CAS judgement: UEFA ban overturned, City exonerated (report out p603)

petrusha said:
I haven't been able to post my views since publication of the report. I'll also face difficulties in posting for some time to come (this is a one-off contribution and I won't be able to respond to replies to it).

But the conclusion to that article, especially the closing paragraphs, is the ultimate takeaway from CAS. This is all the more valuable as it comes from a legal professional who's (presumably) neutral in terms of fan allegiance.

I also note that CAS has been called not fit for purpose by some of our detractors in recent days. Not so. What's shown itself up as most unfit for purpose in this saga is the British football media.

City were charged with inflating revenue under sponsorship contracts whose fair value wasn't contested by UEFA, under which the relevant services had been provided, and which were underwritten by organs of the Abu Dhabi Emirati government.

All of this was in the public domain. And it showed, as many of us on here repeated ad nauseam, that MCFC would highly likely prevail before CAS unless UEFA possessed evidence hitherto unknown to us. Of course, they ultimately didn't.

Yet the British football media unanimously gloried in the prospect of our demise from the publication of Der Spiegel's revelations onwards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall one media outlet (and I mean literally not a single fucking one) ever at any stage suggesting that City may prevail.

Many, many likes. This wonderful post should be sent to every single rancid, snot gobbling, bell dripping, fucknugget click bait journalist who's been relentlessly slagging off City over this issue.

It was all in the emails, they gloated. Well, chaps, take a look at what the CAS says about that. Should hardly have required the Brain of fucking Britain to work it out, should it.

Now, your level of performance has been truly execrable on an objective level from any body of professionals with pretensions to even bare adequacy as a group. One issue is that we find football writers trying to grapple with complex issues of finance and law when they're, perfectly understandably, lamentably ill-equipped to do so - even those who claim expertise in the relevant areas. But there's a deluge of cases where the ineptitude is bound in with bad faith: they're also desperate for us to fail.

Well, it isn't failure, is it? Quite the contrary. On the main point, the one that matters, the one on which UEFA's AC tried to hang an extended ban, it was rather emphatic: as has been said elsewhere, count the usage of terms such as 'no evidence' in the report. Anyway, try to convert the result into football terms and you're probably looking at something like 4-0.

By all means indulge your incompetence and bias by trawling through the rest of the report, the flim-flam, for out-of-context phrases you can use to discredit City for the delectation of your clickbait sheep. Go big on the barely relevant obstruction point if you want to. We're happy to have obstructed an investigation mired in illegally obtained materials, prejudicial conduct, and vicious and self-interested third-party lobbying, all egged on by vacuous press cheerleading.

The thing is, you've shown us what you are now, haven't you? We knew all along, of course, but you used to try and gaslight us. You reported on us fairly and we were too thin-skinned to see it, you used to say. That won't wash any longer, will it? Act as PR shills for our enemies in the way you seem to want to. Fine. Don't expect a reaction from us other than utterly fucking despising you for it, though.

A final mention for David Conn, the self-appointed conscience of football. I long regarded his professional success as an example of Emperor's new clothes syndrome as others queued up to praise him extravagantly. I did, however, respect him for what seemed to be an ethical approach and genuine integrity.

What a sad state of affairs, then, to see his tendentious output over the last few months. It truly rivals the worst imaginable from any bigoted, comically biased, bottom-feeding hack scum that's out there. Still, chin up, David. You can always trot off back to FC United and help your mate Walsh be the exemplar of soul in modern football. Oh.

OK, maybe The Guardian will let you write a bit for the front end of the paper. Oh, no, another no-go. You did those stories on Orgreave a while back and they were fucking dreadful so you were sent back to the toy section. Looks as though you've found your level, then, doesn't it. As have City, however much you and your journo mates wish it were otherwise.
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Many, many likes. This wonderful post should be sent to every single rancid, snot gobbling, bell dripping, fucknugget click bait hack who's been relentlessly slagging off City over this issue.
 
petrusha said:
I haven't been able to post my views since publication of the report. I'll also face difficulties in posting for some time to come (this is a one-off contribution and I won't be able to respond to replies to it).

But the conclusion to that article, especially the closing paragraphs, is the ultimate takeaway from CAS. This is all the more valuable as it comes from a legal professional who's (presumably) neutral in terms of fan allegiance.

I also note that CAS has been called not fit for purpose by some of our detractors in recent days. Not so. What's shown itself up as most unfit for purpose in this saga is the British football media.

City were charged with inflating revenue under sponsorship contracts whose fair value wasn't contested by UEFA, under which the relevant services had been provided, and which were underwritten by organs of the Abu Dhabi Emirati government.

All of this was in the public domain. And it showed, as many of us on here repeated ad nauseam, that MCFC would highly likely prevail before CAS unless UEFA possessed evidence hitherto unknown to us. Of course, they ultimately didn't.

Yet the British football media unanimously gloried in the prospect of our demise from the publication of Der Spiegel's revelations onwards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall one media outlet (and I mean literally not a single fucking one) ever at any stage suggesting that City may prevail.

It was all in the emails, they gloated. Well, chaps, take a look at what the CAS says about that. Should hardly have required the Brain of fucking Britain to work it out, should it.

Now, your level of performance has been truly execrable on an objective level from any body of professionals with pretensions to even bare adequacy as a group. One issue is that we find football writers trying to grapple with complex issues of finance and law when they're, perfectly understandably, lamentably ill-equipped to do so - even those who claim expertise in the relevant areas. But there's a deluge of cases where the ineptitude is bound in with bad faith: they're also desperate for us to fail.

Well, it isn't failure, is it? Quite the contrary. On the main point, the one that matters, the one on which UEFA's AC tried to hang an extended ban, it was rather emphatic: as has been said elsewhere, count the usage of terms such as 'no evidence' in the report. Anyway, try to convert the result into football terms and you're probably looking at something like 4-0.

By all means indulge your incompetence and bias by trawling through the rest of the report, the flim-flam, for out-of-context phrases you can use to discredit City for the delectation of your clickbait sheep. Go big on the barely relevant obstruction point if you want to. We're happy to have obstructed an investigation mired in illegally obtained materials, prejudicial conduct, and vicious and self-interested third-party lobbying, all egged on by vacuous press cheerleading.

The thing is, you've shown us what you are now, haven't you? We knew all along, of course, but you used to try and gaslight us. You reported on us fairly and we were too thin-skinned to see it, you used to say. That won't wash any longer, will it? Act as PR shills for our enemies in the way you seem to want to. Fine. Don't expect a reaction from us other than utterly fucking despising you for it, though.

A final mention for David Conn, the self-appointed conscience of football. I long regarded his professional success as an example of Emperor's new clothes syndrome as others queued up to praise him extravagantly. I did, however, respect him for what seemed to be an ethical approach and genuine integrity.

What a sad state of affairs, then, to see his tendentious output over the last few months. It truly rivals the worst imaginable from any bigoted, comically biased, bottom-feeding hack scum that's out there. Still, chin up, David. You can always trot off back to FC United and help your mate Walsh be the exemplar of soul in modern football. Oh.

OK, maybe The Guardian will let you write a bit for the front end of the paper. Oh, no, another no-go. You did those stories on Orgreave a while back and they were fucking dreadful so you were sent back to the toy section. Looks as though you've found your level, then, doesn't it. As have City, however much you and your journo mates wish it were otherwise.
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Just brilliant.
 
Marvin said:
What's the story behind this (exit of Liverpool's CEO) then? Coincidence or something more?
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I don’t know.

someone mentioned Moore was mentioned as going To be in trouble from awhile ago, I searched ‘Peter Moore’, found PBs post, which is presumably what the poster remembered.
According to the bastion of probity, The Liverpool Echo, he had a 3 year appt, that got extended by covid.

I know nothing else.
 
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It's not always been pleasurable reading this thread, but it certainly has been educational, pushing you into areas completely out of your own comfort zone. I'm sure we'd all rather just concentrate on the on-field business and enjoy that, but it's great to have had constant input from the likes of Prestwich Blue, Project River, Petrusha etc. to offer a legal/accountancy perspective that most of us don't have on a day to day basis, so well done to you lads for shedding light into dark areas. It's input like this that has almost forced everyday blues to educate themselves on FFP and it's workings, specifically because we've been the target of it
With regard to the mass media opinion, I think we'll be fighting this battle for sometime yet. The reason for this is best explained by a letter, allegedly written to F365 by a United fan the day after the verdict ( it may already have been posted on here, but haven't got the time to trawl through 840 pages to check !!! ) Anyway, the text of his letter is below :-

Don't get angry with cheeky City fans, you should all be getting angry about how this case has been reported.

For a start, the story of 2018 to 2020 cannot be understood without reference to the settlement between City and UEFA of 2014. If you don’t know about that, then you can’t possibly understand what happens later. City and Gianni Infantino cut a deal. The former took a light punishment but got to wipe the FFP slate clean. Why did Infantino cave? Because the clever lawyer that he is realised that the way UEFA had changed the FFP rules about 80% of the way through the game purely to ensure City failed would be shredded in court. The club turned a Nelsonian eye but also knew that the years of paying Roque Santa Cruz while not playing in the Champions League would not be revisited thanks to that wonderful phrase “full and final settlement”. Yes, this was an egregious mistake by UEFA, yes it helped City a lot, and no, Infantino didn’t really have an alternative. If you want to know more, google is your friend.


Then the issue of “limitation” apparently dropped out of the sky yesterday. According to the New York Times “what few knew was that City’s salvation lay in plain sight”.

The problem with that is that it is total bollocks. The highest profile City podcast explained within days of the initial ban in February last year when speaking to a hotshot corporate lawyer who also happens to be a blue (to some people’s amazement, City fans went to Manchester Grammar School as well as comps in Stockport) that this would be, and I quote directly “City’s strongest and cleanest point. It is very hard to see how UEFA could overcome this limitation on any basis.” The fan media led the way and with the exceptions of Simon Evans of Reuters. Simon Mullock of the Mirror and Martin Samuel of the Mail they have absolutely outclassed the traditional media on this story. David Conn has had a very strange time with this story. He has got some things right but has totally missed the main thrust of the tale.


Not only that, in the initial CAS case last autumn which City used to test the CAS waters, they said – and the court papers confirm – that limitation would be front and centre of any possible defence. One tactic they didn’t use was surprise. They then did exactly that at the main hearing in the knowledge that the judges were almost certain to agree with them.

Of course Sheikh Mansour employed some of the best lawyers in the world, but he really didn’t need to. A reputable Manchester solicitor would have done much the same. This was not a case for Perry Mason and the briefs earned some of the easiest money of their careers. This is why City were so confident and did not play for time. They wanted CAS as quickly as possible – hardly the actions of people who think they are a losing cause.

If you think City is an arm of the UAE state (it isn’t but I really can’t be bothered to litigate this now), then look at the way that country rolls out a Corona track and trace app. These people are highly competent and trust the experts they employ. Their confidence wasn’t Swales-like bravado. They knew that barring something totally unforeseen, they were going to win big and that is exactly what happened.

Unfortunately, when pointed to this analysis, the Chief Football Correspondent of The Independent (a self-proclaimed expert on these matters) said “I had read it, found it awful and showed it to people involved. They similarly found it “impenetrable” and “irrelevant”” . Well done, Miguel, your finest hour there mate.

So – did you read any of this before yesterday? Is this news to you? Were you shocked yesterday? Answer those questions and then ask if you should be angry with a football club fighting their corner or the football media that failed its audience by not reporting what was in front of their noses. You have been let down, but don’t worry, I would be somewhat surprised if City buy Messi, Haland and Mbappe in a week this September. They – and we – will roll on much as before.


I don't agree with all the points raise above - it over-emphasises the time limitation, and doesn't go into the clear not-guilty of FFP breaches but I think it does explain the attitude of non-blues quite well - the main point being, the average non-city fan has been fed a constant drip-feed of anti-City negativity and assumptions of guilt for years, to the point where it was a huge shock to their system when City actually won the case ??

They've basically been brainwashed by the mass media - the difference is that City fans, with their natural allegiance to the club, had been given the motivation to investigate matters, purely because we were the ones in the firing line !!!

Anyway - well done lads. Like i say, educational.
 
Ma
bluesoup said:
Martin wrote about Newcastle’s potential investor pulling out for today’s copy... and based on that, he must be around. Just find the silence from Martin highly unusual considering his interest in this matter.
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Maybe he is writing a book.
" Football journalists in Conn job scandal" Subtitle: "How they steal a living"
 
I've just had a response from BBC RE a complaint I put in over their coverage of the CAS report. For anyone interested I've included it below:

I don't find their answers satisfactory. They've deliberately picked out parts to reflect badly on City and conveniently ignored that one of football's governing body absurd their power to take action against one of its members. That said I'm glad I ranted at them, it made me feel better if nothing else.

Thank you for getting in touch about our reporting on Manchester City’s Uefa FFP case.

As a result of the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) 93-page legal document being released to the media with no embargo to allow preparation, the news story was a naturally developing one over the first couple of hours as the full details were fully digested. The piece underwent a number of changes in that period. Importantly none of the alterations were as a result of factual errors – it was the process of our journalists developing the initial take into the full story.

By 9.00pm the story was finalised with headline and copy referencing the fact that the report had found there was 'no conclusive evidence” Manchester City “disguised funding from their owner as sponsorship'.

The criticism of Manchester City by CAS was an important part of the story. Manchester City were said to have committed a “severe breach” by showing a “blatant disregard” to UEFA, European football’s governing body. The panel said that Manchester City were to be “seriously reproached” for obstructing UEFA’s investigation. The 10m Euros fine, albeit reduced from 30m, remains one of the biggest in football history.

When the CAS verdict was released the previous week we had already reported prominently that Manchester City had overturned their ban and had been cleared of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53387306

Therefore in our initial version of the story on the release of the full report we focused on the criticism of Manchester City from CAS that we judged key new information. We included high up in the story that “the panel cannot reach the conclusion that disguised funding was paid to City” and in subsequent versions built up that part of the story with more information.

Reporting on a complex and evolving story like this required our journalists to digest a high volume of detail to produce an accurate and impartial account of the case.

Thank you again for your feedback, which has been shared with the relevant teams.

Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team
 
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I've been away for the last seven days and only been able to keep up with City news through Bluemoon on an iPad which is rather out of date. I was delighted to find, on Tuesday, that the judgement had been published at long last and that it did no more or less than echo what so many on here have been saying for months if not years. Congratulations and thanks to all of those who never lost faith throughout the ordeal, but especially to PB, who has been subjected to more than anyone's share of abuse from a gang of hacks who aren't fit to lick his boots, but boy! PB did you take revenge in that superb series of tweets which gave that platitudinous drip from the Guardian a real lesson in journalism. Some of your comments on certain other scribblers had me holding my sides. I was in a mood to have a good laugh at them and I really indulged my wish as I read your tweets - again and again! But aren't our press a complete and utter disgrace. Lecturing us for an age that City must be destroyed for cheating because if the rules make you a cheat you must be destroyed. But then refusing to accept that City didn't break the rules, didn't need to and had little trouble proving it. CAS showed that the courts will protect the innocent even against UEFA and the cartel. But UEFA showed that FFP has little to do with its vendetta against City, egged on by a gang of carpetbaggers and a pack of hounds without a scruple between them. The leitmotif of the judgement - "no evidence" - would have brought heads hung in shame from anyone with a shred of decency, but not from this gang and certainly not from the boy David, who will grab at anything which looks like it might be the shadow of a straw. One can hardly guess at the degree of contempt CAS feels for them. Much as I admire Souness, Neville and, of course, Martin Samuel none of them actually thought City had NOT breached FFP, but they did at least see FFP as no more than a trap by the cartel to deal with any rivals. In fact Martin Samuel said he could not defend City breaking the rules but ...

But I must end with more congratulations. Throughout the dark days of this business my spirits have been raised time and time again by the input of King KDB of Belgium whose posts have been the most entertaining of all, while being, unfortunately, the least relevant and informative. I speak for all those who followed spellbound the interventions yesterday of his sister, who sounds quite a gal. We look forward to her insights into the transfer market and more bargains for about .... £50 million?
 
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