Inside Manchester City's Legal Verdict: Rival Actions and Contract Realities

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Kate Mason. Last week they were on steam dropped an exclusive story that shook the football world. Today he's here with us in the studio. So how did the news of Man City's guilty verdict unfold and what's the reaction been from their rivals across England and Europe? Delighted to be joining you for the Tuesday Club today while Emma is away with me in studio, our football correspondent David Ones Dean. Hello. Good to see you, Kate. You too. And as you know, football writer James Horncastle. Hello. I think football correspondent Under Cells David will be honest. Go on. But I is more than that, isn't it? Which we call him henceforth. I don't know. Maestro Il Margo, you know, with us today. You're going to start talking about yourself. The Maestro. On steam. Not at all. What is he bringing us? We will find out soon. It's likely everyone watching this will remember where they were when our story dropped on Friday afternoon that Man City had been found guilty of virtually all the charges levied against them. City, it is worth stating remain unmoved in their stance. They deny all charges. You were at the Portugal Football Summit the day the story broke David. It'd be great if you could take us inside that day building the news and waiting to press that button. Well, it was quite a day. To sell it again. Maestro, take us inside it. First thing to say is that my colleague Matt Slater was across this situation before even I was. I think the night before he had alerted us as a team to the possibility that finally some news was coming. And I think his phrase was light the beacons. And he had had some solid sourcing that the verdict had been delivered to the parties. And that in the words of some of his contacts this Premier League season could become chaos or would become chaos. I'll leave Matt on subsequent pods to talk further about it. But real credit to Matt who's brilliant around topics like these. And so as we do, all of us as a team start making checks and calls to our various contacts. And yeah, I was at the Portugal Football Summit had a speaking commitment. And Laura Williams and our editor-in-chief was the sort of compare. The moderator, Seb Stafford Bluer, colleague of ours was there too, familiar to this pod. And my phone started vibrating to which we made a joke about because we were talking about the transfer window. And Laura thought it was closed. How could the transfer be taking place now? Ultimately, the new cycle Kate never stops. And it was somebody calling me back to ask what I had been calling about, which was this situation. And over the course of many conversations, it became clear that Matt's information was right. And that the verdict was in. I guess the independent commission delivers it at whatever time to Premier League, to Man City. And I think there's been subsequent reporting on the BBC. Dale Johnson said that the Premier League clubs were informed and had to sign NDAs before being able to access a document with the summary of the verdict. And yeah, we picked up on various bits and bobs of information over the course of the next hours. And you make sure that you follow a really thorough and diligent process, like we do for all stories, whether it be a transfer or a new contract, a managerial change, something at ownership level. Although, and I've said it on this podcast before, there's not really like a potion or a syllabus or a script or the work we do. There is kind of a process that you work through in terms of checking information out, sourcing, corroborating in as many different independent places as possible. So it's not people from the same side saying the same thing. And then you offer rights of reply to the parties in terms of Manchester City and you saw they provided a statement in the Premier League who said nothing. And then, thankfully, I'd Laura there with me to make sure of the checks and balances. And then you need a bit of courage to push the button, as you say, and get the story out. So that's the sort of basic genesis of it all. And although it's really high profile and profound, it's in terms of how it comes about, not a great deal of difference to anything else you would work on. Yeah, and really cool the way you're talking about how the athletic works generally as well and calling out Matt Slater and the team work behind all of this as well. We think we've got some of the footage from the event. We think this is the moment where you received this feedback. Shall we have a look at it? Let's roll the tapes. And it's going back to that earlier point about telling people things they don't know. And it's such a ever-changing world of transfers. You can break sorry now. No, my phone actually was buzzing in and he's actually going to do an exclusive on stage. Even outside of the window, there are things happening. So I'll let you guys, I left my phone on the chair over there. So there we go. David, can I ask, when you pull your phone out there and you see whoever's made that call to you, what's it like? Because you had to stay on stage, I imagine. I imagine you could maybe send some text, but I imagine there'd be some anxiety because it's such a big story that you want to sort of break it and you're like, still got another 20 minutes is down panel to go. And actually going to events like that all year round or traveling, going to matches, when you do my type of work, you do have to question whether it's the right place for you to be in case something happens, especially during the summer transfer window with questionable phone connection and Wi-Fi at certain stadiums and travel and the loss of signal. And being around noisy or non-private environments as well. So often I won't go to a match or a conference because of the possibility of something arising like that. It's much less sensitive outside of the transfer window. And so I agreed to go to this. And also, if that had happened during the transfer window, I'd have been more inclined to leave the stage and offer my apologies. And let's not forget, you're on there with your boss. Yeah, that's even more awkward. But I mean, Laura's the most understanding and encouraging person of that. But it's certainly around the market, if you snooze, you lose. Even though it's not such important things. So in that sort of situation, it was curiosity. Is this person calling me back about what I had been asking? Is it about something completely different? So I managed to send a text to ask on stage, if it was urgent or not, and they said, just come about when you're free sort of thing, and then have multiple conversations afterwards. But I did reflect subsequently because I stayed for the rest of the panel. Then in that time, of course, it could have come out elsewhere. And you've seen in the reporting of other publications. I think it was the times that was pretty much the same moment or a few moments after us, the telegraph, and others. So clearly, this has been a massive week. This is a huge moment in football history. Where does it compare to other stories that you have broken? I think it's obviously the, well, it's the biggest for me. It's just saying something. No, but I mean, this isn't like about an individual reporter. Our job is to serve the public interest and to do our job. There's a lot of criticism of how it came out. But ultimately, in my case, you know, you are the messenger, you're reporting, you're doing your job, and you apply every check and balance to make sure you're doing it correctly, which involved speaking to all the parties, which isn't easy. It's not easy. But in this case, it was fairly smooth actually. And that's sort of testament to the relationships you've built up over time. And I can only speak for myself. There's no kind of a gender or bias or anything at play. I sort of pride myself religiously on impartiality and the integrity of the work I do, while accepting that it's emotional. It's a very divisive topic, and there are huge sensitivities around it all, especially when you're doing stuff. And this is similar for transfers and any news at clubs and governing bodies, team news around the World Cup. This is just slightly more important. It does create quite a reaction. And some people like it, some people hate it, and that's why you've seen a lot of that, especially on social media. But ultimately, if everyone sort of calms down and look at the facts of it, the most rational discourse out there understands that it's sort of part of the industry and our profession. In terms of other stuff, and again, I don't like to talk about me because this isn't a story about me. It's about a very, very serious situation in football involving the club and the Premier League's in so many more ramifications. But I can only think of much more menial topics like transfers where this summer in terms of size and conversation, when Arsenal made them move for the Nissia Stunia, they never came to fruition. It created enormous discourse and traction for the athletic, and that's not why you do it, by the way, in the slightest. But it's a byproduct of a really interesting situation. But David, I mean, to pick up on what you were saying there. This story has a massive public interest element to it. It's been going on for so long. So as much as people say, private and confidential, and that was, I think, some of the briefing back from the Premier League where you'd go for comment. We can't talk about this. This is private and confidential. A verdict was in. And that is a story that is in the public interest for lots of reasons, but for the sport itself, to business story, it's a politics story. There are so many layers to this story that once that verdict was in, if we had information about it, which, you know, it's more than you taking your phone out and checking one message. It's having multiple conversations, corroborating things. You have to break that story. I find it bizarre seeing some of the discourse on social media saying, the privacy and confidentiality of these proceedings, we're not respected here. It's like, well, a verdict's in. And everyone wants to know what the verdict is. So, and I think it's probably a dereliction of duty. If you don't serve your public interest there, I mean, this is a case that's been going on for years. And most of the feedback I have received from the industry, including places and parties involved in it, is that it was good to see things moving along, to know that there is some development on this. And I think for the good of football and everybody involved, it would be nice to have a conclusion. And it seems we are sort of getting closer to that point than we were before. So, with years closer now, I put it a fair answer if I know that you have to see. But also the verdict for my conversations, anyway, was known by quite a few people. I didn't work as hard as I have for some other stories over the years. When you were talking then about, you know, previous examples and big stories, I reported that Liverpool had kind of been put up for sale. I think it was in 2022, or that, you know, they were looking for investment which would include the potential for a full sale. And that produced a really emotional reaction because without official statements, there can often be skepticism. And it sort of creates the possibility of it gives license for sort of conspiracies and doubt and uncertainty. All of which I understand, it's not a nice environment when people don't know for absolute certain and they're trusting journalists and wondering if it will be right, wrong or anything in between. But on this particular case, yeah, you're right. And like, it actually wasn't the most troublesome to break and get over the line because I think everybody involved, even though there's the confidentiality, et cetera, knows that there's the verdict. So it not much stays in these days, whether it be your transfers or your ownership takeovers or new contracts or injuries, most things get out. And this isn't a criminal case in terms of, you know, there's not a contempt of court and things like that. And now we felt, and it's not my decision, it's ultimately the athletic and Laura Williamson, editor and chief who is with me in the New York Times who are in the athletic to decide on on public interest. And I think all right minded thinking people have been pretty fair around hour and others reporting, you know, I presume those that have been reporting this have got the same or similar editorial guidelines as us. They have to independently source and at least double independently source and corroborate information before they use it themselves. I don't think they were copying us. So there's clearly a story there, a development. There's still a lot of unknown as we've reported at the time. You know, the process is ongoing. There's been no sanctions to unknowledge. There will be appeals, no doubt. And as we have heard on the record from Caldune, Manchester City and Ferran Soriano, they expect this to go on for a long time yet. There is a huge distance to run in this race and it will be fascinating to see how it pans out. Are you almost going so far, James, as to say, it was irresponsible not to release it to the minute that it happens about it? I think so. I think I completely agree with David that this has been going on for so long and it's felt like there's been a stasis in this case when clearly hasn't been, and they've been trying to progress it, get it to a verdict, and there's still a long way to run in it. So how many times have we gone into a Premier League season over the last few years, saying we need a resolution in this case? And I think most people would agree that it's a bad thing that this thing continues to hang over unresolved because it's been going on for eight years now. So in that respect, I'm glad we are where we are with it. Well, the Man City, I don't know, but they're still very confident in their position regardless of this verdict. But that's the other thing here that Manchester City from my conversations before we did this story from the official statements we've seen coming out, one of them from a city spokesperson initially with the story, then Caldune and then Ferran Soriano. And everything we hear from inside City is that they remain bullish and optimistic about their chances. And there's a really good piece on the athletic today by Sam Lee that goes into a Manchester City's side of things. A lot of tribalism out there about, you know, the outlets reporting here, agendas against Manchester. I mean, one thing we've got to say, K, is I get accused of having an agenda against every single club in the Premier League and beyond, which probably says I've gone gender against nobody. And listen, I've done, like, got a lot of affection for people, a lot of these clubs. You get to know them. That includes Manchester City. We've done lots and great reporting of them over time. And by the way, nobody's like slandering or taking anything away from tons of staff at these clubs who have done and players, by the way, who have done amazing jobs themselves in what they were employed to do and they've won trophies and bought success and earned the products they deserve. And you do feel for a lot of people in these situations. And in the fallout, and we haven't spoken about repercussions yet. And I'm quite interested to see where this pod goes. But I haven't heard much commentary around, they may prove their innocence. And they've always said they will. And so, yes, we understand that they've been found guilty of almost all the charges. And that is not a good position for them to be in. But there is a world in which we're having a completely different conversation when we get to the end of the journey. And so I do think there needs to be a measure in obviously, and it was the story and the reporting of us and others that has obviously led to this discourse of what might happen. But almost all of the discourse seems to have been the scenario that it's proven and they are banked to rights. And the world is going to come down on them because the Independent Commission has all punishments open to it. And that might be the case. But it could be the opposite. And none of us know. Everybody is speculating and pontificating and giving their view on precedent and what's gone before in other cases. But we've never had a case like this. And nobody actually knows where it's going to go. Kate here, Athletic Fseers, and it's Add Time. Now, it's not an enormous secret that I'm a spurspan. And my absolute favorite player is our former captain, Huung Min-Suan. Anyway, I've been spending a fair amount of time recently searching for collectibles of our much missed captain. And on what not, I found a lovely card of sunny in the Europa League winning kit complete with his autograph in a glass display case. And I knew I had to have it. What's great with what not is that sellers go live around the clock. So you can see exactly what you're buying on camera and you can ask a question and get an instant answer to. It's not just cards either. What not is the largest live shopping marketplace in the United States with sellers going live with vintage clothing and footwear, video games, comics, toys and just about anything else you can think of. The sellers know their stuff and the live streams are great fun. I use what not. And if you're a football fan who wants to start collecting, you're going to love it too. You can get $20 off your first purchase right now. Just search what not W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store. Download, sign up and start finding the things you've been chasing, turn supply. I would love to hear from you, James, about Cal Chopper Lee. OK, please. Because it's, of course, unprecedented in the history of English football. But as you all explained to us, different circumstances, but that was a huge scandal in Italy that resulted in relegation and titles being revoked. Some of the fans of the club involved. Don't really recognize that as I understand it. And it would be great for you to explain how that can play out. He must have known this was coming. He's in life in black and white. I'm not representing you anyway. As we're about to find out. It's just a great look. Come on, James. Even the microphones are coordinated. It's a very complicated case. Very poisonous, still 20 years on. It's the 20th anniversary of this year. I don't think your time football has ever been the same. You know, both from you look at the kind of positions of the Italian clubs at that time, Deloitte Money List, they were around the top. You look at it now. They're sort of like even mid-table. They're sort of bottom half of the table. And different way of doing things there. They had a sporting case. They had a criminal case. Both of those trials were concluded at different paces. So sporting case, one and done in a summer. Not eight years in one summer. At the end of that, Juventus, where we're relegated. There were points penalty. Other teams were points penalty as well. They see me then. Latia, Fiorentina, Regina. But I mean, that case really focused around a network of power within the Italian football and who was the kind of person behind that network of power. Which in the sporting case, this is Juventus General Manager Luciano Morcci. I think a lot of people have a misapprehension about that scandal. I think it's a match fixing scandal. It's not a match fixing scandal. No referees were ever paid. It was about controlling lots of different things in football. So who's referring our team this week, David? I'll pick up the phone to the referee designator. There's a draw for the referees that week. Who's going in for the top games? That referees got a really bad record against us. He always seems to perform badly against us. We all know this in the Premier League because fans of every club think a referee has got it in for them. So it's like, well, okay, if he's going in the draw, then can someone else go in the draw because he tends to referee good against us. So we'll have him in. So there's that element. Then there was an element about Morcci's son having an agency which represented 150 kind of coaches and players. So it felt like there were some clubs that were kind of friendly towards Juventus and that sort of thing. And then the other thing was to do with the media, sort of Morcci calling up producers of TV shows that talked about football or going on as a guest to those TV shows. And sort of saying, we need to focus on this, not that, and kind of controlling the narrative, that sort of thing. The very interesting thing with Karl Troppel is twofold. I mean, one, you have all of these bands and points deductions and relegations that came out of the sporting case. And then you have a criminal case which concludes between five and ten years after where a lot of the people were absolved in a criminal case of some of the charges or the statute of limitations had run out. And that has allowed fans of Juventus to always point the finger and say, well, that sporting trial rushed to judgment. It was unfair. And one of the panelists, well, we think he was an interfan. A lot of these things we've seen, sort of similar allegations accusations to be made by fans of Man City about various aspects of this case. So, you know, in that regard, getting this right is very difficult. And you can understand why this has kind of taken eight years in terms of like, there are so many charges. And it means so much to Man City, but it means so much also to the Premier League from a business point of view, credibility point of view, governance point of view. And it's hard to get right. And certainly, every time I go to a Debbie Ditalia, Juventus against Inter, the attitude of both fan bases is kind of predetermined by the outcome of that case. In terms of two league titles revolved from Juventus, one left unassigned and the other came into Inter. And Juventus fans call that, you know, the cardboard league title doesn't really count for them. Inter fans, so we've never been in the second division you have. And, you know, I think so much of this discourse, conjecture, speculation around what will happen to City goes, well, what happens to these titles? Do they, do they get stripped of titles? We're not there yet. But certainly, you know, in that culturally case, you know, the culturally scandal happens or it breaks in kind of the spring of 2006. And then I say that sporting trial begins at the end of the season and it's concluded by the end of the summer. And the reason the title was given to Inter was, you wafer needed to know who was going to go into the Champions League that season as the top seat, as the champion of Italy, they needed a champion. They didn't the season beforehand because the investigation was ongoing and that season had taken place in Juventus had gone into the Champions League as champions and that sort of thing. So it's a very blurred case, very toxic, very poisonous. And it just reminds you that getting this right and trying to preserve the Premier League and keep it away from this poison and toxicity is very, very difficult to do. And I think for City, in kind of regardless of the outcome of the appeal and the entire process, this case will follow City around. It will become a part of City's identity, whether they want it or not, in a way that that scandal has become a part of Juventus' identity. Juventus is a great football club. Yeah, most successful innately still count those league titles. If you go to their stadium as 38 league titles, not 36, which is the official count. Juventus have multiple World Cup winners who played for them. They've been in seven or eight Champions League finals, great club outside of Calciopoli. If you ask most fans, casual fans, what comes to mind when you think about Juventus, they will bring up this scandal or what they think that scandal was. In the same way that I think now, if you ask people what they think about Man City, this case will come to mind with them. And it's very hard to remove that stain from a football club. So I think that's obviously there are different cases, but I think that's one of the parallels that can be can be drawn with those two cases slash scandals. On that topic, what sort of impact does it had on Seria in terms of its reputation? Because I'm speaking to so many people who say this news isn't good for the Premier League and its image and its brand around the world that one of their members, their record title holder, has been found guilty of offences. But we've been in a period of years where they have faced charges since 7th of February 2023. And so a lot of skepticism and scrutiny and conversation of that nature has already been taking place. Further back with the leaked emails when this whole ball started rolling. I think it was late 2018. Yep. Possibly the alleged offences date back to 2009. And in that period, television broadcast contracts have gone up. Ibles have been drawn to the Premier League more than ever. You could say if this was a soap opera, it was another of the many narratives you have. And I don't know the genre on Netflix or Netflix. I haven't seen people turning their backs on the Premier League in terms of every sort of element of its interest from young people, to older people, boys, girls, the world over. Obviously we don't know what will happen next if we get to a point where there are some severe punishments or if there's an exoneration. But the evidence so far is that the Premier League's rise continues pretty much animated. It's box office. Get your popcorn out. We want more of it. Was Serie A similar? Is there any comparison in that sense? I think the Premier League finds itself in a much more robust and healthy position, regardless of what you think about governance and these points, penalties and the need for regulation and all that sort of thing. The Premier League is just so much wealth here because of those TV contracts that you were due to, David. That was something I think Serie A took for granted for a long, long time. Clubs were dependent on their owners, putting their hands in their pockets, spending on players, big domestic TV deals, but they didn't really develop the international market in where the Premier League really has since it become the original breakaway league in 1992 with a commercial vision behind it. I think while maybe the reputation of the Premier League will be hurt by this, I still don't think it's enough for people to stop tuning in and to turn away. I think if we go back 20 years in Italy, there were other reasons why, for a little bit, people were turned off by football. There was this kind of, couldn't we believe what we're seeing? Then there were other aspects. Going to a stadium in Italy when stadiums hadn't been renewed since 1990 World Cup, not a pleasant experience, not only because the stadiums were inadequate, but there might be some violence. I moved to Italy in 2006 and there were as policemen killed at Sicilian Derby, there was a Lazio Fan who was going to a game, was killed. Ultras stopping games in process of those things. There are a lot of reasons why Italian football faded a little bit from view at that moment. The reasons for international broadcasts are not to pay. I was on five live the other night with Mark Chapman saying, Mark Chapman was covering a game, I remember, Channel 5 was Natalanta game. They were maybe playing against Milan. This Lazio Fan had been killed and the Atlanta Ultras stopped the game. That meant the broadcast had to go back to the studio. The studio had to fill time. If you're a broadcast you're like, I can't rely on this league. Whereas I think you can still rely on the Premier League to create content, create moments, create entertainment. Where I think back then 20 years ago, people lost a little bit of faith in Sicilian to that. As you mentioned, David, it's just it's another storyline. We've seen the interest in this story. It's huge. I saw the numbers for our podcast on Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people tuned for that podcast. I think whilst it will raise questions about governance and credibility with the Premier League, I really don't think it will stop people writing, talking and watching. In the way that I think, unfortunately, 20 years ago, in Italy, business space was not robust enough and there were other reasons that turned even some locals off. We've reported on the Athletic that clubs are planning legal action in response to guilty verdicts. Lawyers have been drafted into assessment packages and this is like a kind of Pandora's box of a situation because if city won the title here and you got relegated, what does it all mean? What do you know about? Well, I like how we're sticking to the factual stuff as opposed to what might happen and the factual stuff is that a number of clubs was the Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United, Liverpool's this world some time ago served notice of their intention to take potential legal action or reserve their rights if and when Manchester City were found and ruled definitively to be guilty and punished. I don't know if that was to sort of, if the time was running out in terms of potential legal action and whether there's a statute of limitations around that like six years and so that sort of bought them time in that eventuality. Although that was sort of spearheaded at the time, I seem to remember by the likes of Tim Lewis at Arsenal who was very versiferous in in sort of campaigning for his club's interests and it would be interesting because he's not there anymore to see if Arsenal continue that charge. Was he a foot soldier for the owners who have that view and that they wanted action taken in the event of guilt or was it him campaigning for his own beliefs and we'll see how Arsenal, Tottenham had Daniel Levy at the time who was it was reported similarly strong in his views. The Tottenham consider, sorry, continue that charge or was that more individual labour of love and so on and so forth at Liverpool and Manchester United elsewhere. What we do know now and we reported it on I think Friday evening was that clubs are mobilising legal teams. They are in touch with each other. There's talk among them about a potential class action sort of grouping together. Of course, this would have to compost appeals. They can't really do anything before then and you know, when I came on the emergency pod and has out in Lisbon, I said that the initial reaction I was getting from the conversations was a bit of shock and a bit of numbness in the chats you had subsequently around clubs. I think there was a bit of not celebratory mood but almost they felt there was some vindication because it's been no secret. There's been upset and anger towards the way that they feel city have built and then when the charges came they felt sort of wronged and jilted and so for this day to come they sort of felt open and it almost redoubled their efforts to rev up the legal engines and appoint their lawyers or intensify the legal work in preparation for the moment that they're able to do something. We don't know when that moment will come and if it will be favourable to their cause and even if it is what legal action they can take and whether they'll be successful in a way that you know, burnly have against Everton so that becomes quite an important case now but Everton are then appealing that verdict. So yes, there is appetite there among the other clubs and if Manchester City were in their positions they I'm sure would have the appetite as well. I don't think this is like a we hate Manchester City thing it's just what they feel to be right and wrong and of course if they feel wronged and that they potentially lost out on titles and merit placements and bonuses and progress or managers were sacked and relegations took place there are so many different permutations then given the opportunity like in every walk of life you see legal action taken to try and reverse that or benefit from situations and that's why we hear about ambulance chasing lawyers and things like that offering their services. None of this means that they will be successful that we know the outcome but yeah there is activity going on inside clubs, into clubs underneath the surface and we'll see where it leads them. Figures in football who have spoken out include former Man City boss Roberto Mancini, also La Liga president heavy tabas and experts manager Mauricio Pochettino. Mancini was of course city boss in 2009 to 2013 and he's involved in this situation. It's alleged he'd been paid more to be an advisor to Al Jazeera and other of the city owners clubs than he had for his role as city boss. Mancini has said it's not a problem that concerns me. Manchester City is not guilty and the fact of having a double contract isn't my problem but there's probably. What do you make of all this? Very interesting. I mean the day that the story broke I was in Rome to cover Italy so I went there with the kind of intention of asking Mancini that question when the press officer kind of saw my waving hand he was like, because there's a little sport. Corridor sport. Corridor Sera. I was like, okay. And then Italy played Turkey last night and it was before that game that a Turkish journalist asked him the question. And yeah, Mancini said, look, it's nothing new. It's been going off for eight years. And if you want to have a look at his contract or what's assumed to be his contract, it's out there. It's one of the documentaries that, one of the documents that Rui Pinto, the hacker slash whistleblower, published as part of the kind of football league sting and you see that Al Jazeera consultancy is written into his Manchester City contract if that is his Manchester City contract. So, you know, he is, I mean, for Mancini, this is, this goes, this is a long time ago. Yeah, I mean, he signed for Mancini in 2009, which is, as David says, this is when this is the period where they started looking into city's financial affairs. 2009, I mean, that's what 17 years ago. So as far as he can say, it's what's long over the bridge. They're problem, not my problem. So he was, he was fairly, I wouldn't say blasé about it. But he says, like, this comes up every four or five years. I've been challenged on it. I've been confronted on it a few times. So this is what it is. It's their problem. It's not mine. So he seemed, he seemed fairly chilled and more worried that his team had lost two nil at home to Belgium for the first time since 1999. Then he did about David's story with all due respect, David, you know. Cheers, Bobby. Time now for our Scornstein. We hand over the floor to you, the audience. And we've asked our subscribers in the athletic to send in your questions for David. So let's get to a few of them. Dandy, us, do city realistically come back from this? Does your gut tell you they will get a wrist slap or a true beating down, dismantling everything they have built, making it almost implausible. They will make a return to their glory days in the medium term. That is a big question, Dan. David. Well, everybody's entitled to speculate. That's their prerogative. But I don't think it's particularly responsible. And I don't intend to go into what may or may not happen, because we don't know. My only assumption is that because it's believed to be a very heavy guilty verdict in our words, virtually all of the charges that they've been found guilty of was our understanding. Then you would imagine there would be a commensurate sanction attempted by the Independent Commission. And we don't know exactly how heavily the Premier League will push or representations they will make. We just have no idea there's been conjecture about. They'll try and throw the book at them. Others have said they won't want to go full out on one of their members, valued member, the league and such an important successful one as well. I just think if you do, and this is nothing to do with us or our opinion, but if you do have a heavy verdict, you are likely to have a heavy attempted punishment. It would be a surprise if you had a heavy verdict and don't do this again. This doesn't make sense. But none of that is to say that's how man, it will end up because Manchester City will put their protestations across. And many of these situations in terms of, I don't know, Everton, Nottingham Forest. You see a bit of a compromise reached from where the Premier League wants and where the club wants and whether it's in the middle, it's neither get there for victories. What we've seen, but this is a unique case, and we've not been in this position before. Manchester City as a club predated by a long way this case and these charges and they will go on a long way afterwards. They got a massive and amazing fan base from my experience. I live in that part of the country. No lot of people there. And from my personal experience, they're a great club in terms of people working within it. Some of the top professionals that you'll come across in the industry is no coincidence that so many executives, specialists on the sporting, marketing, business, commercial front have gone on and been poached or appointed to other clubs and governing bodies, associations within the footballing world. They've provided much talent on the field as well to other clubs. Look at the amount of players that are playing elsewhere that have been within this generation of Manchester City's ranks from youth up to senior. Manchester City have also made many signings in the transfer market on the men's and women's side that have helped out the clubs that they have signed players from financially. They've been a pretty good trading partner. So whatever the rights, wrongs, and outcomes of this 115 case, there's a much bigger picture here in terms of the club is placing the community. What has happened for that part of East Manchester, which I know really well, and people might say but it wasn't the intentions of the ownership. They didn't just randomly come to East Manchester because they fancied improving it, but the facts are they have, and that's critical for the region. So I do think there are many more factors to what Manchester City will look like post this, which may be a victory. It may be, you know, defeat at the end, let's see. Then just the simple question of, are they going to be extinguished or not? Another one is from Chad M, and I think it's interesting to include this because I think it expresses the kind of tone of quite a lot of the discourse. Okay. He says, who really comes out as a winner in this whole 114 debacle? I can't see that either Manchester City or the Premier League will come out of looking of this, looking better on the other side, however long that may take. So interesting to see that that is the way it's being expressed in quite a lot of places. It's a sorry situation for English football. It has been from the start and will be until the end. It's not good for the Premier League, and we've talked about that a lot today. It's not good for Manchester City. It's not being good for the other clubs due to what they feel they may have won last if this hadn't been the case. It's not good for execs, players, staff who might be implicated in this. The only winner I can imagine from it is lawyers, which is becoming increasingly the case in English football because so much of the last few years has been decided in legal chambers, courtrooms, offices, where meetings take place to decide PSR sanctions. We get the FA transactions list, don't we, at the end of every season, which tells you how much clubs have spent on agents. We're not going to see the lawyer list. How much they've spent on lawyers, because I think as much as people say lots of money leaves the game and goes to agents, the amount of money that must have been spent on this case. We're talking a lot. In a way, when we go back to a question from the beginning of this on the reporting, I mean, in terms of the amount that has been spent on this from a legal perspective, it's probably in everybody's interest to get a resolution as soon as possible so that you don't continue. I've got many lawyer friends, so I don't want to put them out of business. I think they'll be okay, but in response to the question, yeah, I mean, I was even when you were talking there about agents, going to say a lot of benefited from Manchester City's sort of transfer spending, but there'll be potential repercussions for players and agents if things go wrong. So I think lawyers are the only winner in this situation. A final question from Rob Arsenal A. Do any of the Manchester City players have relegation clauses? And is this something clubs are tracking? Given the question comes from Rob Arsenal A, is he trying to pick up? Rob Arsenal? Or is he trying to Rob Arsenal? Or if his name is Rob and he supports Arsenal, presumably he wants a bit of Irling Harland if he's able to be extracted from Manchester City. As far as my information goes, which has always been the case, I don't think there are relegation clauses in the Manchester City contracts because they've never been countenancing that day coming because they've always protested their innocence in this situation. And in normal circumstances, if it hadn't been for this, Manchester City or a club who operates at the top end of the Premier League and relegation has never been anywhere near on the agenda. So over many years now from the conversations I've had, I'm not aware of relegation clauses being put in. I'm not aware of this matter being disgusting contract negotiations with new signings or potential renewals because it's always been business as usual. They've operated as if they're going to be fine and that confidence has been exuded and permeated throughout the organisation. And I think City or a club that would not do one for one player and another for another. I think it's a pretty blanket approach as far as I understand it that relegation clauses aren't in there. Now, what that says is, in this hypothetical worst case scenario for them and that that happens, I think City would look after their own people. I mean, their very wealthy club, whatever happens in this situation. They do look after their people. So I think they would look after players, staff and that wouldn't be at the top of their list of concerns. Team, thank you so much. James, David, thank you as well for watching and listening and don't forget, keep across the athletic. There will be more updates on this city case to come. I have no doubt at all and I'll be back to see you tomorrow. Till then, take care.