Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

City want to clean one of these fuckers out for libel. I know they skirt around the line of what they think that they can get away with. But surely one top drawer lawyer would probably succeed.
 
bobbyowenquiff said:
I think you are right. The last thing Uefa want is a court case. That's why they settled last time. But the problem is that both sides are now backed into a corner. If they sanction us we will have to fight back. If they take no action their credibilty is finished.
There is also our backing of a rival World club competition to the CL looming in the background which is not helping matters. City were very careless to allow our data to be breached like this and it has created a big problem.
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“Credibility is finished”? What credibility? They’re a joke.

You are also assuming that serious people are giving any credibility to Der Spigle, why would they? It’s a bunch of cobblers from years ago with zero context. It’s not too dissimilar to something you’d read on RAWK.

The crux of the whole complaint is based on a likely illegal and anti competitive ‘law’ made up to protect the elite.
Most serious journalists are fully aware of this now.
 
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If its no biggie to use these documents that someone fell on in a plastic bag whilst taking the dog for a walk why doesn't this excuse for a journalist publish a few with full context and see what happens....I think we all know why.
 
MillionMilesAway said:
That would depend on how bad things really are, but I tend to agree.

The references in the piece to this weren't directed at anyone in particular - the main thrust was 'why are the authorities ignoring all this'

Edit: it's appeared.
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/football-leaks-chelsea-manchester-city-fa-premier-league/
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Maybe the reason why the authorities aren't paying much attention to it is because much of what DS has published is sensationalist bollocks and I'm not just referring to City either. They tried to imply that Sergio Ramos had failed a drugs test in the wake of a CL final when nothing of the sort happened.

From what I can see, there is nothing in the City leaks that implicates the club in respect of breaching FFP. Where a sponsor gets it's money from to pay to a football club isn't covered in the FFP regs and is none of UEFA's business. UEFA's concern is to determine which deals are related party transactions and which are not, and in the case of the former a fair market value is applied to those deals. That's what they did with all the deals highlighted by DS so why anyone is now calling for further sanctions is beyond me. Unless they want to re-write UEFA's rules to suit their own hateful agenda of course.
 
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Following Matthew Syed's full-page attack on City on the back of yesterday's "Times" football supplement, I wrote to the paper complaining of this desperate attempt to get |City banned from European competition, thus depriving the public of the privilege of watching Britain's currently finest team compete at the top level. I particularly criticised his statement halfway through the article, where he declared he "had nothing against City", then proceeded to devote a lot of coverage to why we should receive every possible sanction, since rules are made to be followed. I should hate to read what he has to say if he dislikes us.
Especially suspicious is the number of times his column has given lavish praise to United, the "class of 92", Sir Alex, the club's "free-flowing" football, and all that they apparently stand for. But he has nothing against City, of course, except wanting to drag them through the gutter.
I added that what I objected to was that his "having nothing against City" insulted my intelligence, and that of many thousands of others, given his subsequent rant.

Needless to say, my email has not appeared in today's Letters page of that paper. Protests are suppressed, I fear.
 
never let the truth get in the way of a good story ?????

manchester city and sheik mansour investment have not only been great for city but the whole of the footballing world, and you will never hear a bad word from players because football has changed in the last 10 years, better wages bigger transfers and better football, then you have tv deals hitting a all time high the premier league back on the world stage and english clubs doing really well in europe, so why is it so fucking wrong that manchester city become the leading club

look united and liverpool did the same thing and don't dare and say it was self funded ??? liverpool was founded by littlewoods and vernons pools ??? and united was bank investment and fake stock market shares ??? and skysports tv money and a shit load of others investments NO FOOTBALL CLUB CAN SELF FUND JUST FROM FANS TURNING UP AT THE GATES ??

outside investment is needed at all levels of the game even non-league football ?? its just because manchester city have become so fucking good on both sides of the game that the so called giants of the game are shitting themselves, we have become the leading light in a whole new generation of how to run a football club, and now are the leading clubs in the media and internet side of the game, we cornered the market and become the club everybody is trying to copy
 
Does anyone else feel as though UEFA's hesitance to clear our name is a bad sign? If there was nothing to go off, I'm sure they'd have publicised that weeks ago. I get the feeling they're waiting to see how we do in the UCL this season before confirming anything - there's no chance they would ban the winners of their flagship competition.
 
Parisian said:
They are not going easy on PSG at all.
PSG is under investigation since almost 2 years now ! When i mean investigation, it is not your current newspapers attacks on the club but UEFA actually checking all the documents, audit of the club books by, so far, 2 audit companies, several rulings they are, later on, overruling to try and sanction PSG. All that after Tebas came crying for Real and Barça because PSG took Neymar and Mbappé. You can even see that Tebas was again crying out loud when the news came that Nasser would be elected by ECA to represent them in UEFA committee. He said he would move heaven and earth to stop it from happening.

And keep in mind that this investigation is for the 3 years period before Neymar and Mbappé transfers. The last summer window of that period we had bought Ben Arfa (no transfer fee), Krychowiak (40 M) and Jesé (25 M). I mean it was hardly our most expensive acquisitions. So, if they are already trying to punish us when we didn't spend that much, don't you wonder what is coming for us now that they will take into account Neymar + Mbappé transfer ?

Among PSG, City and Chelsea, the french club is the one that had/has it harder in regards of FFP, mostly because we don't have the PL money.

And again, Nasser is not a man in the inside, he has been elected by his peers, the club presidents. That only means he has some influence and is liked by a good amount of presidents because you can be sure Bartomeu, Woodward and the other cartel guys are surely not rooting for him. UEFA has nothing with him being chosen by ECA. For the record, he is taking the position of the ex Arsenal guy Gazidis. Since Agnelli is already elected by ECA and is in Italy Serie A, Gazidis couldn't remain in his position (Milan AC is also in the same league organisation). This is the reason why a new election took place.
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This is a fantastic post and I agree with pretty much every single word of it. It shouldn't be up to Tebas - or anyone else for that matter - to dictate which clubs get investigated and when because all clubs are assessed by UEFA for FFP purposes anyway. UEFA should've told him to fuck off when he claimed PSG were cheating FFP by signing Neymar as any possible breach of FFP would be found by UEFA anyway during their own ongoing assessment of PSG and all other clubs. Equally hilarious was the wailing and gnashing of teeth that ensued when PSG signed Mbappe on loan with a view to making the deal permanent the following season. According to some, that was another blatant attempt to cheat FFP. Actually, no it wasn't. PSG were just doing what any other club would do in a situation where they had the opportunity to sign 2 great players - as they couldn't afford to buy both Neymar and Mbappe in the same transfer window, they staggered the signings over 2 summers. That's not cheating - that's sound business sense. Nothing more and nothing less.
 
On a previous occasion, it was stated that Uefa's appeal to the Belgian court concerning the legality of ffp was to be heard in Feb. Anyone know the current status of the case?
 
Manchester33 said:
Does anyone else feel as though UEFA's hesitance to clear our name is a bad sign? If there was nothing to go off, I'm sure they'd have publicised that weeks ago. I get the feeling they're waiting to see how we do in the UCL this season before confirming anything - there's no chance they would ban the winners of their flagship competition.
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Nope.

I suspect theit lawyers arseholes are twitching waiting for our next move and they are being careful what they say and do in both private and public.
 
Manchester33 said:
Does anyone else feel as though UEFA's hesitance to clear our name is a bad sign? If there was nothing to go off, I'm sure they'd have publicised that weeks ago. I get the feeling they're waiting to see how we do in the UCL this season before confirming anything - there's no chance they would ban the winners of their flagship competition.
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They haven't cleared our name as they're under pressure from the G14 and the media not to as the story suits them.
 
Manchester33 said:
Does anyone else feel as though UEFA's hesitance to clear our name is a bad sign? If there was nothing to go off, I'm sure they'd have publicised that weeks ago. I get the feeling they're waiting to see how we do in the UCL this season before confirming anything - there's no chance they would ban the winners of their flagship competition.
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Since they don't appear to be investigating us I'm not sure how they can put out a statement clearing us?
 
Something stinks behind all this. All seems very "if you throw enough shit, some sticks". Dig deep enough and you'll find 'dodgy' dealings behind any club, just look at the Cardiff/Sala fiasco.
 
This is their latest reason for exposure of our laundry for public examination, i noticed it on Sunday Supplement from Sam Wallace but it seems to be getting an airing at every available opportunity. Without doing any research I'm sure their are some precedents where public interest is a driver that allows some materials to be examined in court which would otherwise be either "hearsay" or evidence obtained through criminality and not normally allowed. Do any of our legal eagles have an eye on this?

Overwhelming public interest
It seems a no-brainer. Although, for the sake of balance, Portuguese authorities are seeking Pinto’s extradition for suspected extortion, violation of secrecy and illegally accessing information, which he denies. He remains under house arrest in Budapest. To some he is a whistleblower, to others a criminal. Regardless, the public interest is overwhelming.

Another thing if this bloke is supposed to be an investigative journalist and wants to know why EUFA, FIFA, the PL or uncle Tom Cobbley and all have done nothing regarding speaking to this alleged criminal and all it takes is a phone call why doesn't he pick up the phone and ask them! He could then cascade that information to all and sundry.
 
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M18CTID said:
Maybe the reason why the authorities aren't paying much attention to it is because much of what DS has published is sensationalist bollocks and I'm not just referring to City either. They tried to imply that Sergio Ramos had failed a drugs test in the wake of a CL final when nothing of the sort happened.

From what I can see, there is nothing in the City leaks that implicates the club in respect of breaching FFP. Where a sponsor gets it's money from to pay to a football club isn't covered in the FFP regs and is none of UEFA's business. UEFA's concern is to determine which deals are related party transactions and which are not, and in the case of the former a fair market value is applied to those deals. That's what they did with all the deals highlighted by DS so why anyone is now calling for further sanctions is beyond me. Unless they want to re-write UEFA's rules to suit their own hateful agenda of course.
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Broadly agree with that - Cunningham is probably right that the PL view is "does anything break our rules", and not much further.

I do think there is some mileage in "did City lie/misrepresent to UEFA", but that's very much down to opinion on severity of any halftruths (the satellite company linked to Zuculini may well be sailing close to the wind, if the claims are true). I certainly agree with the concept that if the Sheikh has essentially underwritten the funding from a company, then it's going to be difficult to prove. As PB put it "What, you want to see our books? Get lost".

I think Ceferin was very careful when he spoke, and the subsequent silence from UEFA, and City's refusal to publically engage, is being used as if silence is a sign of guilt. I suspect the club are content with that state of affairs until at some point UEFA will have to make a statement.
 
Kinkys Left Foot said:
This is their latest reason for exposure of our laundry for public examination, i noticed it on Sunday Supplement from Sam Wallace but it seems to be getting an airing at every available opportunity. Without doing any research I'm sure their are some precedents where public interest is a driver that allows some materials to be examined in court which would otherwise be either "hearsay" or evidence obtained through criminality and not normally allowed. Do any of our legal eagles have an eye on this?

Overwhelming public interest
It seems a no-brainer. Although, for the sake of balance, Portuguese authorities are seeking Pinto’s extradition for suspected extortion, violation of secrecy and illegally accessing information, which he denies. He remains under house arrest in Budapest. To some he is a whistleblower, to others a criminal. Regardless, the public interest is overwhelming.

Another thing if this bloke is supposed to be an investigative journalist and wants to know why EUFA, FIFA, the PL or uncle Tom Cobbley and all have done nothing regarding speaking to this alleged criminal and all it takes is a phone call why doesn't he pick up the phone and ask them! He could then cascade that information to all and sundry.
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I don't think the author of that understands what "public interest" means in the legal context. Fans of rival clubs and journalists being nosy doesn't constitute legal "public interest".

This is business between a private company and a sport's governing body. It's actually got fuck all to do with the public other than seeing an alleged criminal brought to justice by the proper, public, prosecuting authorities.
 
not really delved into these "football leaks", but has there been any about FIFA/UEFA regarding when,how and why FFP was first discussed and by whom. because if we were silly enough to leave any sort of trail to our "crimes" then i'm pretty sure there must be a trail to whose idea FFP was and its real objective
 
Newman Noggs said:
I don't think the author of that understands what "public interest" means in the legal context. Fans of rival clubs and journalists being nosy doesn't constitute legal "public interest".

This is business between a private company and a sport's governing body. It's actually got fuck all to do with the public other than seeing an alleged criminal brought to justice by the proper, public, prosecuting authorities.
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Thanks NN,I suspected as much.
Is there a legal test as to what is / can be public interest in legal cases or is it down to the determination of legal counsel or the court?
 
Kinkys Left Foot said:
Thanks NN,I suspected as much.
Is there a legal test as to what is / can be public interest in legal cases or is it down to the determination of legal counsel or the court?
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It is worth remembering that any accusation by UEFA that we have breached ffp, will not be heard in a court. It is simply a panel of UEFA. If they found us guilty, and we appealed to CAS, it would be a matter of Swiss law whether CAS had the status of a court or it was merely private arbitration.
 
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