could also be creating the framework for things like this: https://www.mcsa-usa.com/

The first name on every team sheet should be Alexander Isak at striker. The other 10 positions should be arranged in a way to get the most out of his ability to score goals.

In theory the two-thirds majority is fair, except you have a handful of clubs who are effectively pulling all of the strings and using their power to influence the direction of the league in their favor. Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, and Everton are the only clubs that have participated in every PL vote since 1992. The fact there's a rotating cast of meeting and voting participants means power can be more easily concentrated. Do you think anyone in that room really cared what Sheffield United, one of the oldest clubs in the history of the sport and a founding member of the PL, had to say last season? Then you have the fact that a group of clubs feels (with some justification mind you) that they are the reason the league makes so much money. And they use this fact and their "generosity" in maintaining the revenue sharing model to influence proceedings. And when that wasn't enough this same group was ready to burn down over a century of English football to make sure their seat at the table was guaranteed for the next 100 years. Yes, City was a part of that and they almost certainly cheated in various ways to get to where they are. And if the PL offered to drop the 115 charges in exchange for no more lawsuits they'd probably have a deal done tomorrow. But absent that, City are the only club in the league with the power, prestige, finances, and impetus to challenge the continual attempts to pull up the drawbridge at the top. City's interests don't exactly align with ours, but they are a ray of hope right now for clubs with ambition to challenge the status quo at the top or middle of the table. You can label them as a bad guy in all this, but you need to recognize they are far from the only one in terms of going against "fair competition throughout the pyramid."

Good for his confidence. He's probably the surprise of the season so far for me (in a bad way). Really thought he'd kick on. Hopefully this gives him a boost.

I forgot until reading this that the amendments in February passed with 12 votes for and two abstaining. I believe it's the first time any PL rule change was made with only 12 votes. Looking back it's believed that the clubs who voted against are City, Newcastle, Chelsea, Everton, Forest, and Sheffield United. The abstentions came from Burnley and Palace.

My worry heading into this is that City would win on some technicalities and the PL would respond by simply amending some language and minor process. The shareholder thing is, in my opinion, bigger than a technicality but regardless City’s aggressiveness means this could go anywhere. I’m not sure how anyone could have any measure of confidence about where this ends up (aside from some form of PSR will exist).

The (optimistic) thinking was that we’re waiting on the result of this to make sure we were getting maximum value. Still in limbo, but we should know soon if that’s the case or if we’re just slow.

I want to be mad at who's included but I can't be without knowing if we asked to be one of the six and were rejected. But it's not geographically representative, representative of recently promoted/recent EFL clubs (I know they are also meeting), representative of clubs with ambition and money to spend who can't, or representative of anyone who is outwardly frustrated by any of the Premier League's recent rule changes. Edit: I guess this isn't true in the case of Everton.

It's in the article. It's Liverpool, Everton, West Ham, Palace, Brighton, and Spurs. Says they were chosen as being "representative of the league."

True, but a great sign that he's come in and had an immediate impact. That age group for NUFC is still woefully short on talent and development of talent is priority one for everything below the first team, but establishing a winning culture at all ages is not a bad thing.

"We will be writing separately about this to the Premier League but in the meantime, given the findings in the award, this is the time for careful reflection and consideration by all clubs, and not for a knee-jerk reaction. Such an unwise course would be likely to lead to further legal proceedings with further legal costs. It is critical for member clubs to feel that they can have trust in their regulator." I've read this quote like 10 times. It's wonderful.

City being this aggressive means it’s anyone’s guess how this plays out.

You can imagine the argument though. "If Jeff Bezos bought a club we would have been equally worried about massively inflated Amazon sponsorships." The hardest part of that hearing for the PL lawyer would have been keeping a straight face through the whole thing.

Maybe - or maybe if interest was always part of the calculation than some other rules would have been different. In any case I'm not going to worry about what it might have meant for us in that scenario because, regardless of the rules, if we ever end up in that position again we've failed tremendously.

I know why you're skeptical and I agree it's not opening any floodgates. I also agree we're getting close to no more excuses territory in terms of announcing some more sponsorships. But anything of significance that impacts PL clubs is relevant to us, even if indirectly. And while the shareholder loan stuff isn't directly relevant now we don't know what the knock on effects could be. Maybe there are none other than some billionaires no longer have loans due to them, but it could go a number of different ways. I also think you're downplaying the roll back of the newest rules. The onus being on the clubs was awful with basically no recourse once a ruling was made was awful. We have a little more freedom today than we did a couple weeks ago and that is a win. And I'm very glad we're arguing about the size and scope of the win because an outright PL win on this case would have been incredibly depressing.

Yes, though fines > points deductions. Nothing has been decided in terms of what the new PL rules will be. Non-binding trials of both squad cost ratio and anchoring happening now.

At the very least the door is open for us to bring forward a new sponsor(s) for whatever the biggest things we can combine are (training shirt, ground, + something match day related) and push it to the maximum amount we can reasonably defend. And we can do so without the 'defend this or else' type of fear. It was said in the summer we had a couple things in progress and I'd hope we're ready to move quickly.

"All that I can say is we are living in the most exciting time for sports law." Good thing it's just as exciting as a 25 yard thunderbastard that hits the underside of the bar or Willock's pass to Isak in the 6-1.

The general idea of FMV and it being a necessary component for PSR to function as intended was upheld. So, I don't think we'll be seeing the Aramco Corner Flags at £25m per flag per season. And it's primarily on that basis and a lot of smaller things (like not targeting Gulf clubs) that the PL is claiming victory. However, in the absolute worst case scenario there are now some clubs or owners who are a bit worse off financially due to the shareholder loan change (the least impactful version of this will be if all owners are fine turning those into equity injections, but we'll see if that actually happens), the burden of proof has been rolled back, and clubs can now review and respond to the PL's FMV analysis and ruling. I'm not smart enough to decipher if this actually requires a larger re-write of the rules or if there's a short term window to drive some more advantageous deals through. There's definitely a possibility of knock-on effects here though. It's not #cans, but it's not nothing either.

I have no idea if this opens any legal doors for us, but...

5 days is all it took for the snowball to start. I wonder who that email came from...

The Premier League's General Counsel, after obtaining legal advice, said "the proposals were not without risk and that a challenge was conceivable." Later they obtained legal advice on related party transactions and the recommendation was it has "at least a good prospect of resisting any sustained legal challenge." Speed was the name of the game following our takeover.

No

https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2024/10/07/898efab9-9f51-449b-a393-1a0c05b48824/Manchester-City-and-Premier-League-Partial-Final-Award-071024.pdf