Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

[jrb]

An interesting, (WARNING!)...but long read, about Rui Pinto (aka "John") in the New Yorker. We come in for only a brief mention...some very interesting stuff on Benfica and the Ronaldo alleged rape case. His background, possible motivations etc are all laid bare. Should be very interesting to see how it all pans out in the courts...will he be treated as a whistleblower or do time for alleged extortion etc.....loved the bit about the allegedly corrupt 8 refs ( "The Priests" )in Portugal who "looked after" Benfica.

https://www.newyorker.com/.../how-football-leaks-is-exposing-corruption-in-european-s...

The Football Leaks data showed that, in the summer of 2012, P.S.G. signed a five-page sponsorship contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority for more than a billion euros. (A uefainvestigation later calculated its true market value to be around fifteen million.) Internal e-mails from Manchester City suggested that club officials were massaging deals and supplementing them with funds from Sheikh Mansour’s holding company, Abu Dhabi United Group. In the spring of 2013, Manchester City’s chief financial officer, Jorge Chumillas, e-mailed one of the club’s directors, Simon Pearce, to check that it was O.K. to alter a series of contracts, in order to comply with uefa’s rules. “Of course,” Pearce replied. “We can do what we want.” (Manchester City denies all allegations that have originated from the Football Leaks data, saying, “The attempt to damage the club’s reputation is organized and clear.”)

 

[Jazzman]

What a great article. The sort of journalism the media here is incapable of producing. The English press has consistently been behind the US media on all these corruption stories. It is amazing how little of this has seen any coverage over here. What strikes me most though is, given that Der Spiegel has 70 million documents ( which dwarfs any other cyber leak in history), why did they decide to home in on City and PSG for what seem like minor infractions compared to the truly sensational stuff they have on other clubs. I mean the Benfica stuff really is like something out of the Sopranos. What is in the other 69,900,000 million documents? I don't remember the Raiola stuff getting much coverage here. It's incredible that he apparently got £49 million from the Pogba deal.
It looks like they have got Pinto bang to rights for extortion and fraud but what else will come out in court which will damage a lot of powerful people (especially in Portugal)?

I wonder if City have a copy of all these documents. Could be good ammo.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I wonder if City have a copy of all these documents. Could be good ammo.

I suspect that if we did have all the documents then United and Liverpool would not have risked lobbying UEFA, the Premier League, and secretly briefing the media about us. I also suspect that UEFA themselves are nervous about the Pinto case going to court. They have got more skeletons in their closet than us.

 

[Manc in London]

Remarkable that the club's who were primarily targeted are 'oil and gas clubs' and Benfica. Only three clubs in Europe have 'secrets' to hide? Mmmmhhh

I cannot help but think that he was asked to target ourselves and PSG. I pray for the day 'John' snitches on those who paid him to get hold of our emails.

 

[Centurions]

Remarkable that the club's who were primarily targeted are 'oil and gas clubs' and Benfica. Only three clubs in Europe have 'secrets' to hide? Mmmmhhh

I cannot help but think that he was asked to target ourselves and PSG. I pray for the day 'John' snitches on those who paid him to get hold of our emails.

Given the possible jail sentence he could be facing I can't see him not doing this.

 

[petrusha]

I completely agree with this, but if you don't mind me saying so (and even though it's one I use myself) the phrase 'spirit of the regulations' really annoys me.

Regulations don't have a spirit. They have words, and words have meaning. So, when a new regulation comes into force either the words used within the regulation prohibit a particular activity or they don't. If they don't, it is not the duty of anyone bound by the regulations to say 'oh well what they actually meant to stop us from doing was X so we'd better not do that anyway.' Regulations are regulations - nothing more, nothing less. They are certainly not guidelines, advice on best practice or some sort of code of conduct. If you are in breach of a regulation, sanctions apply. If you aren't in breach of a regulation, the fact that the regulations aren't fit for purpose doesn't mean you can still be sanctioned nonetheless.

What is meant by people using the phrase 'not within the spirit of the regulations' is usually nothing more than an activity that isn't precluded by regulations but would have been if the lawmakers had thought of it. But if the regulations don't stop you from doing something that if the lawmakers would have prevented if they'd thought of it, the lawmakers have nobody but themselves to blame for not drafting their own regulations properly. It is of course entirely open to the lawmaker to change the regulation where they see people are taking advantage of what the regulations don't say, but as you say that happens all the time, as in the context of say tax laws.

You're absolutely right. I was just trying to represent the way our detractors will view it, not endorsing the view - which I see as having no merit whatsoever.

One example is that people will think it somehow underhand or manipulative that we've managed to take ourselves outside the scope of the related parties rule despite us obtaining sponsorship income from state-owned Emirati companies, which is then not subject to the fair value test, when our legal owner is an Abu Dhabi royal and a minister in the UAE government. But under UEFA's rules as drafted, and despite UEFA's assessors seemingly trying to argue to the contrary back in 2014, the better view is that we and our sponsors aren't related parties.

We're perfectly entitled to exploit that, and we did, by valuing two UAE sponsorships at values that UEFA's assessors wanted to reduce. But why shouldn't we? As you say, the rules have been drafted in a particular form and we work within that.

In a previous lifetime, I worked in the UK central government, including on some legislative drafting projects, and I had that attitude then, too. If you produce regulations that don't achieve what you set out to accomplish, then you don't bleat - you recognise that you fucking well should have drafted them properly. If UEFA wanted different rules over related parties, they shouldn't have cut and pasted IAS 24. If they wanted a different definition, they should have devised one.

Unfortunately, fuckwit sports journalists either can't or wilfully refuse to understand this. They're reacted hysterically, doing their bit to create a febrile atmosphere around the issue that, according to the NYT, leaves UEFA investigators/adjudicators afraid not to punish us for fear of their own reputations. That's really disgraceful reporting.

 

[Chris in London]

If UEFA wanted different rules over related parties, they shouldn't have cut and pasted IAS 24. If they wanted a different definition, they should have devised one.

Absolutely. They made their own rules, they chose to adopt one that had a globally understood meaning. If they don't like the outcome, the remedy is to change the rules, not shift the goalposts.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Absolutely. They made their own rules, they chose to adopt one that had a globally understood meaning. If they don't like the outcome, the remedy is to change the rules, not shift the goalposts.

Not that I think using a different definition to IAS24 would have got them anywhere other than court, hence why I think they reluctantly implemented it and now bleat about "spirit", knowing they can't really do anything about an internationally accepted standard.

 

[Chris in London]

Not that I think using a different definition to IAS24 would have got them anywhere other than court, hence why I think they reluctantly implemented it and now bleat about "spirit", knowing they can't really do anything about an internationally accepted standard.

I'm pretty sure that back in 2013 they wanted to nail us on inflated sponsorship deals, only to be told by their own team that the sponsorship in question did not come from a related party as understood within the globally acknowledged meaning of IAS 24. So the only way they could have got us on sponsorship if their rules meant something different from IAS 24 even though the wording of the two was the same and the guidance they had given was that it would be applied consistently with IAS 24. That IIRC is whey they then changed the goalposts at the 11th hour on allowing historic player wages. Changing the rules took us from being complaint to not compliant at the stroke of a pen.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

The "spirit of the law" is, as many posters have said, not something with which lawyers and judges can spend too much time discussing. They are much more concerned with the intentions of the lawmakers because it is their job to establish what those intentions were and to apply them to a specific case. The only guide to what those intentions are is the form of words used in the framing of the legislation. These words tell us as clearly, precisely and unambiguously what the offence is. There are also other forms which lay down the process which must be followed to establish whether offences have actually been committed and by whom and what rights should ensure the accused receive a fair hearing and that the case against them is actually proven or they are acquitted.

It seems our club is confident of the outcome at all stages of the process. This is leaving aside the question of whether FFP is enforceable in law anyway. Khaldoon appears certain that the case is based on a malicious attempt to damage the club and, we assume, rests on emails which were hacked and so inadmissible, that the investigatory process is far from that laid down in the regulations, was botched, lacking in confidentiality and carried out by personnel who should have been removed because of clear conflict of interest. Finally, the club has done nothing which is forbidden by the form of words of the regulations. "If the process is to be judged on facts then unquestionably we will prevail: if its not to be judged by facts ... then its a quite different conversation."

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

Absolutely. They made their own rules, they chose to adopt one that had a globally understood meaning. If they don't like the outcome, the remedy is to change the rules, not shift the goalposts.

FYI, they did change the rules in 2015. From UEFA site:

Under the updated regulations, any entity that, alone or in aggregate together with other entities which are linked to the same owner or government, represent more than 30% of the club's total revenues is automatically considered a related party.

Back in 14/15 our turnover was c£351k so if UAE commercial income >£105k (30%) it could still be treated as not a related party for the purpose of our accounts BUT treated as a related party for the FFP assessment and subject to FMV assessment.

 

[squirtyflower]

It IS very interesting. However, I'd say two things.

Firstly, I think you have to at least consider the prospect that Rui Pinto was involved in this at the behest of someone else with an agenda. The idea of him being a lone wolf motivated by a desire to expose wrongdoing in football is romantic. However, there are aspects of the story that make me think his claims should be subjected tio at least some questioning and scrutiny.

Secondly, the author takes Der Spiegel at face value and refers to our club's "likely" wrongdoing. That tone is reflected in subsequent mentions in the text. In my opinion (and I have a professional background that makes me better able to judge than a journalist), the selectively presented information simply isn't sufficiemnt to judge. We COULD be guilty, of course. Nothing they printed is inconsistent with that possibility. But nor is it inconsistent with the possibility that we found ways to pursue our operations to the best effect within the letter of the regulations even if not everyone would consider that we were within the spirit of them, just as countless legitimate and reputable businesses do across the globe every day.

I would say the former is more probable than most people think.
He is more than likely to be the conduit for the stolen emails rather than the one doing the stealing.

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

I would suggest that the amount of information he has stolen and the firewalls he must have breached to get it suggest he's more than a good samaritan with a cause and a pentium Laptop with a dial up internet access. Fucking preposterous!
Whilst I agree that the release of documents revealing legal transgressions for serious crime are readily justified. MCFC have done no such thing according to these allegations apart from circumvent rules to entry of a competition (Rules that have since been changed to boot that would have been in our favour). Indeed poorly drawn up legislation is equally as frustrating that enforcement bodies complain about continually in that the law writers fail to appreciate the true nature of offences and fail to make appropriate water tight legislation. In the absence of strict guidance for application, wording should take its ordinary meaning and nothing more, nothing less. We have already been punished for failing the break even test at the time. Now they want to punish us again for the same offences do they! What other offence is within the rulebook? I have looked and cannot see any reference to "breaching the spirit of the Regulations" or the ability to Revisit agreements made at the time to re-punish a party. I cannot see how its possible based on the information printed in Der Spiegel. Some have suggested we are not aware of potential other breaches not mentioned in those articles but why would they leave any information we could be damned over on the shelf. That doesn't make sense. Most of the Articles themselves were grasping at straws and making suppositions that may or may not be true. I am interested to know that although there is case evidence for "Hacked" and "Stolen" materials being used by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in deciding appellant cases is there any precedence in the IC Adjudicatory Chamber of Uefa accessing such information in order to make such a referral as they have and if so if that procedure was ever questioned?

 

[Manc in London]

Given the possible jail sentence he could be facing I can't see him not doing this.

Hope so. Could be a Pandora's Box :)

 

[Sir peace frog]

if he hacked millions of emails of every or loads of football clubs, then why is it only us that has been targeted ,this was targeted and he has been told to target us,its as clear as the nose on your face,if there was loads on all the other big players throughout Europe why haven't they seen the light of day,i would fucking love it if in his trail he named names

 

[aguero93:20]

Absolutely. They made their own rules, they chose to adopt one that had a globally understood meaning. If they don't like the outcome, the remedy is to change the rules, not shift the goalposts.

There's a reason they cut and pasted it as well though, IAS 24 is accepted absolutely as a standard with no alterations by the EU and I believe Switzerland, meaning if they'd followed it they would have been watertight. The problem is that politics got in the way of legal advice imo.

 

[big gaz]

I would say the former is more probable than most people think.
He is more than likely to be the conduit for the stolen emails rather than the one doing the stealing.

Fuck me John Le Carre can make a big come back sod the cold war, its all football;-)
Needed the other quote to come up. sorry S/F

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

if he hacked millions of emails of every or loads of football clubs, then why is it only us that has been targeted ,this was targeted and he has been told to target us,its as clear as the nose on your face,if there was loads on all the other big players throughout Europe why haven't they seen the light of day,i would fucking love it if in his trail he named names

God help them if this ever got to a court of law and City got their hands on these stolen emails.
We won’t be only doing searches for Man City that’s for sure.

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

if he hacked millions of emails of every or loads of football clubs, then why is it only us that has been targeted ,this was targeted and he has been told to target us,its as clear as the nose on your face,if there was loads on all the other big players throughout Europe why haven't they seen the light of day,i would fucking love it if in his trail he named names

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

if he hacked millions of emails of every or loads of football clubs, then why is it only us that has been targeted ,this was targeted and he has been told to target us,its as clear as the nose on your face,if there was loads on all the other big players throughout Europe why haven't they seen the light of day,i would fucking love it if in his trail he named names

Maybe he was told to target us as UEFA knew that we would fight back to such an extent that he would end up in jail for quite a few years and that every other club with something to hide could rest at ease. Perhaps I am clutching at straws but we have heard, recently, that football is a dirty business.