PSG hit with 'only' £20M FFP fine???

That's from Martin Samuels. If that is right, then the City hierarchy must be fuming. I think if we'd been hit with that sort of fine, we may have just accepted it. Forced to cut our CL squad down to 21 (meaning only 13 foreign players) will hurt us much more as we are having to keep on HG players (that aren't generally good enough) at inflated wages. Richards and Boyata have been offered more money to stay and there is talk of Kolarov missing out as he is the most expendable of our non HG players.

Maybe that's why we're ready to fight our fine then......did we not all say, we'll be the one to be made an example of. Total bollocks!!

Total fucking bollocks. We have to wait and see what the facts are here, but it is being said that their €200M a season sponsorship was deemed to be excessive (no shit Sherlock) and it has been cut down to €100M instead!!!

If that is the case, we could quite reasonably increase our sponsorship to those levels as well (and maybe backdate it like PSG did).

It's all complete bollocks and I really hope we tie them up for months in the courts.

When United get £10m a year for their training tops, and £180m for selling the naming rights to their training ground, you can pretty much do what you want unless you are Man City.

We always knew Platini would protect PSG, but to fine us more when we've shown how we are working towards breaking even this year, and the level of investment in the campus is something no other team would dream of doing.

Our main problem is the other teams in the prem will stick the knife in as much as Uefa. Nobody will stand with us, possibly Chelsea for obvious reasons. They are that bitter if they cannot beat us on the pitch they will certainly do what they can off the pitch.

As much as I hate them I can only hope the media are on our side and report just how blatantly corrupt it all us.

Anyway until we know the full facts it is still all speculation.

I think this is the best news we've heard so far.

So let me get this straight...

We try to comply with FFP and work hard towards reducing our expenditure. We've bought carefully and cut our wage bill. We've built a new, state of the art training facility which has had the additional benefits of regenerating a badly run-down part of Manchester, created jobs where there were none and removed a serious health hazard. We've developed youth and reserve teams that are doing well and invested in the women's team. Our punishment: £50m fine, a reduction in the CL squad and a block on wage rises.

PSG have spent hundreds of millions on buying players. They've done nothing else with their money. They've stuck two fingers up at the FFP regulations and have been openly contemptuous towards them. Their punishment: £20m.

Now if I was City's law talking guy, I'd be looking at this and saying that the punishment doesn't go anywhere near the crime. If anything, the punishments meted out should be the total opposite of what they are, given PSG's attitude. It's no wonder they're happy to cough up, they're not getting any penalty at all.

Like I said this morning.....this is good news to City and it's lawyers.

A case for appeal can be brought on the grounds of what PSG's fine was. UEFA can't go back and tell PSG it's £50m.....they can only reduce ours to the same, if not less. Any lawyer worth their salt will see this as a massive opportunity to bargain, get our fine down, and negate the player cap for the CL.....

That, my friends, is why our beloved owner employed the same team of lawyers that wrote FFP in the first place. As the saying goes "always one-step ahead"....The Sheikh is no fool and probably worked this out 2 years ago.

At somepoint UEFA must fuck up. There's too many twists and turns (where we've probably been caught out) for them to avoid a trap themselves but this looks so stupid if this is what has happened.

Do they seriously expect people to believe that PSG are worth a sponsorship deal around £80M a year? If this is the case, we could have doubled the Etihad deal without issue.

I don't see why we can't just increase Etihad's deal with us if they are letting PSG get away with £80M a year on their shirts. We should just say ours is worth the same (should be more because of the Premier League), stick an extra £50M in the kitty every year and buy Messi.