UEFA FFP investigation - CAS decision to be announced Monday, 13th July 9.30am BST

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Yes . City owners should be from football. What a bellend

yes just like those owners of Tampa Bay and the Boston Red Sox?

 

[razman]

You surprise me. I won’t be reading it. I made the mistake of reading Herbert’s spiteful piece in the mail.

The Mathew Syed piece is really disgraceful. More political in tone. Hate politics that is.

 

[petrusha]

Had the misfortune of having to listen to Talkshite on the way in to work courtesy of the City fan who gives me a lift and there was some journo on there spouting utter bollocks, saying it's not a hatchet job as the "evidence" fell into UEFA's lap rather than them going looking for it. That wasn't the worst - Alan Brazil (to his credit) mentioned the huge dossier of evidence that City have claimed clears us of any wrongdoing and how that may shape up in the appeal to CAS, yet this fucker completely ignored that and reckoned City's defence has only ever been about getting cleared on a technicality.

I've said this all along. It's perfectly proper for a business to seek to operate within a regulatory environment in such a way as to comply with the letter of the regulations in question while pursuing its own interests. If the relevant regulations have been deficiently drafted so as not to catch everything that the regulator wanted, that's the regulator's fault. It can't then go and impose sanctions based on what it wishes it had drafted.

Of course we'll see in due course when more information finds its way into the public domain, but I think there's at least some genuine chance that it will emerge that UEFA has done precisely this. Certainly, based on the evidence that's been made public so far, that possibility very definitely can't be excluded. And yet not a single journalist that I've seen so far has taken the point on board. Tells you all you need to know about their understanding of the issues and their good faith.

 

[razman]

Really? Only caught it part way through and knew he was called Martin but had no idea it was Ziegler. Surprised at that as his articles recently seem to have been sympathetic towards us. Piss poor from him that. It comes to something when Brazil is coming across as the more balanced one.

Which is this Ziegler article ? I read the Mathew Syed article

 

[Fordyboy46]

If anybody sees Herbert on Weds night, have a word with him please. Nothing short of slander what he's coming out with at the minute, the absolute bell.

 

[M18CTID]

Which is this Ziegler article ? I read the Mathew Syed article

It's not an article mate - he was on Talkshite this morning talking......shite!

 

[squirtyflower]

Matthew Syed is guest speaker at the ASCL conference this year in Birmingham on March 13th/14th.
Laughably the theme of the conference is Diversity. Yet here is another middle class white man talking to an audience of 99% middle class white men and women.
I believe Syed to be racist as well as a cheat and I’m looking forward to asking him some questions

 

[Dubai Blue]

I've found a document that confirms the Etihad sponsorship was covered by the Executive Council, not ADUG. It was part of the Open Skies case brought by the US airlines against the Gulf ones (Etihad, Qatar & Emirates) and claimed that they were in receipt of huge government subsidies. As part of their defence Etihad had a presentation done for the Crown Prince, MBZ, by consultants Booz Allen.

Link here: http://www.openandfairskies.com/press-releases/newly-unearthed-etihad-documents/


Go to the link saying "major legal submission" and it'll open a PDF. On page 14 it says:


So there you have it. The Etihad sponsorship money, at least that money that wasn't paid from their own funds, came from the Executive Council, not ADUG.

Unfortunately, the idea that it's ADUG who provided this funding has been allowed to swirl around uncontested, to the point that it is now considered as fact by journalists and other supporters alike. For example, Ian Herbert's nonsense in today's Mail contains this snippet:

"Sponsorships by companies connected to owners are allowed if they are 'fair value'. In City's case, the value of Etihad's deal was put at £67.5 million but leaked emails showed only £8 million of that was funded directly by Etihad, with the rest from Sheikh Mansour's holding company."

Are they all (including UEFA) basing this purely off their own interpretation of what HH stands for in an illegally obtained email? Surely they must have more evidence than that to warrant a two-year ban and £25 million fine?

Yesterday, you corrected me by saying that the source of funding in the sponsors' accounts IS important. Does that mean we need Etihad to show UEFA that £59.5 million arrived in their accounts from the Executive Council and they then paid £67.5 million to City? That should be easy enough to do, shouldn't it?

Could the problem be that the Executive Council paid that £59.5 million directly to ADUG who then passed it on to City? Meaning our own accounts only ever showed £8 million arriving directly from Etihad?

That seems unlikely because, while the leaked emails suggest that may have been about to happen, City were at pains to make sure it didn't. Also such a breach would have been immediately obvious back in 2014; it wouldn't require UEFA to be tipped off 4 years later by some dubiously hacked emails.

Sorry for all the questions, and I know you can't give definitive answers to most of them. There's just so much that doesn't make sense about all this as I struggle to believe UEFA have based their entire case on who HH refers to in a leaked email.

If they have and they're wrong, you'd think this could have all been cleared up in a matter of minutes.

 

[M18CTID]

I've said this all along. It's perfectly proper for a business to seek to operate within a regulatory environment in such a way as to comply with the letter of the regulations in question while pursuing its own interests. If the relevant regulations have been deficiently drafted so as not to catch everything that the regulator wanted, that's the regulator's fault. It can't then go and impose sanctions based on what it wishes it had drafted.

Of course we'll see in due course when more information finds its way into the public domain, but I think there's at least some genuine chance that it will emerge that UEFA has done precisely this. Certainly, based on the evidence that's been made public so far, that possibility very definitely can't be excluded. And yet not a single journalist that I've seen so far has taken the point on board. Tells you all you need to know about their understanding of the issues and their good faith.

So finding loopholes as opposed to outright breaking of the rules or "serious breaches" as UEFA put it? Which pretty much is all i took from the DS articles, in that we indulged in some creative accounting, much of which was picked up by UEFA anyway when we were first punished in 2014. I think the only e-mail that I found concerning was that 2012 one but I think PB explained how it might not be anything dodgy. The e-mail relating to the Etihad sponsorship has been discussed at length here, and surely the club can prove that the money didn't come from the Sheikh. And why would it when there's info out there in the public domain that UEFA themselves can easily access which states that Etihad were being propped up by ADEC, and not ADUG?

 

[M18CTID]

Unfortunately, the idea that it's ADUG who provided this funding has been allowed to swirl around uncontested, to the point that it is now considered as fact by journalists and other supporters alike. For example, Ian Herbert's nonsense in today's Mail contains this snippet:

Are they all (including UEFA) basing this purely off their own interpretation of what HH stands for in an illegally obtained email? Surely they must have more evidence than that to warrant a two-year ban and £25 million fine?

Yesterday, you corrected me by saying that the source of funding in the sponsors' accounts IS important. Does that mean we need Etihad to show UEFA that £59.5 million arrived in their accounts from the Executive Council and they then paid £67.5 million to City? That should be easy enough to do, shouldn't it?

Could the problem be that the Executive Council paid that £59.5 million directly to ADUG who then passed it on to City? Meaning our own accounts only ever showed £8 million arriving directly from Etihad?

That seems unlikely because, while the leaked emails suggest that may have been about to happen, City were at pains to make sure it didn't. Also such a breach would have been immediately obvious back in 2014; it wouldn't require UEFA to be tipped off 4 years later by some dubiously hacked emails.

Sorry for all the questions, and I know you can't give definitive answers to most of them. There's just so much that doesn't make sense about all this as I struggle to believe UEFA have based their entire case on who HH refers to in a leaked email.

If they have and they're wrong, you'd think this could all have been cleared up in a matter of minutes.

Unless there's something else that we're not aware of which clearly implicates us, you'd thing so wouldn't you? But City say they presented a huge body of evidence which UEFA ignored - I'm guessing much of it would be relating to the funding of the Etihad deal

 

[jaiguruKun]

I've said this all along. It's perfectly proper for a business to seek to operate within a regulatory environment in such a way as to comply with the letter of the regulations in question while pursuing its own interests. If the relevant regulations have been deficiently drafted so as not to catch everything that the regulator wanted, that's the regulator's fault. It can't then go and impose sanctions based on what it wishes it had drafted.

Of course we'll see in due course when more information finds its way into the public domain, but I think there's at least some genuine chance that it will emerge that UEFA has done precisely this. Certainly, based on the evidence that's been made public so far, that possibility very definitely can't be excluded.

Isn't it too late for us to argue that point at CAS as it relates to the 2014 settlement which we accepted?

My understanding is that the appeal will relate to whether UEFA's process was so flawed so as to invalidate the finding and punishment (an abuse of process) and if not, whether the finding that the sponsorship deal was not paid by Etihad was a reasonable one based on the evidence UEFA had. They were clearly not satisfied with the material the club gave them hence the reason why they've accused us of not co-operating with the investigation although noone really knows what the exact basis of that suggestion is.

The media keeps referring to us having allegedly inflated the value of sponsorship deals which is a red herring. The question is where the funds were coming from which has been covered in detail by posters on here.

 

[Gordyola]

Yes that's my thinking. I'm worried we'll lose at CAS which may make any other move bloody hard. It's alright the club making all these positive noises but they did last time and we failed. I know the goalposts were apparently moved and the " Take a pinch" speech but it does fill me with a bit of unease. There is a lot at stake here and a lot of powerful rich clubs in UEFA's corner so I wonder if we will get a fair hearing. Money talks and I don't trust any of them.

We have to trust that CAS is independent, this is a very high profile case any sign of bias to any party would be jumped upon

 

[Dubai Blue]

Matthew Syed is guest speaker at the ASCL conference this year in Birmingham on March 13th/14th.
Laughably the theme of the conference is Diversity. Yet here is another middle class white man talking to an audience of 99% middle class white men and women.
I believe Syed to be racist as well as a cheat and I’m looking forward to asking him some questions

I suppose having a ping pong player pontificating in the national media as some sort of football expert shows a degree of diversity.

 

[OB1]

I've said this all along. It's perfectly proper for a business to seek to operate within a regulatory environment in such a way as to comply with the letter of the regulations in question while pursuing its own interests. If the relevant regulations have been deficiently drafted so as not to catch everything that the regulator wanted, that's the regulator's fault. It can't then go and impose sanctions based on what it wishes it had drafted.

Of course we'll see in due course when more information finds its way into the public domain, but I think there's at least some genuine chance that it will emerge that UEFA has done precisely this. Certainly, based on the evidence that's been made public so far, that possibility very definitely can't be excluded. And yet not a single journalist that I've seen so far has taken the point on board. Tells you all you need to know about their understanding of the issues and their good faith.

Good point. We may have bent the rules but not actually broken them.

As to the media, I've already mentioned this morning what a disgrace they are on the whole. They should be laying into UEFA not City.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

I suppose having a ping pong player pontificating in the national media as some sort of football expert shows a degree of diversity.

One who admitted to cheating in his sport as well as describing himself as a bottler at the Sydney olympics!

 

[shemnel]

sorry, i am reading as much as i can but it's fucking complicated - who is the Executive Council? (i know who ADUG are). Why would it not matter if the monies to Etihad came from them? non-related party?

i might just stick to what's happening on the pitch :D

 

[urban genie]

And what you have mentioned regarding Bayern and it’s deals could relate to other clubs and this supposed dossier we have that we have built

Just imagine if this dossier describes the like you mention but we have employed IT professionals that have found evidence the same to what we had leaked to der spiegel.
Which would highlight Uefa’s bias

that would be hilarious

I expect it will all come out

Juves fiat sponsorship which was substantially increased prior to the ronaldo deal.
Fiat which is owned by the Agnelli familly
The same Agnelli who is Juves president and whos sons godfather is supposardly Cefarin.

 

[flb]

They must have something else on us surely , the info and money trail as to who actually pressed the button in the Etihad payments must surely be available to have stopped it getting to the stage where the club and owners have been slandered ? None of it makes any sense at all .

 

[give it to gordon]

All this talk of someone paying someone some money than that someone paying someone else the same amount, how can they prove that the said amount paid to someone is the same money that than someone used to pay someone else. The money someone paid to someone first might have been used to pay maintenance cost on aeroplanes. It just a coincidence that than the someone than paid someone else the same in sponsorship. But the money given to the sponsor by someones else wasnt used to sponsor someone else but used to pay maintenance Bill's.......the money for the sponsorship came from money they already had !!.simple

 

[doobyedoobye]

They must have something else on us surely , the info and money trail as to who actually pressed the button in the Etihad payments must surely be available to have stopped it getting to the stage where the club and owners have been slandered ? None of it makes any sense at all .

They were in a rush to pass judgement before the deadline.