Time for a nonsensical rant 🙄
My unpopular opinion
In my life following football there have always seemed to be clubs that have an unfair advantage.
During the 70's it was clubs like Arsenal, Leeds and Liverpool who could cherry pick the best players, and always seemed to have favourable referees. Derby and Nottingham Forest were a breath of fresh air doing it the hard way to break the monopoly.
In the Eighties it was Liverpool, and opinion formed after going to watch West Ham play Liverpool and only being a few feet away from watching Kenny Dalglish throwing himself on the floor despite being two feet away from our defender and getting a penalty.
Too many incidents seen on telly in that period to change my thinking.
In the Nineties it was the rise of Man Utd, they had the biggest crowds so it was understandable they could buy more players but the refs being scared of Fergie certainly helped. Blackburn became the first of the outsiders to try to "buy" the League with Jack Walker's millions but after a couple of years he ran out of cash and that was that.
In the 2000's Leeds had a period of big spending and success under Risdale which didn't last long then Chelsea entered the cartel of Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd with Abramovic's billions buying all the best players, and for a while it was just Man Utd or Chelsea winning everything.
In 2008 Man City were nearly going under financially and the Abu Dhabi group came in with their billions.
Now their were five teams with all the money and influence hoovering up all the best players.
Man City were now getting the players the others wanted, and so with new rules being introduced they had to resort to the creative accounting that Chelsea and some other European teams had been rumoured to have used previously.
The Russia vs Ukraine war was the excuse to get rid of Abramovic from Chelsea, although they were sold to an American group led by Todd Boehly who seems to have links to Russian Oil so not sure how that plays out.
Chelsea self declared 74 charges breaking the new FFP rules under Abramovic and were given a slap on the wrist and a £10m fine.
Man City appear to have broken the same rules but denied it leading to an additional 40 charges, which is the ongoing case now.
Obviously the original members of the elite three want huge sanctions on Man City to remove them from their exclusive club, but whatever happens will put a big stain on football.
Personally I have enjoyed Man City sticking it to the others while playing the best football.
Although at the end of the day big business and Billionaire owners are just ruining football for the average fan.
Fans of other clubs know they are not invited to the table, if they have a good season the big teams will relieve them of their best players so any success will only be brief.
Man Utd the richest English team but are also £1.3b in debt as the Glasers borrowed the money and have to keep paying interest, part owner Ratcliffe is a tax exile with dubious views.
Liverpool owned by American and Indian billionaires with Jeff Bezos on board now.
Arsenal, Aston Villa and Bournemouth are American owned, Newcastle Saudi owned and most of the rest in Foreign ownership.
Not really the people's game anymore.
* still not sure why Tottenham ever make this list? 😁
