Luton Town director Stephen Browne has taken aim at Manchester City and the Premier League following allegations of over 100 financial breaches.
City were charged by the Premier League earlier this month with dozens of alleged breaches, following a four-year investigation looking back at activity dating back to 2009. The Blues were alleged to have breached league rules requiring provision “in utmost good faith” of “accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position” - charges they strongly deny.
The charges have once again brought Premier League ownership and financing to the forefront of the conversation, particularly after Chelsea's new owner spent around £600million in two transfer windows. And Luton chief Browne used his programme notes before Saturday's defeat to Burnley to take aim at the top flight.
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“Even now, we watch the current Premier League champions potentially in dispute about how exactly those wins were funded, and whether that was done within the rules," he wrote. "We see another club spend an obscene amount (in Luton Town’s terms - more than 3x the cost of Power Court) in just one transfer window, which again challenges the way football is financed, funded and managed.
“In both cases, their own supporters seem to be spending more time defending their clubs than thinking about the implications for the game, or even asking questions of their owners’ actions.
He continued: “We have always said that some of the financial games played by greedy clubs and expensive lawyers are the same as doping - ‘financial doping’. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his titles for his cheating, Glasgow Rangers and Juventus suffered demotions, so what is the difference for a football club that has won silverware? If found guilty, should they be stripped of titles and history books re-written? After all, a fine of any size for some Premier League Club owners is pretty pointless.
“So why charge Man City now? It’s taken a decade for the Premier League to place charges dating back to 2008; and yet they pick the month of the Govt white paper [on football regulation] to act. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the final act of these self-elected, so-called ‘guardians’ that have tried to steal our game. Their time is up. And soon fans across England will get their game back…welcome to our world!”
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