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

[bluemc1]

Also where is this information on the hearing ? How do we know they refused to read our 200 page dossier?

 

[Chief Tactician]

Apologies if the link to the following article has already been provided in here. I don't think that Forbes can be accused of taking party for one or the other side, so it might be worth reading this:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbym...parating-the-facts-from-fiction/#1fb30cd4204f


Bobby McMahonContributor

UEFA went atomic on Friday announcing that Manchester City has been banned from European competition for 2 years (2020/21 and 2021/22) and fined €30 million. It is the second time Manchester City has been punished by UEFA. In 2014, the team agreed to pay a conditional £49m fine as well as accepting restrictions on the size of its squad for European play and incoming transfers.

The latest sanction was announced three months after Manchester City failed in a bid to have the UEFA investigation kiboshed. City took its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but the court found City’s appeal inadmissible.

“An appeal against the decision of a federation, association or sports-related body may be filed with CAS (…) if the Appellant has exhausted the legal remedies available to it prior to the appeal, in accordance with the statutes or regulations of that body.” Article R47 of the CAS Rules

Court of Arbitration for Sport Media Release November 15, 2019

Social media chatter has made it difficult to separate the facts from the bull, so here are the facts with some editorial added for the purpose of clarity.

The background

Late in 2018, Spiegel International published a number articles alleging that Manchester City had been playing fast and loose when it came to Uefa Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations and other licensing requirements.

The most damming allegation was that a holding company, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a billionaire brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, funneled money to City sponsors based in Abu Dhabi who then rerouted the money to Manchester City as sponsorship.

Sheikh Mansour is the owner of Manchester City, and as such, the scheme contravened FFP regulations.

The allegations were part of a new series of “Football Leaks.” At the time, Manchester City refused to make comment on the accusations but later claimed that Spiegel’s articles were based on hacked and stolen documents that were then taken out of context.

Uefa’s investigatory chamber started an investigation of Manchester City in the spring of 2019.

The investigation will focus on several alleged violations of FFP that were recently made public in various media outlets.

UEFA Investigatory Chamber, March 2019
When City was officially charged in May of last year it claimed that the club had been subjected to a hostile process that the investigation had ignored a body of “irrefutable evidence.”

The charge and process

The investigatory chamber found Manchester City guilty and the adjudicatory chamber imposed the punishment that was announced on Friday. (The two chambers are designed to act independently of each other and independently of Uefa.)

Manchester City was found guilty of two charges:

• of falsely inflating sponsorship revenues when making submissions as part of the Financial Fair Play (FFP) compliance process;
• of breaching regulations by failing to cooperate in the investigation of the case by the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB).

Uefa acknowledged the decision but offered no further comment given that Manchester City has the right of appeal to the CAS.

Financial hit

If Manchester City’s appeal fails and subsequent other action also fails, then the financial cost will far exceed the €30m fine. There will the cost of 2 years of UEFA Champions League prize money at an estimated €200m or more.

This reduction in revenue could set off a downward spiral that may leave Manchester City unable to carry their current costly squad.

Some have speculated that players could even try to have their contracts nullified based on the club’s gross misconduct. Two years of the no Champions League participation may also weigh heavy on coach Pep Guardiola’s decision about his future with the club.

Roll all this together and you can see why Manchester City is going to fight this one to the death.

Then there is another problem, the Premier League.......

The Premier League has a different form of FFP. However, the same sets of financial statements provided to Uefa would have been provided to the Football Association and the Premier League.

The Premier League regulations have gone through a couple of iterations but a core component has been restricting wage increases. Some of the permitted increases have been tied to any increase in self-generated increases (that doesn’t include Premier League TV money.)

If Manchester City has perpetrated an accounting fraud then they will also be in contravention of Premier League FFP regulations and subject to other league-specific sanctions.

And if that’s not enough, let’s remember that the present Uefa punishment covers just 2012 to 2016. If City has cooked the books and misled the authorities then it would seem plausible that they have continued to do so after 2016. This could lead to further fines and bans. Should Manchester City win this season’s Champions League - they play Real Madrid in the round of 16 - the win could be nullified.

Court of Arbitration for Sports

There is a lot of social media noise surrounding the CAS and there is a lot folks guessing what the law is and what the process is.

This is what the Court of Arbitration for Sport(CAS) does. The CAS process is generally more transparent that the Uefa process but if you don’t want embarrassing information to come out then that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Further, the CAS appeal is a fresh hearing of all evidence, essentially a new “trial”.

Manchester City’s emails were hacked so they can’t be used as evidence. Not so fast.

Uefa used hacked material to find Manchester City guilty. We don’t know that and it is very doubtful that Uefa did. Certainly, materials that were made public through Football Leaks are almost certainly hacked. However, opening an investigation based on readily available public knowledge is very different than using hacked material to prove a case.

Uefa investigators would have only needed to ask very straight forward questions and asked Manchester City to show the paper trail that supported their submitted financial statements. Based on the second charge, it can be presumed that Uefa believes that City failed to comply with the investigators requests.

When you get down to it the two charges are very fact based and there seems to be very little room for nuance.

A decision has to be reached before July 15so England’s representation can be submitted for Europe’s two club competitions. The process could be expedited but if City lose they will almost certainly fight on by any means necessary. City’s punishment could be postponed pending a final outcome.

FFP is a farce and Manchester City shouldn’t be punished for bucking the rules. Just as in life, you may not like the laws of the land, but as a citizen (no pun intended) you are obliged to follow the laws.

Nobody forced Manchester City to play in the Champions League and nobody forced the team to cash the cheques from Uefa. Manchester City knew the rules and it worth remembering that the charge does not relate to failing to meet FFP requirements but rather the fraudulent submission of documents and failing to cooperate with the investigation.

This is part of a Vendetta by big clubs who are using Uefa and FFP to “get” Manchester City. Again, City signed on as a free and willing participant in the Champions League. It’s a fact that the genesis of Financial Fair Play was long before Manchester City was a twinkle in Sheikh Mansour’s eye.

Further, if the Premier League and the Football Association take action would that mean that all of English football has signed on to the Vendetta?

Manchester City is the victim of an unjust system. The City comment below has quickly become standard fare and used to support the contention that City is the victim.

Simply put, this is a case initiated by UEFA, prosecuted by UEFA and judged by UEFA. With this prejudicial process now over, the Club will pursue an impartial judgment...

Manchester City Official Statement February 14, 2020
The fact is the system is used by every major sports organization in the world and is the reason why the CAS concept was conceived in the 80s. The same process is followed by sport organizations as a matter of course because otherwise the formal legal systems around the world would be clogged with sport issues, most of them petty.

Sport is not above the law but it has been acknowledged many times by the formal legal system that it has a right to make its own rules and to follow its own disciplinary system.

Is this really such a big deal? It actually is. The charge is essentially one of accounting fraud which is a form of theft. Beyond the sanctions applied to the club there are also potential ramifications for any Manchester City personnel such as lawyers and accountants who may have been part of the alleged fraud. That also goes for directors of the club.

 

[Chippy_boy]

It's basically the local government of Abu Dhabi.

Crucially, we're not owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, we're owned by an individual from the royal family (Sheikh Mansour), who in turn owns ADUG.

But the companies in question (Etihad, Etisalat, Aabar, etc.) are all, at least in part, government owned.

To be the main sponsor of a successful, high-profile club like Manchester City back then would cost in the region of £50-70m a year. Now, Etihad couldn't afford to pay that kind of money, but the Abu Dhabi government wanted its airline to gain the exposure that would come with being such a prominent sponsor. So it topped up Etihad's funds accordingly.

That's the theory anyway.

The alternative (UEFA) argument is that ADUG wanted to prop up Manchester City so funneled money to it through various sponsors. But there seems to be evidence that it was the EC paying this money, not ADUG.

So, if UEFA accept that these sponsorships represented fair value (i.e., we could have commanded similar amounts from any international companies), surely that suggests the government was seeking to "prop up" Etihad, Etisalat, Aabar, etc. — NOT Manchester City — by enabling them to gain exposure on the international stage.

In short, I don't blame you for being confused!

The supreme irony in all of this is that if the Etihad deal is deemed fair value, that means that it is in line with the amount we could have obtained from any other unrelated party transaction.

I.e. the revenues we've received are in themselves entirely reasonable. And therefore UEFA's only possible beef is a technicality, if anything.

We have not artificially inflated our revenues nor benefitted from any such revenues. We could have got the money if not from Etihad, then from ant number of other potential sponsors.

So a 2 year ban is imposed for an alleged technical breach rather than any material advantage gained by us? Absolutely ridiculous judgement in every respect.

It would have more credibility if they had just banned us with the justification "We don't like you."

 

[laserblue]

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 applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

 

[petrusha]

So, if UEFA accept that these sponsorships represented fair value (i.e., we could have commanded similar amounts from any international companies), surely that suggests the government was seeking to "prop up" Etihad, Etisalat, Aabar, etc. by enabling them to gain exposure on the international stage.

UEFA didn't accept back at the time of the Settlement Agreement that the Etisalat and Aabar sponsorships represented fair value. They wanted to reduce them based on the related party rules, but MCFC don't accept that they're related parties. In the end, the compromise was that we undertook in the Settlement Agreement not to increase those sponsorships for (IIRC) two more years. However, as far as seems possible to discern at the moment, the current issue relates to the sourcing of the Etihad monies and not the other two.

As an aside, this is an example of UEFA adopting rules and then trying to apply them rather arbitrarily. They took the definition of a related party straight from IAS 24, which MCFC and its auditors were applying in a manner that was entirely standard throughout the corporate world, but UEFA wanted to foist their own interpretation on us.

 

[Cornish_Blue]

I applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

Just because he’s half Pakistani, it doesn’t absolve him from (allegedly) being a racist!!!

 

[Uffa]

Are you saying fiat didn't do deals and move money about prior to the ronaldo signingthat helped them be able to secure his signature.

Also laughable any Juve fan can criticise any other club of being dodgy.

I haven't criticised anyone of being dodgy mate, I simply tried to defend my club from false accusations.

The improved sponsorship deal with Jeep (FCA) was agreed in Autumn 2019. Prior to that, Jeep (FCA) gave us €17m a year.

 

[flook]

Hats off to the posters with the stamina to keep up with this debacle, I'm not one of them, but I do have 3 questions

1 - Are we fucked or not? (I know, no-one knows)
2 - Have we appealed yet?
3 - If we're not fucked, and CAS rules in our favour, do UEFA then have a right to appeal their ruling and the merry-go-round continues? Or is that an end to it?

 

[laserblue]

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

Edited for accuracy.

 

[Shaelumstash]

So assuming that the Etihad sponsorship is the main crux of UEFA's prosecution, and the email that's been floated about is their main piece of evidence...

City sign sponsorship deal with Etihad
Etihad can't afford to pay the full amount
The UAE (NOT ADUG) agree to bail them out and pay the sponsorship deal - as it's government owned
An internal club email is sent, that on one hand (if you're scouse) looks dodgy, but on the other actually looks like someone pointing out that we need an audit trail
City are successful and pose a threat to the entitled ones
UEFA look for anything they can use as a stick to beat us
A hacker (who may or may not have been UEFA funded in some way - this needs to be looked into even if they merely paid for the docs) steals documents including said email
Der Speigel with Bayern's best interests at heart leak said email
UEFA get so wet they can't keep their power dry - and charge us

Is that about the crux of it?

Yes.

 

[Dubai Blue]

Add said e-mail obvioulsy rules out Shiekh Manour as the man puttting the money in as who it was is referenced to was not his excellency it was his highness.

A thing our journis don't seem to be understanding.

Not quite. Sheikh Mansour is referred to as His Highness, not His Excellency. But his full name is usually used (i.e., HH Sheikh Mansour......). However, this was a fairly informal email between parties who would implicitly understand who was being referred to, so who knows how closely they adhered to protocol.

So, HH could theoretically mean Sheikh Mansour, but it's more likely to mean Sheikh Khalifa or Sheikh Mohamed.

Either way, it "should" be fairly simple to prove if the money was indeed coming from the EC and not from Sheikh Mansour himself.

 

[squirtyflower]

I applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

I shall ask him what he means by “football clubs should be run by football men”?

 

[urban genie]

As was said by prominent UK lawyer Mark Stevens yesterday

 

[blueparrot]

I think that’s correct. CAS is about the process and procedure - is it fair and reasonable ( and does it align with uefa process and procedure?) and ultimately - is the sanction a reasonable response to the findings of the investigation. So we do have a few bites of the cherry in terms of procedure and we must be very guilty of serious wrongdoing to have a sanction as severe as the one awarded upheld.

That's the thing for a punishment that could cost us 25% of our turnover for 2 years, first how far away from the slap on the wrist offer is it. more though is that kind of punishment within the remit of a sports body. For a punishment that big they must have evidence of not just serious wrongdoing , but fraudulent wrongdoing involving Etihad and our accountants, if they have they should be handing the investigation to the police and authorities not imp[osing their own punishments.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

I applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

Well he must hate himself then.

 

[waspish]

I'm just hoping that we're not reliant on precedence and what other clubs did or didn't do as our main defence. It may be that it adds to the strength of our appeal but it's risky if we do rely on it to a large degree.

Agree at cas that won’t make any difference am sure they not interested in that but if it goes to the Swiss courts that’s when all this could be heard and the cartel shown up for what they are bias to those clubs.

 

[Gordyola]

Incorrect laserblue. As Keith says:
His Highness = The Emir (when people who work directly for the government talk about the Emir in shortened form).
His Highness XXX = A senior royal, whose shortened name is XXX, whose father was probably an Emir, or the son of an Emir.
His Excellency XXX = A junior royal normally the son of a senior royal whose shortened name is XXX, but others can be promoted to this rank whi do good work for the government, like Kaldoon, for example.
On official documents, every name is expanded in full.
I worked in Abu Dhabhi for 2 years on a project, for Etisalat, where the sponsor was a HH. Get it wrong and you get bollocked.

From Der-Spiegel leaked email analysis
"As we discussed, the annual direct obligation for Aabar is GBP 3 million," Pearce wrote. "The remaining 12 million GBP requirement will come from alternative sources provided by His Highness."

With just a single sentence, Pearce confirmed the accusations that his club had repeatedly, indignantly rejected: Namely, that His Highness, Sheikh Mansour, paid a portion of the sponsoring money himself!

Der-Spiegel have clearly assumed that His Highness is Sheikh Mansour

Pearce, highly experienced Abu Dhabi protocol, won's have made a simple mistake as BlueAnorak said above doing so leads to being bollocked

 

[urban genie]

I haven't criticised anyone of being dodgy mate, I simply tried to defend my club from false accusations.

That is fine, but you have to admit what we are accused of doing is exactly what Juve, Bayern Madrid are doing too and the whole system is bent.

I have no issue with Juves owners using thier money as they please to help the club along, just for us blues it seems we are not given that same option as the old guard..

 

[blue b4 the moon]

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

Not just any ping pong player one who has admitted cheating himself and from what I remember a boring as fuck one whose method of play was to return the ball with zero flair waiting for a mistake.

Sort of the opposite of City.

 

[laserblue]

Just because he’s half Pakistani, it doesn’t absolve him from (allegedly) being a racist!!!

I agree completely but you just know he'd milk the the fact that he's mixed race in an attempt to deflect any accusation that he's racist himself (which he undoubtedly is).