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Welcome to the Total Soccer Show and the Big Thing, it's the show where we discuss the biggest news stories in the game. And today it's one of the biggest and potentially most consequential stories to hit the Premier League in a very long time. Manchester City have been found guilty of breaking the Premier League financial rules. On Friday it was announced that City had been found guilty by an independent panel of all but one of their 115 financial charges that were leveled against them back in February 2023 for offenses that were committed between 2009 and 2018. In that period, Man City won eight trophies including three Premier League titles. On this episode we'll take a look at what Man City are accused of doing, what this means for them in terms of punishment and whether this will have some deep and messy repercussions for the Premier League for Man City and for Soccer as a whole, there's a lot to unpack here. My name's Ryan Bailey, joining me today to help unpack Taylor Rocco, how are you? Doing well Ryan, there is quite a bit to unpack. This could be a 45 minute episode, it could be a three hour episode and we might still just be scratching the surface. And with that in mind, my opening take is that this is all just a reminder of how difficult it is to be a journalist and run a newspaper in the UK because all of the coverage has been very good and very detailed but also so clearly run through so many different legal screens to make sure that they are not going to be sued by Manchester City if and when things happen. So the coverage has been excellent but also I think appropriately restrained thus far at least. Hang on, I just need to send a text to get the fire trucker lawyers involved, it sounds like you're about to go off the rails here Taylor, yeah, I was about to add, until now the restraint is no longer good stuff, here is a model of a straight Joe Lourys here, hi Joe, how are you? Yeah, I wasn't planning on saying anything this all episode, is that I thought, are we all doing that? Just me, just me. All right, that's fine. No problem. For you, it is better you do not speak. Exactly right. My true model in life, Joe's in Maurinia. Wonderful stuff, Graham Ruffins also here, hi Graham, how are you doing? I'm good, Brian Billy, how are you? You must be having a great time right now. Oasis are back, set you're getting relegated, it's the 90s all over again, that's your era. I didn't think I would be playing Manchester City on a league basis anytime soon but here we are Graham, it could be on the cards, I'm looking forward to very much indeed, yes, yes. A bunch of Oasis gigs happening next summer at the Etihad Stadium, will the stadium still be there at that point? What do you think? Someone pointed out that one of the gigs is on non league day, or Lourleague day, I was unclear as some sort of occasion in the Lourleagues in the EFL and so that could pose a problem for a man's, if they have a whole game against Lincoln City, they're doing quite well actually, at the moment Lincoln City, tell me I have a league two team that is an AFC well within right, that's who they're playing. Well, we're a league one team for a start, Graham, but thank you very much, yeah, let's move on. Not everyone has a league two team, I forget that. Very good, yeah, maybe there'll be double book that day, that's probably one of the smaller consequences that we could discuss of Manchester City's prediction, almost said their name, unfortunately, incorrectly there. Patreon.com's last total stock show, by the way, is our bonus feed, you'll get bonus episodes and access to our discord server where we discuss city finds and much, much more. All the cool kids are in there. And on our Patreon feed this week, plenty of new episodes, including, we is going to predict the USMNT starting 11 for the 2030 World Cup finals. Oh, wow, it's going to happen. It seems so far away and yet so close, Kevin Sullivan, he's he, as he played from Manchester and league two or someone else, is he fleeing that shit before he's even boarded it? It is always the risk with doing those lineup predictions, starting 11 predictions, four years in advance. I think every time you go back and look at what you thought was going to happen, there's like generally at least one player that is no longer a professional footballer, but I thought for sure was going to break through. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Sullivan, 17 years old today, by the way, he's washed, he's done, I think it's hard to form. Unfortunately. Yeah. But anyway, we'll be dicting that much more on our Patreon feed on our bonus, the Patreon.com Flash Total Soccer Show. Let's get to the Man City stuff, shall we? It's a great, it's my understanding that this hasn't actually been formally officially announced. As we record, the Premier League have not made a statement about these Man City charges. The news was broken by the athletic, did we do that? Did we help with that? Should we climb credit? Let's climb credit. Let's, let's, why not? Yeah. Yeah. Excellent stuff. So yeah, so the obviously it's out there, it's been very much, you know, this is a thing that is definitely happening, Graeme, can you tell us a bit more about it? What city have been accused of maybe a breakdown a bit of the 115 or 14 charges they'd be bounty of? So it was reported by David Onsen on the athletic on Friday that Manchester City have been found guilty of all but one of the 115 charges relating to breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations. Those charges date back to February 2023, following the football leaks emails that were published by Derspiegel in Germany. And since then there has been a four year investigation by an independent commission. The alleged breaches are between 2009 and 2018, during which Manchester City won several Premier League titles and other competitions. This is a period when, you know, Man City become a member of the Premier League following the takeover of Shake Mansour. So that 2009, the start of that period is one year after the takeover. And so a lot of city-minded people, perhaps including the chairman who has made a statement that's the only kind of official comment we have at this point, effectively confirming the reporting by the athletic of the outcome of the independent commission. But it feels like a lot of city-minded people will argue that this is just the establishment, this whole thing is the establishment pulling up the drawbridge, excuse me, and that city are being targeted. The statement from the chairman, stop short of calling it a conspiracy, but reading between the lines that was kind of the implication, I don't believe that that is the case. But you have that sort of argument wrapped up in this whole story as well. You have the tribalism of soccer fandom. And so it's maybe not quite as clear cut as it might seem, but let's not get it twisted. The verdict of this commission is that Manchester City have been found guilty of cheating here. And I know that might sound like I am stating the obvious, but as I say, this whole story has gotten so twisted by the tribalism of soccer. You have a set of fans, a club chairman, a crime conspiracy, you have others making the somewhat justifiable argument that the rules are in place to prevent the establishment being challenged. As in villain, Newcastle United might have something to say about that as well. I actually have some sympathy for that argument, by the way. But City signed up to the rules of the Premier League in the way that this works is when everything is put to the Premier League, it's put to the member clubs. They have a vote on big things and all those clubs sign those rules as part of the league's constitution. So City will have agreed to the rules that they have been found guilty of breaking it's such an industrial scale we've never really seen anything like on this scale before. And so it is worth stating clearly that this is cheating and what is both worth if cheating isn't punished in the harshest possible terms. And this story has now moved into a phase where it's not just City here in the docket I suppose, it's the credibility of the Premier League and with Manchester City being found so thoroughly guilty of so many of these charges, I don't know how this goes back in the bottle. Like previously I thought it was feasible that City get a massive fine and this whole thing gets swept under the rug. I think we're past that point now and surely we're looking at a massive punishment from Manchester City. Yeah. And just to focus on who's actually being accused because we're not accusing Pep Guardio of the necessary of anything here because he's not, you know, these decisions to be on his control. Roberto Mancini has basically admitted this week that he was being double paid. He was being paid a consultancy fee to consult to an Abu Dhabi club as well. His salary was being effectively doubled by having a double contract. Four days of training for Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi is getting paid more for that than he was for coaching Manchester City. So Mancini said, that's my contract that's not my problem. So it's not his problem. So who do we focus on here? Is it the Chairman, Carldon, Al Mabarak, presumably? It's also the sporting director, Cheeky Bajir, Stan of the time as well. Mr. X. We're not going to talk about Mr. X yet. I read a lot about Mr. X and I'm still confused about what his involvement was. So I leave it to Graham to explain the actual key personnel. I mean, we're talking about the owner chef of Manchester City here, right? We're talking about Sheikh Mansur. We're talking about the chairman whose name escapes me. Ran, you just... Carldon Al Mabarak. So presumably, the other shape, like the shake isn't like, got his fingers on the pulse that much. It's going to be the people in the front office, right? I mean, I don't know necessarily if it's the people in the front office because those are people who are making football and decisions, right? So I genuinely don't know if Biggeris Dean is, is one of the people. I mean, we don't really know how many people are implicated. I think that's one of the fascinating things about this whole story is we're now moving into a phase of pointing fingers at people. And I've seen a lot of glee from Manchester United fans, understandably, so it's a rival club. I could understand why that would be the case. And maybe Manchester City are one of the clubs that would benefit from a harsh Manchester City punishment. But their CEO is Omar Barada, who was CEO at Manchester City for a long time. So this is such a long period of time we're talking about. 2009 to 2018, best part of a decade. And Manchester City's influence stretches in so many different places to so many different places now. It's going to be difficult to work out who knew about war and who deserves a punishment over the top of just the club itself. Yeah, agreed. I think the athletic had a good piece where they kind of go through a lot of the individuals who are either have been like enumerated in the filings and what we know so far. And then we're also mentioned in the football leagues, which is where this all kind of originates from, right? It's originally like basically leaked material, stolen material, whatever you want to go with there. And so there's emails, there's messages, there's documents, there's spreadsheets, and it's the people involved in those, I think, that are like front and center at present. And it does seem like a lot of those are names that I wasn't as familiar with. They're intermediaries, they're accountants, they're like business consultants. I'm very much putting that in air quotes for the audio side of this. And it does seem like a lot of the maybe footballing personnel and decision makers weren't as involved or knew anything at all. And that seems almost deliberate. Like that way you can kind of keep a layer of deniability. You keep the people involved to like a select few or a smaller group that isn't maybe as involved in the more front facing aspects of the club. And then that allows you to also kind of have a bit less transparency with who is doing what and when and why. Yeah, definitely so as to who's found them guilty, an independent panel, an independent commission has been found here. It's the ground. Do you have any detail on who and what that is? Yeah, independent commission, as you say, Ryan, they've been adjudicating this case for the last four years. It was handed to them by the Premier League. During that process, the commission has spoken at length and in great detail with all parties. And the Premier League says it's independent commissions are drawn from its judicial panel, which contains, I'm reading for the Premier League site here, contains legal financial and other specialists. So we're not necessarily talking about like football people making these indexes. It's not like a panel of, I don't know, big, Sam, John Terry and like whatever other Premier League call the famous. Like these are these are legal and financial minds, people that we wouldn't have heard of before. So it's like a proper legal case at this point. There is there is a lawyer. Yes. Yes, you ask right. Oh, they make coffee. One of the two from Boston. I think he says is a lawyer who loves coffee. But yeah, I think I read also that like at least one of them had had had other cases or had been part of other like tribunals or whatever you want to call it during this time period, which is part of the explanation for why this whole process has taken so long. There are other more obvious reasons, but that's at least one of them is that they are like all practicing and still having other careers while also undertaking this pretty hefty hefty investigation. Yeah, just to summarize here, we've we've out like the charges here. A lot of it centering around claims and inflated sponsorship revenue. A lot of off the books payments that we mentioned sort of with Mancini there as well. But of all the charges of all the 115 charges, just seven of them are for breaching PSR profit and sustainability rules. The rest are all compliance. They're failing to comply with the Premier League rules. So it's kind of hard for them to defend that when they haven't played ball the tall over this period, it seems. Yeah, compliance and failure to cooperate with everything that's gone on. I mean, it is, I thought Manchester City's statement about all this was fascinating, right? Where they have continued to draw a very clear line in the sand about what they maintain has happened, which is that they haven't done anything wrong. And that is is coherent with their statement back from 2023. That was released as well. They use the term surprised back in 2023, which wow, I mean, that seems difficult to believe, but there's a lot of this that's a bit difficult to believe, right? I mean, we'll talk later on about how does this make us feel differently about all this and I'm fascinated here what you guys think about all that. I have my own perspective on this. Manchester City have been very clear about what they think has happened. And clearly, they still believe that there is a way out of this for them that doesn't involve anything more than a slap on the wrist. Grandma, I would tend to agree with what you said earlier, which seems difficult to imagine how all this gets put back into the bottle, but this has taken a really long time. And this is not like the end of this story by any means, just to be very clear about that. It seems like we are still quite some distance away from getting a real understanding of what the fallout is going to be. There is going to be an appeals process. There is going to be a sanctioning process. I genuinely have no idea how long that could take. I don't think anybody has a real picture, at least not anybody who's been able to say it publicly so far has a real picture of what the timeline is going to be for this to continue to move forward city. Like I said, clearly believe that there is still a way out of this for them. I, I'm just having a hard time picturing it. Yeah, I found the city statement fascinating. I agree, Joe. I found it fascinating as well for a couple of reasons. One, it can kind of continue that line of argument that you highlighted, which is maintaining their innocence. We've done nothing wrong. Not really accepting the verdict, the outcome of the verdict. Because that's where we're at now. This is a verdict from this independent commission. But what I found even more fascinating was how to my eye to my mind, they are now trying to push this into the court of public opinion, where when I talked about like they're trying to push this into the conspiracy way of thinking that is that that is very much trying to shape the argument around this rather than going to the independent commission. They made their points to the independent commission. They've been accused of not cooperating with the Premier League. This is now them trying to circumvent that and to set the narrative around that case. And that's why I found that statement like really, really interesting. And also we can bring in some sort of precedent, Graham, we've got here, right? Everton, for example, getting a getting PSR funds and what they, they received. Can we extrapolate the punishment they got to what we might expect from Entity? I mean, yes and no, obviously it's set some sort of precedent in that. That was a breach of a financial rule. But those were for breaches of the PSR rules as they became known. These pre pre date PSR before they were codified. The other thing that's very different about Everton and Nottingham Forest. And also the Chelsea find that they received only earlier this year. So let's recap that because I don't know if we talked about it actually on the show. There was lots of stuff happening, but Chelsea were handed a massive 10 million pound fine for illegally paying agents off books, which to some extent is similar to a lot of what's set. You've been accused of and found guilty of hate or paying staff and players and managers off books. And but basically the major difference there is that was pre-tod bolly and clearly. So essentially they come into Chelsea, they take over that club, they open the books. And to their credit, I guess, immediately hold up their hands and self-report to the Premier League and say, look, this has been happening before we take over the club. Chelsea have clearly gained a significant advantage here. And that's how they end up with a fine and no points deduction. Everton held up their hands as well, cooperated with the Premier League. I think Nottingham Forest has certain extent did as well, maybe not to the extent that Everton did. The Premier League actually praised Everton for their cooperation, set a clearly have not cooperated in any way here. And they also can't argue that these are different owners. The charges that have been made here are of the same ownership of the club that exists today. So I don't know if we can draw much precedent from that. You know, and I think they have to your earlier point, Graham, then tried to, yeah, ship this into the court of public opinion. And I think that's really interesting in some ways telling because for the majority of this process, it has been vehement denials. It has been absolutely there is no validity to this, like really full-throated in a way that made me think like not even that like they were going to have everything overturned, but at least some of it would end up being like, okay, yeah, this was wrong. This was maybe overstated. This didn't actually connect the way they thought it did. And a bunch of the charges would be dropped. Like similarly, there was some speculation for a while that part of the delay in getting this sort of decided, this decision made official, has been like fighting between the different members of the independent panel and that there's been debate and disagreement over what actually is violation and what actually was and wasn't. And then in the end, it seems like if you have all but one charge upheld and like found guilty, I guess, like it ends up being the case that maybe there wasn't that much division. Maybe that was also kind of an narrative. And so I think to see the way city of responded to this in the way they've tried to shift it instead of really sticking to that, like this is a disgrace, this is a miscarriage of justice or whatever the usual line would be. It does feel to me like, okay, so our first wave of defense has failed. Now we've got to try something else before things get fully out of hand, even if maybe they're already out of hand. And if we're talking about Preston that has been said, we should probably mention that this isn't the first time that Man City have fallen foul of a competition or a governing body because obviously in 2020, they were banned from the Champions League for two seasons for FFP breaches that also came from these their Spiegel leaks. It's the same source of information. And City appealed, they took that case to cast and they won. They weren't exactly proven innocent. They won because the time bar had passed for clubs to be punished within UEFA's rules. The window, they argued that it was the breaches route with the window that UEFA's constitution allows clubs to be punished within. And so cast dismissed the case on that basis. They also issued someone proven verdicts as well. The difference is that the Premier League doesn't have that time bar. There is no window. The Premier League can go back as far as it wants to and examining any rule-breaking. Also, this case, even an appeal, can't go to cast, so that is something that could accelerate the appeal process and get this case to the sanctioning part of it quicker than maybe some people had previously envisaged. But having come this far to your point, Taylor, of like City may be not holding much back, but with the cast case, it felt like they were holding their cards close to their chest until that case. This has been like four or five years of the surely they've got nothing else to argue with at this point. And so that's why I think we now see the chairman trying to court public opinion now. Yeah. The cover-up is always worse than the crime. And just to say, Chairman Calderon Al-Mabarak, his statement, the Premier League process has a long way to run and our confidence and intent in proving the club's innocence is just as strong as when this began. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the repercussions for the league and what might actually happen for Man City going forward. Join us then. Total soccer show, welcome back to the big thing. We're talking about Manchester City. They've been naughty boys. Hey, do we remember back in 2023 when Man City fans had a banner for their Lord Panic. So the banner said panic on the streets of London, Clevver Smith's lyric play. That was a low point. I feel like that was a low point. A lot of this is a low point from the Premier League, but fans with banners for lawyers. I just can't get on board with that. Do we think the Lord is panicked now than now that the charge is dropped? Yeah, maybe. Grim Foss is not playing on it. I spreadsheet me. It's not playing on the field either. It's played the courts. Thank you very much. Yeah, that's what I learned. That's what I learned. Oh, the lawyer. As a fan at this point, what does this change our perception knowing? I mean, we've known that these 115 charges have been looming for several years, but now it's sort of been ratified as a punish, well, the punishments to come, but it's been, you know, it is a thing. How much has this change our perception of their success? Do we feel like it's tainted the last few years of watching a very, very entertaining man city team? My honest answer is it hasn't changed my perception at all. And this is this is the conversation that I've been most fascinated to get to, because there's still so much that needs to come out of this and we should acknowledge, again, Nancy will appeal this and yada, yada, yada. I mean, none of this has surprised me. None, I mean, none of this has has changed how I thought about Manchester City already, which was that they have been overspending relative to what they're allowed to do. That's been where my mind has been at in this process. Now, again, there's still some clarity that needs to be had about exactly what this situation is. And how much they've overstepped, or I guess we could say if they've overstepped just to cover our bases. But my honest answer, Ryan, to has this changed how I think about Man City's success? No, not at all, because I haven't really doubted that they would be found guilty of a number of charges along the way. What I will say is, and this is where I sort of struggle, still with the lack of information that we have about this, and maybe also with my lack of understanding of some of the legal system in the midst of all this, I don't get the sense that Man City are the only club doing shady stuff. And Graham, you talked about Chelsea, and that's an example that I was going to bring up as well. Certainly, it seems like there was a large disparity in the magnitude of what Chelsea did, or were found out to have done. And what Manchester City had been found guilty of doing by this independent panel. I think you'd have to be foolish not to acknowledge that. At the same time, I really don't think any of us are naive enough to think that Man City are the only club doing some of this stuff. I mean, literally, they're not the only club doing it. That we have this much information about what they've done, which separates them from the Nottingham Forest and Everton of it all. And again, the magnitude does feel different, but I guess I'm just sort of jaded about all this. Like, we know there's been cheating in Major League Soccer, we know there's been cheating in English Soccer. This happens everywhere. That's not to excuse what Man City have done, because I think they absolutely should be punished if this comes through, and justice should be served, right? Absolutely. But honestly, my perception about them has changed to zero in this process. I think I largely agree with that overall. But I would say this, and Joe, I know this isn't exactly what you were saying, but the idea that other clubs are doing it, too, is fair and valid. We've already talked about the points, deductions, and the charges brought against other teams. However, I think the scale that seems to be pretty apparent with what we do at least know from the league documents, combined with 114 of 115, but then also the obstruction that seems to have been a critical part of all of this. And I think that is part of the timeline. It's where I have respect for the newspapers and the journalists again, because when people were outlining the timeline, it's always like one line. It's always a much lengthier thing about how the process works and how long it can be. Oh, and also Man City were not really cooperative, allegedly. And then we move on, but I think they were very not cooperative. And I can't understand why, to some extent, because from what I understand, these charges are, they require a ton of documentation and data and spreadsheets and calling through numbers and emails and reports. And so you have to get all of that information from the club. You have to be given that access. And I think City, which is the correct legal strategy, have been very deliberate in what they have given and when they have given it. At the same time, I think there are multiple documents that have never been turned over, citing confidentiality. Whether or not that will hold up, I don't know. But it seems like the obstruction and the delay for Manchester City is going to be part of this because you're right. Other clubs are probably doing this. We have evidence of that. But I think if you're the Premier League, that cynicism that you're talking about, Joe, or just that feeling of like, yeah, but you know, they have all the money and they're going to contest everything and it's going to be a slap on the wrist or a double secret slap on the wrist or whatever. I don't think the Premier League can afford that. And so I think they have to kind of make a statement here because otherwise, like I'll be honest, like if City do just get a slap on the wrist for this after how long it's been, after how obviously they have flaunted like rules and regulations, it makes me not want to talk at the Premier League as much. And it's kind of how it's been for me. It's why it doesn't change much of my perception of Man City is because this has always been a shadow hanging over that club. Now it's less of a shadow and more out in the daylight and now we have to decide what to do or not we, but you know, the people who make decisions. And I think if that decision isn't full-throated and like, you know, almost making a statement or like using them as an example, it just feels like kind of rules are fully out the window now not that they weren't already, but even more so. Yeah, I mean, I definitely don't disagree with what Joe says on like this being widespread, probably been widespread across the league. Like Newcastle and I had some of the deals that they have struck don't pass the sniff test in the same way that City's done for a long time. Like, did anyone truly believe that Man City in the space of like five years? I know this is, these actually aren't really related to these charges, but they're, I guess, are linked in some way. Did anyone truly believe that Man City in the space of five years leaped over Manchester United and Liverpool and Arsenal to become the club with the highest revenue in the Premier League from nothing? 12% commercial growth during this window. I mean, we just knew from the beginning when we saw that reported that it didn't pass the smell test in the same way that Newcastle's deals haven't for a while now as well. So I agree with that, Joe, it is most likely widespread. But it matters that that's punished, right? Like I said this at the top of the show, we are talking about the way that this story has now shifted is into a wider Premier League story. The reputation of the biggest and most successful soccer league in the world is now on the line. Like the Premier League until now has been known as the most competitive league. It's where the best soccer players are. It's where the best managers are. And now we're learning that, oh, well, that was all kind of fake to a certain extent. And it matters like the Premier League can't become known as like the most corrupt league in the world in the same way that Serie A did in the Calciopoli scandal, which I think we can all agree had a massive impact on the reputation of Italian football. So the Premier League has to come down hard. That's what I mean by when I say that this doesn't go back in the bottle. Like this is moved into a different phase now and that's why I now think it is likely that Manchester are gonna get a huge punishment out of this. Yeah, because they have to. Yeah, I think like the difference for me personally is that from my understanding from what I've read, it seems like other clubs who have had points, deductions or been under investigation. A lot of it seems to be rooted in the exploitation of financial loopholes or like deliberately maybe misinterpreting what the language is so that you can then interpret it this way and then you can spend more or like pay a player this or amortize this when in gravity and not supposed to do it that way. And so some of those violations have been you kind of know you're flaunting the rules but it's not technically a full violation. Like I think there has been more nuance with some of those other charges. This to me for all the world feels like, yeah, we don't really wanna play by those rules and we're used to playing by our own rules and this is stupid that we have to abide by whatever the limitations are so fine. We'll do the loopholes, we'll jump through it as we need to but it seems like they were pretty like obvious in that with some of the people they used some of the middlemen, some of their explanations for those middlemen are lack thereof. It seems to be like, yeah, okay, so we need a different company to be the shirt sponsor. Well, now our company that we sort of own but we're not gonna make clear is paying 10 times the market value but it's this guy who owns it. Don't worry about the fact that he's our owner's best friend. It's an entirely different thing and they're not connected and I think the dots are just so obvious to connect that it speaks to an obvious like flagrant disregard of the rules rather than a creative reimagining of what they might say. Fair enough. So, I mean, it's a nuanced thing but it is a like operating within the structure or trying to operate within the structure while gaining a financial advantage is what like smart front offices do. Openly defying the rules and being like, we'll see when court is a different approach and it does feel like the one that City opted for for large stretches of this. It's a different approach, Taylor, but I mean, maybe on balance, we'll look back on this and it might even be worthwhile. Depends on the kind of punishment they get here. So the punishments they can get, a points deduction, they could get expelled from the Premier League. They could be a big fine, they could be a transfer ban. That's kind of what we're talking about that could happen. All of a K at the Athletic says few people in Premier League circles are expecting title successes to be stripped or redistributed. The suggestions all along has been that any punishment will be forward looking. I don't know how I feel about that because that means the history book still recognizes those eight titles that they've won and it doesn't really punish the moment that they were in there. And one source who is very highly placed, probably the biggest authority on Manchester City has given some very keen information. Liam Gallagher. Liam Gallagher. Just being told by someone in a very high position if we lose our appeal, which we won't, we'll be getting a fine and a transfer ban and that's it. Now Graham, that feels problematic, not just because it's Liam Gallagher's implying he is in cohorts with the independent commission here, but also that is nowhere near enough for the integrity of the Premier League. I think as you've outlined well Graham, the integrity of the league is at stake here. A big fine, they can easily afford and a transfer ban they can issue after a season or two is simply not enough for the Premier League to act upon here. Yeah, and the longer this has dragged out, the more the Premier League becomes a farce because obviously this has been going on for a long time, but it was easier to kind of argue well, the process is ongoing, we can't make a statement. We don't truly know the truth of this, the reality of this until there is a verdict. Now we have a verdict and it now makes Man City's involvement in the Premier League completely farcical. We're talking about the team that is currently top of the table, a team that could very feasibly win the Premier League title, so how are we meant to look at that while all this is going on? So it's very much in the interest of the Premier League as a product to get this sorted as quickly as possible now, to get to the punishment's part of this process so that for everyone's sake, we know what the reality is and there's so many different things that you can fold into this new phase that we are moving into, including how keen an interest will Andy Burnham take in this, the UK Prime Minister, considering he has made football such a big part of his Prime Ministerial platform. He's, well, I was going to say, he's also the former mayor of Manchester and not to drag this into a political discussion, but he will have close ties with Manchester City, who by the way, have invested a huge amount in the city of Manchester. The east of Manchester has been completely transformed by the investment, not just by through Manchester City, but Abu Dhabi, their sovereign fund has invested in so much within Manchester and Burnham welcomed that investment and he has been open to UE investments. So how hard will he go on this? He's generally a bit of a populist in terms of his policies and the points he makes, the arguments that he makes, he surely recognises what the public opinion is on this, but how compromised is he by being the mayor of Manchester for so long while this was happening? So like, there's so many different ways that this can be taken in. Which I mean to me, he's in was a deliberate tactic. It's not different from the, I don't know if we still have to say allegations if it's basically been confirmed, but like Qatar buying like a French air fleet essentially and then suddenly France voting for Qatar to host the World Cup. Like we've seen this before, where like agreements outside of football impact football or deliberately control football in some ways. And so I think like that has been part of this is like if you are fully built into now the history of the Premier League, the entire way it operates, the entire understanding of the Premier League, but then also the fabric of the city and the country in which you like live and play. How do you excise that? How do you remove those two things? How do you separate them and what happens if you do? Because that is the other thing that like I think has been gently discussed but is worth discussing. If it goes as far as it seems to have gone where you do have high up individuals and I'll leave it there because we don't really know how high, but it seems very high involved in this and consciously aware of what was happening. Like how do you let ownership remain? If they are guilty of 115 or 114 charges, like it's pretty widespread, it's pretty like systematic at that point. So you certainly can't slap on the wrist but also even like let's say a forced relegation but you keep ownership in place. Are we sure anything's gonna change? Is that actually warning anybody? Like you know, while we have Roman Abramovich being forced to sell, obvious for different reasons, but it still is a strange one of like if you are very clearly saying this club was deliberately and intentionally operating against regulations and a lot of people knew about it but a lot of those people are allowed to keep their jobs. I mean, I know that worked really well for like the housing disaster in the United States with nobody getting punished but maybe just maybe this should be different. Yeah, maybe so. I actually wonder if like if it was a relegation, if it would actually be quite a big boon for English soccer as well. Imagine the AFL getting a team like Manchester City down there. That'd be tremendous for like a tendency and stuff. What is interesting about that Ryan is, so obviously the Premier League, the way that they could demote them is they could give them a points reduction that is so big that essentially they play an entirely a tire season pointlessly, no pun intended. But if you can't demote them to the championship because the EFL is a different body for the Premier League. So if there's a demotion, then it's the ranger's thing of, which by the way is a pretty decent precedent for this, the rangers in Scottish football crisis. Can you let us, can you recap us on that, Grah? Yeah, for the, for the maybe five or six listeners who aren't intimately aware of rangers financial history and their Phoenix aspirations got. And I'll see your three thoughts. Yeah, so this was a story that I spent years on. This was when I was working as a journalist and this was like all consuming in Scotland for like five years. But anyway, the TLDR is rangers for a long time were found guilty of paying players and staff members of books using a tax scheme that ultimately HMRC deemed to be illegal. HMRC called that bill in the late, like in the late 2000s. Rangers couldn't pay it, they went bust. They had to relinquish their league membership and they had to start again in the bottom tier of of Scottish football. That's the closest precedent. It's not a, there's not a full overlap there because obviously there's not an HMRC bill that's going to make man-cited bust. But in terms of being found guilty of paying players more than they were allowed to, then that's the closest comparison that I can make. And as I say, rangers, that felt there's everyone in Scottish football is making this comparison right now because when this story first came out with rangers, it was like rangers can't go down to the bottom division. It just cannot happen. You couldn't fathom that that would be a possibility. And it did happen. And I feel like we are at a similar point with this Manchester City story now where still I'm like man-city are not going to get relegated at the primary league. But less than to everyone who is much, they're much more clued up on this story than I am. They've got inside information. It seems like everything is on the table at this point. Like it could go in any direction from Man-city. All right. Let's take one more quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about those potential directions for Man-city and the wider implications for other clubs and the league and much more. Join us then. Total soccer show, welcome back to the big thing. We're talking about Manchester City's impending punishment for the charges they've been found guilty of. I think Taylor, I'm fairly cynical by nature and precedents just to me that City are going to try and back this down the road as long as they can with the appeal process. Could it be years before we see any outcome of this? I think the truth is that we don't really know, or at least I don't really know, it well could be for my understanding the independent panel itself at this point is responsible for the timeline for establishing what the timeline will be, what the precedents need to be. Joe already said it, but to reiterate, it sounds like there is from here an appeal hearing, ascension hearing, negotiations over the release of the initial judgment, which we still haven't gotten. And then any separate wrangling over which party is liable for the vast legal costs incurred in this case, because that is a huge thing. There's just going to be a ton of negotiation, a ton of back and forth. I think they will probably try to drag this out. I'm not sure for what purpose you would do that aside from buying yourself time to get your ducks in a row to figure out how you're going to operate to find the best way forward. And I think while also pointing to a lot of the things we've talked about, how do you relegate a club without having to change their entire operational structure? How do you force an owner to sell if it's less of a situation than it was with Chelsea? How do you basically dock them points? How do you punish players? Like what is the silverware and who gets it? And do you strip them of titles? And if so, what is the legal liability there? I think there's so many different things that will have to be kind of figured out that I won't be surprised if this takes a really long time. But ultimately, it doesn't seem like a ton is going to change in terms of the findings of guilt, in terms of the charges, in terms of what the panel has already decided. I don't think that that's really up for massive amounts of review to my understanding. I do think it will end up taking a good bit of time. And I think we will end up getting some sort of negotiated agreement that I still think is a sizable punishment is more than just that slap on the wrist that I always assumed this would be. And I think also the longer it goes without people talking about it and keeping it in the spotlight, the easier it is for the Premier League to start looking at that slap on the wrist as more of an appealing outcome than anything else. So I think kind of keeping the discussion going and making sure we're aware that like this is the present situation and to Grant's point, if they win the title this year, like how do you have them lifting that trophy? How do you have that being a thing that you use in promotional materials and discussed with Glee and what a season it's been? The team that are like, have been found guilty of financial doping are now the champions again, hooray? Like it just, it creates so many obstacles and problems. And I'm very happy that I'm not the one who has to navigate it. I just get to talk about it clumsily. How can you possibly have Richard Masters handing over the Premier League trophy to my set at the end of the season? Which is the best thing possible. It's a mess today, yeah, that's how they do it. I mean, before kind of starting my research on this or I guess before stuff started coming out towards the end of last week, my hunch was that we'd be looking at retrospective and points deductions. But it now seems like from other reporting, again, people who know much more than me feels like that is less likely. I would imagine because of the can of worms that that opens up for everyone concerned, where it's not just purely, I mean, we had a bit of fun in our Slack channel last week thinking like, all in our SoulShare as a Premier League winner now and Steve Gerrard's a Premier League winner. But you can go basically all the way down the league pyramid and say like, well, that season, that club missed out on Champions League qualification. This season, a team got relegated. They lost twice to Manchester City and they went down to the championship. You can go all the way down and all those clubs would have a reasonable case for like suing Manchester City and taking them to court. And we have pressed in for that. Burnley took Everton to court and won, I believe, 35 million pounds after their points reduction. And so there's Preston from Ansett to lose those cases to basically every club in the Premier League for multiple seasons. And so that's why it feels like that's not gonna happen. I don't know how many points you deduct them moving forward. Cause like if you deduct them using the Preston of what like Everton and Forest have been deducted, you're talking like a 100 point deduction, maybe even more. Do you split that over multiple seasons? I don't know. It's just, it's like just such a mess. I mean, the back, I was sorry, I tell you, I'm sorry, I've talked to you. I was just gonna say that the backward looking stuff is wild to think about because it's not only just, you know, clubs appealing and potentially suing Manchester City for compensation that they missed out on. But it's also then, well, if Manchester United had won that title, would all of their players and staff at that time be getting bonuses? Like, I mean, it's just such, like you can look at the macro table of it all or you can look within literally every club as well in the amount of detail that would have to go into that or could go into that as opposed is sort of mind boggling. I mean, the 100 point penalty, at a certain point, you just reached what we talked about earlier, which is effectively relegating a Manchester City without saying that you're relegating them. I mean, you couldn't, you can't recover for 100 point penalty and not get relegated. Basically, the best you could hope to do would be somehow have a 60 point penalty and end up on 100 points, which would put you a plus 40. Somewhere in that ballpark and maybe, just maybe, you could escape that. I mean, I think, it sounds like basically anything's on the table from transfer band to slap on the wrist to multi-year points reduction to effective relegation. I mean, all these things are out there. I mean, if Manchester City gets relegated, what happens to, what happens to their players? Like, I just, there's so, there's so much to unwind here and this is why I think truly this story has really caught the attention of so many people. I'll be honest, Taylor, you talked about earlier, like this would impact how much we would talk about the Premier League. That may well be true. I don't know, man, I'm not, I'm not so sure. I think the Premier League might have reached monolithic status to the point where even something like this can't really hurt it. I mean, I was listening to the Athletic FCE podcast and I believe it was raised the idea that the Premier League's US TV deal is coming up soon. I don't think most, I don't think most Premier League fans in the US most, I'm not saying all or even a good percentage, I don't think most Premier League fans in the US know anything about this. Like, I absolutely think people will still watch the Premier League, people will still talk about the Premier League. I really hesitate to think that even something like this could truly dent their popularity, at least in the US. I don't know what it's like overseas. I'm not over there. I'm just saying, I think this story is so big in a lot of ways, but in other ways, it's not going to quite have the same ripple effect, almost regardless of what happens. But you can bet that there's a whole gamut of things that could come actually come down for men to the year. I mean, they might notice Joe if they, June and Mancetti aren't part of the Premier League. Why am I setting up part of the Premier League? I mean, I agree with what you're saying. I don't know if it's going to have that much of an impact on things like TV deals. But when people are talking about, I think it was Adam Krafton who was tweeting about, like, he was speculating what feels fair as a punishment. And all this chat of like a 100 point deduction for a season, like, I'm not really interested in having Mancetti play an entire season that just like doesn't matter. For me as a neutral fan, like, what's the point of watching their games? And then you have all kinds of complications of like, well, the teams that they're putting in full effort, if they're all the results are void, teams are then winning games against them that have an effect on their outcomes of the season. And so Adam Krafton was saying, like, if the benefit that Mancetti have had out of this cheating, if we call it cheating, which I think we should, if the benefit that they've had of this is to like accelerate their growth beyond the point that the rules permitted, how do you decelerate their growth? And that feels like a punishment that would be over multiple seasons. So what's the punishment that would effectively take them out of like, Champions League qualification for four to five seasons? Cause that's kind of what we're talking about. They could switch to an office with Man United. That would help. That would do it. That would do the job. Yeah. Well, I mean, my net had already did that. Jason Wilcox and a barada back to, they just go back to Manchester City. But yeah, like, what's the point's deduction that effectively takes them at a Champions League qualification for four to five seasons? That kind of feels like a decent starting point for me. And because I, as I say, like I have sympathy with the argument that these rules are in place to kind of protect the cartel, but you say not for the rules, man, like you can't then just do whatever you want to break them. And so that's, that would be my starting point. Okay. Am I like, like, and I know I'm talking about like my experience. So I'm not saying like they're going to take, you know, a TV revenue hit or anything like that. I just think for me, I already had that little bit of, like I feel like I would still pepper it in, like don't forget the charges. Just don't forget the charges. Like Alan Sheer always does that with match of the day when he's praising Man City. He'll always be like, yeah, they're really good. Got some charges over it. Yeah, but still very good. You do, you do credit to it. You do that. And people in the, in our desk card were saying like, today you're going to show up like Pablo Torres with 3000 documents, like this is Taylor's time is shine. As you mentioned it, the only one of us to mention it every episode for the last three years. Just because like it is such obvious cheating. And like, and you're right, like other clubs are doing their own version of it. I'm not trying to say like it's a purity test that everyone else is great. It's just it informs the way you talk about that club. It has for me. And I think it informs the perception of them. I'm not trying to say this in a caddy way, but like it's already a team that doesn't have massive widespread appeal. I think individual players do. I think PEP certainly did. But we've talked about this before, where they like would struggle to sell out games or like they would have tickets available for champions league like fixtures because there just wasn't as much of a like, am I being unkind? No, they don't have the legacy foundation. It clubs like Manu and I didn't love it. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. And so I think to then have them continue to compete, it's just like an Albatross. It's just an immediate reminder of like, hey, remember this team that like used to get away with everything and we're really good, but are now in this weird nebulous territory over like our still a lot to play, but nobody's really rooting for them and they're like the ultimate villain. Maybe they lean into that. Maybe the Premier League does and they just make them the villain for a good long while. But it's just that it's an ever present reminder of the kind of 10 years or so where they were allowed to get away with a lot of things. But I agree with both of you. I don't really know what the ideal punishment is because I agree with some people like who made the argument online that if you relegate them, I'm not actually sure how much that hurts them. Like certainly they're then gonna have to sell a lot of players and there's gonna be PSR issues there. But if you're relegating them, you get them out of the champions league for two seasons and then decent chance they come right back up or in a similar position, but now with a clean slate and a freedom to operate as they have been or maybe not as they have been, but in similar ways. It's just it's not a position I envy because I don't know how you punish them appropriately and make neutrals and everybody else happy while at the same time not putting yourself into even more legal liability or like problematic positions as a league unto itself. I do think on the lawsuit front and the amount of money owed, my guess and I have not an expert at all. My guess is that you will end up having a lot of the clubs who feel hard done by, which is maybe all of them coming together in a class action lawsuit and maybe that being part of the punishment settlement. Because otherwise that class action lawsuit would have required going to court and another 10 years of hearings and back and forth and who knows what ends up happening and I'm not sure a lot of clubs are gonna have this stomach for that. I could see a massive, massive financial penalty being part of this that then gets allocated to clubs and then the lawyers are on the back rooms fighting tooth and nail to make sure that their clubs, the perimeter clubs, get what percentage they feel is fair and they let them tear each other apart that way without it having to kind of bleed into another lengthy legal battle. Yeah, I think to take it back to the point about my settings reputations of club, I think that is absolutely spot on because they just don't have the sort of like think of Barcelona all that they've gone through the last few years where their reputation has been dragged through the door and yet players, the best players in the world are still signing them because, well, it's Barcelona. And Man City don't have that romance despite the success they've had over the last 15 years. And so I do think this will impact, especially now that Pep's gone interesting timing from Pep Guardiola on that decision. Especially because of Jacob Bigger and Senior, Jacob Boy, they don't have those figures there to attract players, how are they going to continue? I suspect they will still attract players because they'll be wretched, right? And that's kind of what dictates players' decisions in the first place. But go on, I'm just to finish off on what we think is fair and appropriate as a punishment. And then to come back to what you said Taylor about them being relegated, maybe not hurting them that much. But I suppose you'd ask if that doesn't then what would hurt them? Because if it is just a transfer ban, if it is a massive fine, that's probably the most feckless possible punishment they could get at this point, right? I think for me, the fairest thing to do is to exclude them from the Premier League. If you were in a competition and you break the rules for nine years, if we were in a wreck league together and we did nine seasons and we were completely breaking the rules every season, they probably would... Why did your team have Holland in it every weekend? How is that happening? Why do you have got three extra players on the field every single game? If we did that, we probably wouldn't be welcome back for the next season. So I think if you break, consistently break the rules of a competition, the most appropriate thing is for you to be excluded from that competition if only temporarily, but that seems to be the best cause of action for me. You've also got like compound cheating, right? If I can coin that term. So, for example, Man City get Pep Guardiola in 2016. Would they have been able to get Pep Guardiola in 2016 by overpaying for some of the players that they had before then from 2019 to 2016? They could get into that possession. We're paying. No, they could have gotten that overpaying. So even breaking it, nine seasons is such a long time. I know that state in the obvious, but it's a decade of football. And even that doesn't quite quantify what we're talking about here, because as I say, there's compound cheating where it builds one season onto the next. So I agree, Ryan. And also to take us back to US Joe, a question way earlier in the episode. I can't remember how you framed it, but it was like, how do we think of Man City's era of success? I know that this has all come out. Man, the only one who's pissed off, like the neutral in me is very annoyed to put it bluntly. I even have the question of, well, what was real? Like all the Pep Guardiola era, the aguero moment, all of those moments now have a giant asterisk next to them. And I have conflicting emotions because I'm not necessarily in the mood to like hand united titles or Liverpool titles because, sorry, Taylor, but like, I just can't go back. I just can't go back in my mind and like plaster a Man City sticker or Liverpool sticker on memories I have or like things that actually happen. Like these teams did exist. They did win things. And that's why just, that's why the retroactive, like removal of titles doesn't really make sense. It's because we all live through those moments and it's not going to change what we, what we remember. Yeah, keep going. And like it doesn't, almost doesn't matter. Like Taylor, is a Man Chess knighted fan? Do you really want like a retrospectively applied a Premier League title? No, especially because the Glazers will be like, say we were good the whole time. We did actually win and our plan was foolproof. Yeah, I mean, I mean, almost misses the point, right? Like what you're chasing as a fan is the emotion of the glory rather than the actual written down on the Wikipedia page you won the title that season. Right. And so like I just can't like change the memory of a Gueros goal to like Ron van Persian instead. Like it happened. But at the same time, I am pissed off that I have this question about the last whatever, you know, 15 years of the Premier League. Yeah. Yeah, two things in agreement, Graham. Number one, no, as a United supporter, I would not want those titles. I would not want that silverware. The club that might feel differently and I kind of feel like should is Liverpool. Because I mean, that is a club that, to my understanding, have not breached financial rules, have been responsible and restrained in their spending. But at the same time of the European club, built a club with this identity that was incredibly attractive that is part of the global appeal of the Premier League, expanded their footprint here in the United States, expanded it abroad. And yet could not financially compete with Manchester City. And so probably would have won a fair few more titles, probably would have maybe even gone further in the Champions League potentially. And there's just so many potentials in what ifs, I think Liverpool supporters are the ones who probably should feel the most hard done by. Maybe that's a large group of people who are gonna have some ill will about this one. But I think I just think that like did put them into a position where there was just no chance they could really compete in that way. Wow, they were the team that seemed most capable of competing and had the like the best authentic go at it. So that's one thing. The other would be that Graham to your point. And it's not one like others have made it before I have. Like the aguero moment that like the game winning goal that wins them that title, like is consistently voted as one of if not the greatest Premier League moments. It is on every Premier League highlight reel. It is how they open highlight at the commercial. Yeah. And so like now what do you keep that around? It doesn't have the same meeting. There's a little bit of an asterisk there. And I assume Joe that like for you, that doesn't really change anything. It's still a great goal. It's still a great moment. It doesn't really, I think you are able to separate those two things, but I'm not sure that's the case for a lot of people. And it's not the case for me seeing that one. I'll be like aguero 115 charges. Like it's really not a thing I can separate anymore. It's not really a thing I could separate in the first place to be totally fair. But it does make you look at them differently. I mean, Ryan, you were writing about city at the time, right? You were the athletics like Man City reporter. How did like, does it impact you at all? Does it change the way you felt about that time or writing about that team? I think it doesn't. It doesn't to be completely honest. And I think about it from a perspective of a Man City fan and like whether I feel sorry for them at the moment. Yes, I do, because obviously it's a bit of, you know, your club's going to go through something in the next year or two. But also as Graham underlined, those things happened. You had those memories. You had those moments and soccer is about, as Graham correctly identified in my opinion, it's about having those moments. Those sort of slight euphoric moments that you get in this game, the ups and the downs. That's why we follow this game, right? And I think that no matter what happens, they will have had that moment. Whether it's tainted or not is another question. If I was going to be really obtuse about it, I could say soccer is a game of halves and halves knots. The playing field is not equal. Tiny teams will never have what the big teams have. And there's financial doping is hundreds of history. There's lots of other things that separate big teams from small teams. I'm not saying that the big team will break the rules. What I'm saying is the playing field will never be level for teams at the top and the bottom, which is a long-winded way of saying, no Taylor didn't affect me. Thank you. And I think honestly, and again, to Joe's point, I'm not sure how many people it will actually affect. And I think that's why it makes sense to not try to go back and relitigate who won what and when. I think it makes sense to put an asterisk around every single one of those titles. And then I think it makes sense to move on, punish them however you can if that's, like I don't even know what is allowed at this point. Like I don't know if you could dock them 100 points and then dock them 100 points in the next season and the season thereafter. I don't know if it's just banning them from Europe for 10 years. Whatever it is, I think the majority of supporters of just fans of the Premier League fans of soccer just want this done. And they want to be able to forget about it. I think that's the same with Calciopoli. It's a thing that we remember. It's a thing we talk about. It's a thing that's used to make fun of Italian soccer from time to time. But ultimately, you may go down. They keep some of the personnel. They win Serribee. They come right back up. They keep some of those personnel. They win some titles. Like it's, it's a thing that I think you want there to be a feeling that like there is a punishment. People are being held accountable and responsible. Now we can just keep watching the soccer we like and not really have to think deeper thoughts about the foundational aspects of the league itself and the moral issues of watching it. So I think we'll get transfer bands, European bands, points, deductions, I agree with Graham. I don't really want just a foregone conclusion season where it's like maybe they can get a single point by the end, even if they're docked 100 points. We'll see how they do. I think it is sizable bands that last a very long time, but then are make it easier for people to kind of just go on watching the league and not really having to focus on why cities suddenly are only playing a group of 19-year-olds because they can't sign senior players anymore. Yeah, I think Taylor, the event's example is very good because you can regard it as a blip in the timeline if you've entered this history, right? They come back up, they win titles again. But the rest of the league will have felt very vindicated by that process, right? Even maybe some of the other teams you will have keep locating and couch-oply. That's another story. But the point is the punishment seems to fit the crime there. And I think that's what we're going to get here. Unless we forget, soccer is very tribal. And no matter what happens, like Juventus fans still claim all of the titles, including the two that got stripped from them, right? On their banners, on everything. Man City fans are going to do the same thing. Like in the arc of Man City history, it probably won't affect the fans, their fans, perspective too much. I would argue. But hey, that's right, wrong stuff, nothing. I mean, I don't know. Like I hear what you're saying and there is validity to it. It's just like 10 years, man. I don't know if I can be like, yeah, you guys still want to, but I think it's just a thing that people want to ignore. That's truly what I think it is. I think people just won't want to talk about that period anymore. PEP will still be PEP. Some of those teams will still be very memorable and very, very good. But I think everybody, including Man City supporters, will probably be content. Maybe not everybody. I think there'll be a lot of songs, songs and banners held criticizing Manchester City. But I think generally speaking, people will be content to just sort of, oh, yeah, those are the dark days. We don't talk about those days. We're just going to keep it moving and look towards the future and that I think maybe is a future that gets litigated for the next five years or so. But it's still a future where maybe there are punishments and things still have meaning. And that would be a fun world to live in. Oh, yes. As well as the pastile of talking about financial rule breaking, excellent stuff. Greg Rothen, thank you very much indeed for your expertise in this field. We look ahead to see what happened to Manchester City with baited breath. Thank you, Ryan Bailey. Maybe at some point this season we'll actually talk about the soccer because between this and the Giannian Fantino FIFA story, we've had two giant stories break that like have nothing to do with soccer. So I'm looking forward to actually talking about things that happen on the field. We'll get to it eventually. Joe Larry, thank you very much indeed for your insights on this one. Thanks, Ryan. And Taylor Rucker, thank you once again. I think all agreed. The right punishment is for Man City to be relegated to league one and take MK Don's his place. And MK Don's power of existence, everyone's happy. Good, yeah, great. Yeah, I think that's very merge them. Now they're MK Don's city financial opening. Yes. So wait, MK Don's gets into the Premier League? Not against that. They get sent to the 7th. We're the Inter Miami gets into the Premier League. I don't know what the rules allow for. I don't know how that's happening, but very good. All right, listen, thank you very much for joining us on this one. We appreciate you. We'll be back on the field very shortly. But for now, bye.
