Bye Bye Burnham

[Broccers]

I’ve seen talk of Burnham introducing a wealth tax - on families with assets of £100m, so unlikely to trouble anyone here (unless Broccers’ crypto is doing better than he lets on).

But it’s in principle a bad thing. It won’t bring in nearly as much as anticipated and even people unaffected directly by it will consider it unfair so it’s politically sensitive.
Getting the richest to pay tax at the same rate as the squeezed middle classes should be the aim.

Just seen this. Got to ask even if full on lefties are on board now there's a big financial penalty that's got their squeeze room gone. Chaos. Not as is if anyone firmly in the centre didn't see it coming.

[IanF]

[Gavster]

Good to see him being straight up honest about Brexit.

[dinny_g]

He's going to get dragged into the Manchester City situation if he's not careful.

He really needs to keep out of it because statements along the lines of "it will be terrible for Manchester if the owners sell the club" is just inviting them to get him involved. They've shown no shame so dragging the PM in with vague threats of the economic impact to his beloved Manchester if they aren't allowed to get away with it might not be beyond them.

Unless, of course, he has skeletons from his time as Manchester Mayor

[Swervin_Mervin]

He's going to get dragged into the Manchester City situation if he's not careful.

He really needs to keep out of it because statements along the lines of "it will be terrible for Manchester if the owners sell the club" is just inviting them to get him involved. They've shown no shame so dragging the PM in with vague threats of the economic impact to his beloved Manchester if they aren't allowed to get away with it might not be beyond them.

Unless, of course, he has skeletons from his time as Manchester Mayor

I don't see how the Gov't can't get involved. Manchester City employs c1200 people directly, and is tied into the economy of the UK's fastest growing city and the largest (in terms of GDP) outside of London. The potential economic impacts of whatever happens to Man City are not to be underappreciated. And that's before you get into the fact that Abu Dhabi has pumped £tens of billions into the UK over recent years.

He has no choice but to be involved. And it's a very tricky position to be in.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Good to see him being straight up honest about Brexit.

The conversation needs to be had, and I say that as someone that voted out. The discussion was never had about what it should actually amount to.

Personally, my hope all along was out of the political body but in the Customs Union. The Norway model effectively.

[dinny_g]

I don't see how the Gov't can't get involved. Manchester City employs c1200 people directly, and is tied into the economy of the UK's fastest growing city and the largest (in terms of GDP) outside of London. The potential economic impacts of whatever happens to Man City are not to be underappreciated. And that's before you get into the fact that Abu Dhabi has pumped £tens of billions into the UK over recent years.

He has no choice but to be involved. And it's a very tricky position to be in.

I get all that but given the scale of the rule breaking / cheating (delete as necessary) they must face a significant punishment - the fact they employ people or invest in a city cannot be allowed to undermine this. I know football is not a major thing on here but it is an enormous industry and a fundamental element of British Life for a significant portion of the population

Its going to be a lot harder for him to deal with Abu Dhabi in future if he's asked to intercede but doesn't than if he just stays the hell out of it.

It's also political suicide if he's seen to be helping City cheat - which everyone else other than Man City fans will think

[ZedLeg]

Maybe making football a place for billionaires to park huge amounts of money wasn't the best plan in hindsight

[Swervin_Mervin]

I don't see how the Gov't can't get involved. Manchester City employs c1200 people directly, and is tied into the economy of the UK's fastest growing city and the largest (in terms of GDP) outside of London. The potential economic impacts of whatever happens to Man City are not to be underappreciated. And that's before you get into the fact that Abu Dhabi has pumped £tens of billions into the UK over recent years.

He has no choice but to be involved. And it's a very tricky position to be in.

I get all that but given the scale of the rule breaking / cheating (delete as necessary) they must face a significant punishment - the fact they employ people or invest in a city cannot be allowed to undermine this. I know football is not a major thing on here but it is an enormous industry and a fundamental element of British Life for a significant portion of the population

Its going to be a lot harder for him to deal with Abu Dhabi in future if he's asked to intercede but doesn't than if he just stays the hell out of it.

It's also political suicide if he's seen to be helping City cheat - which everyone else other than Man City fans will think

Which is exactly why he's going to find himself in an unenviable position with this, imo. I don't think anyone, least of all an Everton fan, needs convincing that Man City need to face some sort of significant punishment. But he does have the interests of the economy and welfare of workers to worry about - I'd argue that's more important than football by a significant order of measure.

[dinny_g]

Maybe making football a place for Nation States to park huge amounts of money and Sports-Wash themselves wasn't the best plan in hindsight

Fixed that for you.

And Mervin, I don't agree the interests of 1500 workers and the economy of a small part of one UK city (which I don't agree with - it's not like they're going to tear down stadiums and Swimming Pools as they leave) is worth eliminating the sporting integrity of football as a whole...

[ZedLeg]

Football does a good enough job of damaging the sporting integrity of football tbh

[Swervin_Mervin]

If you think that the impact would be limited to c1500 employees and the economy of "one small part of the UK" Dinny then I think maybe it's not worth carrying on this discussion.

Greater Manchester generates over £100bn annually in GVA to the UK economy - it's the largest contributor outside London. Manchester City is fundamentally tied into that GM economy just as Manchester United is.

Its growth has been outpacing almost all of the UK over the last decade. And, whether you agree with it or not, it's been held up in recent times as the poster-boy of how to achieve a growing post-Covid UK economy.

You can't just bin that off "cos football". It is a significant political issue.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Football does a good enough job of damaging the sporting integrity of football tbh

Quite.

[duncs500]

They're not going to just get rid of all their employees though are they. They're going to have a season in the championship and have to sell a bit of their playing squad to cover it. The rule breaking has allowed them to build a platform that it will be easy for them to bounce back from any sensible sanction.

Anything less tian relegation from the premier league will be a cop out. The premier league only controls the premier league so I don't think this talk of dropping them further down the pyramid is viable or sensible. The sanction should be relegation and transfer embargo for a period of time.

I don't think it will have significant ramifications in the medium and long term for them or their staff.

They will cry about it and threaten all sorts, but we need a strong position on this and the government needs to support the league. Burnham needs to find another way to appease them.

[GG.]

Yes I think there are essentially two options really - they are (1) relegated out of the premier league (admittedly that is likely to cause some economic damage, which is not desirable but I don't see other clubs being guaranteed a position in the PL just because if they were to be relegated the local area would suffer to a degree economically. That's effectively a "too big to fail" 2008 style argument though here instead of pumping money in we allow rule breaking (effectively fraud) to continue unpunished.

Or (2) perhaps a better alternative for fans, employees, etc. is to force a change of ownership. The independent football regulator was supposedly set up to deal with cases like this where the owners are not fit and proper persons to run a club - seems it was specifically designed for cases such as this. In tandem with this and if no ongoing demotion going forward then I would think their titles need to be expunged from the record.

[dinny_g]

Greater Manchester generates over £100bn annually in GVA to the UK economy - it's the largest contributor outside London. Manchester City is fundamentally tied into that GM economy just as Manchester United is.

And Manchester City inc contribute a very small part of this. They are involved in a very small amount of enterprises in one area of the City. And if they sell, someone else will buy.

Professional football generates £38b in revenue and £15b in Tax revenue annually and that is in more jeopardy if City are perceived to have been given an easy ride than South Manchester is if they sell the club to another buyer

[Swervin_Mervin]

South Manchester?

[dinny_g]

Not the right part???

I thought I read an article where they talked about the re-generation being in the South of Manchester.

Well, whichever bit they’ve helped

[Swervin_Mervin]

Not the right part???

I thought I read an article where they talked about the re-generation being in the South of Manchester.

Well, whichever bit they’ve helped

They've helped all of Greater Manchester and probably beyond by quite a bit Dinny. Their boom has drawn hundreds of millions of pounds into the local economy and that if the NW region, just as Man U had an does (despite it's best efforts to avoid success ).

That's growth in employment, growth in other industries and, in particular, tourism - the latter is huge here now and the draw of foreign nationals to study and work here has blown up massively in the last 1-2 decades.

However, to answer the geographic element - Man City is located in East Manchester and generally is supported by the north Manchester populace (traditionally protestant) as opposed to Man U in S Manchester which has traditionally been supported by the more Catholic areas S Manchester areas.