PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

They are in effect accusing our auditors of collusion with falsifying our published accounts, which would be fraudulent, or of incompetence.
No; in the event that we're found in breach, the audtors simply have to say that they audited our accounts based on the information given to them by us at the time.

An audit doesn't garantee that no fraud has taken place - eg Enron had their accounts audted like every other large Corp. There invariably has to be a large degree of 'in good faith' trust between the auditor and the client.
 
I am maybe crediting someone at the Premier League with a modicum of legal intelligence, but they have left an open goal for BDO, Etihad and others to go after their own pound of flesh if we are cleared?
BDO certainly won’t give a shit - it is the responsibility of the company being audited to provide such documentation to the auditor to allow a ‘true and fair’ view to be taken.

If the PL were able to produce some smoking gun documents that discredited the Annual Report of those years being charged, BDO would simply say ‘we never saw it, and ruled on what we did see’.
 
Don't post a lot these days, but need to use some sort of forum to vent.

I find myself falling out of love with the game that has been so wrapped in to my very DNA as a person day by day. For as long as I can remember, it has made up a huge part of my life & personality. I now find the general landscape of football in general utterly depressing, rotten to the core & increasingly unbearable. The fact that the only way you can wish to see your team compete consistently for the game's biggest honours is by your club being taken over by a ruling member of a Middle Eastern royal family is something that is often, in fact, no, always lost on the detractors of City. Even withstanding how broken that is, it's not even an avenue open to clubs in Spain, Germany etc.

I love my club, Eric Brook was my Grandfather's Uncle, so it's literally been in the blood since he was smashing goal scoring records in front of 84,000 at Maine Road, but the game today fucking stinks. Gone are the days where a brilliantly managed Leeds United, Manchester City, Derby County, Nottingham Forest et al could come from nowhere & not only compete, but WIN the biggest prizes the game had to offer. Why? Because of the slow eroding of the games competitive balance by a group of entitled clubs, lobbying their own interests to prevent others using the same path they used to stardom & success. How? By changing the very foundation of what the sport is meant to be through rotten politicking dating back to the 1970's/80's. Firstly through monopolizing gate-receipts, then the breakaway Premier League & Champions League, Super League, G-14 & of course the hijacking of FFP's original purpose by moving it away from debt maintenance, to a tool to suffocate any investment @ rivals which threatens their position. Finally now, to destroy Manchester City as a competitive force at the very top of the game.

So where are the media in this? well, acting in the interests of said clubs on the whole. Whether through being pawns for these clubs via briefings & thus guaranteeing the click revenue that brings from their legions of mindless, moronic fans. Or just being bad-faith acting journalists who support these clubs themselves, distorting rulings made by CAS, the history of City post takeover, our actual ownership model & more. The battle of public opinion has been lost since Der Speigel's original 'leaks', & has tarnished the clubs commercial reputation, I don't care what anyone says. & here is what the masses never see, including most City fans, as it so brilliantly disguised... People often slate BT/Sky for their coverage, & it makes me laugh. Their subscriber base probably has a greater % of United, Liverpool & Arsenal fans than the other 17 clubs combined. It is in their VERY interest to be biased towards these clubs, commercially. The same goes for the print media. What is going to make your company richer? A positive City article, or negative one? Think about it & stop expecting impartiality.

Now, do I love our owner? Honestly no, not any more than I would any billionaire I have 0 connection to. Do I love the fact they've made my club competitive & made all my dreams come true for 15+ years, yes I fucking do, unashamedly. In an ideal world I'd love City to be fan owned, competing at the highest level. The fact is, it's impossible due to the points outlined, namely the hijacking by a bunch of greed driven, self-interested vile clubs across Europe of the games purity, with their proxy journalists in tow, spouting their interests for generations to garner public support. With that said, we take what we can get don't we? Even so, we have to put up with all this shit, & I'm tired of it, I just want to be a football fan.

The only thing Manchester City are guilty of, is gaming a rigged system.
Probably one of the best posts I've ever read on here.
I see it so much as you do
Don't post a lot these days, but need to use some sort of forum to vent.

I find myself falling out of love with the game that has been so wrapped in to my very DNA as a person day by day. For as long as I can remember, it has made up a huge part of my life & personality. I now find the general landscape of football in general utterly depressing, rotten to the core & increasingly unbearable. The fact that the only way you can wish to see your team compete consistently for the game's biggest honours is by your club being taken over by a ruling member of a Middle Eastern royal family is something that is often, in fact, no, always lost on the detractors of City. Even withstanding how broken that is, it's not even an avenue open to clubs in Spain, Germany etc.

I love my club, Eric Brook was my Grandfather's Uncle, so it's literally been in the blood since he was smashing goal scoring records in front of 84,000 at Maine Road, but the game today fucking stinks. Gone are the days where a brilliantly managed Leeds United, Manchester City, Derby County, Nottingham Forest et al could come from nowhere & not only compete, but WIN the biggest prizes the game had to offer. Why? Because of the slow eroding of the games competitive balance by a group of entitled clubs, lobbying their own interests to prevent others using the same path they used to stardom & success. How? By changing the very foundation of what the sport is meant to be through rotten politicking dating back to the 1970's/80's. Firstly through monopolizing gate-receipts, then the breakaway Premier League & Champions League, Super League, G-14 & of course the hijacking of FFP's original purpose by moving it away from debt maintenance, to a tool to suffocate any investment @ rivals which threatens their position. Finally now, to destroy Manchester City as a competitive force at the very top of the game.

So where are the media in this? well, acting in the interests of said clubs on the whole. Whether through being pawns for these clubs via briefings & thus guaranteeing the click revenue that brings from their legions of mindless, moronic fans. Or just being bad-faith acting journalists who support these clubs themselves, distorting rulings made by CAS, the history of City post takeover, our actual ownership model & more. The battle of public opinion has been lost since Der Speigel's original 'leaks', & has tarnished the clubs commercial reputation, I don't care what anyone says. & here is what the masses never see, including most City fans, as it so brilliantly disguised... People often slate BT/Sky for their coverage, & it makes me laugh. Their subscriber base probably has a greater % of United, Liverpool & Arsenal fans than the other 17 clubs combined. It is in their VERY interest to be biased towards these clubs, commercially. The same goes for the print media. What is going to make your company richer? A positive City article, or negative one? Think about it & stop expecting impartiality.

Now, do I love our owner? Honestly no, not any more than I would any billionaire I have 0 connection to. Do I love the fact they've made my club competitive & made all my dreams come true for 15+ years, yes I fucking do, unashamedly. In an ideal world I'd love City to be fan owned, competing at the highest level. The fact is, it's impossible due to the points outlined, namely the hijacking by a bunch of greed driven, self-interested vile clubs across Europe of the games purity, with their proxy journalists in tow, spouting their interests for generations to garner public support. With that said, we take what we can get don't we? Even so, we have to put up with all this shit, & I'm tired of it, I just want to be a football fan.

The only thing Manchester City are guilty of, is gaming a rigged system.

Don't post a lot these days, but need to use some sort of forum to vent.

I find myself falling out of love with the game that has been so wrapped in to my very DNA as a person day by day. For as long as I can remember, it has made up a huge part of my life & personality. I now find the general landscape of football in general utterly depressing, rotten to the core & increasingly unbearable. The fact that the only way you can wish to see your team compete consistently for the game's biggest honours is by your club being taken over by a ruling member of a Middle Eastern royal family is something that is often, in fact, no, always lost on the detractors of City. Even withstanding how broken that is, it's not even an avenue open to clubs in Spain, Germany etc.

I love my club, Eric Brook was my Grandfather's Uncle, so it's literally been in the blood since he was smashing goal scoring records in front of 84,000 at Maine Road, but the game today fucking stinks. Gone are the days where a brilliantly managed Leeds United, Manchester City, Derby County, Nottingham Forest et al could come from nowhere & not only compete, but WIN the biggest prizes the game had to offer. Why? Because of the slow eroding of the games competitive balance by a group of entitled clubs, lobbying their own interests to prevent others using the same path they used to stardom & success. How? By changing the very foundation of what the sport is meant to be through rotten politicking dating back to the 1970's/80's. Firstly through monopolizing gate-receipts, then the breakaway Premier League & Champions League, Super League, G-14 & of course the hijacking of FFP's original purpose by moving it away from debt maintenance, to a tool to suffocate any investment @ rivals which threatens their position. Finally now, to destroy Manchester City as a competitive force at the very top of the game.

So where are the media in this? well, acting in the interests of said clubs on the whole. Whether through being pawns for these clubs via briefings & thus guaranteeing the click revenue that brings from their legions of mindless, moronic fans. Or just being bad-faith acting journalists who support these clubs themselves, distorting rulings made by CAS, the history of City post takeover, our actual ownership model & more. The battle of public opinion has been lost since Der Speigel's original 'leaks', & has tarnished the clubs commercial reputation, I don't care what anyone says. & here is what the masses never see, including most City fans, as it so brilliantly disguised... People often slate BT/Sky for their coverage, & it makes me laugh. Their subscriber base probably has a greater % of United, Liverpool & Arsenal fans than the other 17 clubs combined. It is in their VERY interest to be biased towards these clubs, commercially. The same goes for the print media. What is going to make your company richer? A positive City article, or negative one? Think about it & stop expecting impartiality.

Now, do I love our owner? Honestly no, not any more than I would any billionaire I have 0 connection to. Do I love the fact they've made my club competitive & made all my dreams come true for 15+ years, yes I fucking do, unashamedly. In an ideal world I'd love City to be fan owned, competing at the highest level. The fact is, it's impossible due to the points outlined, namely the hijacking by a bunch of greed driven, self-interested vile clubs across Europe of the games purity, with their proxy journalists in tow, spouting their interests for generations to garner public support. With that said, we take what we can get don't we? Even so, we have to put up with all this shit, & I'm tired of it, I just want to be a football fan.

The only thing Manchester City are guilty of, is gaming a rigged system.
 
BDO certainly won’t give a shit - it is the responsibility of the company being audited to provide such documentation to the auditor to allow a ‘true and fair’ view to be taken.

If the PL were able to produce some smoking gun documents that discredited the Annual Report of those years being charged, BDO would simply say ‘we never saw it, and ruled on what we did see’.

And Etihad?
 
Hopefully. We can just ruin them by proxy!

Not sure we will need to.

The landscape may be very different when this over: independent regulator on the horizon, ME owners for United, AD owning Liverpool's main sponsor, Instigator clubs weakened, City's position strengthened etc etc .......

Let's see how the chips fall in the next few months :)
 
City are supremely confident, so are the PL by all accounts, it just feels somethings not quite right about the PL's bullishness. If we are totally cleared and proved so they're going to end up being sued , feels very high stakes this!
They are going to be confident with that many charges or they wouldnt have charged us , we are confident to, poker face from both sides but yes high stakes
 
CAS relied very heavily on witness statements but on the flip UEFAs expert witness was never afforded access to the full records . I can’t remember the quote but it was something like he had seen the tip-off the ice berg but not what went on below.

CAS weren’t in a position to test the witness statements because UEFA didnt have evidence to back up the emails although when the accounts were particularly made available the amounts and timing of payments was in accord with the second email.

People are reading too much into the CAS judgment. For 1 it’s in accord with Swiss Law and 2 it, ad it’s something I keep repeating UEFA didn’t pursue to the end the fact that some documents were never disclosed they in effect gave up on that approach had they focused on that it’s highly likely that CAS would have come to the same conclusion as UEFA.

I just can’t see how City will even remotely be able to defend full non disclosure( if that’s what happened) when there was a HC ruling on the matter and indeed a PL arbitration panel has likewise confirmed contractual obligations

When the PL and City disclose in full the evidence they will rely on at the tribunal other than the hearing where that evidence will be examined it’s unlikely that even if it goes to a further hearing that either party will be allowed to reduce any further info.

Just out of curiosity, who do you actually support?
 
But we know from CAS that disguised owner investment is an accusation through Etihad?

If the same charges apply, then they are accused of being complicit, fraudulent?
Doesn't matter. We're never going to hear any of the details if we're found not guilty. So there wouldn't be any grounds for Etihad to have a case against the Premier League.
 
Not sure we will need to.

The landscape may be very different when this over: independent regulator on the horizon, ME owners for United, AD owning Liverpool's main sponsor, Instigator clubs weakened, City's position strengthened etc etc .......

Let's see how the chips fall in the next few months :)

I thought City had already run out of chips ;)
 
CAS relied very heavily on witness statements but on the flip UEFAs expert witness was never afforded access to the full records . I can’t remember the quote but it was something like he had seen the tip-off the ice berg but not what went on below.

CAS weren’t in a position to test the witness statements because UEFA didnt have evidence to back up the emails although when the accounts were particularly made available the amounts and timing of payments was in accord with the second email.

People are reading too much into the CAS judgment. For 1 it’s in accord with Swiss Law and 2 it, ad it’s something I keep repeating UEFA didn’t pursue to the end the fact that some documents were never disclosed they in effect gave up on that approach had they focused on that it’s highly likely that CAS would have come to the same conclusion as UEFA.

I just can’t see how City will even remotely be able to defend full non disclosure( if that’s what happened) when there was a HC ruling on the matter and indeed a PL arbitration panel has likewise confirmed contractual obligations

When the PL and City disclose in full the evidence they will rely on at the tribunal other than the hearing where that evidence will be examined it’s unlikely that even if it goes to a further hearing that either party will be allowed to reduce any further info.

As far as I understand it, City's position both to UEFA/CAS and the PL is that the documents they're asking to be produced, that haven't been produced, don't actually exist.

In terms of CAS testing the witness statements, they said quite clearly that UEFA did not produce any evidence nor witnesses who contradicted the City witnesses, and furthermore it was unlikely that City's witnesses had lied. Their standing as professionals is I believe taken into account when deciding whether they are to be believed or not.
 
They are going to be confident with that many charges or they wouldnt have charged us , we are confident to, poker face from both sides but yes high stakes

Dont get wrapped up in the "that many charges" argument. There will be a handful of charges, each of which affects many rules and many years. I would be surprised if it is more than 6 actual issues. A Burnley handful, if you will.

I have some experience writing "offence sheets" in a previous life, and its the easiest thing in the world to get a long list by putting in everything you can, every time it's possible.
 
Good man. I agree with you. But i also agree with TH that it won't take long. It took CAS a few months from start to finish. I would expect this to be the same, unless an appeal can be made.

Not sure I buy into these theories about the timing of the charges, either. Not sure how this helps them against an IR, and I am able to accept that the mistakes in the statement were down to incompetence, rather than time pressure.

I think it's just a process (that shouldn't have been started before UEFA had finished their case imo) winding itself down to a conclusion that will make a lot of people unhappy. And I don't mean City fans.

I'm not convinced this comes down the mountain quickly. If it does then it speaks to a process which is flawed and not thorough enough by the independent panel, for the judgement to be reliable. Baring in mind it took the league 4 years to get here, I suspect it will take some time before we get to a judgement.

Honestly, I would much rather it happened quickly so it doesn't please me at all to say I think it'll take years. Frustrating as fuck to have this smear hang around for that long.
 
No; in the event that we're found in breach, the audtors simply have to say that they audited our accounts based on the information given to them by us at the time.

An audit doesn't garantee that no fraud has taken place - eg Enron had their accounts audted like every other large Corp. There invariably has to be a large degree of 'in good faith' trust between the auditor and the client.
Given that the CFG do business in the US, I'd be astonished if the whole group don't have to abide by the Sarbanes Oxley act, which was brought in off the back of the Enron scandal
 

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