The End of Manchester City

37:22Because the money means nothing to them. And they've already won those titles and everybody celebrated them and we got beaten for them. You know, Mikel Arteta could have lost a job for not competing with this team. Jurgen Klopp, to your point, won title. Right? I mean, a lot of teams that could have won FA Cups, that could have won other things, didn't make Champions League, things like that. You can't get that back. But I think you strip the title and do other stuff. I wouldn't have the titles handed to the second place team though. What I think would be really powerful, and Clive talked about this on Friday Night Clive a bit when we were first sort of working through this in real time.

37:54I think you strip the titles and you don't replace them. And what that actually does is it creates a shame that hangs over them for years. Because when someone looks up who won the Premier League in this year or that year, and it says no one it continually pumps fuel into the engine of reminding people about this shameful moment in football history and so by leaving it blank and clive you want to come back on that

38:17Elliot:quickly yeah yeah only because i i everything you said that i agree with because i said said it on friday but i actually had a further thought and i i wonder if you guys agree because then you have a gap in the premier league history yep right which you you continually have to ask about right So I wonder if I put in an asterisk next to it. Then the only person that needs to answer that question, you've got Man City asterisk. The only people that need to answer that question is Man City and not the Premier League. If you take it out, maybe the Premier League has more to answer for. I don't think either is the worst thing in the world, Eddie.

38:54Elliot:But I am worried about the stain on the league. But you know what, mate? Sometimes you've got to rip the plaster off, isn't you? You've got to rip the plaster off to move forward. don't worry about this worry about that rip the plaster feel the pain we all know football works mate as soon as there's a big game coming up at the weekend we're all into that big game and the manager doesn't make a substitution we're all after him and it moves on very very quickly in the news cycle to rip the plaster take the pain because that will sustain you amongst the other big five leagues in Europe make sure you're at the forefront of the Champions League because that's what really really matters you know so rip it off mate take it take the pain yeah I mean go ahead Tim please i kind of repeating what i said earlier there's credibility damage either way so let's do the credibility damage but be in the right and and like i said earlier the premier league deserves credit because that's what they've done they've taken the path that we know this is staining our product but it's the right thing to do and also you know the other point of punishment is deterrent right is like if this is what you do to the competition and they've already missed some opportunities here right Chelsea they should not escape the fire here because Chelsea were found guilty of some serious stuff as well and obviously the context is different because they self-reported I still happen to think they allowed that to count far far too much that should have led to a more lenient punishment yes but they went far too far the other way and so in a sense we've already whitewashed a little period of Premier League history there and said oh yeah well Chelsea were cheating but is what it is isn't it very important this opportunity is not missed this is massive this is global everyone knows about this and there has to be sunlight on it and it has at an absolute minimum it has to end with them not being in the Premier League and I don't think that just means going down to the championship doing what Juve did right Juve went down to Serie B they won it and they were back winning leagues three years later like it it has to be more severe than that I think I think that the the punishment should be staged over several seasons and you could say you could even make the argument instead of like a points penalty that effectively ensures relegation you could just say do you know what we're going to dock you 20 points for the next five seasons so you don't get in the Champions League so you probably won't go go down but no Europe so you don't get any of that money like for five years or like 30 points over five years or whatever like their legs have got to get cut off somewhere but I think they've got to come out of the competition because they've violated the trust of all of the other clubs in there of the rule makers of the fans of every of their own fans whether their own fans want to accept that or not that's none of my business frankly I don't care I don't care about retroactive punishment really like I said as a point of principle I think you make a great case there Elliot they should definitely have the titles taken away they shouldn't be reallocated we should have null and void on those years so that it stays historically but ultimately what I'm really interested in is the future punishment and it has to be harsh it has to be severe particularly because like you say Elliot a lot of this is legally but on pure legal grounds incredibly incredibly dicey.

42:27But I think as well as that, like this, just the violate, like the lack of cooperation here, not even a lack of cooperation. This is like, lack of cooperation even suggests like we're ignoring your email or something. Well, there's 35 charges of non-cooperation. Exactly. But like, that's almost too passive a word for it. It is refusal. It's refusal. It's not we've got it's antagonism it's oppositional it's adversarial right i mean it's worse than

43:01Elliot:that it's worse than that they are quite aggressive well very scary there are stories of trackers being put on people's cars and there are people who have been doxed i mean there's all kinds of nasty nasty shit that went on here and i i just think look the the absolute foundation of any sporting endeavor is a set of rules that people agree to abide by that is true on the pitch that is true in the boardroom. That is true wherever you are. You sit down to play poker with 10 people. If one person keeps cheating, you don't let them keep sitting at your poker table. You can't play poker with them. If there's a club that every time there's a referee taking charge of a match, you don't know if you can trust their judgment.

43:43If every time they go into the transfer market, you don't know if they're being accurate and fair in the way that they're pursuing the acquisition of that player. If every time they participate in a league meeting you don't know if payments are being provided to certain people to get a certain outcome how can you be in an organization with a member like that this is a member-based organization they are a member that see that's really the fundamental thing again you can say the rules favor arsenal and liverpool and united but they're the rules and the members agree upon them and the members can change them so you have to abide by them or you don't have a sporting organization they changed psr right they did changed it to scr okay you know like people still the roles are different now but they changed them so even something like third party uh what was it not third party ownership apt associated party transactions yep exactly even that right like i think this is incredibly murky that the premier league clubs like no no we want to keep those in but ultimately there was a vote held and the clubs agreed that you could do apt right Right.

44:47And that's it's like the Premier League is democratic in that respect. And you have to get 14 clubs minimum to kind of vote for rules and to ride roughshod over that and say, no, we're above all that. We're more important than all that. Like you can't have that in your competition. Clive?

45:06Elliot:Yeah. And those APT rules, Man City pushed them and Man City pushed them to change. If they weren't happy on the financial rules, they could have pushed them from within the building. but they chose not to, right? My worry in all this is the Premier League now are sort of on the outside of this. So it's all done by, is it three unknown people, independent, regulator of some sort? And the Premier League can only suggest a punishment for where they are. Obviously, they're going to have a strong line, but they can't. So as Premier League people, us three, we're thinking they've got to do this, they've got to do that.

45:42Elliot:Actually, this independent panel may have a different view of what punishment should be and could be. And Premier League can only suggest that. So my worry is that where we are, our emotions of match-going fans and people that care about every single game may not match the independent panel per se. And then we can end up with a disconnect. Go ahead, Tim. It's also very difficult because it's unprecedented. Usually punishments are based on precedent and there isn't one. and what you find when I understand this can't go to Cass but when stuff goes to Cass and stuff like that you almost always find it gets diluted and Elliot you've been an attorney that's how the law works right the law is like you have to be totally and utterly utterly utterly sure and you have to be able to prove it beyond every single reasonable doubt and that's how this stuff can get diluted but the other fine line the premier legal walking there are undesirable things right that what like however we all feel about it manchester city folding for example would be a really bad outcome as well and and all joking aside nobody should want that and so you need to be careful not to levy a punishment that makes that likely or possible too much and so there is And again, you guys talked about it on Friday.

47:05Like you can unintentionally threaten the credibility of the league with certain types of punishment. Like it is a bit of a fine line and I'm really interested to see where it goes. Two things quickly. Then we are going to talk a little bit about points deductions, when they can happen, how it affects this season. I want to talk all about that. But a couple of things. One, remember the standard or burden of proof here is a bit different. In the Cass case in 2020, it was comfortable satisfaction. All right. In this case, it is balance of probabilities. In the U.S., we would call that preponderance of the evidence.

47:36It's simply over 50%. There's a lower burden of proof that has to be met here. In a criminal trial, for example, it's beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, different standards for burden of proof. The burden of proof bar here is lower, which means they have been able to meet it. It might be different if they went to a court. They cannot get to court very easily. This is important to understand. They get an appeal, okay? And let's just do this timeline because it's important. They'll be within a certain period of time. I think it's like 14 days. Yeah, it is 14 days. City of the League can appeal.

48:08The appeal can last five days with a 12-week target for having a resolution to that. For them to get to high court would be really difficult. There's the Arbitration Act. Only S67 and 68 are permitted. Clubs have waived. S69, which is the points of law. So they'd have to show there was some serious irregularity. A lack of jurisdiction, which clearly would not be the case here, or a serious irregularity. That's a very, very high bar to meet. Cass is not applicable. They can't get there. So really, they have a difficult path to get anywhere other than their provided appeal path here, which again, they have 14 days to file for, a five-day hearing, a 12-week target to have it done.

48:47So, you know, this should move quite a bit quicker. The league does have the prerogative to announce the punishment immediately after the sanctions hearing and potentially put it in place immediately. I think that's murky because then I think that you could say that that is prejudicial and they could go to court and ask for it to be stayed. So my guess is that the sanctions will be announced potentially after the sanction hearing, but stayed until the resolution, the finality, the appeal. But we'll see. Let's talk about what those things could be. Let's talk about the impact on this season in particular.

49:18But I want to caution you about one thing. The playbook that City is going to put in place here is very clear. They're going to get all their influencers and all their media talking. What about ism? what about the red cartel what about the the the rules that were designed to keep arsenal and liverpool and united at the top what about when the red cartel tried to do the super league they're just as guilty their hands are unclean they're not ethical either that is a distraction technique at the end of the day they will try to get you to think about everything other than what happened here which is that manchester city are guilty of 114 of 115 charges per the reporting and that their impact on the sport is incalculable, as we've discussed.

49:55So we will get into that more in a moment. But if there's one thing that this kind of conversation naturally leads to, it's the promotion of brands. Brands whose representation were legally acquired. We've been sponsored by the Arsenal Vision podcast for 50 million pounds. Yeah. So now we've just received a 50 million dollar check, totally unrelated market value to tell you about the Arsenal Vision app on iOS and Android. No, I'm kidding. Can you imagine though? I can. It'd be funny. Okay. So let's talk about those brands. And, and by the way, you know, I, I do want to emphasize that this is an emotional conversation is one that we're trying to blend the emotion and the intellectual understanding what's happening in real time.

50:38There's a lot of details to this. A lot of people that have put thousands of hours into reporting it. So we're doing the best we can. I'm sure there'll be a lot of people that agree and disagree with conclusions and have thoughtful responses and we'd love to hear them. So I want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Okay. BetterHelp is therapy. Therapy is an important part of maintaining your mental health. You know, World Mental Health Day is October 10th, I believe. And it's a good time to be thinking about this. For me, as someone who has gone through something personally in my family recently, I realize how much we carry around that we're just expected to be able to handle.

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52:21I didn't know how to get it there. I didn't know how to get it on Instagram, get it on Facebook, get it on TikTok. I didn't know how to make it look professional. I didn't know how to write code. Didn't know how to do any of that. Shopify lets you build professional looking websites that put your products not only on your website, but integrate it with those social platforms and then takes care of things like optimized cart checkout and shipping and drop shipping and taxes and all the stuff that may sound like a foreign language, but really becomes easy when you have Shopify on your side. They make it easy to stop waiting on the sidelines, get into the game, and start getting your product to the people that want it.

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53:08Elliot:Indeed. Now, Clive, let's just get to this part of it. Expel them. Fine. Dissolve them. Fine. Ownership. Gone. Fine. All those things could potentially be reasonable outcomes. Strip the titles. Again, agree. But let's set all of that aside for a minute. And let's just talk about the sporting side of it. A potential points deduction. Now, realize it's if we're lucky, I think a potential punishment could come into play by spring of 27. or you know and people might say it couldn't even possibly be that soon i think it could but it could not they could also decide to try to put it in place after they announce it even prior to the appeal but what is a reasonable if we're doing points deductions as a punishment what is a reasonable points deduction how do you even think about what to do with that yeah so heart says expel them to the moon right that's what you do and once you breathe you think oh hold on a minute yeah what's the best thing to do with this sort of case because of their reach because of their success and they've won eight premier leagues i mean that's a lot of success they won a treble won a champions league you know they're so bored of winning league cups their fans don't even turn up anymore you know and um i didn't go to carliff this year but i heard from people who went it was all arsehole fans and it was like a party and they just don't they don't bother they've had too much success they're bored of it right so that's on that side of things i I must admit, the thing that's making me, the one I'm coming down on, is the one, the 25, 30 points thing for five years, for example.

54:44Elliot:And I think what that does is that slows down the sporting ambition of Manchester City. That means players will not be playing in Europe. So the best players will not want to go. So it changes their model. And it changes they're going to have to have different type of players that want to wait, be around, maybe younger players. They're going to be in the league. but they can't be in the Champions League because they haven't got the points. And I think that's probably, because they're so integral, that's probably a reasonable way where you can preserve some reputation of the Premier League, but put them into a situation where they're slowed down.

55:19Elliot:I've seen this in other parts of the world. Rangers, for example, got put down to the bottom league. I don't think Scottish football has recovered since they did that. And I know people have said in the comments, but it ranges for one of two clubs you know really strong and they took one out which really took away the competitive angle of things well it still suffered for it you know and there's more than just one club in the premier league there's 20 you still want there to be a level of competition which is the thing that we get so excited about you know we get excited about that fierce competition from people who can be patient and can wait and can be smart the three b's for example we can all name they are they're learning how to compete they're so smart look at Liverpool have done in recent years Man City started to struggle a little bit they're trying to find a way like we did we have worked it out and finally got there how good did it feel and oh my goodness am I so happy that we beat them last season while Pep was still here and no one can say we didn't we beat a damaged Man City we beat a strong Man City for the first time in a title race every time they've lost the titles when they've not been in the race but they were in the race and we beat them and i feel so proud about that it's really important that's that's a mark in history you know and and so yeah i i think that sort of mid table of obscurity may not suit everybody but i think it's maybe the best place to land but i also feel strongly that the fine should be significant can.

56:50Elliot:And because there are lots of clubs out there that could do with some money. And I think that can be redistributed. I'm really strong on that. The football pyramid in England is absolutely wonderful. And if there are people going to try to put it under threat, then they should be punished financially. I'm not talking about 20 million like Chelsea got. I'm talking about hundreds of millions possible. And that can be sent down the league. Yeah, I will say that, you know, there was a steroid era in baseball in the United States, a doping era. And, you know, there were players like Barry Bonds who were guilty of doing it.

57:25And there is this weird thing people do that say, well, you know, on the pitch, it was just players playing football and look at how good they were. But, you know, it's kind of like in the baseball thing. Imagine being the player that wasn't taking steroids, trying to win the home run title against someone who was. you know you you cannot compete and then you start doing unhealthy things yourself or unnatural things yourself to compete or you throw in the towel you know so i mean it and by the way the impact there is that most of those players from the steroid era were just denied admission into the hall of fame their their records were not celebrated and i i do think shame works you know i want to be clear about this sponsors don't want to be associated with shame fans new fans don't want to support the shameful team shame works shame works to shrink the impact of the sports washing project right and and clive you want to come back on that sorry mate that's a brilliant

58:17Elliot:brilliant thing about shame i just wanted to say that with the tour de france for example and it was going through it's really bad period i can remember this because i love my cycling and cycling history in particular and a lot of the major cyclists in the past have obviously got staying against them but there was a period when say german tv just stopped covering the tour de france i can remember it clearly oh my god no german tv coming to order france we want to get to it we don't want to get to a stage where tv contracts are not as valuable as they once were sky's position as a chief broadcaster needs to be really thought through you know and they need to be very careful what they say we were quite critical about them on friday night clue an hour in i hadn't said anything but they've got a lot to be thinking about right now and they can add their own pressure by the way to this because they are they've got an investment in this game and basically man city have besmirched that as well you know so the tentacles on this end we could be we could spend every single day at the international break talk about this and we wouldn't cover it properly yeah i mean we still talk about pep guardiola's legacy things like that but shame does work and you know players don't want to be associated with a shameful club sponsors don't want to be associated with it tim and and fundamentally um you know i mean look i'll just use my eyes i don't have brand numbers to back this up but like the lance armstrong thing lance armstrong's brand in the u.s used to be unassailable you saw so many people with that merchandise and like after you know after he was stripped to those tour de france titles and was found to have been doping you know there was a big impact on that so shame does work it really does i think that's a really good point and that's that's another reason i'm not hugely exercised about like the retroactive side of it because ultimately that will be decided anyway in the court of public opinion and the court of public opinion will tell you everything that man city achieved in that period is irrevocably stained um and and it just is it's as simple as that and there is nothing that anyone associated with man city can say or do to claw that back there's nothing unless they win the appeal and new evidence comes to light or anything like that that shows like no guilt whatever happens you know to their wikipedia section to the premier league website even their forward even if their um you know punishment going forward is not deemed satisfactory public opinion will decide that that all of that is kind of worthless really and again i'm not interested in what man city fans think about that that's their business i think if they come out with nonsense you can push back on it but how they reckon with that morally whatever it's none of my business I don't care um and it's not for me to adjudicate um and you know that's kind of the nature of fandom as well isn't it like let's be honest like if this was us we'd at least prevaricate a little bit around some of the the kind of moral quandary of this but they cannot get that back that kind of public opinion and actually they never really had it to be honest and the grand irony here is that a lot of fans quote-unquote wanted them to win the league yep quite a lot because it was like the next best thing to it being unallocated so there's there might end up being a real irony that that might literally be the case that like great point people don't care about man city and it's like oh god i don't want arsenal winning it i don't want liverpool winning it man city winning it i can ignore that kind of thing and there might be a grand irony here that that might literally have been the case however and i think andrew and james discussed this very very well earlier as well some of that has been really unhealthy as well over the last couple of years you you can't have a situation where no one feels strongly about the champions you can't like we get frustrated with the public perception of arsenal sometimes and that's our right as fans as well but at least some people feel something about us right even if it's they score from too many bloody corners or whatever um you know and that's fair enough like you want the champions to provoke some kind of feeling be it admiration um cynicism uh dislike like all of that is important you can't have a situation where people don't care about the champions because they kind of think they're cheating anyway and because they haven't evoked any strong feelings in anyone um and and that's you know i guess if you're looking at this is a i i always think sports washing is a slightly misleading term in that i don't necessarily think these guys are trying so much to launder their reputations maybe a little bit it's more a soft power play right um it was for roman abramovich i think it is for man city as well i don't think they're trying to convince football fans and you know people on twitter to like them or like Manchester City it goes a bit higher than that and that's the other thorny thing here right like Abu Dhabi in terms of investment that's that's a big old tentacle the current prime minister of the UK was until very recently the mayor of Manchester and one of the things that's thorny about this is you know the Abu uh ADUG they have genuinely done a lot of renovation work in the east of Manchester in particular which has been really beneficial for the area and you know those you can hold those two truths the reasons that they were doing that of course again is probably soft power but so there's so much that's complicated here in terms of you know political relations where our own prime minister is a bit like oh god actually you did some good stuff for me while I was mayor and i was able to get like the reflective glory of like the investment in in the area and that's probably helped me to become prime minister there's there's all sorts of directions here which is which is could be so damaging and again it just goes to show why nation states shouldn't be allowed to own football clubs and that's another thing that's coming out here isn't it because there's always been this oh it's not it's not it's not Abu Dhabi that own Manchester City it's uh the Abu Dhabi I forget what the uh the U stands for something group and it's like yeah but we know who that is really kind of thing and actually a lot of that probably going to be quite bullish about that now and if you're Manchester City is that your way out of trying to like get the punishment levied down a little bit to exert political influence and it's so so murky and all i know is that like however vindicated righteous um some of us might rightfully feel i feel like that i'm not going to lie about that none of this is good for football none of it is good it's it it feels like a real reckoning to me it feels on the same level as when the fbi went in to that hotel um and watergate no not watergate but but it feels like i think it it was 2015 when there were like arrests made at FIFA.

1:05:33Oh, FIFA, yeah. And the FBI and Sepp Blatter's deposition. It feels like that to me. And it feels like the ripples of this could go on. Whatever the punishments, whatever happens, the ripples of this are going to run and run for quite a long time, I think. But what you cannot have is you cannot have crime fatigue. You cannot have cheating fatigue where people just say, football's been bent forever. It's so corrupt. Who cares? Can we just get the games back? I just want to watch football. That's the problem. The problem is that there are a lot of people, and by the way, I understand if you're in that group, who just want to watch football.

1:06:12You know? And that's an issue. I mean, I do have to laugh. You know, I think the United Arab Emirates officials privately cautioning that a harsh verdict against Manchester City could damage diplomatic and bilateral relationships with the UK is raising a lot of questions already answered by their we're not doing soft power exercise t-shirt. But here's what we need to do. We need to let Tim go. And I do want to talk about this season. I think this season is still a live conversation. I want to talk about Pep Guardiola as well. So Tim, we'll let you go from here. But thank you for doing this. And I think it's fair to say we're probably going to be discussing this a little bit more in the coming weeks and months.

1:06:55Yeah, hopefully we should. This should stay very much top of the agenda. This is putting aside the Arsenal side of it. It's incredibly serious for the sport and you're right. We can't get fatigued about this. Yep. All right. Thanks, Tim. So, Clev, I've been thinking a little bit about the competitiveness of this league season and the impact that this has. The first thing I would say just right off the bat, Let's say they were able to hand down punishment next week. I know that's not likely. I think you do have one risk, which is, let's say it's a 100-point deduction that you know is going to relegate them.

1:07:31First of all, the EFL has been saying they might work to keep City out of their leagues, which would be great. But you still have a league season to play, and this is where it's difficult. First of all, if you give City the season off, if you basically say, hey, you're going to be relegated no matter what, they kind of become PSG. They rest for the FA Cup. They rest for the League Cup. They rest for the Champions League. They go win all of those, and that's the worst-case outcome. And I know, by the way, within the league, they can decide to play their players against this team and not that team and really distort the competitive balance of this league season in a major way.

1:08:03So it's almost like shooting one bullet at their head and one bullet at your chest. It's not ideal, but again, I understand people that think it needs to be a severe penalty. I tend to love the idea. I think expulsion and dissolution and and ownership being expelled. All of those things should be done. But barring that, I do sort of like the idea of a 35-point penalty each of the next four seasons or something where they probably can't get into Europe. They can't win the title. They have to fight to stay up so the competitive balance stays there. But just from a player's standpoint, I mean, their agents are going to be saying things to them in their ear.

1:08:38Do you want to stay here? Should we try to get you out of here? They're going to be saying to their agents, what does this mean to me? Can I get out of my contract? like how City have started their league season on fire they've won five of five but by the same token I think they you know there are flaws in that team that we could talk about from a footballing standpoint how do you see this impacting this league season and City's ability to be competitive across multiple fronts yeah so you started there with some punishments yeah I think

1:09:05Elliot:the punishment I don't think we can gauge it let's be honest I don't think many of us thought it's going to be 114 out of 115 charges would be found against them. So it's very difficult to gauge what could happen. But one thing that has changed since this all started is there's now an independent regulator, and that's at government level. And they have got the ability, I believe, to listen to podcasts this weekend, to literally force a sale of the Man City. So that's the scale of punishments that are on the table here. It's just completely different to anything we've ever thought about. so when it comes down to effective players it almost feels small at the moment but the effective players i don't know about you but if it was me and i was working for a company that may not be as stable as it was until for this announcement i'll be thinking about my future football career is extremely short you want to be in the best environment i always quote the examples not always but i did in last week a few days the examples of a declin rice and jude belligan for example, that could have gone to Man City and signed the checks like everyone else has.

1:10:11Elliot:But they chose not to. And Jude Bellingham used the words, I want to go to a storied club, a club with history. And I thought, what a smart lad you are. Do you know what I mean? Because what a smart lad you are. I want to control my career in a known entity. And by the way, we were just not perfect, right? And then, same with Declan Rice. Declan Rice could have walked to Man City, stood next to Rodri, and we might as well have turned out the lights. Do you know mean that literally that would have been it yeah and they forced the price up for him and he decided to go to us or could if he won at us it would mean more boy did it mean a lot in may do it mean a lot it certainly did so he's been proven right so i've served man city players who by the way they've taken their money lots of tier players do lots of youth players have done they're taking their money they're offered life-changing money it's very difficult to to look at them and say you should have seen through this very difficult someone taps you on the shoulder and gives you three times as much as anybody else, what do you do, mate?

1:11:07Elliot:If you're an executive three times as much, what do you do? You take it, don't you? You take it, you know? You try to look beneath it. It must be okay. It must be okay. My dad always say to me, son, there's no such thing as free money in this world. There just isn't, and there's a price to pay for it. And I hope they pay that price. As for the players, let's see what happens. Because I remember the time Tim's gone now, but I remember the time we got our two points deducted back in the day, Arsenal, and that galvanized us massively. You might as well give us a league title at that moment. It literally galvanized.

1:11:40Elliot:They might be galvanized and say, you know what, we're going to band together. We're going to show everybody we're going to win this league no matter what. And they could literally win the league before punishments have been handed out, which means, what are we watching? And it comes back to it earlier. The bit that makes me emotional is, please don't mess with my match today. It's very important to me that I can look and see and believe what I'm watching. I can remember when Ben Johnson got caught. remember that one a few years ago when that happened and the seismic hit when it was just like oh my god the olympic final 100 meters and it's steroids i can remember that press conference i just didn't want to believe it because i just couldn't believe what i saw then i was told what i saw wasn't true and that really hurt it really hurts me i love my sport you know i mean and and athletics has had to struggle since then cycling had periods of struggle since then And it is, I don't want to get too dramatic about it because the Chelsea case showed you how something can be washed clean very quickly.

1:12:41Elliot:Because they may not be as bad, but some of what they did was not great. And they just walked away and they're completely clean in this. So things can change very quickly with messaging and PR, et cetera. But I think the court of public opinion is really speaking here, Elliot, and it's going to hit the players and hit their agents. And I think it's going to hit their motivations. Yeah, I think that's correct. I mean, the other thing is, and I almost feel bad for some of the rival managers in a way because every manager and maybe even every player in the press conference is going to be asked about this for a while now.

1:13:13and you know if you're a manager and you're trying to stay focused on the game in front of you do you really want to be expounding upon Manchester City's legal liability and what it does to the to the competitiveness of the league and thinking about years past no managers are crazy right they they're so focused laser focused on the next game they don't want to think about that but they're going to be put in that position and you know I mean Mikel's in the uncomfortable position of having obviously been at Manchester City now I think to point the finger at an assistant coach at a club during that time is unfair, but it will happen as well.

1:13:47There'll be some people that decide to weaponize it in that way. So that's something that he's going to have to wear. With Pep Guardiola, a lot of this falls squarely on him. He spoke very clearly and loudly about this in the past. He just happened to depart this past summer, which obviously looks a little bit shady and turning over some of their senior players in the same summer as well um how does this make you rethink pep guardiola if at all in terms of sort of his legacy and his quality as a

1:14:16Elliot:manager well so i've met i love you know i think back to the sarnay sterling team which i really admired you know from a purely football tactical side of things i really like that team we were nowhere near it right so you can admire other teams at that point and what the top table looked like and you can't for me i just really enjoyed seeing that team he's created some of the best teams i've seen in my life his Barcelona teams for example i just love those teams you know even though they hurt us hey look i don't know what to say there's some people saying he's never won the league about the best players in and he's reputation yeah yeah but he's positioned himself to have the best players he went to barmunik he scaled the german market he brought in the best players that he saw in germany brought them into the premier league took the players from our from liverpool and really smart saw the monaco team took the players out of there he's just really gone for it and why because they can afford to you know while we're buying pablo marie right they can afford to go and get collar off and players like that that were top of their game at the time and we had to go a different way because we have to cut our cloth accordingly and we're not the only ones by the way we're not the only ones there are other teams and people are not going to want to hear it but we lost the best team in our history maybe to abamovich right in 2003 2004 he came in and everything changed thereafter and that team got disbanded and new ground came along and we had to we had to behave in a different way spurs had the best team in their history right in the middle of this man city era right and whether you like it or not the Dele Alli Son Kane team was right there and they could have done more and they weren't able to right so and there are many stories like that I know people don't want to hear the Spurs story but let's be honest we know our football right at that period of time they beat us for five years in a row in the league so let's be honest they were better and they were very close to winning more things as for the Klopp team you know Mane, Salah, Firmino, you know Wijnaldum, Henderson these are this is a top top top level team that had to fight against his team got to 97 points and didn't win the league and this is all underpinned don't please don't stop at 2009 to 2018 this is all underpinned by that period and it's continued on thereafter you know and it's allowed them to be a brand that can attract people that can compete with the very very best in the world and let's not talk about what happened to real madrid barcelona fighting to compete with these english teams right to the point where they have to get together and try to create their own super league to try to make sure they can create an environment that kills the rest of the game that's how desperate they were to try to compete when you're the top of the tree you create the fiscal environment for everybody else to follow.

1:17:13Elliot:With their monetary power, they created that environment for everybody else, and we have to live within it. We finally overcome it, finally, but it's taken a long time, and others haven't managed to do it in the past. If you take out nation state clubs, City and PSG, Mikel Arteta has three titles and two Champions Leagues. I mean, that's what he's trying to go up against. And there are very few people outside of Arsenal circles who are going to, quote, feel bad for Arsenal. We have a billionaire owner. We have immense revenues. We have the capacity to compete. I think one thing that's overlooked with City, you know, you can spend a lot of money and spend it badly.

1:17:54Manchester United exist, right? We can look at how you can spend a lot of money badly. Tottenham Hotspur exists. City can afford to paper over their mistakes, their errors, their 100 million pound flops, their 80 million pound flops. They can drive the price up for other players too, which prevent their rivals from getting players that might have otherwise strengthened them. So, you know, there's a lot of things they did wrong that people just sort of overlook. One thing also, by the way, that money allows you to do, not just buy better players, but get better executives, get better people behind the scenes, you know, better training, better doctors, better sporting directors, things like that.

1:18:31City are a very well-run club because they have the resources to be run like a Fortune 500 company. I mean, the thing people forget about football clubs, football clubs are very small businesses. These are very small businesses. You know, there are tire companies that make 100 times the revenue of Arsenal Football Club, right? Like, these are small businesses. They just touch a lot of lives. What do they have, 600 employees? I mean, there's a software company you never heard of that's got 5 ,000 employees and 10 times the revenue of Arsenal Football Club. But Manchester City can be run like those bigger companies and acquire the talent of those bigger companies and have the wherewithal to compete in a way, not just on the pitch, but organizationally, that some of these other footballing organizations cannot compete as well.

1:19:17Where the Pep thing gets hard for me, Pep is clearly one of the most talented football managers in history. I mean, that just is what it is. You look at tactically what it is. Once you give him great players... What he's able to do with those great players is beyond question. Now, the fact that he had all those great players, that's where the cheating comes in. What makes it hard for me with Pep, though, is when you start to say things like, were there referees who went to the Emirates? Did those referees give them favorable calls? Were there things beyond just the sporting advantage? Then you start to say, well, yeah, if you've got refs who slightly favor you and a financial capacity that other clubs don't have, How much did you actually achieve?

1:19:59So I think Pep is a great manager, but I think the extent to which I will think of Pep as the greatest is damaged by this, irreparably damaged by this. Not to mention that I think from an integrity standpoint, you probably have a responsibility to not want to be associated with it. And if you choose to be associated with it, then you take the risk that your sporting accomplishments get wiped away if you're found guilty. I think that's the deal, right? You can't say I'll benefit from the fraud. while it's going on and then leave and not take the the punishment from the fraud when it's found guilty if you're going to stay at the club knowing these charges are hanging over them you have to accept the hit to your reputation if those charges are confirmed that's how it works

1:20:43Elliot:and he he came out very early and said um i've been told everything's okay and if it's not okay i will leave but then proceeded to stay for another three four years right and win everything else and go from there. It's where do you stop with this, Elliot? Where do you stop? I mean, I think City beat Stoke and Watford in the FA Cup final. They've not won trophies in their recent history. Where do you stop with this? Because you start thinking about nation states, about PSG and Man City, for example, and you start to think about the Madalweke penalty and you're thinking, why didn't the referee give it?

1:21:20Elliot:You can not sleep over this stuff, mate. you really it's really upsetting it really is upsetting when you think about i mean the two seasons ago when i think about some of the refereeing decisions i'm not a conspiracy theorist but you can't look at 114 of these charges being confirmed in the way city have operated and not fall victim to conspiratorial thinking you can't can't help yeah and you just got you know there are times we've spoken even this summer we've spoken about um the transfer window and i've used words like fiscal discipline and got a couple of slaps in the comments for it because we all want you striker here and there don't we but the most important thing for me is the values of the club and i've said it a million times and i'll continue to say and i know it's boring but the values of the club is really important to me how they operate if i feel they're operating not so well i get really upset by that everyone makes mistakes right in the world where you've got 100 million people looking at every single word on your website but those values are so important so right now today touch wood the way i'll sort of run even though i don't agree for absolutely everything, but I do agree with the values and I do agree that they need to show discipline to stay within the rules so we can look at our club and say, okay, mate, why don't you just get this and get that so we can fight off these other clubs?

1:22:34Elliot:But I'd much rather do it at a pace that we can do it at to be sustainable. It's really important and for those people that wanted those extra strikers, like we all do, but it may breach the URA4 rule to do it. I'm hoping today that we all feel like, you know what, I'm glad we're on the right side of history. And I hope we are. Yeah. Because you never can tell, right? I hope we are. See, this is the thing, right? And this is where I think Citi will try to find purchase in their attack against these charges is, I don't need to believe my club is morally flawless or perfectly ethical to know that what Citi did is wrong.

1:23:18and that's where the whataboutism will creep in because they will try to say well you did this or your sponsor did that or your player did that and they're right because none of these clubs are perfectly well run none of them are perfectly ethical but the rules that create the framework for the sporting competition they participate in are the essential foundation for the fairness of the game and every member club agrees to them and City violated those rules 114 times and they distorted the competition and they distorted the price of football globally

1:23:52Elliot:for everyone whether you pay a fee to a broadcaster, whether you pay a season ticket whether you pay to travel to places, whatever you do cities, financial doping impacted you as a football supporter and you don't need your club to be the paragon of ethical virtue for Citi to be in the wrong. That is not how this works, right? So I believe, again, just to come back to where we started, that the impact of this goes very deep, that potential criminal investigations could be warranted, just judging by the precedent of other situations like this. Now, granted, the Clippers case is in the United States, so it's a bit different.

1:24:37I think that there's political ramifications, as Clive has touched on the impact, and Tim touched on the impact in Manchester locally in the UK government. There's the fact that City are a major part of a redevelopment and revitalization of Manchester, the town, and what that does for the local community. I can understand if you're in the local community and you feel thankful to these people, regardless of the way they undermine the sporting, you know, the fairness of the Premier League, they revitalized an area of your community. I mean, like that.

1:25:05Elliot:And you trust your club, right? Yeah. You trust your club. You naturally want to trust your club. So I don't blame those people. But fundamentally, the tentacles are everywhere. And then what will UEFA do? How does that get impacted? Player registrations. I mean, it's a mess. And I can see why it took so long to rule on this. But now, how you unwind it, how you unravel it, how you punish it almost is complicated because it touches so many things. So now we have to do the hard part, though. Maybe the hardest part. We have to take a deep breath and be patient. Because the likelihood is that the Premier League will not make any announcement.

1:25:41They will not want to do anything to give City leverage or argument for appeals to other courts. The appeal will be filed. The appeal will need to be handled over that 12-week period, roughly. and then know that that's when we could potentially see announcements so if within 14 days the appeal is filed and if the appeal takes place within 12 weeks and and it's another let's say a week of the hearing you could be looking at 15 weeks before there's really anything else that comes out of this but trips and drabs and that's going to feel hard and it's going to feel like oh it all went away and it never mattered that's why it's important for all of us to keep reminding people that this is going on.

1:26:22But for a while, Clive, I think the next step is probably a bit of patience, unfortunately.

1:26:26Elliot:Patience, Elliot, but I have a hunch this could be dealt with quicker. Because in the sport of football, which is a massive sport, this is the number one story. And there's something called reputational damage, mate. And every day this continues now, this is out there. This is out there. 1-1-4 out of 1-1-5. That's pretty complete. This is out there. I think there needs to be a calculation made about reputational damage to Abu Dhabi, to Manchester City, to the Premier League. Someone's going to have to have a word to say, this would go bad, really bad for you if you continue this. We have a government-led, independent regulator that sits over the top of football that can mandate things that will be on the Premier League.

1:27:15Elliot:this could go bad. This is a mahogany room conversation that needs to be had. So I, if Man City decide to drag everyone through the courts for another couple of years, at the end of it, they will have literally zero friends. Zero friends in the game. And they have to ask themselves, can we come back from this? Do they want to? Do they want to? It's a lot going on in the region. Do they want to? Do they still have the appetite? Can they come back from this, like today? in the next few weeks, or they go two years down the road, and do they think people's anger will grow, or will it lessen? I think it will grow.

1:27:52Elliot:I think it'll be complete across the game, and across Europe. And then there is only one option then, if it doesn't go well for them. And even if it does go well for them, the damage will be, you couldn't repair it. You just couldn't repair it. So yeah, I don't think it's going to take a long time. I think sense needs to prevail. And that aggressive tactics from that club, and their chairman, etc. I think that can't last much longer. He just can't. Yeah. Well, we will see. And it is certainly complex. I mean, the fact that this leaked during international break is probably the worst possible thing for Manchester City because they can't just get back on the pitch and play and wipe this off the headlines with sporting results.

1:28:34Guess where they're playing next game, Elliot? Anfield, yep. And I mean, that's the club. This is a City pool romance. I've never understood it because that's the club that probably suffered maybe more than even Arsenal suffered most at the hands of City. City, United.

1:28:45Elliot:Sorry, Liverpool and United suffered a lot from them in the Northwest, massively. I think we suffer a lot from Chelsea, if I'm honest with you, and City belatedly, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a terrible situation, but it's a moment of reckoning. And the reason the punishment has to be stiff, by the way, is because you have to make sure no one wants to do this ever again because the punishment isn't worth the crime. That's what you need to make sure is the case here. A bit of mental health advice. I wouldn't get involved talking to Manchester City fans about this. Don't have an expectation of them seeing sense.

1:29:19It's just not worth it. It's not worth getting into a tribal argument over this. And as a final point, I will simply have to say everything we've said on this episode is predicated on the fact that the reporting is that 114 of 115 charges have been found valid, confirmed, that they've been found guilty of those. And our conclusions are based on the presumption that that's the case and that they are guilty of those charges. So were that to change, obviously you'd change your opinion. But what do you know? World shocked that thing everybody knew was going on was going on. You know, I mean, like it is funny the extent to which anybody allowed themselves to pretend otherwise.

1:29:53I think we leave it there. We will talk a little football this week. Certainly our first episode of Bad Takes will air on the Patreon. I can't wait for that episode. Some might say that's every episode of the Arsenal Vision podcast. But no, this one is specifically an airing of Bad Takes, a safe space for Bad Takes. And if you want to join us for that, we'd love to have you for that. There's going to be a lot of different opinions on this episode, I have no doubt. We'd love to hear them because this is a very, very tricky topic. Some people have done thousands of hours of work researching it and reporting on it.

1:30:20And we are going to get, by the way, a sports lawyer on the podcast. We're going to get some of the experts on the podcast as well. So a lot being lined up to get you some information that will be helpful understanding it. But Clive, as always, brilliant job today. And I look forward to continuing to keep this in the line of sight for as long as possible.

1:30:36Elliot:Brilliant job from the team as well, by the way. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, everybody. Love you. We'll talk a little more football, you know, to the extent that the international break is football worth talking about. We'll all decide on that later. But until then, we love you and we'll talk to you after Arsenal 10 leads.

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