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

[Blue Maverick]

Supporters clubs have already got them..........

I don’t have enough points :(

 

[BillyShears]

Don't be so hard on yourself mate - I always enjoyed your input during the dark days of the late Mancini era!

Haha. I'm afraid that there are some things in life, you never really live down. The internet never forgets.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

I still feel that the club should have boycotted the Madrid game in protest (and in doing so, completely devalued the credibility of this year's competition.

Then, rather than appealing to CAS (which win or lose we'll still be viewed as arrogant bullies by the.media) we should attack the whole concept of FFP, via the European courts.

As it is, there's something about our smug attitude last summer that makes me worry.
We all applauded Khaldoon's end of season interview, but amidst all his smiling rehearsed answers I don't recall him predicting this outcome.

 

[Blue Maverick]

Yeh, that would seem likely and I expect City to do that, win or lose at CAS. If we lose at CAS and then take it all to Court though, then the hammering we’re taking off the press at the moment, will be as nothing compared to what is to come. “Arrogant bullies who won’t admit that they cheated”, etc etc.
Also, the suspicious old coot in me, makes me wonder if the cartel would quite like us to dismantle UEFA in Court and leave them (the cartel) free to strike out on their own with a Euro league, with MCFC not invited.
One thing I do know, is that it’s all fucking stressful and, as a fan, my hatred for these people is off the scale. After 30 years of thin and thinner, I just wanted to savour the joy of watching my team play beautiful football and maybe win a trophy or two, but the bitter cnuts have done everything in their power to try and prevent that from the get go. I hope we destroy them, but I’m far from confident based on how subjective the law is

I’m with you on the stress side, I’m defending City every way I look at the moment and what comes across is rival,fans haven’t a clue what is actually going on, they just see the cheat headlines, UEFA May have played a blinder if it all gets thrown out especially on a technicality then they can say they’ve done their job and we were guilty, shit sticks, we will be forever labelled that and it would hurt us in the long run, or UEFA shot themselves in the foot if we are exonerated and go to court to rip them a new one, hoping it’s the latter and the arrogance of UEFA has screwed they up. I think a huge change will come after this either way as everyone is now seeing this played out worldwide in the press at just how corrupt and elitist UEFA are, there seems to be a groundswell of support for us, Christ even Talkshite are behind us!

 

[chesterbells]

Haha. I'm afraid that there are some things in life, you never really live down. The internet never forgets.

I mean this in all sincerity mate, the likes of yourself and @Didsbury Dave were the beacons of sanity back then.

 

[blueinsa]

I mean this in all sincerity mate, the likes of yourself and @Didsbury Dave were the beacons of sanity back then.

Viva la Cabal!

 

[pavelsrnicek]

I'm not remotely convinced of the competence of UEFA so I would not rule out them having cocked-up. Also, it's possible that people withing UEFA have been told their jobs won't be under threat if they find us guilty and it gets overturned subsequently. They know the media are against us so might think it is worth trying it on.

I wonder if UEFA, under pressure from certain clubs, have pursued a case that they don’t expect to win at CAS. What they hope is that City win on issues of limitation periods or breach or fair procedure.

If we do then the cheating/ financial doping/ fraud allegations made in the press aren’t defeated and it’s presented as City getting off on a technicality.

The result is damage to City’s reputation without punishment. So we would forever be associated with cheating FFP but only getting off because of our legal team.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

My lawyers have had me delete my reply to your post above on grounds of it being libellous and Jonny and Miggles already having a hard on for me.

As long as it wasn't your 'legal team'. I'd leave all that to @worsleyweb

 

[petrusha]

I do wonder if that it what has happened. City may have reluctantly concluded that UEFA were so unreasonable that their best course of action was to wait.

Something isn't right about the whole thing: we should have been able to kill this stone dead at UEFA if we did not break their rules. Perhaps their interpretation of the rules or evidence differs from City's.

Yes, there's an odd contradiction at the heart of the matter. UEFA sources seem to be briefing their friendly journalists (Panja and the like) that they're confident of CAS upholding their position. Yet MCFC continue to maintain that the club has "irrefutable evidence" to back up its claims that there are no grounds for punishment. Logic dictates that one of these propositions must be wrong.

Now, I can't stress strongly enough that what follows in this post is absolute speculation. It's just my best guess at the kind of scenario which might give rise to the oddity described in the preceding paragraph.

If there's an element of subjectivity, then in the absence of further information I can only think that it must be around the definition of a "related party". Of course I could be completely wrong here and this is purely speculation on my part, but maybe City are continuing to maintain that the Abu Dhabi sponsors aren't related parties, while UEFA are claiming that they entered into a settlement agreement in which that proposition wasn't challenged in the absence of the newly information about Abu Dhabi state funding of our sponsorships that would have altered their view on that topic. It may (or may not) be that the settlement agreement contains provisions that allow UEFA to reopen matters if they consider themselves not to have been provided with all relevant information at the time, and they regard the information about AD state subsidy of the sponsorships as meeting that criterion.

Interestingly, Panja and his boss at the NYT were tweeting yesterday about the possibility of some kind of settlement, while Tony Evans tweeted an article he'd written (which I confess to not having read) that seemed to purport to urge the parties to get together and sort things out. These journalists have in the past relayed material ostensibly sourced by people who are connected with the case and certainly aren't in the MCFC camp. I wonder whether this might point towards UEFA hoping for a settlement before matters reach CAS.

In this hypothetical event, I'd actually be tempted as long as they'd agree to a suspended ban and reduced fine, together with a statement that any breaches were technical and entailed no intention to deceive UEFA. Even if our case is relatively strong, litigation and arbitration can always be a lottery to some extent and it's invariably better to avoid it if you can.

The prospect of the club's majority shareholder and our Abu Dhabi stakeholders accepting a settlement on the terms that I would is, in my uninformed view, negligible. Remember that UEFA have found us guilty of inflating sponsorships and, if that's true, it means the club's audited accounts are inaccurate. That's a big accusation to throw at a business, because it brings into question the honesty and good faith of those running it as well as of the auditors. For that reason, in my opinion only total exoneration is likely to be seen as acceptable in the UAE.

 

[razman]

some people on here have called him a chancer. But ofcourse I hope his confidence isn't misplaced