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

[leo_city]

I took the risk to hear out ~expert~ Duncan Castles on the matter. Aside the fact that I chuckled throughout the talk and him being mostly clueless, it's appalling how there are journos purposefully misguiding the audience. Not new but, still.

There was an ending bit where he said, if City were to be found guilty there could be 3 punishments handed out.
1. Transfer ban
2. Playing behind closed doors
3. Points deduction

Least to say how crestfallen he sounded listing these out, because even the self proclaimed doctor knows there is very little substance to all he talked about in the minutes prior. You do love some self realisation!

 

[Norbiton]

I took the risk to hear out ~expert~ Duncan Castles on the matter. Aside the fact that I chuckled throughout the talk and him being mostly clueless, it's appalling how there are journos purposefully misguiding the audience. Not new but, still.

There was an ending bit where he said, if City were to be found guilty there could be 3 punishments handed out.
1. Transfer ban
2. Playing behind closed doors
3. Points deduction

Least to say how crestfallen he sounded listing these out, because even the self proclaimed doctor knows there is very little substance to all he talked about in the minutes prior. You do love some self realisation!

And he’s wrong about the transfer ban isn’t he? Thought it was only FIFA who could impose that. And playing behind closed doors is the kind of sanction used for crowd disturbances such as breaking into the ground and preventing a game taking place or attacking the team coach of the opposition.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

And he’s wrong about the transfer ban isn’t he? Thought it was only FIFA who could impose that. And playing behind closed doors is the kind of sanction used for crowd disturbances such as breaking into the ground and preventing a game taking place or attacking the team coach of the opposition.

Transfer bans - that's what I thought, and it's issued for transfer irregularities not things unconnected. It's Castles though, and he's probably still using the notes list from when the 3rd party issue (via an interest in an academy in Denmark, I think) was potentially a going concern some years back.

That's the first time I've seen any suggestion of closed doors - it sounds completely bonkers as a sanction. But it is Castles.

 

[johnevans]

I took the risk to hear out ~expert~ Duncan Castles on the matter. Aside the fact that I chuckled throughout the talk and him being mostly clueless, it's appalling how there are journos purposefully misguiding the audience. Not new but, still.

There was an ending bit where he said, if City were to be found guilty there could be 3 punishments handed out.
1. Transfer ban
2. Playing behind closed doors
3. Points deduction

Least to say how crestfallen he sounded listing these out, because even the self proclaimed doctor knows there is very little substance to all he talked about in the minutes prior. You do love some self realisation!

These so-called 'journalists' know the square root of 9/10ths of 7/8ths of 4/5ths of 2/3rds of f*ck all..

Best thing is to ignore them and confine oneself to reading what Prestwich Blue and other contributors have say on these matters.

Shame the useless f*ckers who pretend they are 'journalists' don't do just that (..oh what's that? they do read what we discuss on here but still choose to plough their financially rewarding click-bait-agenda-driven furrow anyway, the useless twunts?.. well, who'd-a thought it?!)

 

[leo_city]

And he’s wrong about the transfer ban isn’t he? Thought it was only FIFA who could impose that. And playing behind closed doors is the kind of sanction used for crowd disturbances such as breaking into the ground and preventing a game taking place or attacking the team coach of the opposition.

These so-called 'journalists' know the square root of 9/10ths of 7/8ths of 4/5ths of 2/3rds of f*ck all..

Best thing is to ignore them and confine oneself to reading what Prestwich Blue and other contributors have say on these matters.

Shame the useless f*ckers who pretend they are 'journalists' don't do just that (..oh what's that? they do read what we discuss on here but choose to plough their financially rewarding click-bait-agenda-driven furrow anyway, the useless twunts?.. well, who'd-a thought it?!)

I trust PB and Stefan a lot more on these matters anyway yeah. Hence why I said it was borderline hilarious as to how unaware and ignorant most journos are for clickbait using this matter.

 

[Bozzie]

I trust PB and Stefan a lot more on these matters anyway yeah. Hence why I said it was borderline hilarious as to how unaware and ignorant most journos are for clickbait using this matter.

This is what boils my piss about the way the media report this. Tony Evans made a comment on Twitter a few days ago in response to (another) schooling from Prestwich Blue. "You obviously know know more than me and the lawyers I've spoken to", now I know he was trying to be flippant but the irony is, he's correct but won't admit it, PB, Stefan and one or two others, individually and definitely collectively, have got the knowledge and experience and have taken the time to research and fully understand the weird and wonderful intricacies of FFP. Evans, the Harris's and the rest of the WhatsApp twats claim to be serious, professional journalists. I get that they probably haven't got the time and definitely haven't got the brains to understand FFP and the investigation, I certainly haven't, so why not engage professionally, courteously and impartially with a group of people who clearly do know their onions? That's obviously a rhetorical question because we all know the answer, and it's why we, as fans, scream "agenda" when they write their predictable diatribes with nothing to substantiate any of their allegations. If there are any serious journalists out there in the msm who aren't afraid to go against the tide then it would be brilliant if they would use the expert knowledge that's here for them (for a small remuneration of course guys!)

 

[Marvin]

I trust PB and Stefan a lot more on these matters anyway yeah. Hence why I said it was borderline hilarious as to how unaware and ignorant most journos are for clickbait using this matter.

It's not ignorance. it's smear. There is no value in arguing with these people. Their aim is merely to throw mud. You want to sling mud with them, go ahead. It's not an argument you can win, because it's enough for them that there is mud flying.

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

I'll try. Under FFP, an owner can put in funds to cover a small amount of losses or they can put in funds via sponsorships.

Sheikh Mansour could put a billion pounds in our bank account but we can only spend that money in line with our revenue, and that billion pounds isn't classed as revenue as it goes on our balance sheet. However ADUG could sponsor us for a billion pounds, and that would be revenue, as it would appear on the Profit and Loss account.

FFP seeks to stop this and says that any entity defined as a related party (which is an established accounting concept) can only introduce sponsorship revenue if that contract represents fair market value. That means if it's what an unrelated third party would pay. The going rate for shirt sponsorships is now probably around £40-45m for clubs in our position so if ADUG sponsored us for £100m, that wouldn't be regarded as fair market value. Or if it paid us that for a full page advert in the programme.

To be precise, they could do that (sponsor our shirt for £100m a year) but we'd have to disregard a lot of that for FFP purposes. UEFA might only allow us to recognise £45m of that £100m as revenue, although it'd still be sat in our bank account. That happened with PSG and Qatar, where they had to disregard most of the €200m that Qatar put in as sponsorship.

If, however, the entity sponsoring us isn't classed as a related party, there is no concept of fair market value and they can pay us whatever they like. City (and our auditors) do not regard Etihad as a related party and, even if it was, the sponsorship was generally regarded (by UEFA and CAS) as representing fair value. But there's more.

The whole point of UEFA's charges, and the CAS case, was that Etihad was only paying a small part of their sponsorship and that the bulk of the money was coming from someone else. UEFA (or the CFCB to be precise) felt it was ADUG, whereas the CAS hearing showed it came from central funds supplied by the Executive Affairs Authority to Etihad (which I'd discovered some years ago). EAA isn't a related party to City so in that case, it didn't matter where Etihad got their money from. They paid us a certain amount and they got commercial exposure commensurate with what they paid.

If, on the other hand, CAS had found that ADUG had routed money into City via Etihad, it's 99% certain we would have been found to have contravened FFP and the ban would almost certainly have been upheld. Stefan, for all the brilliant work he's done on the legal side of this, is wrong to say that it didn't matter where those additional funds came from. It was quite simply the core issue at the heart of the CFCB's charges and the CAS hearing.

It mattered very much in fact. ADUG = ban, not ADUG = no ban.

Couple of quickies PB.....

I take it the EAA also made up the shortfall, so to speak, for Aabar et al?

Did UEFA formally acknowledge the EAA to be an unrelated party at CAS? I think previously the relationship had been left undefined?

 

[eastmanc]

And he’s wrong about the transfer ban isn’t he? Thought it was only FIFA who could impose that. And playing behind closed doors is the kind of sanction used for crowd disturbances such as breaking into the ground and preventing a game taking place or attacking the team coach of the opposition.

Sol Campbell on talkshite the other day was proclaiming that Chelsea had
a transfer ban imposed on them by fUEFA, and they had done a lot less than City. He is really stupid, one he doesn’t know what City have supposed to have ‘done’ and two he should know that it is only FIFA that can impose transfer bans. He also said that City had narrowly avoided a Champions League ban at CAS, which is not true at all, City battered UEFA at CAS everybody knows that. These so called experts that they have on their poxy channel should at least be informed before they talk about our club.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Couple of quickies PB.....

I take it the EAA also made up the shortfall, so to speak, for Aabar et al?

Did UEFA formally acknowledge the EAA to be an unrelated party at CAS? I think previously the relationship had been left undefined?

I don't recall any discussions about Aabar specifically but one of the time-barred arrangements was with Etisalat. There was evidence that ADUG had paid this initially but that arrangement might have been agreed prior to FFP. CAS did hear evidence that ADUG had been recompensed by Etisalat since then though.

The issue of whether EAA was a related party wasn't brought up at CAS so I would assume that it wasn't a factor. It would be hard to show it was I suspect. We do know that UEFA originally (in 2014) tried to classify Etihad and the other Abu Dhabi sponsors as related companies, which we disagreed with. As we failed FFP regardless that didn't need to be tested but had we succeeded in using the Annex XI measures regarding wages, it might have been. UEFA accepted that Etihad was fair market value but not the other ones, hence the agreement not to increase them.