City Football Group

[G-Man]

Unlikely to be relevant, given that they are 33 points off the last qualifying place, but likely yes, as it doesn't appear to involve common ownership

UEFA doesn't mind anyway. They had no trouble accepting Red Bulls' franchises from Leipzig and Salzburg into the CL. As long as they can see the tiniest of loopholes, they are happy.

[Furtho]

On a related matter, there are strong press rumours in Japan saying that Red Bull are looking to take over a J-League club. This would be the first example of a Japanese club going under foreign ownership - the nearest thing at the moment is Yokohama F Marinos, part of the City Football Group, although as I understand it the arrangement at Marinos is only at the level of 20% or so of shares. The number one candidate for Red Bull appears to be Omiya Ardija, who after a number of years of mismanagement will this coming weekend start their first-ever season in J3. Omiya have always been owned, although seemingly not very enthusiastically, by NTT as Japan's equivalent to British Telecom. If the deal goes ahead, an immediate point of contention for Ardija fans may be any proposal to change the club's name or colours, given that Omiya is only about 10km from Urawa Reds.

[ursus arctos]

Unlikely to be relevant, given that they are 33 points off the last qualifying place, but likely yes, as it doesn't appear to involve common ownership

[Satchmo Distel]

Does this skirt around the restriction of having two clubs in the CL?

[ad hoc]

This strikes me as the modern version of a marriage between scions of dynasties to form great alliances

[Sean of the Shed]

Another club sells its soul. Not that this one had much of one anyway.

https://twitter.com/eurofootcom/status/1759159268651986985?t=RquYd8ZuouW_vujz7BjsXQ&s=19

[Hot Pepsi]

They don't care about Manchester. Why on earth would they?

That’s my point.

[Oldelpaso]

Its an embarrassment. Fostering a siege mentality has increased the volume in the ground, but has brought some spectacularly bad takes along with it.

[E10 Rifle]

If they cared about Manchester ...

They don't care about Manchester. Why on earth would they?

[EIM]

The 1894 group who organise City's choreographed weirdness were approached by the club who wished to make a sizable donation to their fund for a flag.

[EIM]

Where did you see that?

I didn't. I was told.

[DCI Harry Batt]

They're both sickening.

[Third rate Leszno]

I'm not sure that TonTon wasn't referring to the banner smarming up to Sheikh Mansour.

[caja-dglh]

It is a 30ft banner in support of a lawyer defending the club against cheating allegations. It is really rather a bizarre thing to do, even if it has a slightly amusing musical riff. The general vibes from it is making a joke out of it all.

[George C.]

It's only a banner.

[Lang Spoon]

Don't be obtuse.

[George C.]

Sickening.

Why?

[caja-dglh]

My thoughts would be "who else is going to pay for a banner that size and quality"?

[Snake Plissken]

It'll surprise no one to discover that this was paid for by the club.

Where did you see that?

[caja-dglh]

I expected that they had outsourced it to one of their Emirati "partners"

Has Pannick commented? I wouldn't expect him to, but would also expect him to be absolutely mortified

You would expect - I didn't even know who it was referring to. It is deeply strange.

[EIM]

How do you see it ending?

Kind of like The Last of Us, but without the mushrooms.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm reminded of the United For Sale Jim Ratcliffe banner that put me in such a foul mood that I didn't go to the Liverpool game earlier this season. Fans championing lawyers and billionaires is such a bleak state of affairs. Real dystopian, PL end-game behaviour.

How do you see it ending?

[ursus arctos]

I expected that they had outsourced it to one of their Emirati "partners"

Has Pannick commented? I wouldn't expect him to, but would also expect him to be absolutely mortified

[Hot Pepsi]

Aye. They could've done all the good stuff without doing the bad.

Yeah, I was going to suggest that if they cared about Manchester, they could have done all of that without cheating at football.

[EIM]

HHahaha. Oh man.

It'll surprise no one to discover that this was paid for by the club.