‘I think you’re wrong’ – Cole, Keown in HEATED debate over Man City charges
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An independent commission found that City used “sham” commercial agreements between 2009/10 and 2017/18 to artificially inflate revenues and reduce costs by more than £900 million.
The commission also said the Manchester club “made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation”.
In a heated debate with fellow TNT Sports pundit Martin Keown ahead of Arsenal’s clash with Leeds United on Saturday, Cole also questioned the Premier League’s spending rules, insisting they are “not fair” on teams looking to challenge the established order.”You have to start asking what the regulations are there for,” said Cole. “The government wanted to keep the clubs playing on a level playing field, and Man City should be punished if they’re guilty, but it’s still up in the air.
“The regulations that are in place are not doing the job they’re supposed to do.
“If you want to buy a football club in this country, like Roman [Abramovich] did with Chelsea. Now, for other clubs, it’s not fair – for the likes of Newcastle, it’s not fair.
Ornstein on Man City charges – and what happens next
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“There are levels of cheating. There’s drug doping and cheating with referees. But this also distorts it the other way. Man City need to be punished, but the only pure thing about football is what happens on the pitch.
“For me, what they achieved is not tainted. It’s not right to class it in the same way as match fixing. That is the pits. We need to change the rules and regulations for other teams to grow. I don’t think they should be punished retrospectively.”
City have appealed the verdict, arguing that the commission’s ruling contained “clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe”.
Keown, meanwhile, stressed the seriousness of City’s breaches, adding they harm the Premier League as a product.
“We can’t just brush this away, and it will have dropped a bomb in the dressing room,” Keown said. “It would have been a really important meeting at the training ground on Thursday.
“Players could be looking for a move to get away from the situation when the sanctions arrive. When fans used to chant: ‘Same old Arsenal, always cheating’, but this is that x100.
“All their history would be wiped away in one fell swoop. None of us are enjoying this. It’s not just hurting Man City, it’s hurting our product.
“If they’re found guilty, they’ve got to lose the trophies they’ve won. In other sports, you lose your gold medal.
“You cannot artificially put money into a football club, and we have to do it for the Newcastles and the Aston Villas who are losing their best players to stay in line with the rules.
“In fair competition, it would have taken 50 years for Man City to achieve what they’ve achieved [without cheating]. Has this been fiction or non-fiction? What have we been watching? It’s happened through unfair means.
“Pep [Guardiola] probably wouldn’t have been there. Competition loses, and that’s what they voted for. We can’t move away from that. It has to be something major. We need fairness.
“We look at Man City, and wherever they travel around the country they’re going to be classified as cheats. Do we want to lose them [in the Premier League]?
“I don’t think we want them in the Championship, but they cannot be allowed to win the Premier League this year. I don’t think they should be allowed to operate in the January transfer window. It might mean a 30-point deduction [for now].”
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