It might seem easy to say when history is pretty much all you've got at the moment but Everton's achievements, honourably achieved, are an immense source of pride for me.

I couldn't abide having come by our success by any means other than fair and above board. Manchester City's success of the past 15 years, along with their reputation, has been indelibly stained by this scandal.

Yes, the fans have those great memories but, if I were one of them, those memories would be forever tarnished and feel very empty now they've been proven to have been based on years of cheating and cover-ups.

Simply put NO ! Tarnished success is not success, end of. The BBC reckon we lost £66m in income due to Cities "success".

Something has just come on the news that 94% of top football clubs are losing millions, and even if the players played for free, a lot of clubs would still be running at a loss.

I only had one ear on this news, but it does show us that if things don’t change then the game just isn’t going to be sustainable in the long term.

I don’t think about it often, but now I’m writing this post, I honestly think that the beautiful game, just like life itself, has never been so been so false.

Top players in England, probably earn more in a month, than the yearly budget, for at least a third of professional football club’s, in the football league for a start.

Controlled by television, controlled by the media, so many people getting their palms greased, usually to give an opinion that suits the biggest teams.

My own personal view is that Manchester City, have got to be dealt with properly, (what’s properly? Definite relegation, maybe to league one) otherwise the league is finished with regards integrity.

But the laws are false, they stop owners with money spending to preserve the status-quo, but with so many clubs allegedly losing obscene amounts of money, what exactly is the answer?

An owner with all the money in the world can’t spend it, whilst owners who are more interested in serving the clubs debt, than bringing real success to the club’s that they’re leveraging, have got no such worries to contend with.

The greed of the beast kills everything, is how I currently view a game that I’ve loved all my life.

An afterthought to what you wrote Lyndon@1, is that I’d love to see the fantastically loyal younger generation of Evertonians, dancing with joy after finally seeing a club, they have dedicated a lot of their lives to winning silverware and I think that’s why a lot of City fans, who lived through a lot of pain watching United dominating, and taking the piss out of them, don’t seem to care one iota, with the implications that they’re cheats?

I agree with what Kieran, has expressed,(in a really good article) that most young people would take the tarnished glory.

difficult one kieran v.difficult - like you 30 odd years of winning nout hurts. hypothetically maybe I could be ok with it but very difficult to imagine everton football club being able to cheat efficiently.
by the way I think financial doping in the epl is still going on - some very suspicious transfer fees transpired over the last window. both too high and too low fees.
if its the sly sky six thats ok !

This is my first time on the Evertonia site since giving up on ToffeeWeb, so please be kind if it’s it of a ramble.

Firstly, what an excellent thought provoking article by Kieran. I am 69 years old and started watching Everton in 1968, my first game beating Leicester 7:1. I must admit the skills of the late sixties side probably past me by, despite attending most of the home games. But it was in 1970’s especially at the away matches, when I became a proper Evertonian. With the players we had like Martin Dobson, Bob Latchford etc, we should have won the league at least twice in that decade, and if we had a competent manager, and brought Peter Shilton as a goalkeeper we might well have done, however not actually winning the league never blunted my enjoyment of watching Everton.

I was also fortunate in experiencing the mid 1980’s team, and regularly going to Wembley, whereas my grown up children only have the loss to Chelsea, and a penalty shootout against Utd to remember. To try and get back track, we as a family were recently discussing the City situation, and all three of my grown up children were in agreement that they would never want to buy their trophies the way City had. And I can honestly say the tears of joy from my daughter when we beat Palace to stay up were the equal to mine when beating Watford after such a long gap.

So to finish, I don’t think that the younger generation would accept cheating just to win a trophy, and definitely not our travelling away fans who are the heartbeat of the club.

Do football fans quickly forget the dishonour associated with their clubs?

- Liverpool: Hysel
- Juventus: Tax fraud
- Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio (match fixing in mid-noughties)
- Marseille: bribery
- Everton: stadium likely to have been funded by problematic Uzbek Oligarch (read his bio)
- Forest: recent relative success funded by problematic Greek Billionaire (read his bio)
- West Ham: Tevez and Mascherano deals, porn empire owners
- Chelsea: unsurprisingly timed expose of the Abramovich era (with Cypriot branch of Deloitte implicated)

This list could go on forever.

The answer is "yes" everyone forgets very quickly. And if it happens to strike your club, the overwhelming response is outrage at the punishment - not the shame of dishonour.

That is why shady characters invest in football clubs - you instantly gain a devout and loyal following from millions of people worldwide who don't mind how awful you are as long as you go big in the transfer market.

Robert, I was amazed at how there wa such an expectation that we should have spent huge sums in the summer on players. Financial spending rules, pressing demands on resources from other parts of the club, outstanding debt repayments meant nothing. It was an attitude of spend, spend, spend, and hang the consequences.

The breach of PSR rules, the points deductions, were long forgotten. Points deductions in a season battling relegation to boot.

If I could go back to this afternoon, I think I would have added the paragraph below as the final point in the article. Perhaps an explanation as to how I could be so accepting.

I often think that being a football fan means living largely in a child like state. Instant gratification, emotional highs and lows, living from week to week and result to result. I honestly don't think that in reality we live as deep and meaningful creatures. We may preach about ideals, about wanting our club's owners to do things in a proper way. But dangle the prospects of trophies, and a simple happy existence in front of us, and we'll grab it with both hands. We are, as I said, a very fickle bunch. And when it suits our child like state, we are very quick to forgive and forget.

Kieran, sorry but a resounding no from me.

If you don’t win by fair means you don’t win at all.

Despite what the city fans are saying now their club is forever tainted and they deserve to suffer as a result.

I think part of the problem is a lot of us are thinking as supporters of a premier league team but football is obviously much bigger than that.

My occasional forays to see Marine are enjoyable in that I want them to win and can enjoy a more of a ‘blood and thunder’ game but my biggest investment is in Everton.

I would hate to win something and then to be found out as cheats. It would stick with us forever not just in relation to the wider football community but more especially to the RS.

That I wouldn’t be able to bear so let’s carry on in our attempt to improve in the proper way, in common with almost all of the rest of football.

Would I really be upset? Yes.
I appreciate we are not exactly on a level playing field with the massive discrepancy in income but to win the way City have is like Ben Johnson winning the 100metres in 1988, by cheating, the stain of which can never be removed.

Manchester City will carry this stain for generations, until the very youngest fan has drawn their last breath. No the game is not played on a level playing field, but look at Leicester City, once PL Champions now disappearing down the plug hole.. but they did show that corruption doesn't always win and I am sure the pride they have in doing what they did will live far longer than any City fan.
On one hand it's incredibly sad for the players, the team put together by Pep have been a class above all except it was a team built on lying, cheating and their achievements, whilst brilliant are forever tainted by corrupt owners. So for me I would never feel it was won by playing to the rules. The end does not justify the means.

Absolute, resounding no from me.

Cheating your way to success screws every single entity competing fairly.

Unequivocal no.

Christine finishes with: "The end does not justify the means." Amen.

This is a very, very easy question to answer... hypothetically.

But if you had been through a lifetime of what working-class City fans had been through, to be suddenly on top of the world and savor those joys and ecstasies and celebrations for 15 years, would those feelings and memories suddenly be soiled forever?

I'm afraid human nature doesn't work that way.

One conclusion I reject completely is Peter Hoban's: That the City fans deserve to suffer. No, they don't. These transgressions were not committed by the fans and they carry no stain of dishonor. They didn't riot, or attack opposing fans, or display racist or fascist banners, or chant sexual obscenities as other fans all over the world have done. Their bananas are inflated, not thrown at black players. All they did was cheer their club as we would have, and they did so in good spirit with particularly notable traveling support.

And as Robert says, I personally doubt that the disgrace their club carries will last forever, or anywhere close to that. If Juventus, Milan, Barcelona, Rangers and the RS don't still carry around their hideous misdeeds, neither will City.

Mike, I understand where you're coming from but I'm afraid as crass as it sounds, it's the ENGLISH Premier League, I mean we invented the darn thing and the sense of fair play runs infinitely deeper than other leagues or other countries. We are the pinnacle of the game, that others look to.
Stuff it up and it's world class infamy of mega proportions. It's why, God help me, that the likes of Everton or Forest get smacked with a wholly disproportionate penalty for a single transgression and why City will be in a bad place for a while to come. Yes they may recover but probably without the current owners in place, the fans will suffer their own purgatory totally undeserved but they should vent their spleen on the owners and not on the PL.

Which drops right into the bit no one has actually looked at in any real depth. The rules. Yes I know we all signed up for them, but frankly the actual set of rules are so badly thought through that they have in themselves ensure an anti competitive format.its not because of wealth but turnover. City skewed the rules with inflated sponsorship thereby increasing the opportunity for its owners to spend way above the mark. The effect was cumulative year on year. Not just a drawbridge but an unbridgable gap that wealth is not even allowed to bridge.

If you apply the rules to UK earned revenue instead of foreign revenue or sponsorship it might level things a bit, but for me it's gone too far to continue without a major revision to the Premier League rulebook and their management.

As always, I am never fully happy with an article. I could fine tune it for a week before submitting it, and still feel I've not fully explained or expanded on some points.

I've read everyone's responses, but Peter and Mike's stood out.

A paragraph somewhere towards the end of the article could have discussed in more depth the idea of when fans know about the misdeeds, about the rule breaking, whether they protested against them or stood silent. Whether or not they committed misdeeds of their own.

It may have reshaped the point of the article but would have added more scope, more context to a yes or no answer to the question in the title.

Firstly, I don't think fans should carry any of the guilt for the misdeeds of a previous generation of their club's fans. Times have changed and it isn't the seventies and Eighties anymore.

Likewise, I don't think they should necessarily carry the blame for the sins of the owners.

If the fans' memories were made in good faith, then I do think they deserve to enjoy them. In part, that is where my resounding yes answer is coming from.

However, a caveat to my yes answer, and something I should think about as an individual fan, is my reaction to the owners once the news breaks. I would have more issue with any fan base staying silent, and not protesting in some way about what the owners have done to their club. Would I complain as an individual?

But, as I have stated in my response to Robert, we are fickle creatures. How long I would stay mad with the owners before the positive memories won out? How long would a fan base protest, feel disgruntled or embarrassed, about the owners once the dust had settled and time had moved on?

Good article, Kieran.The more research I have done into Everton the more cynical I have become.The Premier League wasn’t designed for sustainability, but for capital extraction. Owners don’t need clubs to turn a profit; they need them to appreciate in value and not get relegated.

Kenwright extracted value by selling the club at a higher valuation stripping it's assets to fund his purchase, while Friedkin is consolidating assets and attempting to cash in, Moshiri failed when his wider financial structures collapsed due to sanctions and regulation The IFR report diagnoses the symptoms, not the disease.

We’re stuck with three overlapping models:

Selling the club at a higher valuation — capturing scarcity and global brand growth.

Extracting value while owning it — through loans, fees related-party arrangements.and minority stakes at appreciated value.

Using the club as a loss leader — for real estate, media or sportswashing, where the return is influence and reputation.

Some owners extract value without success, as at Everton under Kenwright Moshiri and Fruedkins or United under the Glazers. Others combine extraction with trophies and prestige, as at City under Abu Dhabi.

We have been living this reality without recognising it. We’re simply on the wrong model.The is a system with it's own morality, removed from what we might think.

Everton that.

Capital extraction - what a sentence Jerome.

Or in the case of the Manchester City owners, put in the capital and extract the power of the people in the highest positions in the land. I used to watch Mexican Narco’s, realise how close The Cali Cartel, came to actually 100% owning every single politician in the country, and think to myself that wouldn’t happen here. How naive was I.

Tony#16

I missed including that they are that busy extracting capital they neglect running the football side properly,just palming the fans off with sop and pullovers or in Fruedkins case ghosted us .Who the F.. do they think they are I have never looked at Nacos on Netflix, must do.

Jerome, as fans we turn a blind eye to the lack of morality within football. We growl and give on platforms like this one or TW. We growl and give out over a pint with our mates. But we still turn up on game say, still buy merchandise, still buy season tickets. I'm not saying fans are complicate, of that we opening condone it, but we don't walk away either. We don't keep our money in our pockets, ir apply our real life mieals when supporting our club.

Do you see,read or hear about City fan protests. Are they pickering the ground, getting up enmassse during a game and walking out? Are they srarting a new club, like FC Utd? No theyre not. They wave plastic bananas to lighten the mood.

It says a lot about their response and attitude to the charges..what morality?

Being honest, I would swap our last 10 years for City's last 10 years, regardless of what punishment they receive.

An analogy: if it came out that something untowards had happened with the 80's side would we all say " it's tainted, I regret the dancing and singing I did?"

John, brilliant question.

Mike (12) my paragraph wasn’t clear enough. It’s the club that needs to suffer but the fans will of course suffer when the punishment is handed down, through no fault of their own.

But Christine (13) is right, the rules need to be totally revamped.

Our individual thoughts will always be subjective and the media, whether it be social, print or TV, play a huge part in feeding the narrative these days.

I’m old enough to remember when Tony Kay was banned for life for his transgression when at Sheffield Wednesday but was playing for us and so we suffered.

It was a long time ago, but enough people will remember cheats in every era.

Every year on holiday abroad I always get talking to fans of other PL clubs and the main topic of conversation this year was City.

Yes it will dilute over time but they are cheats and will always be remembered that way.

I’m glad we can take the moral high ground and no one thinks we are cheats, in fact throughout all of this we are constantly being named as being hard done by.

Makes a change.

John, your question got me thinking. The success in the mid to late eighties was forty years ago.

That means it carries the weight of forty years of nostalgia, sentimentality, fondness, happiness, good memories and rose tinted glasses

With all of that in mind, would it make it harder for fans to say all of that success was tainted, all of my celebrating and memories are tainted? I'm embarrassed and no longer can take any enjoyment from the time?

Is it easier to let it go if the tainted success only happened five or ten years ago?

Again being honest Kieran,i would take the City haul of trophies and the days that go with them for the fans regardless of time frame.
I'm probably in the minority mate.

This hypothetical question is actually much closer to home than we might remember. And I don’t mean BMD home , but the failed King’s Dock stadium.

It could really have been us instead of Manchester City with these 100 plus charges and guilty verdict. If we had raised between £30m to £50m in the early 2000s, our home would have been at King’s Dock rather than Goodison. The Abu Dhabi group would have almost certainly been interested in investing in us instead of City, especially given our renowned Big Five club history.

Just imagine players like Aguero, KDB, the two Silvas, Kompany, Rodri, and Haaland all wearing the Royal Blue. Winning everything in sight. Being managed by Pep instead of the doldrum seasons and derby losses we have suffered year after year.

Logically I will say that I prefer where we are now. But deep down I am not so sure.

The question is flawed. If obtained by breaking the rules then it’s not success. The only real solution is for there to be a level playing field which does not favour the few. Wage caps, a limit on transfer fees and proper regulation of agents would be a good start. I have seen a lot of City fans who are disgusted with their owners and what has been revealed…

Ant, you're right about the King's Dock. It was the stadium that swung things in City's favour. A sliding doors moment for a number of reasons.

There is a big difference between your head and your heart. Logic and emotion are often at odds with each other.

As ever, we supporters can only enjoy the ride - if enjoyment there be.

Perhaps they should set a new rule that all prospective club owners have to have been born within 50 miles of the club they wish to own. That'd change the landscape somewhat!

Maybe on this thread John, but I’m not sure you would be in the minority, if you asked the match going fan.

Listen to Carragher talking about his own career, I’d have sooner cheated to win, rather than lost, and although he’s getting stick for his contradiction, he lived inside a professional changing room for years, and in an ultra-professional changing room, people only talk about winning.

No way, if you win by cheating your kidding yourself your 'the best'.

City will be looked upon as a cheating club for a long time, there's no pleasure or merit in getting success that way.
Their supporters had the pleasure of perceived success before they were accused of fraud I suppose, but it's hollow now.

Quite frankly, I am more irked by the antics of our ugly neighbours concerning the Heysel Shadium incident.
Apart from the Trajic loss of lives a five year ban was meted out to all English Clubs, for one Clubs mindless actions.

The punishment was grossly disproportionate and deprived us of our Dreams, not to mention the financial loss.

In Fact, we were never financially compensated in litigation against the perpetrator.
The question being, would I like my Club to cheat its way to success?…. Answer is a resounding no.

But, if I was asked would I agree, to cheating methods being implemented to prevent the afore mentioned neighbours from winning, then the answer would be a huge YES.

And I would like to take the opportunity, without hijacking the thread, to ask my fellow Blues, how they feel.

We were dealt with very swiftly by the PL, as we are only Everton.
In retrospect, I don’t think that City’s indiscretions had an adverse affect on our ability to be successful.
it will be the usual Suspects that will profit from city’s demise and our Neighbours will have one less adversary to contend with.

I wouldn’t be surprised, if after a protracted review, The PL will advise all Clubs, to employ the highest qualified ground Staff, using precision engineering and cutting edge (grass !) Technology, in order to create a Level Playing Field !

Paul, good timing with your question about who gets punished. Caught the end of the radio news report a little while ago. It was the sports section. Villa are playing their first home game, in the CL, tonight after being found guilty of breaching PSR rules.

Firstly, what will their punishment be, I don't know if it has been dispensed already, and how quickly will the punishment be administered? Quicker than with the sky darlings?

Secondly, will Villa fans feel unjustly done by with their punishment?

Thirdly, will they care? If a deliberate breach, and it helped them achieve CL football then so what. Good for us perhaps will be their outlook. Will they feel shamefaced, avoid the game tonight, complain out loud about the owners?

I agree with you completely Paul. I am more angry about the media’s portrayal of the goblins of Mordor as the aggrieved guardians of honesty, purity and justice than I am by city’s antics.

I have long found man city’s wealth and success a hilarious and inevitable outcome of letting the genie out of the bottle in 1992. Man City: the byword for footballing, managerial and financial ineptitude since Allison’s mad splurge in 1979, the endless source of mirth for us all for three decades, of all clubs , was the one intowhose lap the riches of the Middle East fell.

And now we find it was all a corrupt Indian rope trick. It’s just so perfect. So Man City. So premier league.

I'm in the minority on these pages Tony, but most definitely not amongst my Blue mates.

When it comes to supporting Everton I am a romantic, and I go to games as supporter, player and manager. Of course I have never been a professional footballer or a club manager but that doesn't stop me having opinions and discussing every detail of the game with fellow supporters and I have never come across anyone who applauds cheating. Quite simply what would be the point ?

City have taken cheating to another level but the rules governing football are clearly not fit for purpose and no doubt other Clubs are also guilty of manipulating the rules to their advantage. So in my opinion there is little point in playing in a league when Clubs can interpret the rules and the notion of fair play is not foremost in each and every game.

The Tony Kay, example is important and refers back to a period when the game was less concerned with finances, but when infringements occurred the penalty was swift and severe. Time for football and the Premier League to get their acts together as failure to do so simply means current games against Manchester City are a farce.

It's interesting that with the whole Man City circus, the Chelsea stuff has gone under the radar. With it being a lesser type of offence, in terms of number, it obviously hasn't gotten the same scrutiny or backlash.

In terms of Chelsea's success under Abramovich, I suppose they set the ground work for what City tried, and got away with for so long.

It shows there must be other big clubs really pushing the envelope.

Media talk of comparative punishment,multiply the amount of points clubs like Everton received.
What happens if they use Chelsea as the yardstick?
A £10 million fine?

What City won, they won (albeit dishonestly), and no one's going to take it off them. Full stop.

Therefore the City fans won't give a toss about their tarnished reputation. A few will feel some shame but the majority will soon forget the ignomy of their owners' decisions.

Richard Masters and his PL cronies will not want to punish one of their cherished favoured sons too harshly - they save that fate for the likes of us.

Like all big business, ultimately morals won't come into it, just greed and avarice.

I believe our Burnley fine will be reduced upon a successful appeal, but the trouble is, the flood gates are now open for a litigious feeding frenzy.

Did the PL not see this coming when they allowed Burnley to pursue their dubious claim?

Terrible management that ultimately might result in the demise of the business Masters was meant to help flourish.

Kieran #18

That is what I find difficult I have waited years for the lost at Arsenal by a penalty and everybody in the Highbury knowing that Everton where the better team and even Charley Nicholas apologising for the penalty he got,and Arsenal fans singing we would travel a millions miles fir one if your goals.Everton went on that season to win the League.I justify my research by wanting to put a bottom in the crap we find ourselves in, so we can move on.We will eventually get there, but is looks as the crap has reached pandemic proportions in the game and the IFC are pushing it further down the road such is the extent of it.They are saying the obvious, but there is neither the will or way to do anything. The Regulator says he will resign, resign away there nobody cares.The system is as it is and is institionalised.The best Everton can do is make the best if it. If we had have had Kenwright gone we would have stood a chance of being up there with the best of them.The truth is Kenwright was company to avoid, not only for Evertonians. As John #19 says we would have loved it.

Obviously we didn't cheat our way to success - but how do people feel about cheating (or rule-breaking) your way to survival / mediocrity?

I expect Burnley fans would find some of the more honourable posts on here quite interesting.

I've asked a few times on multiple threads whether anyone truly believes we're 100% clean - with very little response. My personal view is that an investigation into the Moshiri / Usmanov era would not end happily for us.

Robert.
Every Prem club has its skeletons.
Obviously not to the same extent.
I reckon Blue Bill would be in the frame.

To me, winning by cheating is unacceptable, forever, and all the more so when it involves the bent spending of £900mill.

To me, City at least deserve a £920mill fine (to be shared, £1mill each, by every club in all four divisions - and that would help enable any that wanted to pay legal fees to sue the City owners for more, and provide a helluva lot of help to the many near bankrupt small clubs), a 20 point deduction for the next six seasons and a transfer embargo for the next four season minimum too.

That might just give their bastard owners something to think about as winning trophies dwindles immediately before getting even harder.