PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Iassel]

Not if found guilty of fraud. We would take it to High Court, forget tribunals and Premier League rules at that stage.

To confirm, this is your opinion and is not supported by any sort of facts.

The PL would not be finding City guilty of fraud albeit they could/would strongly infer it. Any ruling by the tribunal cannot be appealed outside of the PL environment, unless it is founded upon such completely egregious reasoning as to convince a commercial court to take it on, and even then, a commercial court has already ruled the PL have jurisdiction to hear the case, not them.

TLDR version, unless City put forth such evidence as to show completely incontrovertibly that everything was above board, the IC acknowledges it and openly ignores it, the case will end within the PL environment.

 

[Lord Blue]

Or as I suggested your total amortised debt can be no more than 25% of your annual turnover. If it surpasses this level, a transfer ban & wage reduction is put in place until you match the 25% level or drop below.

This wouldn't limit owner equity investment, but the Cartel Clubs wouldn't have it because ManUre & Spuds would be fucked immediately.

not sure it would be a good idea to discourage stadium investment. who would build a new stadium if it restricted spending so badly. a mortgage on a stadium should be fine imo.

 

[Gorbachev]

They already have. Knowingly falsifying accounts = fraud

This is what we’ve been accused of bud

I agree, by default the PL sentencing us on the charges opens up the can of worms for a much higher degree of legal scrutiny.

HMRC/ UK government, Deloitte, Silver Lake, Chinese Media Capital & CITIC, Nissan, Puma to name a few, I would imagine would all have legal grounds for a lawsuit against the clubs board members for misrepresentation of true figures which increased and over-inflated our demands for investment and sponsorship. That is fraud and deceit from my viewpoint.

Either that or some of the investors and sponsors were maybe in on it and therefore we have a racketeering syndicate running the club with a Emirati royal and vice president of a nation state privy to it all.

The political fallout from that could be huge.

Our entire board would likely be have to be held accountable in a high court and serious sentences could be handed out.

Being relegated or expelled into the Vanarama would be the least of the clubs worries.

We would be fighting for our existence.

Im just speculating here as i am no finance or legal guy.

 

[Superace]

We wouldn't be found guilty of fraud though.

We'd be found to have not in acted the utmost good faith, of not providing accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs.

What you've just stated would be Fraud.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

David Gill termed it "Only spend what you earn". It wasn't UEFA who abandoned debt, it was the G14, with the threat of the ESL if UEFA didn't comply.

Who in their right mind would be against reckless owners putting their clubs" existence at risk?

However, just imagine if FFP/PSR was applied to every UK business sector? The country would be more fucked than it already is.

Platini originally saw debt as the problem and proposed to make clubs reduce levels of debt. This alarmed some of the "biggest" clubs in Europe (we both know which!) and they threatened legal action on the (accurate) grounds that debt was an accepted way of raising capital for investment in European law. Platini panicked and handed control of the process to regulate football finance effectively to football's biggest debtors. They hit on the admirable idea that debt was not the problem because they had shown they could manage these levels of debt, but spending "beyond your means" was. "Your means" did not take any account of what your owner(s) could put in even though Manchester United had relied on owner investment to finance their transfer activity between 1986 and 1993. But the David Gill wasn't bothered by such trivialities. He was, and is, concerned about the financial health of "smaller" PL clubs. Those who had had their share of away gate receipts stolen from them. By .... ?

 

[Centurions]

We wouldn't be found guilty of fraud though.

We'd be found to have not in acted the utmost good faith, of not providing accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs.

But they would need to give an explanation for why they stated that surely? They can't just release such a bald statement without expanding on it, that's where they would struggle.

 

[Goatmeal]

If FFP or whatever it is now called was genuinely to prevent clubs going out of business.
The owner should be able to spend what they want on players but secure or prove they have an amount put aside to pay up all players contracts.
Kind of put the amount in trust for the club

 

[mcfcphil]

We wouldn't be found guilty of fraud though.

We'd be found to have not in acted the utmost good faith, of not providing accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs.

I do understand where you’re coming from and it makes the whole situation farcical.

“We’re not saying you’re guilty of armed robbery. But we are accusing you of walking into a bank, pointing a gun at the teller and leaving with a suitcase full of cash”.

You would certainly hope that, even if the PL claim we have merely broken their rules rather than committed fraud, an experienced KC would view the two things as being one and the same and demand a level of evidence appropriate for it.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I don't think this is the case at all. If the ruling of the IC goes against City the club would go straight to court. The grounds of the appeal would almost certainly be (amongst others) that City had been found, in fact, to have broken the criminal law and that the IC has no jurisdiction in such matters since it is not a duly constituted court, and that those presiding are not appointed by the proper authorities and it is thus not a body with the competence to deal with such matters. Then there is the basis on which such a ruling was based: balance of probability or beyond reasonable doubt? Either way the IC cannot rule in a criminal matter. I think this is what Stefan and others are getting at when they say it is a case the PL cannot win - especially when you consider the number and reputation of those who would have to have been deceived by, or taken part in, the deception? Is an IC really competent to judge so many?

I don't think @projectriver @petrusha and the rest are saying that at all. The IP is completely competent to conclude the club has breached its contract with the PL in a civil environment, even if it implies fraudulent activity.

I think the serious nature of the allegations raises the cogency of the evidence required to a level that is very unlikely to be available to the PL, which is why they are generally optimistic as to the outcome.

 

[Dribble]

not sure it would be a good idea to discourage stadium investment. who would build a new stadium if it restricted spending so badly. a mortgage on a stadium should be fine imo.

If you spent £500m building a new stadium, with repayments spread over 25 years at 3% interest, that's £20,600.000 per season.

If a team becomes relatively successful, they'll more than cover the repayment expenditure with additional sponsorship.

This is the PL payout for 2022-2023 & doesn't include TV appearance payments.

1 Manchester City £170m
2 Arsenal £167.8m
3 Manchester United £165.5m
4 Newcastle United £163.4m
5 Liverpool £161.2m
6 Brighton £159m
7 Aston Villa £156.8m
8 Tottenham Hotspur £154.6m
9 Brentford £152.4m
10 Fulham £150.2m
11 Crystal Palace £148m
12 Chelsea £145.8m
13 Wolves £143.6m
14 West Ham £141.4m
15 Bournemouth £139.2m
16 Nottingham Forest £137m
17 Everton £134.8m
18 Leicester £132.6m
19 Leeds £130.4m
20 Southampton £128.2m

It also doesn't include Cup competition appearance fees or prize money. £20.6m for a stadium out of this level of revenue is easily affordable as long as clubs don't go daft.

Based on a 25% amortised figure, Southampton could have £32m of longterm amortised debt per season, not including all the other income streams.

If the PL adopts the 70% maximum wages to income ratio, Southampton would have a wage level of £90m per season.

Even without all the additional income streams, Southampton would still have £20m per season headroom. It's a rough breakdown, but this model would protect clubs from reckless spending & not stymie owner equity investment.