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View From The Street - City & The Charges: 114 Counts That Could Rewrite the Premier League · The Discussion Podcast

• 0:00
  is on the line now, our Feuilleton Street, um, presenter, our James
• 0:04
  Spencer. James, how are you? Oh well, that's very kind of you, melting my heart.
• 0:08
  Thank you. There you go, that's your little gift on a Monday, James. Anyway,
• 0:12
  and I've been away obviously in Italy for a couple of weeks, we haven't been
• 0:15
  doing Feuilleton Street, and then a story broke that just fitted right
• 0:20
  into a typical Feuilleton Street, um, subject really, didn't it?
• 0:24
  Yeah, it just fitted right in there, didn't it? Slotted in perfectly because
• 0:28
  we both love football. It's Manchester relevant as well, the angle.
• 0:31
  It's perfect. So this is basically the ongoing, I guess
• 0:35
  you could call it a saga really in some ways, James, could you not?
• 0:38
  A what, sorry? A saga. It's like a saga. Saga.
• 0:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Saga.
• 0:45
  Saga.
• 0:49
  Saga, darling, not a saga.
• 0:55
  Anyway, I say potato, ye say potato. But yeah,
• 0:59
  in some ways I'm sure people at Citi I'm
• 1:04
  hoping that it all could be lost in translation, if you like. But this is
• 1:08
  about City and the charges. 115 charges were,
• 1:12
  um, were raised against them. And I can't remember how long this has been
• 1:16
  going on for, but it seems like it's been going on for a very long
• 1:19
  time, James. Yeah, it has been. Like, I'm sure this has been a thing before
• 1:23
  the pandemic, or at least going back to— I'm sure I was
• 1:27
  at university when this was happening. So I'm sure this has been going 5,
• 1:30
  6, 7 years. Yeah. Like, Because if they broke it in 2018
• 1:34
  and they're saying 2009, 2018, even though what about 2018 to
• 1:38
  now? Like, this has been going on for ages. But what I'm
• 1:42
  more upset about is I understand it takes a while to investigate something. I completely
• 1:46
  understand that. But if they knew in December '24 when they made that decision,
• 1:50
  why is it taking like 2 years to come to public? Like,
• 1:54
  a lot happens behind in the shadows and the public works on a need-to-know basis.
• 1:59
  But it's like other people would have known this stuff, and it's like we have
• 2:02
  a right to know. So ultimately, the fans are the ones paying their wages.
• 2:06
  So why, why are we finding out this late? Like,
• 2:09
  why didn't we find out sooner? Yeah, and, and of
• 2:12
  course, I mean, at the moment there, we're still awaiting, I think,
• 2:15
  the official publication of them, and the expectation
• 2:20
  is the city will appeal,
• 2:24
  of course, and that'll put it into a whole new a whole new delay
• 2:28
  in, in a number of ways. But, um, the, the thing that
• 2:32
  really struck me today was that, um, we, we obviously
• 2:36
  spoke to a lot of people, a lot of them football fans,
• 2:39
  but there were absolutely nobody— we met nobody who
• 2:43
  was a City fan, which is a nightmare, really. Oh,
• 2:47
  to be honest, on that point though, I actually think if they've got any decent
• 2:50
  lawyers, their lawyers should actually City will be saying,
• 2:54
  oh, we want to appeal this. But the lawyers— if the lawyers are giving proper
• 2:56
  legal advice, the lawyers would say to them, actually, no, if you appeal that,
• 3:00
  you get a larger punishment, which goes for a lot of different situations. You'll get
• 3:04
  a larger punishment. So it makes more sense for them to just hold their hands
• 3:07
  up and say, look, 115 is a lot, 114 is a lot,
• 3:11
  we're sorry. And that's what they actually should do, because I think Chelsea did that
• 3:14
  and they had a reduced punishment, even though Chelsea should never have done that in
• 3:17
  the first place. But I think it looks worse on City. So the longer it
• 3:21
  drags on, the more they deny it, the worse it looks for them.
• 3:24
  I guess that's what, that's what normal,
• 3:28
  normal thought would tell you. But, you know, the guys who own
• 3:32
  football clubs, and this is not just a City thing, of course,
• 3:36
  it's the guys who own football, they are very
• 3:40
  moneyed. And with that, they are very I
• 3:45
  don't know, they can be very confident in their own way, really, can't they?
• 3:49
  You know, maybe overly confident sometimes,
• 3:52
  but, uh, it's confident of breaking the rules.
• 3:55
  Well, I mean, I mean, we, we talk about
• 3:59
  this, don't we, on the package, which is, you know, are the clubs actually bigger
• 4:02
  than the, the, um, the people who, um, manage the, the clubs?
• 4:06
  So, uh, I tell you what I think we'll do. We'll play some track,
• 4:10
  we'll play a track, and we'll start with the first piece of
• 4:14
  City and the Chargers. Is that all right? Yeah, we'll be at the very end
• 4:18
  of the episode. We're going to say what you think the punishment should be and
• 4:21
  what I think it should be. This is the Late Late Lunch Show with
• 4:24
  Rod Maxwell. Good afternoon, Rod. Welcome back from your time on holiday.
• 4:28
  Where did you go? I was in Tuscany,
• 4:32
  Italiano. And yeah,
• 4:35
  touring around. I do know what, James. I stood in
• 4:39
  front of a, I think it's 500-year sculpture
• 4:43
  of David, as in David and Goliath, by Michelangelo, I think it
• 4:46
  was. And it was huge. And you
• 4:50
  think of the tools they had available to them then, you think, wow, wow,
• 4:54
  you know. And so I like it. We turned around lots of different
• 4:58
  areas, um, trains, cars, and, and planes.
• 5:02
  And it was, yeah, lovely. Thank you. I thought you had a beautiful time.
• 5:05
  And, um, food Was that good food? Good. One bad
• 5:09
  pizza, but the rest of the time, wonderful food. I love Italian food.
• 5:13
  There you go. You're making me think of spaghetti bolognese and a
• 5:18
  nice Neapolitan Napoli pizza. Yeah, I get you. I get you.
• 5:22
  I had a bit of that, a bit of risotto, a bit of some fish.
• 5:26
  Yeah, excellent, actually. But that's not what we're here about. It's not a culinary food
• 5:30
  from the street today, is it? It's not food from the street. It's a view
• 5:34
  from the street. No, but are you refreshed? Oh, I'm reasonably refreshed. Yes.
• 5:38
  So not too bad. And the weather, was it good? Good, 24, 25, 26 degrees.
• 5:42
  It was lovely. I spent the last couple of days on a beach resort called
• 5:46
  Via Reggio. So you were on the beach there? I was on the beach there
• 5:50
  too, yeah. Okay, and last question, what was the weather? Oh, sorry, I already asked
• 5:53
  you the weather. Weather— oh, how did you get around?
• 5:56
  We flew in, we took trains a few
• 6:00
  times, and then we hired a car, and then we took a train again.
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  So a little bit of everything. This, this was almost me and my wife
• 6:07
  trying to backpack a little bit in, in sort of,
• 6:10
  um, '50s style. Okay, and did the wife enjoy it?
• 6:14
  Helen really enjoyed it. She's retired now, so this was her retirement,
• 6:19
  uh, marker holiday, one of many I think she's got lined
• 6:23
  up. Yeah, good, good, good.
• 6:26
  So that's all good, and moving on to something maybe
• 6:30
  not so good, um, the Manchester City announcement
• 6:34
  on Friday that they found guilty of majority of the charges,
• 6:37
  114 out of 115. What's your reaction to this, Rob?
• 6:41
  Um, confused, to be honest, um, because it
• 6:46
  seems like The Athletic broke the story, uh, the outcome of this,
• 6:51
  and I did a podcast on it on Saturday. And when you dig into this,
• 6:54
  the only reason that these, um,
• 6:57
  charges developed was because of some investigative reporting
• 7:02
  by, uh, I think, uh, I think he might have been a Spanish or
• 7:06
  Italian journalist who managed to hack into
• 7:10
  the accounts of City and discovered where the money
• 7:14
  was coming from that inflated their revenue, on which the,
• 7:18
  um, the actual transfers could be based. And so you
• 7:21
  look at this and think, if it hadn't been for that hacker,
• 7:25
  the EFL wouldn't have had— or the EPL,
• 7:28
  sorry— wouldn't have had a case. So, and, and then The
• 7:31
  Athletic, um, have been all over this story, and they were the ones who
• 7:35
  broke the outcome of the disciplinary
• 7:39
  hearing before the actual EPL broke
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  it. So, and now of course it's going to go
• 7:47
  into appeal and they'll wrap it
• 7:50
  up in appeal for goodness knows how long. So it seems to have been,
• 7:54
  it's a messy situation, it's a complicated situation,
• 7:58
  and we, I think actually we're just
• 8:02
  in stage 2 of it now. Yeah. And does it— I know you're a big
• 8:05
  football fan, Rod, so does it put a stain on English football and does it
• 8:09
  make you very sad as a fan? I think it does. I think it does
• 8:11
  put a stain on English football because ultimately,
• 8:16
  you know, we have rules around financial regulation and
• 8:20
  financial spending. They have been found to be
• 8:25
  working against those rules and thwarting the
• 8:29
  rules. And of course, you know, you can't take away from
• 8:33
  the football they played because they still play that football. And, you know, Aguero's fantastic
• 8:37
  goal that last day of the season, the goal still is there,
• 8:41
  right? And, and those memories can't
• 8:45
  go away. But, and, and actually, you know, you can't
• 8:49
  undo the history, the past, right? So how do you
• 8:53
  get an outcome that suits everybody here? That actually says,
• 8:57
  look, you can't get away with breaking the rules, but is
• 9:01
  also fair to all the parties that were impacted
• 9:05
  by this. And actually, how do you define that? It's really messy,
• 9:09
  really messy indeed. Exactly. And there's an argument
• 9:13
  that, you know, Liverpool could have won the league in 2014. Liverpool could have won
• 9:17
  the league when they were, um, I think they got like 99 points or something
• 9:20
  and they were a point off So that was like 2019. Yourselves,
• 9:24
  United, could have won it 2012, and actually it has a massive impact because
• 9:27
  Ferguson was meant to retire that season when he didn't. He had to carry on
• 9:31
  another year because he wanted to spend time with his wife. So there's
• 9:34
  that. And then Mourinho believes he should have got a winner's medal. But also,
• 9:38
  you know, you think of all the sides that were relegated that played against that
• 9:43
  City team, would they necessarily have been beaten
• 9:47
  have things been different, you know. Um, so there's all that relegation side
• 9:52
  as well. But I, I, for me, I heard Rio
• 9:56
  Ferdinand say, I've got another medal coming. For me, I personally don't
• 9:59
  believe you can rewrite that past history,
• 10:03
  right? You might turn around and say, right, we're chucking off their,
• 10:07
  their cups or whatever, but you can't undo all
• 10:10
  the history. It's too complicated to do that. This, for me, is,
• 10:13
  this is about What does the EPL learn from
• 10:16
  this? What does the FA learn from this? And how do they set things
• 10:20
  up that this can't happen again? But let's find out
• 10:24
  what the people of Altrincham have to say, because I'm sure there's quite a few
• 10:27
  football fans here and probably a few City fans as well.
• 10:30
  Okay, sounds awkward, but okay, let's go for it. Let's go for
• 10:34
  it. So, madam, today on Fusion Street we're talking about Man
• 10:37
  City and these charges, and we've just been talking there, and, and your
• 10:41
  concern about it seems to be about the impact it has on the future generations,
• 10:44
  the young kids who support football, maybe support City.
• 10:48
  Um, just tell, tell me, what, what is your worry about that really? Well,
• 10:52
  when it first started happening and my husband kept me informed, you know,
• 10:55
  and I live in Manchester, so I'm obviously aware of the teams, it just came
• 11:00
  to my mind that you see these guys, they're pandering to the owners that got
• 11:03
  millions, billions. So if they want to buy someone,
• 11:07
  which is I think one of these rules that were crossed, they can
• 11:11
  buy what they want, they can buy out of it. And the worst thing for
• 11:14
  me is my grandson's 9 and he's been reared from
• 11:19
  a baby to be a City supporter, Manchester City, and he's manic.
• 11:23
  He's been to the ground, he's been training with the, the team,
• 11:27
  the, what they're called, the youth teams, youth teams, and he's absolutely
• 11:32
  mad. But the key thing to me is what does that show him? That cheating
• 11:36
  is acceptable. And also The younger generation that
• 11:40
  are coming up, what does it say to them? And I think that's the appalling
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  part in this. They're not looking past what's happening
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  now. We know what the consequences might be, but when
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  this 9-year-old is what, 20, 30,
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  you know, and he's seen this cheating, I think it's disgusting.
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  Do you think we see that behavior in all walks of life? We see it
• 12:01
  in politics, we see it in just— it's not just football, is it? No,
• 12:04
  it's not just football, but because of the impact on this and him and
• 12:08
  his— is the way he supports them so avidly. The first
• 12:13
  thing I thought was the cheating. Yeah. And also it's come
• 12:16
  to attention— I mean, Haaland's trying to jump
• 12:20
  ship— that somehow along the way, and I'm not clever
• 12:24
  enough for this, but the players were involved somewhere
• 12:28
  on some of these rule breakers, these rule breaks. It was on the
• 12:32
  news. That the players— there's some certain players that have been involved. I don't
• 12:36
  know what you call it, but anyway, they're involved. And Haaland, who he's—
• 12:41
  he's his hero, the grandson Reggie, it's his hero,
• 12:45
  and he's trying to jump ship. He's moving out. And at the end
• 12:49
  of the day, the players will jump ship. They'll go to Real Madrid or whatever.
• 12:52
  But the fans— the fans are stuck with
• 12:57
  their club, aren't they, ultimately? Yeah, I don't think
• 13:01
  the loyal fans will disappear. It's like, you know, it's like my husband said,
• 13:03
  there'll be changes regarding points, relegation,
• 13:07
  whatever, but this cheating, no.
• 13:10
  So good afternoon guys, on Few from the Street today on Radio Aldi, we're talking
• 13:14
  about City and these charges. Now you're football fans,
• 13:17
  uh, but not City fans, but, but what, what's your reaction to this?
• 13:21
  What is, what do you feel as football fans that this represents
• 13:26
  or what this has done? I think it's twofold really. One of them,
• 13:29
  being a big United fan, it's great news. Um, on the
• 13:33
  other hand, I think for the Premiership it will be a massive loss, and to
• 13:37
  not have all the, the two, the two Manchester teams and the sort of
• 13:41
  other teams, the top teams in the Premier League— that's if it all happens.
• 13:45
  But my honest opinion is I've seen it all before, and I
• 13:48
  think they'll just kick the can down the road, throw the money at it get
• 13:52
  the lawyers involved and it'll just drag on. The appeal will just drag on and
• 13:55
  it won't come to any conclusion anytime soon.
• 13:58
  So you're— I'm sensing that your thoughts were they should be relegated
• 14:03
  or what? Well, not so much relegated because I don't know how many— how it'll
• 14:06
  work in terms of points, but the massive points deduction could cause them to be
• 14:10
  relegated. So you would be in favor of that sort of 60,
• 14:14
  70-point deduction and not recover back
• 14:17
  from it? Um, yeah, I'd be happy with that as a Red.
• 14:21
  And do you think, putting aside rivalry, it sort
• 14:25
  of undermines the football really, doesn't it, in terms of it,
• 14:29
  it is cheating and because they flaunted financial rules that
• 14:34
  were reasonably clear. Um, do you think it's the case that some of these
• 14:38
  clubs now, the owners are so much bigger and,
• 14:42
  and powerful that they think they can get away with this type of thing?
• 14:44
  Uh, yeah, I think so. I'd like, I would like to find,
• 14:48
  um, someone that invested in it if it needed that amount of money,
• 14:52
  but play by the rules, but also that love football. A bit like, um,
• 14:56
  who's the guy, you know, the, uh, the guy that's not
• 15:00
  Watford. Oh, awesome. Big punk star. Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 15:04
  And the Wrexford, um, Wrexham guy. Yeah.
• 15:07
  So I mean, if he loves the, if he loves the team and he's willing
• 15:10
  to put the money in, but play by the rules, that, that's absolutely That works
• 15:14
  great, but I think, you know, being watching them since I was 8 years old
• 15:17
  and seeing all the changes now, I think, you know, a lot of the loyalty's
• 15:21
  gone and, you know, and stuff. And if United do a big stadium,
• 15:25
  it'll be a massive stadium, that will change as well. But yeah,
• 15:29
  I think if it's, if everyone plays by the same set of rules, that's fine
• 15:33
  if they can afford to, but I think I'd like to see it where they
• 15:36
  play by the rules but they love the football. Predominantly it's because they love
• 15:40
  football. So good afternoon on Fewfin Street today, Radio Aultie, the Late Late Lunch Show.
• 15:44
  We're asking people about, um, football and
• 15:47
  City and these charges, and, uh, you, you obviously know
• 15:51
  what's come out in the story around this. What do you think it
• 15:55
  says about football, and what do you think would be a fair impact on City?
• 15:59
  Because I guess it's cheating at the end of the day, isn't it? They should
• 16:03
  be relegated. That's my only view on it anyway.
• 16:06
  Um, not just because I'm a United fan, it's just, it's just a bad look
• 16:10
  for football really, isn't it? Yeah. Um, well, they can't get away with it.
• 16:13
  Sorry, I'm quite nervous for some strange reason. But yeah, they should— my honest opinion,
• 16:18
  they should be relegated. And, and the issue with the relegation,
• 16:22
  I, I guess, is that the EPL and the EFL are 2 different organizations.
• 16:26
  Yeah. So do you think like a massive point—
• 16:30
  but first of all, they're, they're going to appeal this now, aren't they? So this
• 16:33
  is going to take a couple of years after that. Do you think so?
• 16:35
  Well, yeah, they're going to get away, get around it somewhere. Wait another
• 16:39
  couple years, I reckon. So what do you think? I mean, would you say,
• 16:43
  uh, a point deduction, or maybe 40, 50, 60 point deduction
• 16:47
  if, if it gets through appeal, and then you see how they get on
• 16:51
  and let natural relegation happen? Red cap
• 16:56
  off. You can't? No, I just want them relegated. You want them relegated? Yeah,
• 16:59
  and I want my title back in 2000. Which one was it? Jose won.
• 17:04
  I'm just, I'm just being biased because I'm a United fan. But you see,
• 17:07
  on that one, right? Yeah, I'm a United fan, but you want a different view
• 17:10
  on it. Well, no, I'll tell you what it is, is I don't think you
• 17:12
  can undo all the history because you take all those clubs that played
• 17:17
  City. Yeah, one or two of them, you know, there's not a number there
• 17:21
  that got relegated. Yeah, you know, you could turn around and say,
• 17:24
  would they have got relegated if they, they would have been
• 17:28
  playing by the rules more properly. And, and you can't— my, my take
• 17:33
  on this, you can't unfortunately undo all that history. You can't do it,
• 17:36
  you know. I suppose it's not the player's fault on the pitch, is it?
• 17:39
  No. And the Aguero goal was still a wonderful goal.
• 17:43
  I know, I know, I know, I know. But it was, wasn't it? You know,
• 17:46
  that was still a wonderful goal. But it's the—
• 17:50
  I think it's about, for me personally, it's about making sure this can't
• 17:54
  happen ever again. And I think part of the problem is that the EPL
• 17:58
  are not actually that strong. What did they give Everton? Was it a 6-point deduction?
• 18:02
  For how many? It was something like a fine, and I think it was just
• 18:06
  under a 10-point deduction, yeah. Well, a big point deduction and a transfer
• 18:11
  embargo for, I'd say, 3 years at least. That's what
• 18:15
  you're thinking? Yeah. I mean, giving them a fine's not going to do anything,
• 18:18
  is it? So, good afternoon, ma'am. This is Jay Spencer and Rob Maxwell for View
• 18:22
  from the Street on Radio Altice. So we were just asking you just now about
• 18:24
  the charges against Manchester City that came out on Friday night. And just talked to
• 18:28
  you just now, you said that it wasn't something that you were that bothered by
• 18:32
  because you're not really that into the football. Correct, yeah, it's not on
• 18:35
  my radar at all. I don't follow the football because I just think it's
• 18:39
  a lot of money and this kind of encourages me not to follow
• 18:43
  it because it's people
• 18:46
  behaving badly. Breaking the rules, yeah. Breaking the rules,
• 18:49
  and it's, yeah, so it has no impact on my daily life whatsoever.
• 18:54
  So you're kind of glad then, I would assume?
• 18:58
  Yeah, well, you're not interested in football because they wouldn't upset you? Yes,
• 19:01
  100% glad that I'm not losing any peace over
• 19:05
  this. Yeah, and I assume you gentlemen also are the
• 19:10
  same camp, not really that invested in this? Yeah, not really.
• 19:14
  I can see that it's unfair, but I've not
• 19:18
  really read much about the impact of it and what, you know, All the charges
• 19:22
  and stuff. So yeah, did you guys live in Manchester? I do, yeah. So I'm
• 19:26
  not— I can't be the only person who's spoken to you guys about this,
• 19:28
  right? You are. I am the only person? The only person that I would
• 19:31
  not— I would not have had a clue that any of this was happening.
• 19:35
  All right, okay, okay. So I am the rule— I have broken,
• 19:39
  uh, the news to you. You've enlightened us. Okay, okay,
• 19:42
  okay. Yeah. Have I given you guys a taste to maybe go home and look
• 19:46
  into it, or are you just really not Still not bothered, but you have to
• 19:49
  talk to me. Not particularly, no, no.
• 19:52
  Okay then, bigger things going on. All right then, last, last question then.
• 19:55
  Um, because it's high-profile sport,
• 19:59
  does it surprise you that maybe corruption
• 20:02
  and breaking the rules has occurred? It would surprise me if it hadn't,
• 20:07
  to be perfectly honest. Oh, okay, so you expect that sort
• 20:11
  of behavior? I think when you're dealing with that type of money, with and people
• 20:14
  in such privileged positions, perhaps it's the
• 20:18
  cynic in me that would expect that that's exactly the sort of thing that would
• 20:21
  happen. It's a very interesting point. Thank you. And I've spoken to quite a few
• 20:25
  City fans on this and podcasted about it, and they would say there was a
• 20:28
  cartel, there's a red cartel. Arsenal, Liverpool, United have
• 20:32
  had the Premier League sewn up. The only way we could break that was by
• 20:36
  spending the money. And of course, spending money is one thing, it's where
• 20:40
  the money comes from. And the problem with this was the money was coming from
• 20:43
  the same people that actually owned the club. But, but Do you have any sympathy
• 20:47
  or any view on that view that we had to break the cartel,
• 20:50
  this is the only way we could do it? No, because not
• 20:55
  everybody's got the money. So it just, you know, they were talking about Super
• 20:58
  League in the past, weren't they? And I think Super League will make it even
• 21:02
  make it more. If they take 4 clubs or 6 clubs out of that,
• 21:05
  that'll take another breakaway group out of it, you know, for that same reason.
• 21:08
  So, and do you think there's a risk here that the Man
• 21:12
  City owners could turn around and say, we'll take our camp and we'll move
• 21:17
  to the Super League, and we might be the English team that goes into it
• 21:21
  just to break the Premier League? Do you think? Uh, possibly.
• 21:24
  But would, would that be allowed to happen? I don't know. I think they've tried
• 21:28
  it, haven't they? You know, it's not been successful so far,
• 21:32
  but who knows? I don't know the answer to that. Thank you very much for
• 21:35
  your view. What are your— have you got any mates who are City fans?
• 21:37
  Of course they have. And what are they saying? Nothing's going
• 21:41
  to happen because they're going to get away with it.
• 21:44
  That's what they think. They think they're bigger than the Premiership.
• 21:47
  That's what I think. But I've been saying to people, I, I wouldn't surprise
• 21:51
  me that if they were found, they're proven to be guilty and upheld to be
• 21:55
  guilty, they would just take their tent and move to a European
• 21:59
  league and join Real Madrid and Barcelona and PSG.
• 22:02
  Just give them a chunk of a point deduction.
• 22:07
  Fine, I'm not really bothered about— just give them a transfer embargo for a few
• 22:10
  years, see what happens there. Would you start them again in the National League?
• 22:13
  Of course I would. Of course I would.
• 22:17
  I'd enjoy every moment of it.
• 22:20
  He would have them in the Rylands North Premier Division or whatever it's called.
• 22:24
  That's the main road where they come from. Well, no,
• 22:27
  um, so you'd rather play United side? You'd rather
• 22:31
  play Salford City and United FC rather than Man City now? Yeah, I'd go and
• 22:35
  watch that, Salford versus City, definitely. Or Altrincham even.
• 22:38
  Altrincham, yeah. I'm an Ashton United fan as well, from Ashton,
• 22:42
  so get them to play them as well, that'll be all right. All right,
• 22:46
  well, from that very unbiased point of view, View from the Street, lovely to
• 22:49
  speak to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Cheers, pal. Cheers,
• 22:52
  mate. So good afternoon today on Radio Alt-E, View from the Street on the Late
• 22:56
  Late Lunch Show. Uh, we're asking about, um, I guess City and the
• 23:00
  Charges really is the title. Um, it looks like they've been found
• 23:04
  guilty, although the official verdict isn't quite out yet and we don't know what
• 23:08
  the impact will be. But you're a football fan, you're a Leeds fan. What's your
• 23:12
  take on this? Is it completely, if you like, um,
• 23:16
  not emotionally attached to it? Yeah, I mean, look,
• 23:20
  they've got to have the book thrown at them, haven't they? Because you look at
• 23:23
  teams like Everton they got points deductions for minor
• 23:27
  offenses, and, uh, it sounds like they've basically done 114
• 23:31
  major offenses. So I think anything short of a real
• 23:35
  heavy relegation-deciding points deduction would be a bit
• 23:40
  of a slap in the face to all those fans as well. And do
• 23:43
  you think it opens up a bigger question mark around the—
• 23:48
  some of these— the owners of football clubs and how they think
• 23:52
  they can get away with breaking the rules, because they,
• 23:56
  they broke the rules on this occasion, it would appear. Yeah,
• 23:59
  absolutely. Um, I think it's no question that the rules
• 24:03
  are pretty clear, and there's been a lot of fanfare around following
• 24:07
  the rules and how long has this dragged on for kind of thing. So yeah,
• 24:11
  it definitely, um, as I said earlier,
• 24:15
  needs to be a heavy punishment to kind of reinforce the fact that there are
• 24:18
  rules. And they should stick by them. And as I understand it though, the EPL
• 24:22
  and the EFL are different organisations, so the EPL just can't
• 24:26
  turn around and say we're going to relegate you and we're going to put you
• 24:29
  down to League 2 or whatever. It has to happen with the EFL's support.
• 24:33
  That seems to be the best way to do that would be through more natural
• 24:38
  relegation, if you like. That means you have to put a points
• 24:42
  deduction on them, but there's, you know, I mean,
• 24:46
  do you think that would be a fair outcome?
• 24:49
  Yeah, I think what you're saying about them being separate organizations,
• 24:53
  there's, there's not much wiggle room there. But I think, yeah, um,
• 24:57
  all the Premier League can really do is, as you say, give them a hefty
• 25:00
  points deduction this year, send them down, make it impossible almost
• 25:05
  for them to battle it, but get that sort of 40-point mark
• 25:09
  to keep them up. And then it's down to the EFL whether they want to
• 25:12
  say, look, Yeah, you can come into the Championship
• 25:16
  naturally, we can't stop that, that's just the rules of the game. Or they take
• 25:20
  it even further, relegate them even more kind of thing. But that's the next step,
• 25:23
  isn't it? To be fair to City fans, I mean, they've been through the,
• 25:27
  the, the, they've been through lots of worse times
• 25:31
  in the past, haven't they? They've always stuck by their, their club.
• 25:34
  Um, they seem to be quite defiant at the moment. Have you
• 25:39
  picked that up at all? Yeah, I've definitely seen online, football's very
• 25:42
  tribalistic these days, isn't it? You'll fight for your club till the end.
• 25:47
  But look, as a Leeds fan, I've sort of been through the
• 25:50
  depths of League One and as a result of bad management
• 25:54
  and overspending back when we couldn't afford it. And look,
• 25:58
  the true City fans will still be there with the club whatever happens.
• 26:02
  It doesn't matter at the end of the day, they'll still be there supporting the
• 26:05
  boys. And, uh, yeah, we'll see what happens really. Thank you very much for your
• 26:09
  time. Thank you guys. Right, okay, Rod, how do you think that went? You know
• 26:12
  what, I really did expect that we would get some City
• 26:15
  fans today, and yet I think our first 4 Fox
• 26:19
  Pops were all United fans. So Alty is red as well as, um,
• 26:22
  as being Alty. But I know, um, I, I really would
• 26:26
  have liked a City fan's perspective. That's the— there's no— we don't have
• 26:30
  enough balance here. Um, but I don't know, what do you think?
• 26:34
  What do you think was the overall consensus across the people?
• 26:38
  Um, of the 3 United fans, the Leeds, and the people who weren't bothered
• 26:42
  about it, um, the general consensus was probably,
• 26:46
  I believe, 95% were saying throw the book at them. And they
• 26:50
  broke the rules, they cheated, they need to face the music.
• 26:53
  Which I would politely disagree with you when you said that those memories
• 26:57
  can't be changed. They won't. I think that that's the whole point, is that everyone
• 27:00
  would just say, well, hang on a minute, you did. That means you— that would
• 27:03
  never have happened. You broke the rules, and now you'll be stripped of it because
• 27:06
  you need the ultimate punishment. Because otherwise, a fine, money's nothing to you.
• 27:10
  Relegation, they'll just come straight back up. Relegation probably won't happen. Points deduction,
• 27:13
  they'll probably still survive. They'll still carry on as normal. Something has to change to
• 27:17
  make them fundamentally learn a real lesson. When I say the memories don't change,
• 27:21
  I mean, that Aguero goal is still that Aguero goal, and for a lot of
• 27:24
  people who watched that goal live, that goal still stands,
• 27:28
  you know, and you can never take that away. You can never take that away.
• 27:32
  I know a lot of City fans are saying, well, you could take the
• 27:36
  trophies away from us, but for us, we'll still have the memories of winning the
• 27:40
  games. And that's true. And that should always be
• 27:44
  the case because that's what being a football fan is. I just think it's
• 27:48
  quite sad in a way that once again, we're not talking about
• 27:52
  football, we're talking about the business of and the
• 27:56
  owners of football rather than the football itself. Yeah, I mean,
• 28:00
  I don't want to make this about me, but when
• 28:04
  Man City were ploughing a lot of money into things and, or even
• 28:08
  the way VAR's gone, sometimes I kind of take a break from football because
• 28:12
  I don't like that nature of it, but it has become very money-centric.
• 28:15
  Like, as I think we were talking about with the Man United, like the ticket
• 28:19
  holders or even in other stadiums, like it's been a lot of
• 28:23
  money focus, but focusing on Man City,
• 28:26
  there needs to be like more structure and organization as to when this will
• 28:30
  be. When will the hearing be? When are they actually going to get punished?
• 28:33
  Because they're currently top of the league right now. So if they win the league
• 28:35
  this season, then it doesn't feel right. As well as the fact that this all
• 28:39
  got decided in December 2024. Seems very coincidental
• 28:42
  that Pep jumped ship, Bernardo Silva jumped ship, John Stones even jumped ship.
• 28:47
  Who else did?
• 28:51
  Rodri jumped ship. Seems very suspicious. Well, I think Pep,
• 28:55
  I think, probably did decide
• 28:59
  it was a good time to go and probably knew the writing was on the
• 29:01
  wall. But really, you know, you would hope that
• 29:05
  this could be all sorted out before the season ends. It's put a cloud
• 29:10
  over the season in a lot of ways, but I
• 29:14
  fear that it won't and it'll go into the legal weeds.
• 29:18
  And of course, it's a,
• 29:21
  you know, the ability to challenge the outcome is
• 29:27
  part of the process, so that can't be changed. It's just
• 29:31
  I worry that it'll just go into the legal weeds And
• 29:35
  it'll drag on and drag on and it'll be hanging over us beyond this season.
• 29:39
  And, you know, City could win the league this season, and then
• 29:42
  what would that say about that, that Premiership, you know?
• 29:46
  And, and so really it'd be lovely if they could get it sorted out,
• 29:50
  whatever way it's got to be sorted out, sooner rather than later. But I fear
• 29:54
  that won't happen. And, and, and, you know, it's the fans of all the
• 29:58
  clubs, you know, that you You feel that they are
• 30:02
  not— they can't control any of this, you know, they can have their opinions.
• 30:05
  That's absolutely great. They can't control this and it's not
• 30:09
  right really. And you've got teams who like Liverpool who did really well. I know
• 30:13
  you don't like Liverpool, but who literally got like 98 points or 99 points and
• 30:16
  missed out on the league and worked hard with Jürgen Klopp and missed out in
• 30:19
  like 2019. Or even Arsenal under Arteta for so many years, or even you
• 30:23
  could say Mourinho when they came second, or even Ferguson
• 30:27
  says you probably owe me a 14th title now. So, or even people who could
• 30:31
  have got Europa League or Conference League or got relegated, or you get more money
• 30:34
  in mid-table. So the lawsuits are endless. Well, I think this is where you have
• 30:38
  to, you have to draw a line in the sand and say we can't undo
• 30:42
  the history, right? So if, if, if they appeal,
• 30:46
  and they will appeal, and they were— the, the verdict was still to be
• 30:50
  the same, that they were guilty of this, I think you could turn
• 30:54
  around and say, okay, for those years City
• 30:59
  didn't win it. You know, I don't think you give it the second place.
• 31:01
  I think you just turn around and say, unfortunately, the competition was null
• 31:05
  and void at that point. Because— but this, for me,
• 31:10
  because the permutations of that are too complicated, you can't undo
• 31:14
  that history, right? This is all about sorting this out
• 31:18
  so this cannot happen in the future. Professionalizing the EPL
• 31:22
  beyond where it's professionalized today and having the transparency
• 31:27
  so that the clubs can't hide money. You know, it shouldn't be a
• 31:32
  problem. It should be easy to do, you know. So it's messy. It's just messy.
• 31:36
  And it's also tribal, of course. And it's very hard to get an
• 31:40
  objective opinion. But yeah. It's a nightmare.
• 31:44
  I think there needs to be more regulation though and better regulators because we've seen
• 31:47
  Chelsea break the rules a lot and be banned from transfers, or even
• 31:51
  Everton. And Chelsea have signed a ridiculous number of players and then never played them
• 31:54
  and have a huge squad. Or, you know, so this
• 31:58
  will just happen again and again because other teams have broken the rules in other
• 32:01
  areas. And the EPL don't have enough teeth. They are toothless against some
• 32:05
  of the power of these owners, you know.
• 32:08
  That's where it is, you know. And but we'll—
• 32:12
  it's obviously going to drag on for a bit longer. We might have to do
• 32:15
  a part 2 on this and pick this up another time, but we will pick
• 32:18
  it up in the studio later. We'll pick it up in the studio later.
• 32:20
  Cheers, James. This is the Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell.
• 32:25
  James is on the line now to wrap this piece up. James, how are you?
• 32:29
  Hello, Rod. Good, thanks. Let's wrap it up. How are you doing? I'm all right.
• 32:33
  I'm all right. I'm intrigued that we didn't get one City fan,
• 32:37
  and that wasn't through not wanting to speak to any City fans.
• 32:40
  Fans because we desperately did. But it was amazing, we didn't come across any
• 32:44
  on the streets today. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of glad we didn't because I
• 32:48
  thought they might, um, say that they've, they've won all those things and they deserve
• 32:52
  it. Even though if you're cheating and you've got an advantage, that doesn't
• 32:56
  make it fair, that doesn't make it right. But you know, it's good journalists and,
• 33:00
  uh, presenters, we do need a balanced view. So we did need them, to be
• 33:04
  honest. I agree. Oh, we definitely needed them. I, I would love to have heard,
• 33:07
  um, from some City fans. And of course, if anybody is listening as a City
• 33:10
  fan, I've got a view on Especially if it differs from what you heard on
• 33:14
  the show today, get in contact with us. We'd love to hear from you.
• 33:17
  So, James, I mean, I think we said
• 33:20
  this on the piece, but this is an almost
• 33:25
  impossible situation
• 33:28
  to now retrospectively try to fix.
• 33:32
  You can't do that, can you? You really can't do it.
• 33:36
  And even if they null and void a number of the
• 33:40
  titles that City won, you know, I don't think you can just
• 33:44
  And I think it would be tokenism, actually.
• 33:47
  It wouldn't— it'd be very empty, you know.
• 33:50
  And also, you know, how do you reflect that
• 33:54
  across the whole of the league in the year? I don't think you can,
• 33:58
  actually. But I do believe
• 34:02
  that it should be about setting up for the future to
• 34:06
  make sure that this can't happen again. I get the feeling from you that
• 34:10
  you would like to see some retrospective adjustment, if you like.
• 34:14
  Yeah, because I think that like, okay, let's be honest.
• 34:18
  So in 2007 or 2006, 2005, they were floating in mid-table.
• 34:22
  They were like 11th, 12th, 13th before they had a lot
• 34:26
  of investment, which was 2008. So we're going about 20 years. Let's say 2006
• 34:30
  this time. 2006. Now those are the Sean Goater days. Those were
• 34:34
  the days of them. Now they obviously did a lot of things to get
• 34:38
  to the mountain, the top of the mountain of English football. Now those things that
• 34:42
  they did are questionable and they've brought the game
• 34:46
  into disrepute. They've broken the rules. And not only have they broken just a few
• 34:49
  minor rules, it's 114. So when we don't even know what they've actually
• 34:53
  done specifically— oh, thank you. So they have a lot to answer for.
• 34:57
  So I don't think that they've won those things right and I don't think they
• 35:01
  have. And, and even if they did get a tap on the wrist or they
• 35:04
  didn't, um, get a proportionate penalty for what they've actually done,
• 35:07
  they'll just win again anyway in the future. But they actually were built up by,
• 35:12
  you know, corruption and unfairness and breaking the rules. So I think
• 35:15
  everything has to be stripped back and reset to what it was 20 years ago,
• 35:19
  and only then can— if they do win again in the future,
• 35:22
  then they can deserve it, and it'll be well deserved.
• 35:25
  But it feels like a bitter taste in the mouth of all the other fans.
• 35:28
  Yeah, well, I, I, I, I guess that's the emotion of football,
• 35:32
  isn't it, really? Um, but, uh, I, I— from, from my point
• 35:36
  of view, I, I'm I'm much more in the mindset
• 35:40
  of you might null and
• 35:44
  void the Premier League Championship
• 35:48
  records for the periods this covers. You might do
• 35:52
  that. Okay. That won't change
• 35:55
  the memories of those City fans. And of course, those memories
• 35:59
  stay. But I don't think you can then retrospectively
• 36:03
  adjust the whole table. For that because actually,
• 36:07
  you know, the relegations happened. And how would you even know if
• 36:11
  those relegations would have happened anyway? You know, it's just,
• 36:14
  it's just impossible. I am much more in
• 36:18
  the area of actually saying, let's just make
• 36:22
  sure this can never happen again. Let's have the transparency, let's have the governance,
• 36:26
  let's have the professionalism in how the league is
• 36:29
  managed to ensure that this never happens again.
• 36:32
  That's where I am now, you know, because sometimes
• 36:36
  things, you know, the horse has bolted
• 36:41
  long before the gate can be shut, if you like. So it's
• 36:46
  just a mess, really. And I think it's a real shame that
• 36:50
  when you have such professionalism in lots of angles of the sport,
• 36:54
  you know, you've got VAR, for example, you've got, you know, all the professionalism
• 36:58
  around how the players are managed, the fitness and all of that. You've got the
• 37:02
  high wages. That the managers get,
• 37:05
  the very, very high wages the players get, is actually the
• 37:10
  people who are responsible for governing the game are
• 37:14
  probably several leagues down in the quality
• 37:19
  and professionalism and what they get paid to do
• 37:23
  it. And that all has an impact.
• 37:26
  So that has to change. I think for me,
• 37:29
  that's the lesson in this. But Yeah,
• 37:34
  it's, it's just a bad, a bad period for football
• 37:38
  actually, and especially for the EPL brand, which is a brand that is
• 37:42
  held in high regard, rightly so, for the quality of the football, the quality of
• 37:46
  the competition, the excitement, all of that, you know.
• 37:50
  And I mean, a lot of that shouldn't change and doesn't
• 37:54
  change, but it will have a mark. It would definitely
• 37:58
  have a mark, you know. Mm-hmm. I actually— you made me think that there's other
• 38:02
  things in football that are unfair. So it's like, for example, when they do the
• 38:04
  FA Cup draw or the League Cup draw, like in the
• 38:07
  4th round or something, the big teams face each other. And Gary Neville said they
• 38:10
  just heat the balls up just to deliberately make those big teams play because they
• 38:13
  get more money, the TV sponsors, just for getting big matches.
• 38:17
  So that seems wrong. And then also with VAR, the,
• 38:20
  the big teams will get the decisions. Like Infantino hasn't stood down
• 38:25
  and Argentina had loads of decisions. So imagine if they won the World Cup,
• 38:28
  that there would be uproar. But then Spain did it the right way,
• 38:32
  which you know, there's some parallels with that here. And it happened with Man United
• 38:36
  against Man City when Haaland scored completely offside. I was at Old Trafford getting some
• 38:39
  Vox Pops with my friend who's a content creator, um, he's a
• 38:43
  United fan, and they, they won unfairly. So I'm sure
• 38:47
  you were up in arms when you're in Italy. So there's other unfairness. But moving
• 38:51
  back to this, um, I want to know when the end date is
• 38:55
  for them to face the music and what the punishment
• 38:59
  will be, because If they just got a tap on the wrist, they can easily
• 39:02
  pay the money and they can easily recoup the points and they're still going to
• 39:05
  win and dominate the next 10, 15, 20 years. And they shouldn't have
• 39:09
  been allowed to. They're literally in the transfer windows. They're literally blowing loads
• 39:13
  of money. I know obviously Arsenal do, Liverpool do, Man United, they all do now.
• 39:17
  But they were the ones who kind of began that whole let's spend £100 million
• 39:20
  and buy our way to the top. Yeah, well, you know, I think while there
• 39:25
  are a lot of questions, I think you can go back
• 39:28
  to the person who was responsible
• 39:32
  for finding the information,
• 39:36
  leaking the information, or not leaking, actually doing the investigative side of
• 39:40
  this information. And that's the guy, I forget,
• 39:44
  was he Spanish? Where was he from? Let me just
• 39:47
  see. Let me just see. I've got it somewhere. But that's the thing
• 39:51
  about this. This hasn't come about because of a thorough process
• 39:55
  to begin with. It came about because somebody hacked a
• 39:59
  bunch of data. I think it was the
• 40:03
  city's data. They hacked it. And then, of course, that's illegal.
• 40:07
  But the hacker was a guy called Pinto, Portuguese computer
• 40:11
  hacker. There you go. He was the person who hacked it.
• 40:15
  And through his website called Football Leaks, he published a cache of
• 40:19
  confidential club documents, including internal emails about
• 40:23
  sponsorship deals and payments. And that's what this is all
• 40:27
  based on, you know. So that's why I come back
• 40:31
  to the point about the game needs to be improved in its
• 40:35
  professionalism and its governance. That's for me the most
• 40:38
  important bit. Anyway, James, we're out of time. This has been a very
• 40:43
  topical View from the Street, as they always are. And we'll,
• 40:46
  we'll be back. This will be out on podcast as well.
• 40:50
  And it'll also be out as a View from the Street on Mixcloud.
• 40:54
  And we'll be back with more View from the Street next week.