Apparently City have won their APT case. Obviously I can't speak to the procedural findings, but I find this ruling extremely depressing. Now you can just have a third party that your club also owns give you a 100M euro sponsorship and there's very little anyone can do to show that you're gaining an unfair advantage.

It makes me worry that part of this is the governments of the UAE and UK influencing these decisions, as that doesn't bode well for the 115 charges case.

[–] nuggsy 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Was just reading a BBC article about it. My knowledge is a little narrow, but apparently there are a few rules in the APT which are unlawful. So, sounds like it was more a technicality. City were apparently unsuccessful in regards to the others and their arguments were deemed unfounded.

What that means in its totality, I'm not sure. But, I harbour the same concerns as you do regarding the 100+ charges they face.

[–] sensiblepuffin 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I heard a lot of talk about the Competition Act, which I'm very ignorant about, not being British. It did seem like a technicality from the way people were writing about it, so I guess I'm glad the rules have been straightened out for City's 2032 case.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek 2 points 4 months ago

I feel down a bit of a rabbit hole last night watching confrontations between referees and parents/coaches in youth football (soccer) in America. Some of the incidents were pretty wild.

It explains some of the hyper-guardedness I've encountered with referees as a youth coach, and why there's a referee shortage over here (probably in lots of countries really). I haven't witnessed any confrontations or drama myself, except for the couple of times one particular referee inexplicably kept going after my assistant for perceived (but false) infractions. But damn, I feel bad for referees in general. Except the PL ones. 95% of them are genuinely shite and hide behind an shield of impunity.