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

[blueinsa]

@Mabalsa Ricci come on get that first post down :)

Will be a journalist on the sniff for his next tweet/blog/story.

 

[sir baconface]

I've caught up with this thread. Do I win a prize?

Yes, your P45 if you’ve been reading it at work.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I think we need to forget completely about the possibility of a token fine and a slap on the wrist. The IC and the AC are claimed to be independent by UEFA and so Ceferin has no authority to offer a deal or broker one. I suspect his presence at our CL games was to urge the club to negotiate a settlement with the AC and he may have suggested that the terms would be quite lenient. The problem is that to negotiate a settlement we would first have had to admit we had violated FFP and the AC could have used this to justify any swingeing terms it cared to impose. That really would have been reputational disaster, and would make the headlines George Hannah has posted today look positively favourable.

The above seems like just another conspiracy theory but the view put forward by Conn in the Guardian and most other hacks of UEFA acting only to bring order to a chaotic world of football finance is naive in the extreme if it isn't actually dishonest. It avoids the question of why owner investment is wrong if the aim is financial stability? And it ignores the timing of the abandonment of dealing with debt in favour of restricting spending (only on players) to sources of income dominated by the elite. Then there are the endless comments about City out of Platini's mouth: City could spend £300 million every transfer window if they wanted but they couldn't play in his champions league.. his assertion that FFP might anger City but it would please United, Bayern etc, before we get to the "fiddling of the dates" in 2014, the miraculously increased sponsorships allowed some other clubs... So, we at City are suspicious of UEFA and we have decided very firmly that taking this as far as necessary is the only option. When things look desperate you don't look for help from a serpent.

 

[Baggins.mcfc]

I've caught up with this thread. Do I win a prize?

No its impossible to catch up. By time you think you have caught up, you are already at least 10 messages behind.

 

[Marvin]

OK that potentially clears up the Etihad money, but there are other deals that have been questioned, or does this explain those as well? HH being the head of the UAE?

I think it relates to Etihad but that is by far the largest of the UAE sponsors. Organisations like Aabar are owned by the Sheikh, and can be used to self-sponsor up to a fair market value - as other Premier League clubs have done.

 

[kaz7]

After the events of the last few days I cant help but think that City have made a huge strategic error. Apparently we were offered a way out of this with a technical breach and small fine. (Similar to the Fifa case). By refusing to negotiate it seems we have pushed UEFA to go nuclear with us.

Even if the ban is overturned by Cas this doesnt clear us and its my understanding we have to carry the fight on in Swiss courts(?).

Even if we are eventually cleared which is far from certain the reputational damage of the ban and potential future case with UEFA is enormous. Pretty much the whole footballing world has heard Manchester City are cheats for the last few days and will narative will continue and wont stop even if we win the case. It will turn to, 'well what did you expect when they can buy the bsst lawyers'

Wouldn't it have been sensible to take the fine and carry on as normal. Who would care apart from Johny from Liverpool on twitter.

By taking this risk we have potentially affected our ability to compete for the next 3 4 years but also will forever be known as cheats. We can all argue with internet warriors till we are blue in the face but the label will surely affect out ability to attract commercial sponsorship and grow our fan base in the developing football markets such as India, China and the US.

they wanted us to plead guilty which would have ruined our reputation for good,why the fuck would we do that if we believe we are not? We have an error here,we have to fight it,they have left us NO choice

 

[Gremlin]

No its impossible to catch up. By time you think you have caught up, you are already at least 10 messages behind.

Zeno's FFP forum paradox

 

[SebastianBlue]

I never said I had seen all the evidence I said I've read and seen the evidence in support of UEFA's claims and that is pretty compelling. This is readily available on the web if you bother to go and look for it.

As you apparently have access to evidence not even the club have been granted, as UEFA hasn’t publicly released any of the specific materials being used to support their decision to find City guilty of the two charges they have levied (in fact, in their statement announcing the decision, UEFA specifically stated they wouldn’t be releasing the materials if City appealed the decision to CAS)...

Would you be so kind as to share a link to these materials on UEFA’s internal systems and share how you gained access to them?

 

[cjn]

I can't go through all these pages so I'm sure this has been posted already, but this was a really excellent analysis of the situation. Highly recommended:

https://ninetythreetwenty.com/blog/seeing-the-wood-for-the-ffps-manchester-city-uefa-go-to-war/

 

[bluemonkey71]

And ideas yet for banners? You could maybe create a topic in its own right. I am sure City fans could come up with a few ideas. Something short and to the point.

That pig one was great that was posted a while back