Goes one of two ways for me. Either we get our noses in the trough, clear out a few of our more troublesome if not most influential foes and move on from there, or the status quo claim and drive the media agenda that UEFA aren't fit for purpose as they couldn't punish City properly, and draw up their Agnelli League with new financial regulations and invitations to participate.
Ceferin's links with Agnelli are the thing that make me most uncertain on how this could play out afterwards, it's hard to see anything in our favour given those ties.
That answers my previous question. Thanks.The impression I have got from reports is that they haven't seen it, as they deemed it too late. Hence their opinion that WE are the ones not co-operating with the process.
I think Khaldoon would relish his moment on the court steps.If UEFA win you can be certain that all details will be leaked to the media within hours. If we win I sincerely hope we do not agree to keep the information under wraps. I think us fans deserve to see everything whatever the outcome. We are the paying customers.
We have had our own very strong ties with the Agnelli family.
Abu Dhabi have/had a 9% holding in Ferrari and Fiat.
Ferrari World is still very much a big thing in Abu Dhabi.
More importantly, Khaldoon, through Mubadala, knows the Agnelli family very well.
Mubadala had their moniker on the fishtail for enough years.
I don't think we need to worry on that particular score.
No I don't think so. I think that only means that if the deadline expires on official holidays or weekends, or between 20/12 and 5/1. So if the deadline was due to expire on 24/12, it doesn't actually expire until 6/1, not that they stop counting full stop, even if the deadline expires on a working Wednesday in March.
But you've saved me looking that up.
1 A time limit begins on the date from which the decision is notified or published, whichever is the earlier.
But what "decision" are they referring to? The sanctions document was published on 16th May iirc. But we had been talking to UEFA for some time before that. Presumably then, we'd been notified that we were in breach weeks or even months beforehand and we were arguing about the punishment rather than the FFP failure itself. Technically, you could argue we were in breach once UEFA issued its revised toolkit, or once we submitted our 2013 accounts, or once we submitted whatever documents we needed to submit for licensing purposes to the licensor and thence to UEFA. Someone, at some point prior to May 16th, nust have formally notified us to say "Hello. Is that Manchester City? This is UEFA and you're officially in breach of FFP."
I'd be arguing that's the date that starts the 5-year clock ticking.
Assume then Colin you’ve heard Stefan’s case that the clock started ticking from the date of the alleged breach. How does that leave UEFA? Or do you think there’s a different interpretation?
Yes. If it looks like an interesting and potentially winnable case, that is enough to attract Pannick.
Remember, even the best lose half their cases.
We don't end up in this position because we don't need to worry about particular scores. Whilst the assumption of equivalence across investments is all too nice, we've been burned too many times to accept that City receiving Abu Dhabi investment will be treated the same way.