We are trying to move the Mailbox on from Treble d***-swinging so let’s talk about Arsenal and Man Utd.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com
Actually, Arsenal fans enjoyed that
To Matt in Belfast, regardless of Arsenal not winning the league, I’m pretty certain 99% of Arsenal fans, and 100% of those I know personally, absolutely loved this season just gone. We had a group of players we liked, playing some great football, getting some great results, beating teams we weren’t expected to. We had our catharsis moment of unbridled joy in the Bournemouth winner, we’ve tied down many of our best players to new contracts, we had the best away kit we’ve had since the Banana kit and we have a stadium that is now rocking. I for one bloody loved it. This is after a decade of stagnation, slow decline and humiliation of watching rivals competing and winning accolades. Why wouldn’t we enjoy it?
John Matrix AFC
Man Utd must hit the ground running
Man United has the annoying habit of showing interest in many players but not putting money on the table when it comes to the crunch. Loss of Gakpo and Nunez to Liverpool and Haaland to Man City are cases in point. The club cannot afford to continue with this undesired traditional practice if we are to mount a strong challenge in the 2023/24 season. United should act fast to secure the signings they have identified. The Glazer family should make good transfer money available for that purpose. The club being considered for sale is not an excuse for not spending.
Professor (Dr) David Achanfuo Yeboah
READ: Liverpool 18th? Ranking the early summer mood at all 20 Premier League clubs
Sou impressive
I just wanted to take a few moments to talk about Graeme Souness. As a Liverpool fan, I have had a real dichotomy with him for some years now. He was a combative, proper old school midfielder, a good old-fashioned hard man that has no place in the modern game, and he was a vital part of the Liverpool team in the the late seventies to mid eighties. He was also a terrible manager that properly killed off the moribund post Dalglish team, and his subsequent career and punditry has often made him difficult to like.
But if you have been keeping an eye on the news then you will have seen that he is about to attempt a channel swim at the ripe old age of 70 (and fork me he looks good for a 70 year old who had a heart bypass operation a few years ago) for a DEBRA, a charity seeking to find a cure for epidermoysis bullosa, a dreadful skin disease that torments sufferers throughout their lives. He has been particularly affected by a 14 year old girl, Isla Grist, and it is hard to watch him welling up as he talks about her plight and the life she has had because of the illness. That’s proper empathy, and it is at odds with his public persona, showing a side to him that I would not have suspected existed.
Yes, maybe it has occurred to him, post-Sky exit, that it wouldn’t do his reputation any harm to undertake such a venture, but he is obviously completely genuine with his anguish and sympathy for this young lady.
I don’t know about you (and I can only imagine that many of the “contributors” to these pages will be raising their eyes skywards at a letter about something as real as this), but it’s a breath of fresh air to see a representative of the game doing something so selfless and not being afraid to expose raw emotions whilst doing so. Whilst we all argue about dirty money and feed into the ridiculous tribalism that renders most of us unable to think properly, it’s a welcome break from talking about idiots kicking a bag of wind around a field and getting paid obscene amounts of money to do so.
You can contribute here:
https://donate.giveasyoulive.com/fundraising/debraswim
…and maybe you should, if you can afford it.
Matthew (no apologies for the change of tone and if this mail annoyed you then you are clearly a twat)
Man Utd fans have become the bitters now
In response to Lewis, Busby Way can I also point out that United have become everything they professed to hate. I remember United fans when Fergie was manager criticising City for being being a sacking club, being run poorly, being bitter, championing mediocrity (tallest floodlights) and telling us that you can’t buy success and that we waste our money on mercenary players – I still remember the “Your Players Make Money, Our Players Make History” flag at OT for example.
Now United are on their seventh manager in 10 seasons, over spending on poor players and being incredibly bitter about all of City’s success. They are bragging about IG likes and Twitter RT numbers for their championing of mediocrity. And for bitterness we have pretending that City have no fans, no non Manchester fans, can’t sell out the Etihad and actively trying to count any empty seats, proving that they are every bit as bitter as City used to be. Just look at any of William of Leicester’s recent letters for plenty of examples of this.
You might not care, but it’s only fair to remind you as well. It’s almost like United fans aren’t any better than City’s fans, as much as you like to think they are.
And to Tom, Manchester, I also has a predictably terrible time getting to and from the Ataturk stadium. Getting anywhere on the Istanbul roads is like Wacky Races meet Jason Bourne. Even more fun when taxis doesn’t have seat belts and your taxi driver is juggling mine and his phone to navigate, while doing 75mph. It’s shit that when you want to celebrate winning the Champions League, you also have in the the back of your mind that the longer you do this, the worse getting back will be. The three hours I spent stood up on a cramped shuttle bus in 30C heat after the game was a total buzzkill and I was one of the lucky ones that got a shuttlebus. I saw people in wheelchairs and on crutches struggling to navigate over rocks and gravel to find an available shuttlebus.
I get that UEFA need to be inclusive, and can’t just have the CL finals at big grounds from the Big 5 leagues, but reasonable ease of transport to and from the ground (so no grounds 30kms away from the host city!) and no athletic track around the pitch should be a minimum prerequisite. Plus enough food and drink vendors that when you set off from the city centre 5 hours before kick off, you can access food and/or drink without a 1.5 hour queue afterwards. That is the point I think Tom was trying to make Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland. Liverpool fan’s horrendous treatment in Paris shouldn’t mean that City fan’s poor treatment should be ignored.
Andy D. Manchester. MCFC
Get Greal
Maybe Jack Grealish could drunkenly get a big asterisk tattooed on his forehead? Like right between his Alice band middle part? That’d be boss.
Scott, LFC Toronto
Double standards ahoy
Loving the sanctimony emanating from Merseyside regards City’s total domination, it’s all Outram does.
Not sure why City are getting a right kicking and Newcastle are getting away scot-free though.
I suppose beating them home and away helps with the inferiority complex. The hypocrisy though, not so much.
Keggy
Listen to the go-to guy
James Outram. I understand your mail, but I am curious as to where you gleaned the opinions you state. For my part, the opinions in my mail were not my own but those of Kieran Maguire.
He is described as follows:
Maguire is the author of the book The Price of Football and presents a twice-weekly podcast alongside the comedian Kevin Day in which they discuss contemporary issues regarding, and listener questions concerning, the finances of modern-day men and women’s football clubs. The podcast had a quarter of a million downloads within its first five months. His expertise is frequently sought within English football media.
A chartered accountant who has been involved in financial education since 1989, Maguire is Senior Teacher in Accounting and Finance at the University of Liverpool Management School, where he teaches the Football Industries MBA. He specialises in financial reporting, financial modelling, and football finance.
He is, in point of fact, the ‘Go-to guy’ whenever football finances make the news for the likes of Sky Sports, BT Sport, Radio 5Live, TalkSport, The Times, The Athletic and, well, you get the picture. Oh, and he’s an ardent Brighton fan.
In the afternoon mailbox of 7th June, F365 kindly added a particular YouTube seg that I was referring to in a mail making direct reference to City’s FFP issues. NOTE, he is interviewed on a Man United fan channel with the host (understandably) super-keen to find out when the public will discover whether City are guilty or not, and what kind of punishments they may receive and so on and so forth. It is here again:
It is Maguire’s opinion that no conclusions will be reached in the next three years, and he explains why.
It is Maguire’s opinion that both the PL and City WILL be able to appeal should either side lose.
Maguire further explains what sanctions would be available to the Independent Commission. In essence, they can impose whatever punishment they like but, as in all matters legal, they will have to show that any sanctions laid down would need to be both proportionate and reasonable.
Again, don’t take my word for it. It’s an enlightening 15-minute vid just waiting for you to access. It makes for uncomfortable viewing for City fans in places and, if you’re salivating at the thought of Man City getting a kicking, then there’s plenty in there to get your hopes up.
In summary, if you can find a better explanation to the layman of the whole 115 charges issue (which he breaks down to just three fundamental points) and the possible consequences from it, then stick it on F365, because I haven’t found one.
Mark (Garey, Gotcha. Although I’d point out that, in the context of one of the bitterest MBs I’ve ever read on here, it seemed like just another pile-on rather than a joke. But that’s on me. None taken mate). MCFC
Should Man City lose it all for admin errors?
Howard’s email this evening highlighted perfectly why City fans like me sometimes get a little bit aggravated with talk about the 115 charges. Sometimes the mailbox is like a competition to see who can be most delighted by their own ignorance or blinded by their own.
If even one of the rules have been broken are all our achievements actually devalued? Let’s pick one of the rules such as Q7 in the 2009/10 handbook which we breached according to the Premier League. It states that a manager can’t be employed unless there is a written contract setting out the terms of the employment and that the contract has to be registered with the Secretary.
Should we believe that Mancini didn’t have a written contract containing all the appropriate terms or that the contract wasn’t registered with the Secretary? Did the Secretary not notice we had a manager but no contract filed? Why did it take so long for anyone to notice?
If we have breached this rule and there was no contract or the contract didn’t include or terms or the contract was not registered with the Secretary in the 2009/10 season how exactly would that devalue or taint what subsequently occured over the next 13 years? How long should that taint last?
The more astute amongst your readers would argue that I’m misrepresenting the rule breach and that according to Der Spiegal the problem was that City tried to circumnavigate FFP by hiding payments to Mancini via a third party. Except of course FFP wasn’t a thing then so would have been a weird thing to do. We could have paid Mancini a billion quid a week and not been in breach of rules that didn’t exist at the time.
So the problem must be that the contract either wasn’t registered with the secretary or that the Premier League are claiming the contract we registered didn’t include all the terms? Whatever it was let’s assume we did it and for some reason the issues isn’t that City didn’t send the contract on but rather hid payments made to Mancini of less than £2m (which for some reason we paid him even though we didn’t need to as per his contract so more fool us).
For this one rule breach Howard is suggesting that our achievements 13 years later are somehow devalued! Give over lad. Who or what did we even cheat and for the love of God don’t say FFP because those rules didn’t exist at the time, are UEFA rules not Premier League rules, and we failed that and were punished anyway. So in essence we paid Mancini more than we said we had if we even did it in the first place. What actual part of reality would have been any different? Make the outrage make sense.
Of course people will argue that there isn’t just one breach and in any event we all know City have done it – even denying it is evidence that we’ve actually done it – only guilty people need lawyers. Not that anyone cares about City anyway cos we won the lottery, didn’t earn it, are plastic, soulless, an inevitability, state backed, time barred and Pep is a fraud because he never got Bolton promoted like Big Sam, no one goes to our parades and I didn’t even enjoy it anyway.
Richard, Manchester (really hoping someone remembered to include Appendix 7 in Pep’s contract otherwise did we even treble)
Man City could have been anyone
The way I look at it, Man City’s dominance is solely because a super rich state decided that it wanted to win some football trophies and chose Man City as a vehicle to do so. They could have just as easily purchased any other club in the Premier League at that time and spent a couple of billion until the same level of domination had been achieved. In a different timeline it’s Southampton or Aston Villa or Everton in this position.
Whilst they are obviously a good team with a ridiculously stacked squad, it’s all rather hollow and soulless.
Chris, Birmingham
Abu Dhabi is not the UAE
Mark, Cape Town quite rightly pointed out that, just like any region or sub-continent, the Middle East is not one big homogenous block of identical countries with identical outlooks, lives and political motivations. To be clear, Shekih Mansour is a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, and Manchester City are owned and bankrolled by an Abu Dhabi investment fund. They are not owned by the United Arab Emirates, which is made up of seven Emirates, all of which themselves have distinct identities and ambitions.
If, for example, your club was taken over by Umm Al Quwain, or Fujairah, you would not be financially competing with the Citys, Newcastles. PSGs and Man Utds of this world. Depending on the Emirate you were in, you would find wildly different attitudes towards behaviour and lifestyles representative of Western liberalism. Some Emirates confirm to the more negative stereotypes of the Middle East, with exceptionally strict religious conservatism, zero alcohol, state-censorship, tighter laws (and exercising of those laws) governing relationships and sexuality, and (to me as a white Westerner) regressive attitudes towards gender.
Others you will see p*ssed up tourists and ex-pats getting smashed at beachfront bars, with women wearing next to nothing, Emirati and ex-pat women running businesses and occupying prominent roles on the government’s executive council, and a blind-eye and tacit condoning of same-sex relationships.
Qatar are most certainly no friends of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and a country like Oman or Jordan bears almost no resemblance to the socio-political landscapes and ways of life in the aforementioned countries. You cannot lump Abu Dhabi in with the other Emirates, and you cannot pin the worst of the oppression from the much, much more inhumane Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Abu Dhabi either. The Emirate is still regressive compared to what we (those of us who grew up in Western social democracies) consider to be morally acceptable, but you cannot just pin the horrendous activities of other countries or states on another one because ‘they’re all like that over there’. This does not absolve Abu Dhabi of their responsibilities, but they should not have to be absolved of ones they have not been involved in.
I’m a Luton Town fan, so I am living life at the moment as if I am permanently on the edge of waking up from the world’s most beautiful and unlikely dream. I hope I have a degree of neutrality here. Regarding the recent sh*t-flinging in the mailbox, I think the Man Utd treble meant more to me because I was more invested in football at that time, I was 17 and it was interwoven with my friends, life and memories, and now it sits there draped in sepia-toned nostalgia. A British club winning the CL was also a rarity in those days, and, rightly or wrongly, gave me a sense of pride. I also think the jeopardy of Utd’s tightrope walk to each of the competitions they won made for more memorable viewing and a more compelling narrative.
However, City have achieved theirs through genuine dominance; they are unquestionably the best team in each of the competitions they have won – they battered European heavyweights, knocking them to the canvas, where Utd slugged it out and either won on points or finished their encounters the equivalent of a blood-spattered Rocky Balboa. Utds would make the better movie, City’s is representative of a better team within its context. Both teams had the benefit of financial heft within their times that few others could compete with, and both were coached by generationally-brilliant managers. Both, for the respective times, had a sh*t-tonne of money and invested it heavily in their teams.
Ultimately, it shouldn’t matter one bit to anybody else what City’s win means to me – my age, my personal experiences, my worldview are going to completely differ to that of a teenage, Manchester-born City supporter who, I presume, will be feeling exactly the way about City’s achievements as Liverpool and Utd fans felt about their incredible teams winning at the time. I’m of the mind that clubs had always been able to legitimately distort competition through exorbitant wealth prior to FFP, and that FFP, whilst doing a reasonable job in offering better safeguards to smaller clubs risking over-reaching, shouldn’t exist to protect the hegemonies of the existing incredibly wealthy powerhouses. City have also invested their wealth incredibly shrewdly, starting with the construction of an exceptional leadership and organizational structure, and then adding the right managers and players.
D*cky Malb@lls, LTFC
What about Ivan Toney’s mental health?
I think it’s about seven-plus years since I wrote in to the mailbox, but I’m a long time voyeur and love the back and forth (with the notable exception of who’s treble is better, which seems never ending).
Anyway, on Ivan Toney, I’ve listened to a number of podcasts and read multiple articles talking about the punishment and more specifically the inability to train with his squad for half of his ban. Everyone seems against it from a mental health perspective but nobody seems to have done anything about it. I am surprised Brentford aren’t at least appealing against that part of the ban, is it possible to only appeal on part of it? For the record, I’m in favour of the ban as a whole, despite the huge hypocrisy around betting in football.
None of the members of the FA panel are mental health experts and as far as I can tell didn’t consult any when determining this part of the punishment. I’m wondering that if they had, would they still have decided on this punishment when there are so many other worthwhile things he could be doing during that period. Other options would likely benefit the local community and improve his mental health. Is there any other way to get the FA to reconsider this part, or does nobody really care enough? Interested in the Mailbox’s thoughts.
Casper, Manc in Singapore
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