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

[Metalartin]

I have to admit, I had not seen this email before and it does look bad:

So it does appear the money did go through ADUG at one point which I didn't know but how much does that change?

The original source of the funds is surely what matters here and maybe that is the defence City have i.e Is it Sheikh Mansour or is it the Crown prince via alternative sources sources(ADEC)? Not wanting to show ADUG on the accounts if it was coming from elsewhere is understandable in that context because it wasn't their money and maybe there is a reason for not routing it through Etihad.

 

[willipp]

It’s starting to feel like we’ve gone from people in the know saying ‘we are confident we are clean on this, city have this in order’ to ‘we aren’t so confident now and we could well be in the shit here’. Growing less and less confident every page, especially when you see emails like the one above.

 

[Norbiton]

I have to admit, I had not seen this email before and it does look bad:

So it does appear the money did go through ADUG at one point which I didn't know but how much does that change?

The original source of the funds is surely what matters here and maybe that is the defence City have i.e Is it Sheikh Mansour or is it the Crown prince via alternative sources sources(ADEC)? Not wanting to show ADUG on the accounts if it was coming from elsewhere is understandable in that context because it wasn't their money and maybe there is a reason for not routing it through Etihad.

Don't see that proves anything. Etihad might be paying some of their sponsorship direct to City, some via ADUG.

 

[The Colonel]

I'm pretty sure the Open Skies case proved it was ADEC (not ADUG) that stepped in to meet the liabilities of Etihad. Furthermore, the reference to 'HH' in an email written by Simon Pearce was not Sheikh Mansour; a key distinction in local etiquette that Pearce would have known.

I thought he said Shareholder rather than just HH?

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

We don't know in what way we're supposed to have breached the regulations and we seem determined to find a few! It's all beyond my understanding and I hope our legal team can convince CAS, or at least persuade them that on the balance of probability, we didn't breach FFP at all. But what I see are a set of regulations so useless, so damaging to the game, so patently dishonest and just plain mad that we launch a devastating attack on their whole validity, so that CAS's decision is that no breach of FFP that has not been dealt with previously has occured, and even if it had City's appeal would have been upheld because FFP is incompatible with commercial law in the EU and elsewhere.

 

[manimanc]

Can't wait to go to Lincoln and Bristol Rovers again.

21th Anniversary tour looking good.

 

[yeseye]

They’ve got us by the bollocks.

 

[Metalartin]

Don't see that proves anything. Etihad might be paying some of their sponsorship direct to City, some via ADUG.

I agree it doesn't prove anything but it does look bad, when I read that I stop wondering whether UEFA know something we haven't seen yet as much. That could be key to their side of the case, they think that's strong enough to make it stick. City have said they have irrefutable evidence proving it's not how it looks, lets hope they do.

We've known from the start Etihad didn't pay that amount because they had a shortfall of funds, they only paid £8m, the rest only matters if the original source was a related party.

To me it seems like if it did come from ADEC, this whole mess could have been avoided if they paid the money into Etihad instead of ADUG. There would have been no need for the emails most likely because the City accountants would have just seen some money coming from Etihad.

The other thought I have is, even if City were cooking the books and the source was ADUG, why wouldn't they pay it into Etihad, who then wire it back to City? That seems like the worst way to cook the books, if they were going to try it. If some emails said "ADUG will pay the funds into Etihad" that would be much more straight forward for UEFA to make a case of disguised owner investment.

 

[slbsn]

Question on this. Isn't this whole issue as straightforward as saying, "yes of course Etihad is a related party" and therefore the funding of said transaction, while perhaps improper from a Etihad governance perspective, is not relevant as long it was done at a commercially reasonable level? Which of course has already been investigated and determined as such.

It should be, but hasn't been so far!

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

They’ve got us by the bollocks.

If we paid on credit card we might be able to get it back.

 

[mindmyp's_n_q's]

Apologies if this has been asked before.

Could this all be about a technicality error which despite the evidence would mean we win with zero punishment regardless of what uefa produce and what our argument to that evidence would be?

Almost like we will say that's ace all your evidence but it means fuck all because you (insert procedural error) fucked up.

Mr loophole but on a much larger scale.

And we took it to CAS to get maximum humiliation out of uefa.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Apologies if this has been asked before.

Could this all be about a technicality error which regardless of the evidence would mean we win with zero punishment regardless of what evidence uefa produce and what our argument to that evidence would be?

Almost like we will say that's ace all your evidence but it means fuck all because you (insert procedural error) fucked up.

Mr loophole but on a much larger scale.

I'd imagine that level of legal technicality is something CAS would not touch - probably pass the buck to a proper legal court.

 

[Franny's toilet roll]

They’ve got us by the bollocks.

The reason i follow City and my favourite player of earlier years

 

[richards30]

Fucking hell, was on this morning and everything seemed positive and now come back to our best FFP and legal eagles making it sound like we are fucked! :-(

 

[willipp]

Fucking hell, was on this morning and everything seemed positive and now come back to our best FFP and legal eagles making it sound like we are fucked! :-(

Exactly my thoughts. It’s gradually got glummer and glummer all day to the point where it sounds like we’re fucked.

 

[hihosilva]

I have to admit, I had not seen this email before and it does look bad:

So it does appear the money did go through ADUG at one point which I didn't know but how much does that change?

The original source of the funds is surely what matters here and maybe that is the defence City have i.e Is it Sheikh Mansour or is it the Crown prince via alternative sources sources(ADEC)? Not wanting to show ADUG on the accounts if it was coming from elsewhere is understandable in that context because it wasn't their money and maybe there is a reason for not routing it through Etihad.

Where is this available?

 

[hateutd]

Can't wait to go to Lincoln and Bristol Rovers again.

21th Anniversary tour looking good.

...Hello darkness my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again....

 

[Metalartin]

Where is this available?

Someone linked an old Der Spiegel article a few pages back with the mostly unredacted emails in.

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussba...ostrecke-a293d1c1-0001-0002-0000-000000167278

 

[citizen_maine]

Where is this available?

In the post you just quoted?

 

[John Wayne]

I'd imagine that level of legal technicality is something CAS would not touch - probably pass the buck to a proper legal court.

Which is why I think City, in their bullish statement, said that they were appealing to CAS "in the first instance". I think City are half expecting to lose at CAS but are prepared for a fight in a civil courtroom. I am not sure if the burden of proof that has to be discharged by UEFA would be any higher beyond CAS. Nevertheless, if City were to deny that what Pearce recommended actually took place, surely it would be incumbent upon UEFA to find evidence to the contrary. It may be that "on balance of probabilities", the Pearce recommendation happened but it's also just as conceivable that he got an email back saying "no, that's not wise", or there are other emails not shared by Der Spiegel because it fully illuminates the context in which ADUG played a part and this damages their smear campaign. Let's not forget that they have previously been found to be economical with the truth.