There are two questions for CAS to address at the hearing the first being - are we guilty of breaching FFP rules - where we are accused of “inflating” sponsorship deals. This will be a straight forward - yes you did and their is sufficient evidence on the balance of probabilities to support that claim Or no you didn’t and their is insufficient evidence on the balance of probabilities to support such a claim. Here we either get off Scott free or we get a punishment - there is no splitting the difference. This point may be complicated by City’s claim that the process used was unfair - But I won’t address that here safe to say that CAS have already indicated that the process used may have flaws.
The second question for CAS - which only arises if question 1 finds us guilty - is does the punishment fit the crime based upon comparison with similar cases - on that point the punishment does look disproportionate so thoughts about a 1 year ban probably do come into play BUT only at this point.
No. There are issues to be resolved before we get to those.
Firstly, City went to the CAS seeking to have the IC's referral of our case set aside because their procedural breaches made it impossible for the entire process to be prosecuted fairly in the AC. Now, the CAS declined to exercise its power to reverse the IC's ruling on this point at that stage but conceded that it could be a valid argument and that we'd be entitled to put it forward at the current stage, even expressing some sympathy with us on the merits. I assume it's therefore a line of argument that we'll run with again. I'm not sure I'd be confident that it'll be decisive because the AC will have presumably bent over backwards to ensure that any failings on the IC's part can't constitute grounds for the entire process to be binned. However, even if we won't win, this is probably worth pursuing on practical grounds because we have a lot of supporting evidence for the proposition that the procedure is tainted by venality and incompetence and thus depicting an opponent during litigation would generally be seen as helpful from a tactical standpoint.
Secondly, we know from the pleadings in the first CAS case that City are also alleging that the charges of which we've been found guilty this time involve a reopening of the settlement agreement which we entered into with UEFA when taking the "pinch" Khaldoon referred to, and there are no grounds for reopening the settlement in this way. That doesn't involve a consideration of the issues on the merits, either. All we can say here is that the settlement agreement is a document governed by Swiss law and Swiss law does allow such settlements to be reopened in certain circumstances; however, the barrier for doing so is usually very high. I understand from people who know far more than I about this stuff that one of the parties to the agreement having decided that it doesn't fancy the terms and conditions any longer doesn't cut it.
I'm completely guessing here, of course, but I note that our case has been listed for three days and it strikes me that arguing through the above, especially if City have as comprehensive a base of evidence as I suspect we do, could take three days on its own. I therefore wonder if we aren't going for a quick win to knock over the ban at an early stage, reserving the option to go back to the CAS for a later hearing on the merits if we need to with the right to ask for the ban to be suspended at that stage.