PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Prestwich_Blue said:
I've been thinking about this the last few days. My thinking can be slow and deliberate so it can take me a few days and a lot of thinking to get my head round things properly. We don't know with certainty what the PL have got or what the specifics of the various charges are.

But there's at least two substantive charges, and we think we know they relate to Mancini's contract with Al Jazira and image rights payments to players. With respect to the former, the PL would have to prove Mancini did not fulfil that contract to provide at least 4 days consultancy per year. Conversely, we need to show he did, and we should be cleared on any of the charges relating to that.

The image rights one is more difficult to call. Those were paid by Fordham from 2013-14 to 2017-18 as far as I can see but the charges also seem to pre-date 2013. Fordham paid us for those rights in the 2012-13 financial year and we assigned the intellectual property of those image rights to them, which they then apparently paid. It's a strange, but not illegal, arrangement that I suspect was used to generate revenue in that financial year when we thought there was a chance we could escape punishment using the Annex XI provisions. I wonder if we'd have done it in different circumstances? This is the one I feel we'll be more vulnerable on than the Mancini charges.

But both of these were part of the material put out by Der Spiegel, based on the hacked emails. The question is, if these are all they've got, then there's nothing new from 2018 but neither of these came up in the UEFA charges arising from Der Spiegel articles. So did UEFA decide they weren't worth pursuing or did they try to focus solely on the sponsorship stuff that they thought was the most egregious breach? Either way, it gives me confidence.

One thing we also know from the previous battle with UEFA is that we didn't cooperate (on legal advice I might add) because we thought they were 'fishing'. I wonder if we took the same stance with the PL, who then had to resort to stuff that was known to UEFA but they didn't pursue, potentially for reasons I outlined above.

I therefore suspect there's little new in these charges and that mainly it's a rehash of the Der Spiegel stuff, and stuff that was either time-barred or that UEFA didn't pursue. And out of that, they've generated dozens of charges making things seem much worse than they really are.
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Many thanks Colin for this reassuring post.
 
Bez said:
Surely the PL would not accept any stolen documents from Rui Pinto? An organisation with their level of integrity?
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Just to be clear, Rui Pinto didn't give this information to UEFA or the PL, he gave it to a European group of investigative reporters (I think after he was being investigated for hacking) which is where Der Spiegel got their information (I think that's the right way around). Both UEFA and the PL only had access to the online media reproductions of them, exactly the same way any of us have seen them. CAS only accepted them because we (eventually) supplied the originals.
 
Centurions said:
Just to be clear, Rui Pinto didn't give this information to UEFA or the PL, he gave it to a European group of investigative reporters (I think after he was being investigated for hacking) which is where Der Spiegel got their information (I think that's the right way around). Both UEFA and the PL only had access to the online media reproductions of them, exactly the same way any of us have seen them. CAS only accepted them because we (eventually) supplied the originals.
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Yes, I find it hard that Pinto is sat in jail there thinking of ways to "get" MCFC. He has other things on his mind. And I doubt he is in much of a position to benefit financially from the hacked documents either. It's most likely the PL only have the same info UEFA did, imo, which was not a lot.
 
Exceptionally talented is Swiss Ramble and a must to follow on Twitter . A little bit of Oasis thrown into his article to lighten the mood aswell and piss off our haters ;-) . Stefan and Prestwich Blue add their qualities to the thread aswell . Exceptional reading !
 
can i ask from those that know, we know the basics of the charges which we can see on the list but why arnt the exact charges made clear, why should we have to wait when we have to prepare defence? they want our paperwork on the 23rd so why cant we have theirs on the 23rd and how can we defend something when we dont know exactly what it is were defending? only what it relates to
 
marco said:
can i ask from those that know, we know the basics of the charges which we can see on the list but why arnt the exact charges made clear, why should we have to wait when we have to prepare defence? they want our paperwork on the 23rd so why cant we have theirs on the 23rd and how can we defend something when we dont know exactly what it is were defending? only what it relates to
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I keep wondering the same thing. Surely we need to know what we're defending ourselves on before we can mount an actual defence?
 
Centurions said:
He hasn't. If he had, his lawyers would be screaming it from the rooftops to try and reinforce their defence that he's a whistleblower and not a thief and a blackmailer.
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Just seems funny that the PL have said email information is admissible, I realise that emails cover all sort of information, but so does Der Spiegels file off Pinto?
 
marco said:
can i ask from those that know, we know the basics of the charges which we can see on the list but why arnt the exact charges made clear, why should we have to wait when we have to prepare defence? they want our paperwork on the 23rd so why cant we have theirs on the 23rd and how can we defend something when we dont know exactly what it is were defending? only what it relates to
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The PL statement obviously isn't the only communication between the two parties. That was only made in the first place because of the high court judgement that it 'was in the public interest' to make it public that anything was being investigated in the first place (I think you can thank the daily mail for that). Everything else is going to be confidential.
 
Centurions said:
He hasn't. If he had, his lawyers would be screaming it from the rooftops to try and reinforce their defence that he's a whistleblower and not a thief and a blackmailer.
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Yeah, he has no credibility surely being a convicted extortionist….
 
Centurions said:
Just to be clear, Rui Pinto didn't give this information to UEFA or the PL, he gave it to a European group of investigative reporters (I think after he was being investigated for hacking) which is where Der Spiegel got their information (I think that's the right way around). Both UEFA and the PL only had access to the online media reproductions of them, exactly the same way any of us have seen them. CAS only accepted them because we (eventually) supplied the originals.
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And I think I'm right in saying they had been edited for publication, with the originals being very different.

I wouldn't give them a single document even it was specifically related to something they got wrong. Make them work for everything. Make them detail every single charge, with everything they have (or don't have). Even if we have comprehensive and conclusive evidence, don't produce it until the last minute to torpedo them - cannot trust the slippery fucks. Don't rush to disprove something when they may ask us later for something we can't disprove, and look guilty because of the precedent we set.

I'm not sure they have subpoena power, so just like with UEFA, let them do all the work and then if all they are left with is 'failure to cooperate' that's a big loss for them, especially as we would spin it as 'wouldn't cooperate with a witch-hunt'. Then hopefully sue them for damages (or more likely store it up as leverage later) and get it in front of a more legitimate court/tribunal.

That trumped up charge list must be padded with things we refused to cooperate over, so they are "charging" us to try and get to the evidence they think might exist, but can't be sure. There is no way they have evidence for everything they are claiming. It's a shock and awe fishing expedition. Fuck them.

I really think we'll pretty much own the league when this is over.
 
Centurions said:
Just to be clear, Rui Pinto didn't give this information to UEFA or the PL, he gave it to a European group of investigative reporters (I think after he was being investigated for hacking) which is where Der Spiegel got their information (I think that's the right way around). Both UEFA and the PL only had access to the online media reproductions of them, exactly the same way any of us have seen them. CAS only accepted them because we (eventually) supplied the originals.
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Yes an the online emails were “doctored” correct? The originals when we produced them, were not even challenged by UEFA @ CAS?
 
Woody135 said:
If someone asked Neville where the Salford City commercial revenue ranked in League 2 against more established clubs I’d love to see how he can explain why without contradicting himself.

Commercial revenue is a result of 1) brand awareness 2) immediate visibility and 3) potential growth of both.

1) Theres not a football fan globally that is aware of united but not aware of city. EQUAL
2) City are more immediately visible than united because they have better players, play more important games and win more. CITY
3) City are growing faster than United, reaching an increasing number of people for the first time and CFG is important to that. CITY

Then you get into the unfair reasons. 4) Business is all about who you know and taking advantage of those relationships for mutual benefit and 5) Not everyone is equal at selling their own brand.

4) City is a tiny part of a massive investment strategy. Our owner and chairman are some of the most well connected people globally. They have more weight in a boardroom than a glazer does. No one outside the US has a clue or cares who he is.
Why were salford sponsored by sky sports in their early years. Why is Wrexham sponsored by TikTok. Because their owners knew people and got good business for their clubs. City is no different. CITY
5) Our Chairman is the CEO of an investment company managing $284bn in assets globally. Ed woowar who was CEO at united 2013-2021 was an accountant and investment banker that hadnt worked outside United since 2005. Who of those is more likely to have better skills or experience. CITY

There are so many logical reasons our commercial revenue is higher.
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The most logical and simple reasoning is far less difficult to process. Biggest TV & Prize revenue = highest commercial revenues in every other league…
 
Centurions said:
He hasn't. If he had, his lawyers would be screaming it from the rooftops to try and reinforce their defence that he's a whistleblower and not a thief and a blackmailer.
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I don’t think the Premier League could be seen to be trading in stolen information of one of their members and shareholders even if they legally could.
 
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