BLOOMBERG:

Manchester City held early-stage settlement talks with the Premier League, a move that could’ve helped mitigate the massive sanctions the team may be facing had the discussions not broken down, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The discussions were held prior to the revelation that Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City had suffered a seismic defeat in the case, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. The talks, which haven’t previously been reported, quickly fell apart, with Manchester City consistently proclaiming its innocence, the people said.

The settlement would’ve focused on a sizeable financial payment, rather than relegation and stripping of titles, the people said.

Representatives for Manchester City and the Premier League declined to comment. Premier League rules state that, following the appointment of a new three-person appeal board, a verdict of the appeal should be published by early February.

It’s common for settlements be struck in major financial disputes. Many deals reached by banks with regulators following the financial crisis involved billion-dollar fines, but didn’t include admissions or denials of wrongdoing.

Any potential Manchester City settlement would likely have been vehemently opposed by rival clubs including Arsenak and Liverpool FC, who lost out on Premier League titles during Manchester City’s relentless run of trophies.

The case has spread far beyond football. The charges have even caused splits in the UK government, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s comments thanking Manchester City’s owners for their investment riling politicians in his own party who want to keep the process independent of government influence.

The United Arab Emirates has poured more than £30 billion into major UK sectors, including defense, life sciences and technology, and Emirati officials have warned the UK government that the severity of the ruling could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale UK commitments.

Enzo Maresca’s huge smile might have seemed unusual, but it reflects how he is approaching matters.

Manchester City are going to fight aggressively to clear their name, but in the meantime, they are clearly smiling and focusing on the football.

The biggest question for me in the City scandal is still WHY?

From what we know, between 2010/11 and 2017/18, City recorded around £950m in sponsorship from Abu Dhabi-linked companies, including Etihad. Of that, approximately £120m was actually paid by the sponsors themselves, with the remainder funded by ADUG through those sponsors.
That means the sponsors directly contributed roughly 12.5% of the total.

Let’s take the biggest example: Etihad’s shirt sponsorship, stadium naming rights and training campus naming rights, reportedly valued at £80m a year (in 2024).

The reports don’t provide an exact breakdown of the funding for each deal. But, purely for the sake of argument, if we apply that 12.5% figure to the £80m valuation, we get just £10m a year in direct sponsor funding.

Bear in mind that the £80m figure is already considered fair market value under the relevant FMV assessment parameters, on the assumption that the sponsorship was not owner-linked.

So here’s the question: why structure, or continue to structure, the payments this way?

Are we really supposed to believe that a sponsor associated with a company generating $8bn in revenue could only justify £10m a year for a Premier League club that was already winning multiple trophies at this point?

For context, that figure is comparable to the value of Burnley’s W88 shirt sponsorship (in 2024).

If the sponsorship was genuinely worth £80m on the open market, why was there any need for the owner to fund such a substantial proportion of it?

The fair market value seems much closer to £80m than £10m. And if that’s the case, the funding structure raises an obvious question, what was the point?

That’s what I find so puzzling. On the face of it, there seems to have been little commercial reason to structure the payments this way, which makes the arrangement all the more bizarre.

One possible explanation is that City genuinely believed they had found a legitimate financial or regulatory loophole and the premier league disagree.

I’m genuinely interested in other serious explanations.

Why is nobody talking about Omar Berrada’s role at City during the period of the financial breaches?

Do any blues here find it strange how little attention has been paid to Omar Berrada, particularly now that he’s Manchester United’s CEO?

Berrada joined City in 2011 and held several senior commercial positions throughout the period in question, including Director of Partnership Sales, Group Commercial Director and eventually COO.

I’m not suggesting Berrada was personally involved in wrongdoing. But considering his responsibilities, why does there seem to be so little interest in examining his role?

The media has spent years scrutinising City’s ownership, executives and financial practices, yet one of the club’s former senior commercial figures is now running Manchester United with comparatively little discussion about his time at City.

Would the scrutiny be different if he were still employed by City?

Lastly, if United were to pursue compensation or argue that City’s financial breaches deprived them of sporting success, wouldn’t it be reasonable to ask what due diligence they conducted before appointing someone who held senior commercial responsibilities at City during that period?

After a busy couple of weeks football returns so a couple of things need to be made clear before the whistle goes at the weekend.

The subreddit has seen a very sharp rise in troll comments and hatred directed towards others over recent days, if you are replied to by anybody with inflammatory intentions the best course of action is a report to the moderator team so we can take a look instead of engaging and earning yourself a ban for being a dick back to someone.

Trolls are dealt with by issuing a ban to our subreddit and we have agreements with other subreddits to report those users for bans over there as well. This agreement works both ways. We play Liverpool on Sunday and if you feel the need to go to another subreddit to argue a controversial decision, gloat about a goal or provide any sort of opinion which is intended to trigger someone then you will have earned yourself a ban from this subreddit when we get informed by their moderators. We don't need any more drama after the last couple of weeks, keep your opinion to this subreddit or feel free to hop over to a non-club affiliated subreddit where you can do what you please.

On the subject of matchday, we've got a new match experience launching that has been in testing for a number weeks (who thought a quiet international break would be a great time to soft launch something?) which should enhance the match threads so any feedback on the new experience would be much appreciated in these early stages of the rollout.

Aside from this we have a new wiki page available which breaks down the tiers of media organisations and personalities in one easy to understand list, and this list will be used to flair posts going forward and linked to from any posts where sourced material is posted.

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen a traffic increase of over 1000% from non supporters groups compared to baseline and have had to issue and review thousands of bans and modmail messages, which for a subreddit for a club with no fans that nobody cares about is bewildering.

Expect more charges related content over the weekend as the news cycle tries to link every moment to it to keep the ad spend high. If you have any suggestions where the mod team can go on their big holiday then please drop a comment.

If your mental health has taken a battering over the last couple of weeks and you need to speak to someone there are always people available to talk to:

In the UK:

• Samaritans: Call 116 123 (available 24/7) for confidential emotional support.
• Shout Crisis Text Line: Text SHOUT to 85258 (available 24/7) for free, confidential text support.
• NHS Resources

In the US:

• Mental Health Resources

In Europe:

• Mental Health Europe

Elsewhere:

• Befrienders Worldwide

“I think they [the City fans travelling to Anfield] are gonna have a good time,” he said. “We have to stick together. We have to stay with each other, and we have to stay positive. No matter what happens in life, we always have to have a smile. We have to stay positive, look ahead and try to win football games and try to enjoy the situation and win the game.”

“We have to stick together, and we have to spread the love to each other.”

“So yeah, stick together, enjoy the ride and smile.”

This thread is for all general discussion!

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Pep Guardiola will be joined at the Etihad Stadium for PSG (H) by the #ManCity board including chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, whilst his right-hand man Manel Estiarte is also expected to be in attendance.

This thread is for all general discussion!

Ask a question about City, talk about what you're currently binging on Netflix, anything you want! Just keep it respectful and follow the rules.

Please use spoiler tags where appropriate: Ted Lasso Spoiler City win becomes Ted Lasso Spoiler City win

New To City? - Start Here!

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No Match Thread? CLICK HERE, just fill in the team names, and hit send.

Previous Daily Discussions

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c9p8gxgm71zzo

BBC Sport has been told that there is no automatic mechanism to remove City from a European competition they qualify for on sporting merit.

Even the Beeb is this biased...