CAS judgement: UEFA ban overturned, City exonerated (report out p603)

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Get well soon!

 

[SilverFox2]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Many thanks for your original post which said everything we all feel.
Please concentrate on your health but your views and knowledge have had a massive impact on many threads.

Get well soon.

 

[Reddish Blue2]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Petrusja

Get well soon. My wife is Russian and on one of our trips there, to Zlatoust, we had the misfortune to take our young son to hospital , his leg got burnt by some coffee. Great doctors and nurses, truly vocational and well worth the whisky, so I'm sure you will soon be out. Only problem I had with the hospital was the decor. The hospital wasn't the newest, more likely from the old days!!!

 

[spider blue]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Brilliant stuff mate, hope you’re soon over your illness,onwards and upwards blue.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Glad to hear you're on the mend Peter. Take it easy.

 

[Kennedy_probably_has]

Maybe a German/European thing as it's DS they're quoting.

Fuckin weird whatever it is!!

 

[Academica]

When do we expect to hear from the premier league, they can't sit on their so called investigation forever.

 

[flb]

Foolishly turned radio station over to Talksport this morning. Discussion on Sheffield Wednesday punishment saying it's not really a punishment for the owner. Cascarino says there's loads of loopholes whereby an owner can disguise money into the club and then you get wages pushed up and the trouble clubs are in. There's sponsorship. He gave the example of Etihad. Doh. They still haven't got the headline from CAS. NOT disguised equity investment! And we haven't pushed up wages and and investment is not why championship clubs are in trouble. That would be debt and dodgy gambling.

what’s even more laughable though is that these idiots are under the impression that the Etihad deal is our only source of turnover,it equates to approx give or take 10% of our annual turnover -it’s that point alone that is so so laughable , they think every player purchase we make is funded by Etihad.

 

[Kazzydeyna]

Stupendous

Niall Quinn like this post

 

[Marvin]

We've gone through a period where a dearly-loved and long-standing football club has, through Arab capital, overthrown and toppled footballing tradition and the supporters of Manchester City have been exposed to vitriolic reaction for a decade. It's completely understandable and very human.

We have grown weary of this battle but I for one feel blessed that I supported this club before this period and lived through this footballing revolution.

I dearly hope that World War one is now over, and that we can leave the trenches behind. There should now follow a period of hope and recovery but the enemy has not been truly vanquished. It has been defeated on the battle-field but it will grow again, and when the time is right it will gather its forces and attack again, and the football world will again be plunged into war. As our friends from the Villa would say: Be Prepared!

Although this conflict maybe over, I don't think I will ever forgive or accept the journalists who turned their sustained fire on our club, and at times on our supporters. Journalism is a noble profession. We are all people who want to understand and interpret the world and share that view with other people hence the growth of social media but the current industry was almost entirely subsumed by loyalty to the old guard of football, and lacked any moral independence and fortitude. Bigotry has blinded them of an ability to look at facts and interpret them. They were tested by events, and they failed. History will judge them very badly indeed. Will there be a reckoning? That is perhaps for us to decide.

Do not buy or contribute to the commercial media. That is the over-riding lesson of this conflict. They failed football fans. All football fans not just City fans.

 

[manchester blue]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

Bloody hell. Pleased you’re on the mend and hopefully discharged soon.

 

[HalfwayUpTheKippax]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

It's a really horrible disease, I hope you get over this soon. I have always really enjoyed reading your posts and your informed, intelligent analysis and comment. All the best.

 

[HalfwayUpTheKippax]

Was thinking exactly the same. Fucking weirdos, but what do you expect from a country that can’t even say ‘arse’ correctly?

...and think that the fanny is at the back rather than the front.

 

[Kennedy_probably_has]

...and think that the fanny is at the back rather than the front.

A classic excuse

 

[KS55]

You think the paid-for outlets are any better? Who employs Carragher?

You're right, but at least we have a choice with them, whereas we are forced to pay for the twats in Media City.

 

[manimanc]

When do we expect to hear from the premier league, they can't sit on their so called investigation forever.

I reckon never as it was the pathetic last attempt from the press to draw the premier league into this embarrassment of UEFA.

 

[Centurions]

When do we expect to hear from the premier league, they can't sit on their so called investigation forever.

If we're lucky they'll release a short statement saying 'In light of the CAS award we've dropped our investigation'. I suspect they'll just quietly drop it and pretend that it never happened.

 

[BringBackSwales]

I haven't been able to post my views since publication of the report. I'll also face difficulties in posting for some time to come (this is a one-off contribution and I won't be able to respond to replies to it).

But the conclusion to that article, especially the closing paragraphs, is the ultimate takeaway from CAS. This is all the more valuable as it comes from a legal professional who's (presumably) neutral in terms of fan allegiance.

I also note that CAS has been called not fit for purpose by some of our detractors in recent days. Not so. What's shown itself up as most unfit for purpose in this saga is the British football media.

City were charged with inflating revenue under sponsorship contracts whose fair value wasn't contested by UEFA, under which the relevant services had been provided, and which were underwritten by organs of the Abu Dhabi Emirati government.

All of this was in the public domain. And it showed, as many of us on here repeated ad nauseam, that MCFC would highly likely prevail before CAS unless UEFA possessed evidence hitherto unknown to us. Of course, they ultimately didn't.

Yet the British football media unanimously gloried in the prospect of our demise from the publication of Der Spiegel's revelations onwards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall one media outlet (and I mean literally not a single fucking one) ever at any stage suggesting that City may prevail.

It was all in the emails, they gloated. Well, chaps, take a look at what the CAS says about that. Should hardly have required the Brain of fucking Britain to work it out, should it.

Now, your level of performance has been truly execrable on an objective level from any body of professionals with pretensions to even bare adequacy as a group. One issue is that we find football writers trying to grapple with complex issues of finance and law when they're, perfectly understandably, lamentably ill-equipped to do so - even those who claim expertise in the relevant areas. But there's a deluge of cases where the ineptitude is bound in with bad faith: they're also desperate for us to fail.

Well, it isn't failure, is it? Quite the contrary. On the main point, the one that matters, the one on which UEFA's AC tried to hang an extended ban, it was rather emphatic: as has been said elsewhere, count the usage of terms such as 'no evidence' in the report. Anyway, try to convert the result into football terms and you're probably looking at something like 4-0.

By all means indulge your incompetence and bias by trawling through the rest of the report, the flim-flam, for out-of-context phrases you can use to discredit City for the delectation of your clickbait sheep. Go big on the barely relevant obstruction point if you want to. We're happy to have obstructed an investigation mired in illegally obtained materials, prejudicial conduct, and vicious and self-interested third-party lobbying, all egged on by vacuous press cheerleading.

The thing is, you've shown us what you are now, haven't you? We knew all along, of course, but you used to try and gaslight us. You reported on us fairly and we were too thin-skinned to see it, you used to say. That won't wash any longer, will it? Act as PR shills for our enemies in the way you seem to want to. Fine. Don't expect a reaction from us other than utterly fucking despising you for it, though.

A final mention for David Conn, the self-appointed conscience of football. I long regarded his professional success as an example of Emperor's new clothes syndrome as others queued up to praise him extravagantly. I did, however, respect him for what seemed to be an ethical approach and genuine integrity.

What a sad state of affairs, then, to see his tendentious output over the last few months. It truly rivals the worst imaginable from any bigoted, comically biased, bottom-feeding hack scum that's out there. Still, chin up, David. You can always trot off back to FC United and help your mate Walsh be the exemplar of soul in modern football. Oh.

OK, maybe The Guardian will let you write a bit for the front end of the paper. Oh, no, another no-go. You did those stories on Orgreave a while back and they were fucking dreadful so you were sent back to the toy section. Looks as though you've found your level, then, doesn't it. As have City, however much you and your journo mates wish it were otherwise.

Post of the year. Get well soon pal

 

[lancs blue]

Well, it's been brewing ever since I observed the nauseating, hysterical, hyperbolic glee with which the football press responded to the original Der Spiegel stories based on the Football Leaks materials. I've been waiting ever since to have my say once the matter was properly disposed of, a moment that arrived with this week's publication of the full CAS report.

It probably also doesn't help that I'm currently in a Russian hospital undergoing treatment for Covid and associated pneumonia. I can't say I felt in much of a mood to soft-soap my views, to be honest. (I'm doing fine and am much improved compared with my rather pitiful state earlier in the week, thanks.)

All the best for a full recovery, your posts are always a good read and that earlier one was a cracker!

 

[Stoned Rose]

...and think that the fanny is at the back rather than the front.

We've all used that excuse tbf.