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

[Coatigan]

As a Chelsea supporter I really am neutral on the whole issue but unlike other matters with UEFAs jurisdictions participating in UEFAs competitions is dependant on getting a license. Each club has to make an application and jump through all sorts of hoops.

I am far far from an expert but here’s one of the conditions that you are required to accept.

LEGAL CRITERIA
Declaration in respect of participation in UEFA club competitions
1 The licence applicant must submit a legally valid declaration confirming the following:
a) It recognises as legally binding the statutes, regulations, directives and decisions of FIFA, UEFA, the UEFA member association and, if any, the national league as well as the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne as provided in the relevant articles of the UEFA Statutes;
b) At national level it will play in competitions recognised and endorsed by the UEFA member association (e.g. national championship, national cup);
c) At international level it will participate in competitions recognised by UEFA or FIFA (to avoid any doubt, this provision does not relate to friendly matches);
d) It will promptly inform the licensor about any significant change, event or condition of major economic importance;
e) Itwillabidebyandobservetheclublicensingregulationsofthelicensor;
f) It will abide by and observe the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play
Regulations;
g) ItsreportingperimeterisdefinedinaccordancewithArticle46bis;
h) It will be accountable for any consequences of an entity included in the
reporting perimeter not abiding by and observing items e) and f) above;
i) All submitted documents are complete and correct;
j) It authorises the competent national club licensing administration and national
club licensing bodies, the UEFA administration and the UEFA Organs for the Administration of Justice to examine any relevant document and seek information from any relevant public authority or private body in accordance with national law;
k) It acknowledges that UEFA reserves the right to execute compliance audits at national level in accordance with Article 71.
2 The declaration must be executed by an authorised signatory of the licence applicant no more than three months prior to the deadline for its submission

Useful, but im not sure what the point you are trying to make is?

 

[terraloon]

ECJ.

Useful, but im not sure what the point you are trying to make is?

It’s 1a that I think is the most relevant.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

That is my issue. I hope the club follow a different path from now on. Challenging FFP, not just for our benefit, and fighting inequality in football for the greater good would help us win the moral argument.

Rather than challenge the elite but then behave like them, with regards tv rights splits etc, weakens our argument.

You're way wide of the mark here. City have made it quite clear that they have never accepted FFP. They have actually said that the club intends to operate as a profitable club BUT only after a period of heavy investment. What is impossible is to fight "inequality in football for the greater good" so that you can win some "moral argument" because laws are made to apply to specific cases and a court would not entertain some airy fairy challenge to FFP. Litigation is, anyway, long, always costly and the outcome uncertain. In 2014 the club took a commercial decision that "taking the pinch" WHILE NOT ACCEPTING THAT IT HAD DONE ANYTHING WRONG avoided a long and costly distraction from the commercial development of the club, which was proving brilliantly successful. Now, our case is that we still do not accept the validity of FFP (and, I suspect, are quite prepared to test this before the ECJ if necessary) but that we have not infringed these regulations anyway and have only been found to have done by the IC which has accepted evidence obtained illegally and which is inadmissible because of this and its inherent unreliability, and because the procedure followed in the two UEFA chambers is not impartial objective or consistent to the point where it is reliable.

This seems a strong case, if this is indeed the club's case (I certainly don't think our legal team need any help from us) and don't worry it seems to be near the summit of the moral high ground. And TV splits are totally irrelevant to this case. Our rivals in the elite tell us we can only use sources of revenue they have been able to develop but you are not allowed to use your advantage - very moral.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

So they want to punish us retrospectively for breaching a rule they have since abolished. That sounds very fair. What a bloody witchhunt this is.

Doesn't it just! Have we actually and hard evidence, hard evidence not the alarmist stories in the press, that PL CAN or wish to take any action at all against City?

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Doesn't it just! Have we actually and hard evidence, hard evidence not the alarmist stories in the press, that PL CAN or wish to take any action at all against City?

I read the PL rulebook the other week and as far as my limited review and interpretation could tell, there's not really a reason why they couldn't if they found something of a sufficient nature to trigger the process.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Agree and from what i have read Swiss law states that CAS can look at illigally obtained material should it be classed as 'overriding interest'

That said, what our owners are saying is that the emails were taken out of context and the full extent of those emails have not been seen. The hacker has used snippets of the emails to show a one-dimensional story. and I also believe that I have read somewhere that this hacker who is currently arrested has also changed documents relating to other stolen material

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails. Their sole evidence, the thing they've based their case on, is the Der Spiegel stories. That is it. They can't prove that these emails ever existed or are genuine.

No wonder we wre so confident. CAS will laugh them out of court.

 

[domalino]

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails.

Seriously?! I thought der Spiegel forwarded everything on.

All they have is the 4 articles in der Spiegel? Hahaha christ alive.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails. Their sole evidence, the thing they've based their case on, is the Der Spiegel stories. That is it. They can't prove that these emails ever existed or are genuine.

No wonder we wre so confident. CAS will laugh them out of court.

makes you wonder what the end game is, from all 3 parties.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

makes you wonder what the end game is, from all 3 parties.

I've said this before; UEFA (the organisation) are piggy in the middle. The old G-14 clubs have systematically targeted us in all sorts of ways. There's things I can't say publicly or privately but it's quite astonishing what has been going on.

 

[bluetonium]

Parry is not FA, he's Football League, and I doubt was there at the time.
Cartwright was non-exec at Liverpool, but has been at a whole range of big jobs outside.
Clarke? Blimey, Leicester are against us now?

Picking out conflicts of interest has some value, but creating ones which aren't there is counter-productive.

I'd like to direct you to the FA's own website, which lists both Parry and Cartwright in those positions I mentioned. Parry is definitely on the FA board of directors right now.
http://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/who-we-are/structure

Not saying anyone is against us. I am however saying that such conflicts of interest would not be allowed in many other industries and I don't think they should be allowed in football either.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

I've said this before; UEFA (the organisation) are piggy in the middle. The old G-14 clubs have systematically targeted us in all sorts of ways. There's things I can't say publicly or privately but it's quite astonishing what has been going on.

boo.

I've figured it was 3 way for a while, just not sure what the end game is given they surely must have taken their own legal advice despite their known misdemeanours.

 

[balotelli's back pocket]

Seriously?! I thought der Spiegel forwarded everything on.

All they have is the 4 articles in der Spiegel? Hahaha christ alive.

If that's true, and I have no reason to doubt Prestwich_Blue, then we have nothing to worry about and this will all be over soon.

The stupidity of UEFA taking such bold action on such little evidence seems scarcely believable though.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails. Their sole evidence, the thing they've based their case on, is the Der Spiegel stories. That is it. They can't prove that these emails ever existed or are genuine.

No wonder we wre so confident. CAS will laugh them out of court.

I have thought this all along but if it's true then it's an amazing blunder by UEFA. If they have built their entire case on a small number of stolen emails with no proper audit trail tracking the payments etc then their case is doomed. No wonder it has been reported that there has been a big internal struggle within UEFA over this and why Sorriano's statement carefully differentiated betwen the broad UEFA organisation and the elements within the IC and AC (or whatever he meant by FFP chamber) The global damages and costs for UEFA could run into hundreds of millions.

 

[dario2739]

The difference being that it is Swiss law - take a read of this paragraph relating to the info used against the russian athletes:-

According to Art. 152 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code court shall consider illegally obtained evidence only if there is an overriding interest in finding the truth. At the same time according to Art. 184 of Switzerland’s Federal Code on Private International Law the arbitral tribunal shall itself conduct the taking of evidence. However, Swiss Civil Procedure Code is inapplicable to arbitral proceedings and the arbitrators have the power to rule on the admissibility of evidence.

It is a well-established practice that arbitral tribunals enjoy considerable discretion and are not necessarily barred from taking into account evidence, which may prove inadmissible in civil or criminal state courts. Taking into account CAS case law, CAS panels are likely to take into account evidence, unlawfully obtained, which would not be admissible in state courts of most of the countries. So far CAS has adopted an approach that the end justifies the means.

I've said this before; UEFA (the organisation) are piggy in the middle. The old G-14 clubs have systematically targeted us in all sorts of ways. There's things I can't say publicly or privately but it's quite astonishing what has been going on.

I hope we take them all down!

 

[SPIDERBOY]

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails. Their sole evidence, the thing they've based their case on, is the Der Spiegel stories. That is it. They can't prove that these emails ever existed or are genuine.

No wonder we wre so confident. CAS will laugh them out of court.

Are UEFA really that fuckin dumb?
That's a genuine question PB.
It's unbelieviable if that is true.

 

[journolud]

I've said this before; UEFA (the organisation) are piggy in the middle. The old G-14 clubs have systematically targeted us in all sorts of ways. There's things I can't say publicly or privately but it's quite astonishing what has been going on.

Will any of this skullduggery ever be made public?

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Seriously?! I thought der Spiegel forwarded everything on.

All they have is the 4 articles in der Spiegel? Hahaha christ alive.

I don't see how Der Spiegel would have done that given the huge criminal investigation into Rui Pinto. The actual emails themselves will be evidence in the criminal prosecution. We don't even know for sure that Der Spiegel have got anything more than a tiny selection of the 70 million documents hacked by Pinto. In fact Spiegel may only have copies of emails themselves and what they published is an edited version of events.

 

[chaddblue]

Doesn't it just! Have we actually and hard evidence, hard evidence not the alarmist stories in the press, that PL CAN or wish to take any action at all against City?

No.. just the daily mail clickbait for the millions of plastic dippers and rags who are predictably lapping up like the sad bellends they are

 

[MillisleBlue]

Perhaps St Marks parish church in West Gorton never existed and we were founded in Salem:

 

[Sir peace frog]

they must have more than that , they have a news paper story and are willing to piss off a very rich football club,who im sure will be after blood when and if this all comes down the way we want it.