115 reasons why Arsenal should have won the title last season
Last season, Arsenal had a great season that honestly most people never expected us to have. Manchester City have become the team to beat for years now and if we’re being honest, they have been almost impossible to catch up to.
Since the City Group took over Manchester City, they’ve obviously been trying to build their brand and have injected an insane amount of cash into the club, trying to catch up with the like of Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and even the Spuds, and realistically from the outside, they’ve managed to do that.
BUT, almost a year ago and after a lot of allegations were thrown about by UEFA a few years earlier (that were later dropped due to a problem with how long the investigation was allowed to go on for) the Premier League came out and accused Manchester City of tinkering with their finances and have found ways to inject cash into the club in a “not so legal” way and almost a year on from the first reports of these “115 FFP charges” we are yet to hear anything solid about what’s happening.
Everton were just handed a 10-point deduction for just one charge and City are facing up to 115, so you can only assume that if City are charged with even a small amount of the charges (and the Everton charge is anything to go by), we can expect very harsh punishments. Although both cases are very different, Everton came forward, admitted to their wrongs and wanted to get their punishment out of the way, whereas City have lawyers fighting to prolong the case as long as they possibly can, but 115 charges is a lot of charges and one has to assume that they can’t get away with all of them.
City have continually denied all allegations put to them, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out something is amiss when they’re coming out and saying they’re earning more profit than Real Madrid or even Manchester United, two clubs with the biggest worldwide fan bases and it feels like it’s just a matter of time until everything comes crumbling down.
Why does this affect Arsenal? Well quite simply put, if City are charged with financial doping, it would technically mean Arsenal were cheated out of a title, along with a few other clubs. In a season that was probably the best Arsenal fans had seen in years, we were left heartbroken with City managing to catch up to us.
And yes that was due to form but everything from the top trickles down at a football club and if it is proven City have had an unfair advantage, what do the Premier League do about the titles that were won by cheating?
What’s your thoughts Gooners? What would you like to see happen IF City are proven guilty at some time in the future?
Daisy Mae
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Personally I don’t want last year’s title accolades.
City should be stripped of them but it doesn’t mean they belong to arsenal.
I think city should be punished accordingly. Westher that means being relegated a league or two. As well as paying back the money they have STOLE from winning the league and CL from other clubs. As well as fines.
But don’t care about titles that were not won fair and square. Pep and the players beat us to the punch so they ultimately are the winners.
And who have City stolen money from? You being a financial expert should be able to tell us.
When you win the lrem you get a pay out. In the last season city we’re paid £160m. This is a chunk of the 2.5bn paid between the league. S title winners they are given the highest chunk. So effectively because they won the league by dubious means they have stolen the £160m.
Not financial advice @ Futuresblue 😉
@Shortboygooner
RealTalk…👏🏾
100 %. We were beaten on the pitch, regardless of what money was used to put together the sides, so it wouldn’t be a meaningful title. If they did wrong they should be punished, but that’s it.
“beaten on the pitch” thanks to what?
Doesn’t matter – on the pitch, we lost fair and square.
“we are yet to hear anything solid about what’s happening”.
“City have lawyers fighting to prolong the case.”
It’s going to drag on & on & on…
Um. Lawyers doing what they are paid to do, that is setting out the case for the defence. The 155 charges the Prem have been squirrelling away for years will take years to process.
Dear me.
Meanwhile, in the UK we presume innocence until found guilty.
Wasn’t it Arsenal who had Usmanov on their board? A little did into HIS history will uncover far worse than alleged bad accounting. Off you go…
Point deduction or relegation. If FIGC could send Juventus to Serie B, the FA should be able to demote Man City as well
Do it. We’ll be straight back up.
Removing titles would just punish the players and fans.
Straight back up from the National League? And punishing fans would give me such a laugh, especially over some of the rock star types, and the ones who troll Arsenal blogs. Toddle on…
So can I ask you Jeremy, are you happy with the way your club owners are managing your club?
Like most fans, I wouldn’t want to be given a title, but, likewise, I wouldn’t want to keep one if it was proven to be obtained by deception.
Also, are you happy with the sentence given to Everton and, if you are, what would you expect City to receive IF any charges are found to be proven.
I absolutely agree that it’s fans who are punished, as we have no idea what goes on internally at our clubs and I have nothing but admiration for the city fanbase that stayed with them during the “bad old days”, especially when Ferguson and united were running the PL!!
So it seems you are a City fan and one who thinks they now have to answer 155 charges and not the actual number, well known, which is a “MERE” 115.
Some City fan you must be, not to even know THAT!
Straight back up eh?
Not if you’re in the Pub Team League and get a long transfer in ban.
All your players will leave and your rich guy might decide he’s had enough. All the law suits would make it hard to sell mind you.
Removing titles doesnt punish players and fans at all, that is just emotional nonsense. Not removing titles punishes all the OTHER teams players and fans. And there is a lot more of them.
Plus, if MCFC get punished properly they will be back to having about ten fans like they had before all the plastic fans started wearing sky blue lol
Know your facts, Neutral!!
City fans, numbering over 30,000 were following them in the third tier of the English league.
They have a fanbase second to none – the problem is that the “newer” fans should show a little humility regarding their oil found success.
Heh It wasn’t meant to be 100% factual Ken. It was just saying that they will have a lot less when the oil money is gone.
And that it will be much harder to climb back up without the money.
If they go down 1 division maybe Sheik Ya-money will stick with it. Not sure he will if they are back at the bottom of the food chain and getting sued left right and centre.
My apologies, I thought you were saying something that it turned out you wasn’t saying my fellow Gooner.
I do believe, however, that their hard-core fans of over 30,000 will be there whatever happens.
No worries man, no offence taken at all 👍
And yeah I think you’re right. They will still have 30,000 real fans from Manchester, which is how it should be to be fair, just not the 30 million plastic fans in the rest of the world who provide them with a lot of income as things stand.
Wishful thinking I’m afraid! Taking on Everton as opposed to Man City are two different things, the risk of being sued by one of the richest clubs in world sport would, in my opinion, temper the FA’s judgement. They would probably get a large fine and a slap on the wrist!
It’s not surprising that City made larger profits than either RM or Man U, they won almost everything over the past few seasons and their spending on players was relatively low. Like it or not they are a well run and profitable club and it would be silly for them to ‘fiddle’ their profit figures considering the existing charges against them.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to win the EPL title by default, we actually lost in on the pitch last season, the City players and manager were not responsible for any alleged wrongdoings by their club.
Literally speaking, City did win it on the pitch Andrew but it doesn’t alter the possibility that in the years prior to their phenomenal success, they ‘cooked the books’ in order to reach their target of world domination in football
Not just that. MCFC came good at the end of the season when AFC was struggling with injuries and squad depth.
Money made the difference in squad depth.
If they don’t deserve it then they should not keep the title.
That said, AFC also has a rich guy owning it but if he’s playing by the rules then no more to be said if AFC get the title instead (and that is true even if I don’t like the rules).
The thing is Sue, nobody really knows what the charges made by the PL are and the actual number. So I decided to to a bit of research and came across a Sky article and the reason for the charges made by the PL and I quote:
” You have to bear in mind that the only reason this all came to light was 5 years ago, German outlet Der Spiegel published an investigation which was based on the work of a Portuguese computer hacker Rui Pinto, who had hacked into the email accounts of various football clubs and agents. It was a story that started the UEFA investigation into Man City which also led to this Premier League investigation”
End of quote.
My opinion? Man City with their team of KC’s headed by Lord Pannick KC, I believe, will appeal any charges and will probably get a slap on the wrist and a fine for sloppy accounting. And being the cynic that I am the PL is probably angling for just that, relegating them will just make them poorer. This is how it works, the rich and powerful are rarely held to account.
I think we do know. The EPL released a full list of charges in Feb.
I’ll post a link below in case it gets auto deleted or something.
Here’s one place with the list.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-citys-ffp-charges-full-28130440
These are historical charges from before Pep took over and the actual sum of money involved is about £40m…not even as much as you wasted on Havertz !
It doesn’t matter how much. It’s the knock on effect of teams being relegated or missing out on European football.
But you knew that anyway.
Yep.
And it doesn’t matter when Pep took over either. It’s MCFC being looked at, not Pep.
It’s ridiculous when clubs like Burnley and Everton get punished and City get away with whatever they want thanks to a money reservoir which like Trump pretty much allows them to tie ap the legal system.
If found guilty or found to be non-cooperative then City should be:
Demoted to the lowest division.
Very heavy fine.
A transfer (in) ban for a number of years.
Ownership reassessed under the new rules.
Stripped of titles from the time the wrongdoing started.
If they don’t get made an example then big money clubs will calculate the cost and benefits of “off the pitch” cheating.
They will decide that the cost-benefit calc means they are down in history as multiple champions (but a bit of a blemish in one season when they got a fine a and a slap on the wrist) which will add up to big clubs doing exactly that in future.
The punishment has to be a big deterrent and to do that, there can be no long-term rewards like keeping titles and they must be seen to pay for wrongdoing over many years of low level football. Titles MUST be taken away.
The worst thing about this is Pep could have easily worked within a Man City budget why did they feel the need to get an extra leg up over their rivals they already had a lot going for them with the best manager around along with bulks of cash
It’s not the “worst thing about this” at all. This is all pre Pep. I’m sure he knew nothing of it.
The worst thing is all the defeats inflicted on teams that have been relegated and on others that might have missed out on European football due to City’s corruption.
In my opinion, No way will City be stripped of titles, cups or any trophies, as it would open a whole can of worms and I certainly wouldn’t want Arsenal to be awarded the title by default. Also, it would have ramifications regarding Europe, relegation, prize winnings, everything. If City are proved to be guilty, which could take years apparently to resolve, just kick them out of the league and ban transfers for 5 years. Having said that, what happens to the possible innocents in the outcome, the players, back room staff and all the other employees? All I know is the decisions, prolonged court cases and rest of the appeal circus will be monumental!
GB, what about the fans as well?
I understand what your saying about the employees, but the players?
Their probably all millionaires already and will soon find new clubs – Haaland for The Arsenal?
There won’t be retrospectively awarded titles. Where’d you get that idea? It’ll just be a blank against top team for the years involved.
I couldn’t say what punishment they’ll get though. Just remember that they will be judged by their contemporaries, so possibly quite harsh.
Good point. Stripping titles from MCFC doesnt mean they have to be given to anyone else.
MCFC should definitely lose them imho. What else happens to the titles is another question but if someone is found guilty of cheating then they def shouldnt be able to keep titles they “won” by cheating.
For authorities it’s not just about the here and now. It is also about removing any incentive to cheat in future.
I didn’t get that completely correct. I’ve just learned that although the Premier League will make the charges, an independent tribunal will do the judging. At least that’s as I understand the situation with Everton. Could be different for Man (115) City.
The owners are guilty, overly harsh to punish the fans in equal measure.
First they should levy MASSIVE fines on the ownership, as they were guilty of the wrong doing. Second, they should be limited in terms of spending going forward for several years, and lastly, should have oversight regarding their finances and spending for several years going forward to ensure adherence to the law.
For the last 5/6 years City have been about 10th or 11th in the Premier League nett spending. Chelsea and Man Utd were top 2, even Liverpool were ahead of City. So FFP restricted City’s spending. The charges alleged against City extended to 2018. There are no charges against City from 2018 to the present time. So Arsenal’s chance of receiving the 2022/23 Championship is zilch.
Maybe it’s the manager that makes the difference. Maybe possibly etc
It’s not just about the spending. There wouldnt be 115 charges if it was just one kind of thing.
It’s about all the rules. I cant remember them all but iirc some were about transfers of money from other clubs. Illegal payments to agents.
I might be mixing up some CFC charges with MCFC ones but you get the gist.
And anyway, a punishment doesnt have to apply in the years the wrong doing happened.
Example would be if they find KDB was bought with dodgy money or when dodgy money was moving around. Well he’s still playing for them now so he is still having an effect on their success.
I think Blewmoon 48 missed that very valid point Neutral.
I very much doubt that being awarded the title for 22/23 is high on the Arsenal’s Xmas/New Year wish list
English game is one the most prestigious games in the world and i hope for its integrity , they take the right decision .
ManCity Chelsea should be stripped of titles and relegated . (Hey it might garner more interest in the championship as well )
Assuming they’re guilty as charged.