Saint86

Its hard to make a case that they won't get expelled surely 😅

Yeah, they are fucked. Sporting sanction wise though, isn't just the EPL? So the worst they can do is enforce a points deduction / demotion, possibly strip them of all titles, and potentially a transfer ban? The reason they are fucked is because every man and his dog is going to sue the living daylights out of them, they will win, and man city will have to cover those costs out of the SCR regulations. We're talking hundreds of millions... several hundreds of millions. Miss out on champions league footy... you can sue. Miss out on europea league... you can sue... Knocked out the FA cup semi final... you can sue... Stoke and Watford have both just won an FA cup and are due compensation for missing out on europe... Any European side that they knocked out during the period when they breached Uefa FFP rules... you would imagine they may also have a case... They have also financially doped their squad through illegal hidden payments and raised the cost of all teams in the premier league (and wide football league) over the period of a decade (give or take)... Goes on and on. Saints can make a claim that they damaged our champions league chances (we finished 3 points behind them in 4th)... equally they've poached youth academy starlets off of us through inflated wages and raised the cost of competing in the premier league. On the most simple level. Every single club in the league will be able to claim along the lines that they have missed out on one position's worth of prize money for each season where city broke the spending rules...

Plus side, 3 automatic spots this season...

Exactly. And so on... for every single team.

Mate, they are done as a club. Burnley sued everton over one season and have been awarded nearly £40M. Every single club that was in the prem over that period will have a legal case against them. European clubs can sue them.... And that ignores the sporting sanction. You could make an argument for them being drop kicked out of the Football League.

Nice try.... but our spot at Wembley will be awarded to Middlesbrough.

4-2-3-1 is clearly the correct formation for this squad. Would be mental to so fundamentally change such a successful approach.

If it were good news re punishment, you'd think we'd accept it and it would be released today - no need to manage statements, no need to appeal etc. The longer it goes on, the higher the chance of it not being an outcome we're happy with 🤷‍♂️

Probably fairly safe to assume at this point that no news means its not good news.

Thankfully we don't really have the squad for it.

Can you imagine, would be the most ridiculous punishment ever 😄. There is absolutely no point giving him a significant sanction as that is only a serious punishment for the club... if we are forced to let him go he walks straight into a good job in Germany... very hard to see any sanction like that as anything other than a triple punishment on saints, and you would imagine we would make hay in the media to that effect The other part of all this that rarely gets mentioned, is the LMA may get involved. Anything other than a short touchline ban is OTT.

Respectfully no. If Eckert actually instructed them to scout within the rules, but then they cocked it up and went a day late and breached the window off of their own backs, then its obviously very different to eckert deliberately instructing them to break the rules and having a plan in place to actively cheat (as per canada and their drone). None of us know the truth, but it would perhaps explain the stories about it being a lone employee who had breached the rules. And a young lad with a mobile phone down the wrong end of a training ground does fit the narrative of a junior employee cocking up and trying to get his work done however he can to make it up. This is a hearing about Eckert's conduct ultimately - If he instructed the scouting for Middlesbrough within the legal time period, and not in a period that breached the rules, it is relevant - The FA need actual evidence that he egregiously broke the rules to give him a significant punishment. Or at least, that is how it should work.

A rule Bielsa wasn't charged under - so to jump to a huge sanction for it would be ludicrous and wide open to a challenge. He'll get 2-4games tops.

Because, "parsons"? 😄

The scouting team forgetting to send someone on the correct day and sending the intern up a day late is the same thing as hiring a drone (and sourcing associated licences) to provide a real time overhead recordings of a rivals world cup pre match training?