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Der Spiegel Football Leaks revelations

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
Whilst he's right it always grates a bit when Pep is talking like this bearing in mind the club he manages:

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ing-racism-everywhere-manchester-city-chelsea
Isn't it funny how the Raheem Sterling racism story has been dominating multiple news cycles. Why is it, I wonder, that the banana skin at the NLD story faded away within a day and yet a story involving Man City seems to go on and on and on.

NB: I'm not downplaying the scourge of racism in football, just noting the coincidence that at a time when Man City want a little sympathy, the story seems to keep running....
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
7,405
13,785
Take it a step further

It'd be really funny if no fans turned up to City games, home or away

They'd be travelling around the country encountering empty stadiums for their away games and their home games would be odd without away support, and the banter with the City hard-core

Lol you could even ignore the City results and celebrate a title win if your team came second :LOL:

To be fair in Germany fans boycott RB Leipzig. I don't think it was everyone, but clubs with strong/well organized supporters groups like Dortmund haven't travelled to Leipzig for the past couple of years in protest against them. In Dortmund's case, they even donated the money they would've spent on the tickets to an FC Utd of Manchester style phoenix club started by fans of the Salzburg team that were rebranded as Red Bull Salzburg by the same people now in charge of Leipzig.

If people did the same thing to City it would slowly start to make a difference IMO
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
7,405
13,785
Isn't it funny how the Raheem Sterling racism story has been dominating multiple news cycles. Why is it, I wonder, that the banana skin at the NLD story faded away within a day and yet a story involving Man City seems to go on and on and on.

NB: I'm not downplaying the scourge of racism in football, just noting the coincidence that at a time when Man City want a little sympathy, the story seems to keep running....

I get what you're saying but to be honest I reckon it's got more to do with the fact that there isn't much more to say about the one at Spurs. So a fan threw a banana onto the pitch, the police are investigating it, and there isn't a whole lot more to say because no information has been revealed. The Sterling thing on the other hand, there is a history to this story in terms of how he's been subjected to a race-based smear campaign by certain papers in the past, plus he's then come out on twitter with a very provocative statement about it etc. so there's simply more to report on/discuss. I don't think it's purely because he's a city player that the story has received more coverage.
 

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
I get what you're saying but to be honest I reckon it's got more to do with the fact that there isn't much more to say about the one at Spurs. So a fan threw a banana onto the pitch, the police are investigating it, and there isn't a whole lot more to say because no information has been revealed. The Sterling thing on the other hand, there is a history to this story in terms of how he's been subjected to a race-based smear campaign by certain papers in the past, plus he's then come out on twitter with a very provocative statement about it etc. so there's simply more to report on/discuss. I don't think it's purely because he's a city player that the story has received more coverage.
Can't really disagree with this. I think I've been blinded by how much I resent Man City and anything associated with them.

Yes, Sterling has been subject to some pretty horrendous treatment. If he played for any other club I'd probably back his position. But I can't describe how much I hate Man City and I then tar him with the same brush. And it is hatred, rather than the faux tribalism of regular football rivalry. When I say I hate Arsenal, I do, but there's always a foundational knowledge that it's part of the tradition and that I would have a drink with an Arsenal fan and have a bit of banter and we could then part friends. Hell, my old boss was an Arsenal fan and we got on like a house on fire.

But I can't stand Man City because they subvert football and everything it represents. They buy titles instead of earning them - no matter what one may want to say about Arsenal or Man U, they at least earned their success. Man City want to take football away from the people it belongs to so that their rancid owners can cover up the cesspit of horrors they run at home. They are rotten and I hate them and no matter how justified Sterling is in his condemnation of what he's been subjected to (and objectively speaking, he has an very strong case), as long as he wears that shirt, my sympathy for him will remain tainted - and this is having suffered racial abuse myself.
 

Wheeler Dealer

Well-Known Member
Jul 29, 2011
6,863
12,282
City for all their wealth, will always be the number two club in a provincial city.. They can throw as much money at their so called "project" and this statement will never change
 

Tucker

Shitehawk
Jul 15, 2013
31,126
145,999
City for all their wealth, will always be the number two club in a provincial city.. They can throw as much money at their so called "project" and this statement will never change

There will always be an asterix next to anything the win, because they’d not have done it without the blood money.
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
104,143
Isn't it funny how the Raheem Sterling racism story has been dominating multiple news cycles. Why is it, I wonder, that the banana skin at the NLD story faded away within a day and yet a story involving Man City seems to go on and on and on.

NB: I'm not downplaying the scourge of racism in football, just noting the coincidence that at a time when Man City want a little sympathy, the story seems to keep running....

It's nothing to do with Man City and everything to do with the continued media bullying and racist smear campaign against Sterling, this latest incident is just an extension of it.
 

Johnny J

Not the Kiwi you need but the one you deserve
Aug 18, 2012
18,117
47,876
The continued treatment of Sterling is much more insidious, and I went on the radio the other day (Five Live) to talk about it. Subconscious bias is a real thing and incredibly difficult to solve.
 

Johnny J

Not the Kiwi you need but the one you deserve
Aug 18, 2012
18,117
47,876
Can't really disagree with this. I think I've been blinded by how much I resent Man City and anything associated with them.

Yes, Sterling has been subject to some pretty horrendous treatment. If he played for any other club I'd probably back his position. But I can't describe how much I hate Man City and I then tar him with the same brush. And it is hatred, rather than the faux tribalism of regular football rivalry. When I say I hate Arsenal, I do, but there's always a foundational knowledge that it's part of the tradition and that I would have a drink with an Arsenal fan and have a bit of banter and we could then part friends. Hell, my old boss was an Arsenal fan and we got on like a house on fire.

But I can't stand Man City because they subvert football and everything it represents. They buy titles instead of earning them - no matter what one may want to say about Arsenal or Man U, they at least earned their success. Man City want to take football away from the people it belongs to so that their rancid owners can cover up the cesspit of horrors they run at home. They are rotten and I hate them and no matter how justified Sterling is in his condemnation of what he's been subjected to (and objectively speaking, he has an very strong case), as long as he wears that shirt, my sympathy for him will remain tainted - and this is having suffered racial abuse myself.
All the top clubs "buy" their titles and trophies. Some spend more than others, and it's all relative. But City aren't doing anything that Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Arsenal haven't already done. It's just a question of scale.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,883
62,540
All the top clubs "buy" their titles and trophies. Some spend more than others, and it's all relative. But City aren't doing anything that Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Arsenal haven't already done. It's just a question of scale.
For me it's much more about where City's money comes from than how much they're spending. It's all dirty money earned through (figurative, if not literal) slavery.
 

FibreOpticJesus

Well-Known Member
Aug 14, 2005
2,788
4,991
For me it's much more about where City's money comes from than how much they're spending. It's all dirty money earned through (figurative, if not literal) slavery.

And Chelsea? Do you not hate them at least as much. Their money was not earnt internally. Where they started and continued showed others the way. Unfortunately I am not sure that the majority of our supporters would see it the same way if we had the same benefactors.

The biggest tragedy is the failure of both UEFA and FIFA to administer the game in accordance with the rules.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,883
62,540
And Chelsea? Do you not hate them at least as much. Their money was not earnt internally. Where they started and continued showed others the way. Unfortunately I am not sure that the majority of our supporters would see it the same way if we had the same benefactors.

The biggest tragedy is the failure of both UEFA and FIFA to administer the game in accordance with the rules.
Yes of course, that goes without saying. And agree 100% on the last part.
 

buckley

Well-Known Member
Sep 15, 2012
2,595
6,073
To say that all top clubs buy their titles is correct but that is not to say in the way Chelsea;City;PSG;Juventus.buy their titles because except for Blackburn rovers all the clubs have spent the money they have made from playing football .
Note Liverpool years of success on the field of play made them rich enough to spend a lot of cash.
Man Unt historically have spent big because of the many years of success on the playing field.
Back in the sixties we spent big because of our success on the green stuff.
Chelsea would or should have gone bankrupt but for Mr Abramovich and the money they have and still do spend has no correlation to what they should legally spend under.FFP rules.
City of course are in the same mode as Chelsea only at this moment in time more so as there spending far outldoes the amount that is really brought in thru the turnstiles and and legal sponsorship note the word legal.
Of course PSG and Juventus are in the same mode as Chelsea and City.
I would bet that fans in France and Italy are having the same conversation now.
I can console myself with the thought that I will never but never give these clubs credit for any trophies they win.
As much as I dislike Unt and Liverpool at least the earned the right to spend big for many because of many years of success on the pitch.
 

Lilbaz

Just call me Baz
Apr 1, 2005
41,363
74,893
The continued treatment of Sterling is much more insidious, and I went on the radio the other day (Five Live) to talk about it. Subconscious bias is a real thing and incredibly difficult to solve.

The bias against sterling isn't because of his skin colour though. It is because he leveraged a mega bucks move from liverpool at a young age. It tainted his image and has stuck.

No excuse for any racial abuse though.
 

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
All the top clubs "buy" their titles and trophies. Some spend more than others, and it's all relative. But City aren't doing anything that Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Arsenal haven't already done. It's just a question of scale.
That's precisely the point - it's a question of scale. What City have done is knock the scale completely out of whack. Even Abramovich's buying of titles wasn't on the scale of Man City.

Plus there are other non-football, socio-economic factors at work, namely the fact that those with resources now have far more than previously. Whereas a Jack Walker only spent tens of millions to buy his title, now the billionaires are spending 100s of millions. Alan Shearer cost Blackburn £3.3 million in 1992 and that was a British transfer record. Here's the noodle-baker: adjusted for inflation, that comes to £6.74 million in today's money. When they again broke the transfer record two years later, they spent £5 million on Chris Sutton. Inflation adjusted price: £9.69 million. City have spent nearly half a billion pounds on players. That's more than the nominal GDP of six of the world's countries.

And they feed the explosion of prices in players, which then damages competition because it makes the other teams unable to compete unless they spend similar amounts. What if those teams don't have billionaires willing to fund them? It's that principle that prompted UEFA into setting up FFP in the first place (nominally, at least). What was Man City's response? Did they try and remain within the rules laid down to ensure that there was fair and open competition? No. They circumvented the rules so they could continue BUYING titles.

And far beyond all that, as @Marty rightly says, the money is blood-money. The UAE is amongst the most horrific states in the world and Man City's owner is the deputy Prime Minister. Their 'kafala' system turns hundreds of thousands of migrant workers into slaves. And this isn't some First World drudgery we're talking about. They have no protection. A migrant worker can be beaten by their employer (and often are). Now, you'd think that if they were abused, then they'd just up and leave, right? Nope. In order to leave their employer, they have to get permission from the employer. And if they run away, the authorities actively hunt them down. And when caught, guess where they're sent: back to their employers. Most have to surrender their passports to their employers at the beginning of their 'employment' and so they can't even return to their homelands. Employers routinely refuse to pay them, deny them any time off, any kind of medical care. And do you know what the real cherry on the cake is? The UAE supposedly 'abolished' slavery in 1963.

Some of the other treasures available in the UAE:
  • Flogging and stoning are still used as a form of punishment;
  • You can be executed for being an apostate from Islam;
  • Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men - the other way round is absolutely fine, of course, because the women are usually forced to convert to Islam, even though Islam directly forbids compelled conversion - gotta love that ol' time hypocrisy!
  • Homosexuality is illegal and is punishable by flogging, chemical castration or death. Castration, ffs!
  • During the Arab Spring, more than a hundred activists were jailed and tortured for seeking reform; torture methods included electrocution;
  • Amnesty International reported in 2016 that dozens, if not hundreds, of people, both Emirati and non-, have been forcibly disappeared for months without trial;
  • A UAE court ruled that a husband was allowed to beat his wife as long as he left no physical marks. What a wonderfully enlightened attitude! Because it's the bloodletting that makes wife-beating wrong;
  • Guess what happens to women who get raped: they get charged with committing adultery! These people take victim-blaming to a whole new level.
We may not like the Abramoviches, the Glazers or the Kroenkes of this world, we may quite rightly condemn them for their less than palatable business practises, but they are nothing, nothing compared to the absolute scum that oozes out of the oil-sheikhdoms* of which Al-Nahyan is one of the most egregious examples (although that's a bit like saying he's the smelliest turd)

What Al Nahyan wants to do is sportswash his and his family's abhorrent, repulsive, barbaric, suppurating pus-filled boil of a regime in the eyes of the world. And if football is even more corrupted along the way, then who cares, right? Cause there's always been money in football, right?

*Just for the record, my screed is directed at the ruling elites of these nations, not the general populations.
 
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Johnny J

Not the Kiwi you need but the one you deserve
Aug 18, 2012
18,117
47,876
The bias against sterling isn't because of his skin colour though. It is because he leveraged a mega bucks move from liverpool at a young age. It tainted his image and has stuck.

No excuse for any racial abuse though.
I'm sure that is part of it, but I honestly don't think he would have got the same media treatment if he was white. I'm not saying it's all deliberate, conscious racism. But I certainly detect latent bias.
 
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