PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[remember arthur mann]

What's a wank??

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

The allegation is that City breached rules relating to the provision of accurate financial information, "in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs"

The obligation we are said to be in breach of is the rule that requires the club to provide accurate financial information to give the league a "true and fair view" of the club's revenues.

'True and fair' information is a widely used and even more widely recognised term in accountancy and company law. Company directors are under a legal obligation not to approve accounts, for instance, unless they give a true and fair view of that company's finances.

So when the PL alleges that our accounts do not comply with PL rules because they do not provide a true and fair view of the club's finances, they are implicitly alleging that we have broken the law.

And if we have broken business law... Is that really for the PL to investigate? I mean why are the govn not getting involved? The law courts.

Or, as it seems, have we just broken the PL rules?

Its interesting nonetheless.

 

[pardoeofftomexico]

The allegation is that City breached rules relating to the provision of accurate financial information, "in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs"

The obligation we are said to be in breach of is the rule that requires the club to provide accurate financial information to give the league a "true and fair view" of the club's revenues.

'True and fair' information is a widely used and even more widely recognised term in accountancy and company law. Company directors are under a legal obligation not to approve accounts, for instance, unless they give a true and fair view of that company's finances.

So when the PL alleges that our accounts do not comply with PL rules because they do not provide a true and fair view of the club's finances, they are implicitly alleging that we have broken the law.

So you think a civil case decided on evidence not admitted in a criminal court and perhaps decided on the balance of probabilities would lead to a criminal case. I think not. As I said earlier on, how on earth anyone could establish the original source of funds going into City from companies whose records they have no access to is beyond me. In the early days City did show various matters in their accounts which within ten minutes struck me as likely to be questioned and they were and we had to pay a fine but they were not indicative of fraudulent conduct and no one suggested they were.

 

[Chris in London]

So you think a civil case decided on evidence not admitted in a criminal court and perhaps decided on the balance of probabilities would lead to a criminal case. I think not. As I said earlier on, how on earth anyone could establish the original source of funds going into City from companies whose records they have no access to is beyond me. In the early days City did show various matters in their accounts which within ten minutes struck me as likely to be questioned and they were and we had to pay a fine but they were not indicative of fraudulent conduct and no one suggested they were.

That isn't what I said.

Read it again and you might get it.

 

[Chris in London]

And if we have broken business law... Is that really for the PL to investigate? I mean why are the govn not getting involved? The law courts.

Or, as it seems, have we just broken the PL rules?

Its interesting nonetheless.

It's a PL charge, but the allegation against us is that we have broken PL rules in a way which, if true, would also amount to a criminal offence

 

[ScottSinclair]

That's the problem we don't. He regularly claims we have been found guilty of ffp breaches without mentioning we were cleared on appeal and the club does nothing

Why would the club waste any resources on Simon Jordan or anyone on talksport? Like genuinly? No one outside of England gives a damn about that radioshow or the mongrels they rent a quote from, and I'm surprised even the english give them the time of day

 

[pardoeofftomexico]

That isn't what I said.

Read it again and you might get it.

I am taking into account what you have been saying.

e.g. "Sorry, what is being suggested by the PL is EXACTLY that our accounts are fraudulent, and that our auditors have failed to spot that.

The charges appear to involve allegations of conduct that if proved would amount to criminal conduct under the Companies Acts.

These allegations are about as serious as it gets outside the criminal courts".

I don't agree but never mind. Back to actually watching football, albeit only on TV!

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'm led to believe, if I've picked up @projectriver, @Prestwich_Blue and others correctly, that saying our accounts are effectively fraudulent is exactly what they're saying by charging us. And by consequence, the auditors are either (a) complicit in the fraud or (b) they too have been completely deceived by the club.

"Fraudulent" to me is deliberate misstatement of our financial situation, which is intended to deceive anyone looking at our financial statements. My ex-bosses at the insurance company I worked at deliberately withheld large claims from the system, in order to make the company look more profitable than it actually was. They reported modest profits of around £20m which should have been a large loss of £180m. That's fraud and they were convicted (and jailed) for conspiracy to defraud.

But if we were paying player image rights via a third party (and UEFA apparently knew that back in 2015 so we hadn't deceived them) and we'd had advice from reputable professionals that this was perfectly legal, then that's not fraud.

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

Final thoughts from me... Our sponsorship by Etihad is similar in many ways to the sponsorship of Arsenal by the Emirates, which of course is seen as pure as the driven snow. The PL have always known the UAE connection between MCFC and Ethihad Airways from day one. So after approving the sponsorship for a decade they have now decided it's not valid. They have not provided any justification for this in public. I'm convinced this is the THE core issue....
Anyway, good result tonight I've got a feeling we are on a FA Cup collision course with the Trafford Devils, could be very very spicy....

 

[cheekybids]

"Fraudulent" to me is deliberate misstatement of our financial situation, which is intended to deceive anyone looking at our financial statements. My ex-bosses at the insurance company I worked at deliberately withheld large claims from the system, in order to make the company look more profitable than it actually was. They reported modest profits of around £20m which should have been a large loss of £180m. That's fraud and they were convicted (and jailed) for conspiracy to defraud.

But if we were paying player image rights via a third party (and UEFA apparently knew that back in 2015 so we hadn't deceived them) and we'd had advice from reputable professionals that this was perfectly legal, then that's not fraud.

As you say deliberately mis-stating. Just like the results of CAS.

 

[Maly]

In the early days City did show various matters in their accounts which within ten minutes struck me as likely to be questioned and they were and we had to pay a fine but they were not indicative of fraudulent conduct and no one suggested they were.

Which matters struck you as likely to be questioned in the early days & which of these lead to a fine? Other than failing FFP when the toolkit for FFP was changed after we’d submitted our accounts?

I honestly can’t remember any other fine we’ve had for our accounting?

 

[petrusha]

[That City are "breaking PL rules, not the law" is] my assessment based on my view of the nature of accounting, but it's not shared by the legal eagles on here.

No-one has yet been able to explain to me how the Etihad sponsorship should have been accounted for any differently even if Mansour gave cash in a suitcase to Etihad to pay for the sponsorship. The accounting fundamentals as far as the club is concerned are exactly the same, so the accounts would be the same imho.

Of course, if that happened and we hid it from the PL, that would be a regulatory problem.

It's like groundhog day. Anyway, we go again.

First, none of the "legal eagles" on here has said we're breaking either PL rules or the law. We've commented on what the PL seems to be accusing the club of doing, which is an entirely different thing, We can't be sure, because the level of detail thus far provided by the PL is inadequate to make that out with absolute certainty. However, the CAS proceedings offer us the best guide as we seek to analyse the position.

We're accused by the PL of breaching the duty contained in its rules to provide financial information that gives a true and fair reflection of the club's financial position "with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs". This is exactly the issue that dominated the CAS proceedings, and unless we're presented with evidence to the contrary, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that the nature of the accusations from the PL is materially the same as that of the charges UEFA found proven against us.

Your argument, as far as I understand it, is that you don't see how City could, even if we did record shareholder funding as a sponsorship, have broken the law and you therefore don't accept that we've been accused of breaking the law. This is isn't a corollary. I think that UEFA acted risibly in imposing on us the penalty that they handed down based on the evidence at their disposal, but they nonetheless did so and to argue that they didn't is simply fallacious.

If we want to assess the true nature of UEFA's findings against us, we don't have to guess. We can refer to the 93-page CAS Award, in which these issues are spelled out in detail. It's there in black and white: this document tells us exactly what UEFA found MCFC guilty of. In particular, between pages 8 and 12 of the CAS Award, the Panel summarises the nature of the UEFA decision we were appealing in the proceedings at hand. In doing so, the panel quotes directly from the Decision of UEFA's Adjudicatory Chamber, so we have the findings straight from the horse's mouth.

In particular, on page 9 (under the heading "Audited financial statements ...", just in case anyone doubts what's being spoken about here), it's stated that an "incorrect treatment of sponsorship revenue is reflected in the financial statements for the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016". Further, as a result:

1. by "overstating its sponsorship revenue in the [audited] annual financial statements of MCFC for each of the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 [MCFC] submitted to the FA [audited] financial statements which were not complete and correct"; and
2. therefore, the "declarations, representations and confirmations made by [MCFC] ... that all submitted documents and information relating to the financial statements referred to above were complete and correct, were false".

On page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that the above constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club put forward its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". In other words, they outright accused our major shareholder of lying. And the aim of this systematic, dishonest conduct was to attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP} Regulations".

I completely fail to see how anyone can read the CAS Award and reach a conclusion other than that UEFA was clearly accusing MCFC, acting through officers of the company, of conduct that, had it happened, would have constituted a serious criminal offence on the part of those officers. I've already cited the body of the offence for false accounting under section 17(1)(b) of the Theft Act 1968 and analysed at some length why the above conduct meets the definition.

The fact that individuals here may not agree with UEFA that MCFC's audited accounts in the period in question were actually misleading is neither here nor there. UEFA said they were. They accused us of deliberately falsifying them. I'm not saying that your opinions have no relevance or validity. They have relevance and validity in terms of whether we were guilty of charges brought against us, nit in terms of whether the charges were actually brought.

This, emphatically, doesn't mean I think we're culpable or that, even if the CAS panel had found against us, prosecutions under section 17 of the 1968 Act would have followed. But that doesn't lessen the seriousness of the charges with respect to which UEFA found MCFC guilty.

If people want to seek out legitimate reasons as to why I might be wrong in assuming (which is all I can do at this stage) that the PL's accusations with regard to sponsorship are as serious as those UEFA put forward, then please do. I'd love to hear those arguments. But in their absence, I think we have to presuppose that the PL is making out a similar case to UEFA. To characterise that case as surrounding minor accounting issues involving only technical breaches of the PL's own rules seems to me misleading, and certainly not borne out by the CAS Award.

I ultimately think it was outrageous for UEFA to put forward the case it did based on the evidence it had. Our club was dragged through the mud as a result. Now the PL seems to be repeating the exercise, and, if it's putting forward a similar case, it needs calling out on that. Mealy-mouthed refusals to face the truth by people who either haven't read or at least haven't understood the CAS Award seem to me to be entirely unhelpful.

As it stands, the PL seems to be happy to throw around accusations of incendiary seriousness, even though I take the point that it seems to be trying, in public, to downplay their nature. In my view, that doesn't matter in the slightest. It's the substance of the allegations and not how they're presented that counts. And if the PL wants to throw around allegations of this type, we shouldn't be complicit in diminshing them. LET THE PL FUCKING OWN THEM.

 

[KS55]

It's like groundhog day. Anyway, we go again.

First, none of the "legal eagles" on here has said we're breaking either PL rules or the law. We've commented on what the PL seems to be accusing the club of doing, which is an entirely different thing, We can't be sure, because the level of detail thus far provided by the PL is inadequate to make that out with absolute certainty. However, the CAS proceedings offer us the best guide as we seek to analyse the position.

We're accused by the PL of breaching the duty contained in its rules to provide financial information that gives a true and fair reflection of the club's financial position "with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs". This is exactly the issue that dominated the CAS proceedings, and unless we're presented with evidence to the contrary, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that the nature of the accusations from the PL is materially the same as that of the charges UEFA found proven against us.

Your argument, as far as I understand it, is that you don't see how City could, even if we did record shareholder funding as a sponsorship, have broken the law and you therefore don't accept that we've been accused of breaking the law. This is isn't a corollary. I think that UEFA acted risibly in imposing on us the penalty that they handed down based on the evidence at their disposal, but they nonetheless did so and to argue that they didn't is simply fallacious.

If we want to assess the true nature of UEFA's findings against us, we don't have to guess. We can refer to the 93-page CAS Award, in which these issues are spelled out in detail. It's there in black and white: this document tells us exactly what UEFA found MCFC guilty of. In particular, between pages 8 and 12 of the CAS Award, the Panel summarises the nature of the UEFA decision we were appealing in the proceedings at hand. In doing so, the panel quotes directly from the Decision of UEFA's Adjudicatory Chamber, so we have the findings straight from the horse's mouth.

In particular, on page 9 (under the heading "Audited financial statements ...", just in case anyone doubts what's being spoken about here), it's stated that an "incorrect treatment of sponsorship revenue is reflected in the financial statements for the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016". Further, as a result:

1. by "overstating its sponsorship revenue in the [audited] annual financial statements of MCFC for each of the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 [MCFC] submitted to the FA [audited] financial statements which were not complete and correct"; and
2. therefore, the "declarations, representations and confirmations made by [MCFC] ... that all submitted documents and information relating to the financial statements referred to above were complete and correct, were false".

On page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that the above constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club put forward its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". In other words, they outright accused our major shareholder of lying. And the aim of this systematic, dishonest conduct was to attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP} Regulations".

I completely fail to see how anyone can read the CAS Award and reach a conclusion other than that UEFA was clearly accusing MCFC, acting through officers of the company, of conduct that, had it happened, would have constituted a serious criminal offence on the part of those officers. I've already cited the body of the offence for false accounting under section 17(1)(b) of the Theft Act 1968 and analysed at some length why the above conduct meets the definition.

The fact that individuals here may not agree with UEFA that MCFC's audited accounts in the period in question were actually misleading is neither here nor there. UEFA said they were. They accused us of deliberately falsifying them. I'm not saying that your opinions have no relevance or validity. They have relevance and validity in terms of whether we were guilty of charges brought against us, nit in terms of whether the charges were actually brought.

This, emphatically, doesn't mean I think we're culpable or that, even if the CAS panel had found against us, prosecutions under section 17 of the 1968 Act would have followed. But that doesn't lessen the seriousness of the charges with respect to which UEFA found MCFC guilty.

If people want to seek out legitimate reasons as to why I might be wrong in assuming (which is all I can do at this stage) that the PL's accusations with regard to sponsorship are as serious as those UEFA put forward, then please do. I'd love to hear those arguments. But in their absence, I think we have to presuppose that the PL is making out a similar case to UEFA. To characterise that case as surrounding minor accounting issues involving only technical breaches of the PL's own rules seems to me misleading, and certainly not borne out by the CAS Award.

I ultimately think it was outrageous for UEFA to put forward the case it did based on the evidence it had. Our club was dragged through the mud as a result. Now the PL seems to be repeating the exercise, and, if it's putting forward a similar case, it needs calling out on that. Mealy-mouthed refusals to face the truth by people who either haven't read or at least haven't understood the CAS Award seem to me to be entirely unhelpful.

As it stands, the PL seems to be happy to throw around accusations of incendiary seriousness, even though I take the point that it seems to be trying, in public, to downplay their nature. In my view, that doesn't matter in the slightest. It's the substance of the allegations and not how they're presented that counts. And if the PL wants to throw around allegations of this type, we shouldn't be complicit in diminshing them. LET THE PL FUCKING OWN THEM.

Similarly, many press commentators have effectively accused our chairman of issuing false accounts, a serious criminal offence. So serious, in fact, that I was surprised that the club, or Khaldoon himself, did not take action.

 

[applecentral]

View attachment 70641

No wrong. That’s a Wanker!

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

The CAS judgement also questioned why MCFC did not provide the irrefutable evidence presented to CAS earlier, ie during the UEFA investigations. This must have been due to the legal advice given to MCFC. The CAS judgement stated the appeal process would have been unnecessary. However MCFC had lost faith in the process because UEFAs handling of the investigation was fundamentally flawed and prejudiced against them. The PL can NOT prove the sponsorship of MCFC by Etihad Airways was disguised equity funding because it wasn't. In the same way they can't prove the King Power sponsorship of the LCFC was disguised equity funding because it wasn't.

 

[Vic]

Anyway, it's oil money bad, betting money good - and everyone knows which is more likely to lead to corruption.

 

[halfcenturyup]

The allegation is that City breached rules relating to the provision of accurate financial information, "in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs"

The obligation we are said to be in breach of is the rule that requires the club to provide accurate financial information to give the league a "true and fair view" of the club's revenues.

'True and fair' information is a widely used and even more widely recognised term in accountancy and company law. Company directors are under a legal obligation not to approve accounts, for instance, unless they give a true and fair view of that company's finances.

So when the PL alleges that our accounts do not comply with PL rules because they do not provide a true and fair view of the club's finances, they are implicitly alleging that we have broken the law.

In your view, does the term "financial information" in this schedule of breaches refer solely to the signed, audited annual accounts, or to the signed, audited annual accounts and the supplementary financial information required by the PL taken as a whole?

 

[halfcenturyup]

It's like groundhog day. Anyway, we go again.

First, none of the "legal eagles" on here has said we're breaking either PL rules or the law. We've commented on what the PL seems to be accusing the club of doing, which is an entirely different thing, We can't be sure, because the level of detail thus far provided by the PL is inadequate to make that out with absolute certainty. However, the CAS proceedings offer us the best guide as we seek to analyse the position.

We're accused by the PL of breaching the duty contained in its rules to provide financial information that gives a true and fair reflection of the club's financial position "with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs". This is exactly the issue that dominated the CAS proceedings, and unless we're presented with evidence to the contrary, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that the nature of the accusations from the PL is materially the same as that of the charges UEFA found proven against us.

Your argument, as far as I understand it, is that you don't see how City could, even if we did record shareholder funding as a sponsorship, have broken the law and you therefore don't accept that we've been accused of breaking the law. This is isn't a corollary. I think that UEFA acted risibly in imposing on us the penalty that they handed down based on the evidence at their disposal, but they nonetheless did so and to argue that they didn't is simply fallacious.

If we want to assess the true nature of UEFA's findings against us, we don't have to guess. We can refer to the 93-page CAS Award, in which these issues are spelled out in detail. It's there in black and white: this document tells us exactly what UEFA found MCFC guilty of. In particular, between pages 8 and 12 of the CAS Award, the Panel summarises the nature of the UEFA decision we were appealing in the proceedings at hand. In doing so, the panel quotes directly from the Decision of UEFA's Adjudicatory Chamber, so we have the findings straight from the horse's mouth.

In particular, on page 9 (under the heading "Audited financial statements ...", just in case anyone doubts what's being spoken about here), it's stated that an "incorrect treatment of sponsorship revenue is reflected in the financial statements for the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016". Further, as a result:

1. by "overstating its sponsorship revenue in the [audited] annual financial statements of MCFC for each of the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 [MCFC] submitted to the FA [audited] financial statements which were not complete and correct"; and
2. therefore, the "declarations, representations and confirmations made by [MCFC] ... that all submitted documents and information relating to the financial statements referred to above were complete and correct, were false".

On page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that the above constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club put forward its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". In other words, they outright accused our major shareholder of lying. And the aim of this systematic, dishonest conduct was to attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP} Regulations".

I completely fail to see how anyone can read the CAS Award and reach a conclusion other than that UEFA was clearly accusing MCFC, acting through officers of the company, of conduct that, had it happened, would have constituted a serious criminal offence on the part of those officers. I've already cited the body of the offence for false accounting under section 17(1)(b) of the Theft Act 1968 and analysed at some length why the above conduct meets the definition.

The fact that individuals here may not agree with UEFA that MCFC's audited accounts in the period in question were actually misleading is neither here nor there. UEFA said they were. They accused us of deliberately falsifying them. I'm not saying that your opinions have no relevance or validity. They have relevance and validity in terms of whether we were guilty of charges brought against us, nit in terms of whether the charges were actually brought.

This, emphatically, doesn't mean I think we're culpable or that, even if the CAS panel had found against us, prosecutions under section 17 of the 1968 Act would have followed. But that doesn't lessen the seriousness of the charges with respect to which UEFA found MCFC guilty.

If people want to seek out legitimate reasons as to why I might be wrong in assuming (which is all I can do at this stage) that the PL's accusations with regard to sponsorship are as serious as those UEFA put forward, then please do. I'd love to hear those arguments. But in their absence, I think we have to presuppose that the PL is making out a similar case to UEFA. To characterise that case as surrounding minor accounting issues involving only technical breaches of the PL's own rules seems to me misleading, and certainly not borne out by the CAS Award.

I ultimately think it was outrageous for UEFA to put forward the case it did based on the evidence it had. Our club was dragged through the mud as a result. Now the PL seems to be repeating the exercise, and, if it's putting forward a similar case, it needs calling out on that. Mealy-mouthed refusals to face the truth by people who either haven't read or at least haven't understood the CAS Award seem to me to be entirely unhelpful.

As it stands, the PL seems to be happy to throw around accusations of incendiary seriousness, even though I take the point that it seems to be trying, in public, to downplay their nature. In my view, that doesn't matter in the slightest. It's the substance of the allegations and not how they're presented that counts. And if the PL wants to throw around allegations of this type, we shouldn't be complicit in diminshing them. LET THE PL FUCKING OWN THEM.

:) Yes, I did say I would shut up but I couldn't resist a little nibble. I must be driving you guys nuts.

First, I didn't realise the term legal eagles was derogatory. Apologies if you took it that way. I should have said legal experts.

Second, in my defence I was replying to a guy who said "Makes sense to me. So we are breaking PL rules, not breaking the law. Is that correct." Which is an opinion I still hold, based on the facts presented at CAS. I wasn't giving an opinion on what the actual charges are.

But as I have your exasperated attention, once again - one question. If you were the PL lawyer, and you know how things went at CAS, would you not recommend less serious charges of regulation breaches in the hope there is a better chance of a favourable verdict, or would you go all-out for fraudulent signed, audited annual accounts and implied criminal liability under the Companies Acts?

 

[halfcenturyup]

"Fraudulent" to me is deliberate misstatement of our financial situation, which is intended to deceive anyone looking at our financial statements. My ex-bosses at the insurance company I worked at deliberately withheld large claims from the system, in order to make the company look more profitable than it actually was. They reported modest profits of around £20m which should have been a large loss of £180m. That's fraud and they were convicted (and jailed) for conspiracy to defraud.

But if we were paying player image rights via a third party (and UEFA apparently knew that back in 2015 so we hadn't deceived them) and we'd had advice from reputable professionals that this was perfectly legal, then that's not fraud.

I have to ask PB, do you think the Etihad sponsorship revenue would have been wrongly stated in the signed, audited annual accounts even in the case that Mansour gave the money to Etihad to pay City?

Fair value is not an issue, everybody accepts the contract that was signed, that the services were delivered and that the services provided were paid for in full by Etihad. I just don't see how that revenue could have been accounted for any differently. How Etihad got the money, in terms of accounting in the signed, audited annual accounts, is an issue for Etihad and the people providing the money, not the club, imho.

 

[Chris in London]

In your view, does the term "financial information" in this schedule of breaches refer solely to the signed, audited annual accounts, or to the signed, audited annual accounts and the supplementary financial information required by the PL taken as a whole?

I think that it must relate only to the accounts.

Our obligation is to provide the PL with financial information that gives a true and fair view of our financial circumstances. It is basically the same obligation as exists under company law. So the accounts we prepare and which are independently audited fulfil two purposes - one, we send them to Companies House every year, as the law requires, and two we send them to the PL every year, as PL rules require.

The requirement is currently set out in rule E3 which says

"Each Club shall by 1 March in each Season, submit to the Board a copy of its Annual Accounts in respect of its most recent financial year or if the Club considers it appropriate or the Board so requests the Group Accounts of the Group of which it is a member (in either case such accounts to be prepared and audited in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements) together with a copy of the directors’ report for that year and a copy of the auditors’ report on those accounts."

The rules make further provision for the league to request supplementary financial information if the auditors throws up any queries, but otherwise the accounts should be final. That does not apply in our case because there were no queries from the auditors.

That said, as part of an investigation, or as a precursor to the investigation,
the PL may request that we should provide further financial information. Whilst as I understand it, there is no obligation on us to provide further information other than as part of an investigation. We do however have to provide further information if a formal investigation is opened, and if we fail to do so that justifies a 'failure to co-operate' charge. In this case the investigation was opened shortly after the Der Spiegel leaks were published. The Court of Appeal hearing a couple of years ago resulted to the complaint that as part of the Investigation we had failed to provide the material requested.

So (returning to your question) the actual charge of providing misleading financial information can only relate, I think, to an allegation that the accounts are misleading, because the audit was unqualified. Anything else that the PL is not satisfied with - whether the allegation is that we didn't provide anything or we provided misleading information - would be part of a 'failure to co-operate' charge.