Not holding my breath, alas.
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The 2023-2024 Football Thread
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Not holding my breath, alas.
Actually, while I will not hold my breath, I also think that - given the sheer number of FFP transgressions that are under investigation - there will be consequences for City, quite possibly taking the form of a points reduction.
To me, the question will be whether the penalties will be proportionate, and whether they are actually a punishment that seriously stings City, - in fines, transfer bans, expulsion form CL football for a season or two, and/or (serious) points deduction, or whether they will take the form of a proverbial slap on the wrist.
Serves them right, I have to say. The statement was dumb and unnecessary and didn't really say anything except that they supported Arteta's emotional outburst. They inflamed rather than defused the situation.
If managers get fined for losing their heads in press conferences, clubs should get fines 10 times higher for supporting nonsensical claims because 1) they have the money and 2) they aren't the ones popping off in the heat of the moment. Their statements are written by spin doctors and lawyers who should know better. I can have a shred of sympathy for Arteta as a human being thrust into the media spotlight and saying silly things. But not for the club.
Channel the fines to fund increased refereeing support and resources.
I think Everton deserve their ban based on the evidence I have seen, which I admit is incomplete, but naturally that's not the issue here.
Man City can obstruct the FFP process as much as they want but in the court of public opinion I think they have already been convicted. But the demoralizing reality is that they should already have suffered multiple points deductions and multiple season transfer bans, and also been kicked out of European football for years. That is not idle talk, that's what the charges against them should result in.
The message is loud and clear. There is a hierarchy of rules. The richest clubs are treated differently from everyone else and in fact have more power than the organizations that ostensibly govern the game.
It would be sad to see Everton relegated over this even if they are guilty. Because it is the owners, not the fans, staff, or players, who are primarily responsible. And seeing them in the Championship whilst Pep's Man City continue to hoover up silverware leaves a foul taste in the mouth. It will also continue to erode trust among fans and fuel misplaced conspiracy theories.
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I'm an Arsenal fan, and thought that Arteta's comments (at the time) were intemperate (if, perhaps, somewhat understandable in the immediate post match circumstances) and the club's subsequent supporting remarks unwise and ill-judged and entirely unnecessary.OOoooeeerrr!!! Arsenal have stirred up a hornets nest with their defending of their manager over comments he made over officiating of the game they lost to Newcastle. According to the article the FA are planning to bring in a rule that punishes clubs for defending their manager if the manager speaks out against officiating at games.
FA to create new punishment following Arsenal's Mikel Arteta statement
English football's governing body is 'hugely concerned' by the club's response.metro.co.uk
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I agree with you @Lord Blackadder , Everton can have no complaints about their points reduction because the rules are clear, a club is only allowed 3 years of continued loss making (one after the other). From what I have read Everton have had 5 years of continued loss making of which they owned up to. I believe the club is annoyed at the severity of the points deduction because they was hoping an early admission of guilt would lesson the punishment (as what happens in many crime court cases) but that did not happen and thus they are annoyed.
As for City, they are going to do what rich people always do when facing lengthy charges, they will tie the court up in legal mumbo jumbo in the hope they can drag it out for years which could see them getting lesser convictions. Fair and due process has to be followed because if not it would allow City to claim they were treated unfairly and thus get the case against them thrown out on a technicality which tends to happen on long drawn out cases, someone makes an innocent error, the other side picks up on it, complains to the court that their client was not given a fair trial and the judge throws out the case on a technicality.
The only problems City face at the moment is commercial contracts expiring because it is a well known fact in the footballing world that City are facing over 100 premier league rule breaches and thus do commercial enterprises want to associate themselves with a club who has broken over 100 league rules. Many fans are already calling City's trophy wins a farce because City are being accused of winning what they have won because of financial doping. I have no doubt that a number of City's sponsors are having boardroom meetings asking do they want to continue to be a sponsor of a club that is being accused of winning their trophies because of financial doping. Sponsors have dropped sponsorship for much less so will be interesting to see how it plays out with City.
As for City, they are going to do what rich people always do when facing lengthy charges, they will tie the court up in legal mumbo jumbo in the hope they can drag it out for years which could see them getting lesser convictions. Fair and due process has to be followed because if not it would allow City to claim they were treated unfairly and thus get the case against them thrown out on a technicality which tends to happen on long drawn out cases, someone makes an innocent error, the other side picks up on it, complains to the court that their client was not given a fair trial and the judge throws out the case on a technicality.
The only problems City face at the moment is commercial contracts expiring because it is a well known fact in the footballing world that City are facing over 100 premier league rule breaches and thus do commercial enterprises want to associate themselves with a club who has broken over 100 league rules. Many fans are already calling City's trophy wins a farce because City are being accused of winning what they have won because of financial doping. I have no doubt that a number of City's sponsors are having boardroom meetings asking do they want to continue to be a sponsor of a club that is being accused of winning their trophies because of financial doping. Sponsors have dropped sponsorship for much less so will be interesting to see how it plays out with City.
Tell me, if Everton have another loss making year this year, so six years in total, do they lose points again?
And yes City should be held accountable like everyone else. It’s not correct if one club is punished whilst another is not. Especially when the magnitude of rule breaches is not even close to being the same.
The general lesson here is that if you are merely bad, you will be punished. But if you lean in and are horribly, unrepentantly, viciously bad, you'll probably get away with it.
Let's not forget that Man City's response to the accusations against them is consistently peppered with threats and insults towards football's governing bodies. They're both explicitly admitting they're sports washing and also denying there's anything wrong with that, they reject the grounds of anyone to investigate them, and they are daring anyone to try and stop them. It's all out in the open.
Then they turn around and gush about their 'project' and 'culture,' blah blah blah. It's getting increasingly harder to compartmentalize the football from the massive, looming monster that is the ownership.
Let's not forget that Man City's response to the accusations against them is consistently peppered with threats and insults towards football's governing bodies. They're both explicitly admitting they're sports washing and also denying there's anything wrong with that, they reject the grounds of anyone to investigate them, and they are daring anyone to try and stop them. It's all out in the open.
Then they turn around and gush about their 'project' and 'culture,' blah blah blah. It's getting increasingly harder to compartmentalize the football from the massive, looming monster that is the ownership.
Too true, alas.
Agree, and that is why I hope that the proverbial book is thrown at them.
Regarding Everton, nope. You will find that the count is reset upon sentence. If they have another 3 years of losses then they will another round of points reductions but I would have thought if Everton were to have 8 years of constant losses they would be out of business.
Look at what the sport of cycling did to Lance Armstrong, they threw the proverbial book at him and took away all his tour de France wins. Would the premier league and the FA have the guts to do the same to City if they are found guilty of all the charges against them? I personally don't think so.
Yes.
A very good question.
I hope to be proven wrong.
Personally, I want the book thrown at City - expulsion from the Champion's League (thus, no European football) for a few years, a massive fine, and the sort of points deduction that they would actually feel, (as opposed to be able to shrug off), as it would serve to have an effect on their position in the table.
I take your point. But stop and think for a moment about the ability of one athlete, however famous and successful, to resist charges of misconduct, versus the ability of a sovereign nation to do the same. The latter has billions to spend, not to mention vast resources in the form of huge teams of the best lawyers, entire media organizations - even intelligence and military agencies. Against all that, how can we expect the FA (or UEFA) to enforce their rules unless state or supranational bodies were to back them? It's so much easier to take down an individual, regardless how rich or famous they are, than a state.
This is true, but, at the same time, this is no reason not to want, not to wish, to hold - or, to try to hold - City to account, and attempt to adhere to some standards.
I do think City are holding an ace up their sleeve as to why the premier league are dragging their heels over this and why the FA are not forcing the premier league to speed things up against city. Due to amount of years that is being investigated it would be near on impossible for people within the premier league and the FA to not know what was going on within City but they chose to keep quiet about it for personal or financial reasons and City know this and thus there are things going on behind the scenes where City are saying 'If we go down, your going down with us' and those in the know do not want to get taken down thus they are helping to delay things.
Re-clubs being punished for issuing statements seems silly to me. In which forum will referees be allowed to be criticised then? or are you simply no longer allowed to question them and everything they do and say is now gospel?
IIRC Liverpool issued a statement backing Klopp as well.
The state of referring in this country is outright diabolical yet the focus of response is always to shush critics which is why people like Mike Dean felt invincible during his tenure.
So many rules to silence criticism but nothing to improve the actual state of refereeing.
Anthony Taylor was demoted to the championship for marked errors. A week later he is refereeing an EPL match. Make it make sense.
Don't get me wrong i'm not advocating personal attacks like a certain mourinho. But when refs mess up they need to be held accountable.
Managers and players are incessantly questioned over mistakes but with referees we're supposed to just take it. I don't get it.
IIRC Liverpool issued a statement backing Klopp as well.
The state of referring in this country is outright diabolical yet the focus of response is always to shush critics which is why people like Mike Dean felt invincible during his tenure.
So many rules to silence criticism but nothing to improve the actual state of refereeing.
Anthony Taylor was demoted to the championship for marked errors. A week later he is refereeing an EPL match. Make it make sense.
Don't get me wrong i'm not advocating personal attacks like a certain mourinho. But when refs mess up they need to be held accountable.
Managers and players are incessantly questioned over mistakes but with referees we're supposed to just take it. I don't get it.
I do believe mangers do have a forum to be able to complain about ref decisions but it is to be done after the game with a meeting with the ref and the manager who has the complaint. All PL refs have to write up an after match report and the managers complaint would be included. This then seen by the ref's bosses. I have no doubt things would be said if the bosses saw match reports that had complaint after complaint about ref decisions but all of this is done behind closed doors. No one would know the manager had submitted a complaint unless someone leaked it to the press.
Maybe this is why managers are becoming more publicly vocal because they are using the established reporting method but they are seeing nothing is improving so they have resorted to making their complaints public which is putting pressure on the ref's to improve.
Oh, I agree - we have to try to bring them to justice. The alternative is just give up on football being any meaningful sort of competition and to knowingly allow nation states to use football as a geopolitical trojan horses. Fans deserve better than that.
There is an element of that. Taking them down will have a lot of collateral damage - probably amongst a lot of people who deserve it, I have to say, but it's a powerful weapon that Man City can wield to obstruct justice.
There's a difference between disagreeing / being unhappy with a refereeing decision and using the emotional and even threatening language Arsenal (and, yes, many other clubs, including mine) have used at times, or supporting outbursts from their managers. I wish clubs could simply confine themselves to measured language and let the call-in shows do all the nonsensical screaming; a club wading in to threaten and browbeat over refereeing decisions under the guise of 'supporting the manager' is unseemly and unprofessional. There are much better ways of 'supporting' than that.
I generally dislike the post-VAR refereeing environment, but one outcome of it it is that we are increasingly seeing people go ballistic over calls that are actually technically correct according to the laws of the game as they are currently interpreted. In other cases, such as at least one of the Newcastle goals against Arsenal, the VAR officials were essentially given an impossible job. And, of course, on top of all that refs do still make mistakes. VAR didn't (and won't) bring us error-free refereeing. But it seems that even correct calls are now unacceptable because they are so tight. It's fine to be mad about it (the clash between the laws of the game and technology is an ongoing issue - do players really derive any advantage from being a nose offside?) , but it seems to me a multibillion-pound football club organization firing petulantly emotional broadsides is not a way forward.
The problem with VAR is that it was promoted as being something that would finally eliminate ref mistakes and that is how it was put towards the footballing public but as we know no system is ever perfect but the FA, UEFA and FIFA would have never been allowed to tell the footballing public that VAR will not eliminate ALL errors because in doing so it would have allowed people to put forward the question 'if VAR will not be able to eliminate ALL ref errors then what is the point of having VAR'.
A lot of that would be mitigated by Referees coming out in front of cameras to explain their decisions throughout matches.
A simple "the ball out was inconclusive, or for me it there wasn't enough contact, and i tried to keep the game flowing" would shut most people up. Yes therw would still be agro but at least people would understand the reasoning.
They are missing a trick by not sharing audio feeds during matches. The radio silence is why people get up in arms.
Finishing the matches with nothing from referees other than belated PGMOL apologies/justifications will do nothing for the profession.
Managers and clubs hold press conferences after matches. I think getting referees to discuss decisions would go a long way.
In any case sanctioning would backfire. The big clubs will eat the fines and speak out or carefully construct statements and that will just ignite the fan-base even more.
Sanctions i dont think will help their cause, transparency and better refereeing are.
Ya know, in my experience it's usually spoiled rotten American fans, probably new to the game, that want the refs to be more like American football refs.
This is coming from an experienced soccer coach, rec, club/travel, and school ball.
There is always one or two parents who get pretty mad when they don't get what's going on. It can be quite comical.
I've had to calm more than a few down and explain what is going on, or what went on.
Those parent’s screaming at the ref on a Saturday morning kids game are the root of the problem. They are teaching their little angles to grow up fighting every decision on the pitch. Truth is it’s hard to be subjective when you are a fan.
But I hate it when players argue with the ref and you can all see the intent on his face in the replay when he took the player out etc. it’s pathetic.
And, again, very well said.
@daneoni: I beg to differ.
At the moment, I am opposed to anything which serves to (further) undermine the authority of a ref - or, which encourages him (or her) to question their own decisions - (something which, unofrtunately, will only serve to encourage yet further pressure on refs from players, fans, managers, clubs both during and after matches).
Personally, I hate to see players ganging up on, surrounding, shouting at, arguing with, a ref during a game; let the team captain express concerns (or complaints) on behalf of the team, and let him do so politely and respectfully, if something has happened that (he believes) warrants this.
And, I really dislike, and deeply detest, this growing tendency of criticising refs on the part of managers, (and yes, clubs).
Let them lodge a formal complaint, and proceed through proper and appropriate channels if they still have concenrs after a match, rather than publicly railing at a ref, and mobilising an army of enraged fans.
So Englands game last night. Did Harry dive or was he clipped? No VAR intervention and he was booked for a dive but it did look like he was clipped.
On another note in Germany, given his ballistic start at the club, the local press are calling him 'King Kane'.
It's catchy, why didn't our press pick up on that? Maybe occasionally it was a headline but not a nickname as it appears to be now.
On another note in Germany, given his ballistic start at the club, the local press are calling him 'King Kane'.
It's catchy, why didn't our press pick up on that? Maybe occasionally it was a headline but not a nickname as it appears to be now.