PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

spacecadet said:
When the gloves come off, maybe Lord Pannick KC could quietly ask them why have my clients never had a controversial VAR decision go their way versus dippers or rags, home or away? Despite being the best side by a country mile for a decade. It doesn't add up, OR does it?
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I can remember a time when the referees' decision was final...
 
Other teams and PL will be absolutely shitting themselves after yesterday. They've dropped a huge bollock going for us here I just hope we continue to go full Cirse Lannister on each and every one of them...
 
petrusha said:
This is going to be a very long post, and no doubt excruciatingly dull for the vast majority of posters on here. Nonetheless, when it's completed, I'll hit reply, having spent a big chunk of my Saturday morning on it, because I think it's helpful to try to clear the issue up when there seem to be differing interpretations of just how serious the charges brought by the PL will be seen to be when the issues behind them are known.

In the post quoted above, the assertions that I've bolded might be correct. Not only don't we know what evidence the PL has in order to substantiate the charges against us, but the PL hasn't even seen fit to provide the slightest detail regarding what the charges relate to.

Nonetheless, I personally consider that the chances of such an analysis proving correct are very slim. Of necessity, for it to be right in the light of what was said (which I quote below) by the CAS Panel in 2020 in the proceedings regarding the charges brought by UEFA against City, the PL's current charges must be completely unrelated to the accusations UEFA made against the club. I don't buy that.

Reports by journalists with extremely close connections to the most influential clubs reportedly pressing the PL to investigate and charge City have indicated that the purpose behind those exhortations has been to attempt to cover once more aspects of the case that UEFA prosecuted incompetently (in the meddlers’ view) before the CAS and to catch matters that might have been time-barred in the CAS proceedings. In the light of this, I think that by far the more reasonable conjecture is that the essence of the charges UEFA brought is replicated in the new charges.

So let's look at the CAS's award dated 13 July 2020 and see what the Panel itself, comprising three highly eminent and extremely experienced practitioners, thought of UEFA's charges.

Para 206 of the Award states as follows: "The Panel is satisfied to accept that the allegations in these proceedings are particularly severe. It not only concerns alleged arrangements between MCFC and ADUG as its main shareholder but also Etihad as one of its principal sponsors, concerning equity funding being disguised as sponsorship contributions over a significant period of time, resulting in an influx of relevant income for monitoring purposes, with the consequence that it could spend significantly more money (more than GBP 200,000,000) than it would have been able to spend without such arrangements."

In para 207 of the Award, the Panel notes that the alleged conduct described in para 206 would constitute dishonest concealment. Importantly, it then goes on to equate such dishonest concealment to corruption, noting that an approach developed in CAS jurisprudence with regard to matters of corruption is: "... not only applicable to cases involving corruption, but also to cases concerning an alleged dishonest concealment of equity funding as sponsorship contributions ...".

Further, looking at the skeletal information so far given by the PL of what the charges involve, it seems extremely difficult to conceive of a situation in which the accusations are true but City's accounts haven't been fabricated in a material way. The charges involve the provision of false financial information over a period of nearly a decade, and the prospect seems negligible that we could have done that but nonetheless have prepared and filed true and accurate accounts throughout that time.

Here, let me quote the opinion of @projectriver, whose knowledge of the legal aspects of City’s regulatory difficulties comfortably exceeds that of any other poster on here and that of any 'expert' I've seen in the media. He's read all the available relevant materials, for a start, which fact on its own seems to put him ahead of almost every other 'expert' commentator in terms of being qualified to deliver opinions.

In case anyone doubts his experience and abilities, I take the liberty of outlining Stefan's credentials in a post that he himself made on Tuesday, 8 February: "[I am] someone who personally led the defence of major false accounting claims in civil proceedings, prosecuted a civil claim for negligence against an auditor and for over 5 years led the (successful) defence of a public company being investigated by the SFO".

As for substantive assessments, Stefan said the following in posts on this forum on Tuesday, 8 February: "It is an ALLEGATION of wholesale false accounting over 9 seasons." Later the same morning, he wrote: "They are, in effect, claiming City deceived the PL, their auditors and multiple other bodies and filed fake accounts and fake financial forecasts. For at least 9 years."

So, assuming we're going over many of the same allegations made by UEFA and played out before the CAS, how should those be characterised? Well, the CAS made a comparison between corruption and the level of dishonesty that would have been involved had such a set of events occurred. And if we look at the criminal law in England and Wales, there's plenty of evidence there, too, as to just how serious these matters are.

The principal piece of legislation relating to criminal liability for fraud and obtaining services dishonestly is the Fraud Act 2006. However, more relevant for our purposes is section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, which relates to the criminal offence of false accounting. After all, where a relevant specific offence exists, it's proper to look at that rather than a similar but more general offence.

Section 17(1)(b) of the 1968 Act provides that a person "shall, on conviction on indictment, be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years" if that person "dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another" when he "in furnishing information for any purpose produces or makes use of any account, or any such record or document as aforesaid, which to his knowledge is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular".

I'm not claiming that City's directors would necessarily face prosecution for this offence even if the PL’s Panel makes an adverse finding against us. When to prosecute for this offence is a complex issue that was debated at some length on here in response to a post of mine back in the context of the CAS proceedings. I don't want to reopen that discussion.

For now, I simply note that I see no reasonable interpretation of the CAS Panel's description of UEFA's accusations that doesn't, on a word-by-word analysis, meet the definition of false accounting under section 17 of the 1968 Act on the part of MCFC's directors. In other words, UEFA implicitly suggested criminality on the part of officers of the club.

The CAS Award backs this up. In para 254, the Panel expressly acknowledges that to find City guilty "would require a conclusion that the evidence of several high-ranking officials of large international commercial enterprises [both inside and outside MCFC] were false and that at least [one, possibly more] would be subject to criminal sanctions". Thus, the thrust of UEFA's allegations is absolutely clear. Until presented with evidence to the contrary, we're entitled to infer that the PL's charges entail similar issues.

It's also worth discussing whether 'fraud' is a loaded term that we should avoid in this context. I submit that it isn't. First, though the body of the criminal offence of fraud under English law entails specific factors listed in the Fraud Act 2006, the term has common currency in standard English. Oxford Languages, publishers of the OED, define fraud as "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain".

I don't believe that, on a message board where most people aren't lawyers, we need to shy away from using words in their standard English meaning when there's also a more narrow or specific legal meaning. And in the standard English meaning, that's exactly what UEFA accused us of (see para 206 of the CAS Award) and what the PL presumably has, too.

But even if we should only use the term 'fraud' if there's a legal ground to do so, one exists by virtue of the Theft Act 1968. If we look at the Table of Contents of the 1968 Act, we see what heading covers the section of the Act in which false accounting falls and remember that the description of that offence is technically a match for the conduct of City's directors had UEFA's allegations been proven as well as presumably for the PL's charges.

The heading in question reads 'Fraud and blackmail'. Well, blackmail plainly isn't relevant here, so we're left with a clear suggestion that fraud is. In other words, we can infer that the 1968 Act, in the form in which it's still in force, regards false accounting as a particular form of fraud.

For all the reasons I've stated, I think it's highly likely that the substance of the PL's allegations against City are as serious as it would be possible for them to be. Furthermore, I regard the use of terms such as 'dishonest concealment', 'false accounting' and 'fraud' in this context to be highly justified. It seems rather fanciful to me to argue that only a few administrative breaches are at play, and at worst we'll receive a slap-on-the-wrist fine, being told to go away and be good boys and girls in future.

The odds, strongly, are that our club's in an existential fight for its future, at least in terms of its ability able to compete at the very top of the English and European game. That doesn't mean we have to slash our wrists and I think there are some grounds for us to be bullish - but that's for another post another time. In the meantime, nor do I think we should doubt the probable severity of the allegations made against us. Deluding ourselves is ultimately unhelpful.

For now, let’s enjoy the rest of Saturday. And let’s hope the players show a bit of the passion Pep did yesterday and take out all of our frustrations on Villa with a good performance and a win tomorrow afternoon.
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wattle said:
Was thinking, what happens when the new government regulators come in ( via the white paper)? Is there a possibility that the charges will just be revoked?
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A corrupt organisation charging an innocent team of corruption isn't a great look.

It'd be hard for them to proceed in any good nature with that hanging over them, but we'd have to see.
 
Rory Bluelow said:
New leadership at the EPL - I wonder if the change at the top enabled these charges to proceed after 4 years. I foresee another change of leadership coming (along with a regulator) and this case being withdrawn.
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I can't wait for the white paper to come out. The PL thinks this charade is proving they can handle their own oversight when in fact it's proving the opposite.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Taking my blue-tinted spectacles off, the more I think about it, the more absurd the notion that the club has systemically and substantially cooked the books becomes.

It would involve a deception on a par with Bernie Madoff, but to involve a much greater conspiracy, in terms of numbers involved. It would also involve incompetence from auditors and banks on a scale similar to the SEC and Bear Stearns in the Madoff case. Logic says the likelihood of all that occurring to be vanishingly small. The serious charges simply make no sense, if logic is applied. There may be a couple of technical breaches, but that would be true of any club.

Conspiracies are notoriously hard to keep going over a sustained period. The bigger, the harder. People fall out, or become aggrieved, or something unforeseeable occurs to move the pieces on the board. Something always happens eventually. The notion this size of conspiracy went on for the period alleged simply doesn’t hold any water.

Something evidential would have come out by now.
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Whilst I think you’re absolutely right, the only reticence one could have, in relation to any alleged conspiracy, is around leadership and culture and how that is within any organisation. If there is a culture of openness, honesty and transparency, then fraud, dishonesty and corruption would be virtually impossible.
If, however, there is a ‘toxic’ culture around a business and what’s ‘unacceptable’ is, in fact, acceptable, then the likelihood of things going awry increases hugely. Someone questions something and, if the answer from the hierarchy is, “that’s just how we do things here” it can quite quickly become the norm and that is often the driver for scandal, as opposed to a planned conspiracy.
 
PPT said:
Seeing as the CAS panel voted 4-3 in our favour we could be in deep trouble. I hope I’m wrong, but I just can’t see anything but a guilty verdict.
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It was 2-1 and the guy finding consistently for UEFA was their appointed man. I seem to remember at the time that this was usual practice for voting to go like this and that the person nominated by one party never votes against them. UEFA won none of their points beyond those where we refused to cooperate You are being way too pessimistic.
 
hilts said:
He did well but fuck me people are acting like he was Churchill or Luther King.

Hyperbole everywhere.
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How many posters have used those two to compare what Guardiola said in this thread, I have skipped large sections? I suspect none have except you.

It was a great response to the bullshit he along with our club has had to face since Sheikh Mansour took over and later when he took over as manager, and I alongside nearly all City fans would understand the sporting context and indeed wider motives (closed shop for usual teams, xenophobia/racism, European cartel teams, etc) that he was IMO eloquently and as forcefully as he could respond to this re-run of the UEFA bollocks.

Pep himself as the press conference started referred to a much more important event in the ‘real’ world that has occurred with the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, so he and as already said us as fans know what context we are talking about in this case, football.

A brilliant retort delivered to an audience baiting him throughout for any weakness in any of his replies. Pep is a very bright man speaking to the vermin who unfortunately we have as our media and IMO handles them with the contempt they deserve but in such a way most of them can barely muster a coherent reply that ever raises its head from their usual pure click bait fúcking nonsense.

In addition, we all use hyperbole especially when talking about things we love, in this case City, and when we see other people attacking the things we love, we usually respond with the passion that stirs within us as humans.

Is this attack on us personally or our family members, of course not, but it is on something I love dearly which has helped me personally throughout my life when going though the usual painful things in life such as break ups, losing family members, going through hard times such as the current cost of living, all real human day to day life events.

Sport is sport and brings up our tribal instincts and we respond with the passion and love we each individually feel for our club/tribe, and such has been the ride our beautiful club has taken us through our lives (in my case I am middle aged), that it is very hard not to respond full of the love and passion that generates and stirs within us, and in some cases may be seen as some as hyperbole, but me as already said, as passion for something we hold dear in our hearts and lives.
 
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give it to gordon said:
It's not an independent panel really am I am sure City have plans should that happen.
I am expecting them to find us guilty as it's as bent as a 9 bob note.

The chairman is a gooner season ticket holder his club was behind that letter !.

You cant have an organisation which is judge and jury and not right to appeal that is a kangaroo court.

This is why I think City have some really big dirt of a few clubs. It was very odd how all the managers keep quiet. Klopp normally cant help himself remember his " it's a bad day for football " when CAS cleared City.

Now the pl CEOs are crying over Peps presser lol they seem very sensitive for some reason, very nervous.
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NONE of the snake owners have defended CITYs right to ‘ Innocent until proven guilty’.

And cos Pep name checked Levi,one of the evil nine, the rest of the cohort start squealing.

He who laughs last laughs fucking loudest !!
 
half & half derby scarf said:
I think the exact opposite mate. The PL will inevitably have to back down before it gets anywhere near a hearing.
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Hopefully. Maybe I’m just pessimistic?
But the PL have gone all out on this one with a death or glory approach. It is the last and final opportunity to finally finish us off. They don’t give a shit about fairness or justice and they don’t have to. They want us gone.
 
give it to gordon said:
It's not an independent panel really am I am sure City have plans should that happen.
I am expecting them to find us guilty as it's as bent as a 9 bob note.

The chairman is a gooner season ticket holder his club was behind that letter !.

You cant have an organisation which is judge and jury and not right to appeal that is a kangaroo court.

This is why I think City have some really big dirt of a few clubs. It was very odd how all the managers keep quiet. Klopp normally cant help himself remember his " it's a bad day for football " when CAS cleared City.

Now the pl CEOs are crying over Peps presser lol they seem very sensitive for some reason, very nervous.
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No way on earth will an eminent King’s Counsel let his judgement be influenced by being a member at Arsenal.
 
OB1 said:
That analogy he has made is exactly right. That is what has me absolutely steaming about the whole thing. City are the victims here: victims of attempts at protectionism.
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Adding to that analogy, once the new rules governing shops were forced on him and were subsequently 'broken', the other shops colluded with the local newspaper to ensure they defamated the character of the shop owner by running stories incorrectly stating that what he had done was both legally and morally wrong. The local community read the papers and simply believe the lot.

In the next chapter it gets interesting, where the shop owner fights back and takes everyone to the cleaners, located at the end of the High Street ;-)
 
So do City get to choose a rep on this three person panel ? Or do we just get our legal men to put our case to the panel? My main concern is the objectivity of the panel. If it’s completely above board and we are bang to rights then I can accept that, if it’s a kangaroo court with little or no avenue to appeal then that is my big concern.
 
StillBluessinceHydeRoad said:
This is the aspect of the matter which has been aired on this forum but nowhere else. I think most would be very sceptical indeed about your assertion that many in Parliament and even in government are supporters of City (not perhaps in a sporting sense) because it might be assumed that the break even rule, balancing the books and "living within your means" aspect of FFP would appeal to our present government. But City are quite different from any other club, with the possible exception of Newcastle, in that they are run by people who operate on the world stage in both the diplomatic and economic spheres. The owner is HRH Sheikh Mansour. We are not dealing with local butchers, bakers or candlestick makers or dodgy second hand TV salesmen. Honesty and integrity really matter and as PB points out the PL could be in the process of "fucking up" major deals with an important friend and ally at a time when the UK needs investment desperately. The pressure must be on the PL to stop this nonsense and to make a full retraction with an unequivocal apology.

The result must also be a change in the nature of the regulatory body. If the PL survives it must be the end of "influence" exercised by the cartel. If City do have friends in government circles we have a great chance to ensure that the regulatory body is genuinely independent and one which ends this FFP nonsense so that the investment which football needs badly can be made. Cost control yes, depending on how it works: corruption, NO!

And a knighthood for Pep after his heroic effort yesterday.
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He can’t be knighted.
 
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