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

What do you think will be the outcome of the CAS hearing?

  • Two-year ban upheld

    Votes: 197 13.1%

  • Ban reduced to one year

    Votes: 422 28.2%

  • Ban overturned and City exonerated

    Votes: 815 54.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 65 4.3%
  • Total voters
    1,499
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bluemanchester said:
The City directors and senior management choosing not to is the way our owners have run the club since they bought it. I have known many people "well in" at the club over the years and they always had an idea at what was going on, up to Garry Cook leaving, but since then the internal decisions have been guarded tighter than a ducks backside and thats watertight. So City choosing not to leak anything, in my view, is not unusual in fact it is the norm.
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That may be so. But its a choice.
 
richards30 said:
I personally think on a separate note that city will look at taking on the current UEFA board whatever the CAS outcome is. The way city have been targeted is blatant and when you look at the very first draft of the FFP document and then follow the timeline of the changes and who it targeted then it shows who the rules were to protect! Then you have platini and blatter arrested for bribery and corruption, that smarmy twat from PSG on bribery charges Who just so happens to have been voted into the UEFA board even with charges against him?! PSG spending €400m on neymar and mbappe yet still passing FFP in a one team league with no TV monies anywhere close to the premier league? Bayern being sponsored by adidas and Allianz who just so happen are also major shareholders in them? The rags being protected by David Gill who just so happens to still be a board member of United as well as UEFA? What a fucking farce it all is and Khaldoon should go for the throat once and for all!! Hopefully cerefin was told that when he attended the shaktar game and sent on his way with a message!
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Whilst all true. Our case isn't and wasn't predicated on whataboutery.

Plenty of room to be optimistic on other elements.
 
You guys are focusing way too much on the HH thing. It will barely even get a mention in our defence if at all unless we have direct proof that in that instance it wasn’t referring to Mansour.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
But it has been shown to you that even Mubadala refers to our owner on its on website as HH.
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All royals will be referred to as 'His Highness'. No one is questioning that. But when there's a lot of 'His Highnesses' you have to be able to tell which one someone is referring to. So it's 'His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan' and if you were sending an email to someone referring to a conversation you'd had with him, it'd probably go something like "I spoke to HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed about the matter we discussed. His Highness agreed that we could proceed as planned." So you've clarified who 'His Highness' is in the first sentence and don't need to use his full name again.

However if the email said "Please note that I spoke to HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed about the matter we discussed. He said he couldn't make this decision so would have to get approval from His Highness to proceed" then that would be referring to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. Or if the email said "Please note that I spoke to His Highness about the matter we discussed and he's happy for us to proceed as planned" then in the absence of any other clarification as to who 'His Highness' was, it would very likely be MBZ.

Who'd have thought when were traipsing through the back alleys around Maine Road, trying to avoid the dog shit and laughing at Peter Swales' comb-over and Cuban heels, that one day we'd become experts in royal protocol in Abu Dhabi.
 
KS55 said:
When I first read R57, I thought that it gave CAS power to run an enquiry de novo, but did not estop the appellant from raising previous procedural matters which might illustrate bad faith by Uefa's IC or AC.
Perhaps doing that in a sort of aside may not be good tactics. Saving grace is the presence of two of the panel from CAS 1.
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I was going to say that. You saved me the bother.
 
KS55 said:
I don't agree. Firstly he made strong unequivicle statements that we were not in breach and the enquiry was political.Three possibilities:
1. He was telling the truth.
2. He had been poorly briefed and thus got it wrong.
3. He knowingly lied.
I obvs want No.1 to be correct.
No.2 would be dropping a bollock for not checking precisely what happened before such a strong stance.
No.3 would be unconscionable and a betrayal of the fans.
I believe he did not lie, but I cannot know what he was told.
Even if the arrangements pre dated his appointment, he was CEO and therefore responsible for them continuing. If there was something wrong, it was incumbent on him at the very least to raise it with Khaldoon.
I think he is an honourable man and we would be the poorer without him. So, please let it be the truth.
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But my point was that Soriano was not and could not have been the architect of this scheme. And I have no expectations that he will fall on his sword if we fail to have the ban overturned.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
But my point was that Soriano was not and could not have been the architect of this scheme. And I have no expectations that he will fall on his sword if we fail to have the ban overturned.
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Also wouldn’t have thought it would be his decision to fight it at CAS or not if we were indeed offered a deal before last week.
 
Top Trumps: A contract for £65m with Etihad and Man City's name on it and a statement from the UAE Exec Committee that they covered the bulk of the Etihad sponsorship trumps emails.

Most reasonable people would be alarmed by the content of the emails, and the natural question would be OK show me the the money trail, and show me the contracts. That I am assuming is City's body of irrefutable evidence. If City can't produce it then that would be bad. I assume we can.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
But my point was that Soriano was not and could not have been the architect of this scheme. And I have no expectations that he will fall on his sword if we fail to have the ban overturned.
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I agree, why should he fall. Thats what the cartel want, chip away at City constantly. No, stick togeather through thick and thin, we aim high.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
On the balance of probability, no.
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Man I really hope that isn't a key thread in the argument. It's like people within the same company referring to someone as "the boss". Obviously there can be many "bosses" but if people are writing to colleagues in shorthand they're not going to need to pull up a protocol guide to figure out who it's referring to. I find it extremely unlikely that anyone internally at City is calling anyone else "HH" without specifying further if its NOT the obvious one.


Edit: Even at my current firm, we refer to the CEO in correspondence by his initials "JG". There is in fact another person with the initials JG, but somehow there's never any confusion which we're talking about.
 
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cjn said:
Man I really hope that isn't a key thread in the argument. It's like people within the same company referring to someone as "the boss". Obviously there can be many "bosses" but if people are writing in shorthand it's not going to be up to interpretation. I find it very unlikely that anyone internally at City is calling anyone else "HH" without specifying further if its NOT the obvious one.
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It won't have been a key thread in the CAS appeal in itself, as Stefan says. But it may give us some context, something which was sorely lacking in the emails published in Der Spiegel. It could well be a pointer to who paid the additional money.

My grounds for saying that it doesn't refer to Sheikh Mansour on the balance of probabilities are that:
  • Other emails refer to 'ADUG', so why not in this one if that's what Pearce meant?
  • There's no other emails we've seen where Sheikh Mansour is referred to by name (although that doesn't mean there aren't any). It was ADUG in the ones published, or 'ADUG shareholder'.
  • I even doubt whether Sheikh Mansour has the day-to-day involvement in ADUG that would require him to make that decision.
  • We know Etihad and its sponsorship of City was funded by the Executive Council, which is chaired by MBZ just a couple of years earlier.
  • We know the protocol is that the use of 'His Highness' without any preceding qualification (I.e. when it's clear which member of the royal family it's referring to) appears to be reserved for MBZ. And Pearce would certainly have known that. It would be second nature to him.
 
blueparrot said:
Also wouldn’t have thought it would be his decision to fight it at CAS or not if we were indeed offered a deal before last week.
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The Group CEO of CFG would not be the decision maker of a massive dispute in the principle club? Of course, he would have been a key decision maker - probably with Khaldoon as Chair. That is not to say others would not have input but he would be a key decision maker.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
It won't have been a key thread in the CAS appeal in itself, as Stefan says. But it may give us some context, something which was sorely lacking in the emails published in Der Spiegel. It could well be a pointer to who paid the additional money.

My grounds for saying that it doesn't refer to Sheikh Mansour on the balance of probabilities are that:
  • Other emails refer to 'ADUG', so why not in this one if that's what Pearce meant?
  • There's no other emails we've seen where Sheikh Mansour is referred to by name (although that doesn't mean there aren't any). It was ADUG in the ones published, or 'ADUG shareholder'.
  • I even doubt whether Sheikh Mansour has the day-to-day involvement in ADUG that would require him to make that decision.
  • We know Etihad and its sponsorship of City was funded by the Executive Council, which is chaired by MBZ just a couple of years earlier.
  • We know the protocol is that the use of 'His Highness' without any preceding qualification (I.e. when it's clear which member of the royal family it's referring to) appears to be reserved for MBZ. And Pearce would certainly have known that. It would be second nature to him.
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(in my very strongly held opinion - believe if you like etc etc)...HH is Sheikh Mansour and its all shorthand for "HH via the ADUG vehicle with lawyers and accountants left to sort out the paperwork so it works legally and for audit."
 
projectriver said:
The Group CEO of CFG would not be the decision maker of a massive dispute in the principle club? Of course, he would have been a key decision maker - probably with Khaldoon as Chair. That is not to say others would not have input but he would be a key decision maker.
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But he wasn't the architect of the scheme. He didn't take up his role in late 2012 and suddenly decide that ADUG would take over the funding of the Etihad deal. Of course he would almost certainly have been aware of the details but I wouldn't expect him to carry the can if the appeal isn't upheld.
 
I’ve mentioned this before but I’m not sure many picked up on it. The Conn article stated that in the lead up to the 2014 sanction, City provided UEFA with 12 months worth of bank records from our online account going back to Spring 2013. You also have to think that in the wake of the 2014 settlement agreement - when our accounts were under even greater scrutiny from UEFA - that we would’ve provided them with bank records for perhaps the next couple of years or so. Surely if there were any significant payments from ADUG then they would’ve stood out like a sore thumb and been picked up by UEFA at the time?
 
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