The Manchester City thread

I did realise that was your point,Swooperman-and I would still say the treble wouldve still been the greater achievement.
To be honest Id have no doubt about it.
Look at it this way,there have been better teams(ie other clubs) than the Utd treble winning team but how many have won the treble.

After all its not as if this City team were any great shakes in Europe were they?

Conglatulations to Manchester City on completion of their purchase of the Premier League and for achieving what United have failed to do 19 times that is to win a title merely on goal difference

No seriously to Slick and the rest of the City fans you deserved it......United give everyone a day in the sun, Leeds, Blackburn, Arsenal, Chelsea, O.K. O.K. sorry about that I can't help it, it just pains me to see people in a council house with so much fucking money!

We cannot complain, yesterdays events had nothing to do with City winning the league, City beat United twice this season and thats all is to it, City needed to score 2 goals with 5 minutes left to play and they did just that which shows they are not an average side.

Disregarding the bitter traduction emanating from a certain quarter it is this idea of unlimited largesse which needs to be challenged and its influence on the game in general. Leaving aside the provenance of the money in the first place,that is to say,the billions which flow into the oil-rich states courtesy of the Western motorist,do we want a society where a football club is the plaything of a foreign sugar-daddy,where the media is similarly controlled largely by one source(and by the way only 36% of British households have Sky TV so the access argument falls down),where Manchester City lost £197 million in the past financial year so is completely at the mercy of the banks..ask any Rangers fan about the role of capital in football and you will get a story.

It's not just about how filthy lucre ultimately reduces choice in the game for the football fans(I'm sure Blackburn Rovers have a great chance of winning the Premiership next season),but this is symptomatic of a wider malaise which has crept upon us by stealth over the past few years. As a child Harold Wilson walked up to 10 Downing Street,which gave him the ambition to aspire to become Prime Minister. Now the area is blocked off behind fettered iron gates,a glass panel has been fixed in Strangers'Gallery,where the already remote Cabinet of millionaires debate the gifting of yet more power to the Murdoch empire.

If only one could have faith in the Michel Platini UEFA financial fair play proposals,but as I suspect they will huff and puff a little before succumbing meekly to the lion's share of what big business demands,whether it is the scheduling of the last World Cup amid a South African Winter,or the dishonest gifting of the 2022 tournament to Qatar on the back of the Russian 2018 bid.

Well,Seen,I think the problem there may be that the problem with starving people in Africa(actually I am not sure there are that many people actually starving)isnt lack of food or the will to help,its the inability to get resources to those most in need ie dealing with corruption and greed.(And often rampaging soldiers)
Thus maybe the A-rabs simply dont want to waste their money ie donate it to people who are just as corrupt as they are.They would know.

I thought Id try to answer this before/ in case ODM has another go as I dunno,I quite like this forum cos of the eclectic mix of contributors-its greater than the sum of its parts,blah,blah-and I see you as a key component of this...

So,anyway.
Well the fact is that many people agree with you(judging by what I read) Steve.

However,there are 2 main problems with your point and these are pretty much the same 2 problems as there are with many of your points:

1)Not enough people care
2)You havnt come up with an alternative.
Well,ok,in this case you rightly point out to UEFAs fair play and,so far as I know,this will have an effect.

What I believe you have failed to do in your post is be convincing as to why it matters.
All I know is that rich people are pouring money into the country I live in.
I suspect most people need a very good reason to complain about that to their MP etc
As for where the money comes from-why theres no mystery there,is there?
From the exploitation of the poor-dont spose you have a solution to that by any chance?

btw I suggest you place a sum of money that you would really,really hate to lose on Man City to win the prem lge next season............and once youve placed this bet,then see how much you care....

You do tick me off nicely,and so much more cogent than that other chap..

And you could have asked any Rangers fan how much sympathy they had for the clubs with no money two years ago and the answer would have been that they didn't give a fuck.

I keep hearing generalisations about how money has ruined the game but the game just keeps getting better and more and more people are watching it.

Brilliant bit of two-faced logic there mate. You should be a politician. Blackburn are no better or worse off now than when the big bucks that you seem to despise was pumped into them. In between times, thanks to the injection of cash, they have won The Premiership - something they struggled 80 years or so to do without it. They've had their day in the sun and now they are competing at a level that they are fit to compete at. They haven't gone out of business. Nobody has been executed.

In one post, you're saying that money has ruined the game because only a few teams can compete to win the league, and in the next you're bemoaning Rangers' strife which has, in effect, given others in Scotland an opportunity to take a champions league place from them next year and be Celtic's main rivals. Every cloud and all that.

The doomsayers have been saying that clubs will go out of business left right and centre for a decade or more - very few have despite the fact that we have, I think I'm right in saying, more professional clubs than any country in Europe and, quite possibly, in the world per capita and there is an argument to say that we have too many clubs. Every club that goes bust is a tragedy to the fans but every club that goes bust is a warning to other clubs to get their shit in order or face the consequences.

We are in the biggest financial pile of shit that we've probably ever seen and yet football clubs are still going. Most are running in a negative profit situation but do we really think that banks would let them carry on spending their money if they thought that they were throwing good money after bad - In this climate? For me, it would be no bad thing in the long run if banks issued a statement that they were calling in all debts in two years time and that clubs should get their shit together between now and then.

I don't buy the argument about clubs being forced to spend big to chase glory either. Leeds United, European semi-finalists to relegation all because of those nasty investors. Fuck off. Were Leeds fans complaining when they were living the dream? Were Rangers fans complaining when they were boring us to death with their run to the UEFA cup final?

Being a football fan has always been a game of snakes and ladders - well, unless you're a glory-hunting wanker who latches onto whoever happens to be the most successful club at a given time. Sometimes (most of the time) you win fuck all and live through long periods of frustration interspersed with the odd spike of glory. That glory is relative. It means different things to an Arsenal fan than it does to an Ipswich fan. It could be a glorious cup run knocking out two or three big named teams. It could be walloping your local neighbours. It could be a brief sojourn to the division higher than you've spent most of your life as a supporter. Thirteen years ago, City fans were celebrating promotion from the second division. This week, they're celebrating being the best team in England. In ten years time they could still be there. They could equally be struggling to overcome financial handicaps and wallowing at the bottom of the championship fighting off relegation. It will be some other team's time in the sun.

As I said, being a football fan has always been a game of snakes and ladders. The prospect of money making or breaking your club is just another element of that.

What on earth does that mean?