PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[manimanc]

Are we planning to take anyone out or just clearing our own name.

Both i hope.

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

If there is a legal expert reading I'd welcome your opinion.... Im assuming MCFC have always followed legal advice on when and how to cooperate. I realise they made a choice to do this and therefore must face any consequences of doing so. However when defending non cooperation charges do the Lawyers use this in mitigation and explain why eg if the PL demands for documentation were beyond the scope of the alleged charges. I believe MCFC will not be accepting any of these charges in exchange for a settlement.

 

[SilverFox2]

I haven't got a clue about legal matters so employ a specialist whenever the situation is needed.
I imagine City do the same rather than relying on any emotional feelings about situations.

I'm sure others have said this but is it not certain that legal advice would have insisted on a contingency for this non compliance?
Amongst the mountain of evidence (I think TH suggested a small skip full) furnished by City must be compulsive and dare I say legally arguable reasons for this non compliance at the time.

Just an opinion but frankly irrespective of legality I would not want to be on the wrong side of Mr K or SheikM should things get more personal.

 

[Delboy352]

I can just imagine the conversation…
PL: Could you supply emails please?
City: Sure. Which ones?
PL: All of them. Also all sponsorship documents. In fact, could you just give us access to all your servers and we can just look to see what we need.
City: Sorry, but no. Specific ones, maybe but not the lot.
PL and Press: City refuse to cooperate…

 

[jimmygrimblesboots]

If we do not co-operate and provide documents that we believe are irrelevant to the specific charges , then the Premier league cannot prove their charges , they can only fine us for non-co-operation.
It is patently obvious the Premier league want a free hit and view everything regarding our finances which we are not prepared to submit.
If we get a fine , transfer ban or whatever it make no difference to the general public , as Pep said we are already guilty in the eyes of t he football world , even if we disproved every charge the "no smoke without fire" fraternity will be at full throttle , just like the CAS judgement , nobody believes we were cleared. So in the eyes of the majority of idiot,myopic footbal followers there will always be an asterisk against our success.
But in the record books there will be no asterisk , just confirmation that we have been the best team in English football for over a decade , and that is all our fans should be bothered about.
BEST TEAM IN THE AND AND ALL THE WORLD , suck it up , haters.

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

All of us can read the MSM like a book now, eg the coverage after CAS, the reporting was like....

"MAN FOUND GUILTY OF URINATING IN PUBLIC !!!...(but was also cleared of all charges of murder, rape and treason)"

There Is no incentive in accepting non-coperation charges, so MCFC should
contest these as strongly as the others.

It was joyous to hear the Mail group paper sales are down 20% year on year and another tranche of their "journalists" are being made redundant.They might try looking for real work.

 

[Gazza]

All of us can read the MSM like a book now, eg the coverage after CAS, the reporting was like....

"MAN FOUND GUILTY OF URINATING IN PUBLIC !!!...(but was also cleared of all charges of murder, rape and treason)"

There Is no incentive in accepting non-coperation charges, so MCFC should
contest these as strongly as the others.

It was joyous to hear the Mail group paper sales are down 20% year on year and another tranche of their "journalists" are being made redundant.They might try looking for real work.

or real news, not the usual made up shite.

 

[KS55]

I can just imagine the conversation…
PL: Could you supply emails please?
City: Sure. Which ones?
PL: All of them. Also all sponsorship documents. In fact, could you just give us access to all your servers and we can just look to see what we need.
City: Sorry, but no. Specific ones, maybe but not the lot.
PL and Press: City refuse to cooperate…

I forget which fake journo tweeted:
City are trying to drown the PL in paper.
I expect he is now saying we did not co-operate.

 

[staffsblue]

I saw Khaldoon arrive at the match today in his Range Rover. Didn't think he attended many matches normally.
Over here just for the game or other business to attend to?

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

Y'all think we're doomed to be called cheats no matter what but I disagree.

The purchase of haaland certainly showed me how many more fans can be pulled in.

The only people left calling us cheats will be our rival fans. But that's instead of state run club, petrol club, no fans club, money club.... Nothing has changed really.

 

[dadnlad]

I saw Khaldoon arrive at the match today in his Range Rover. Didn't think he attended many matches normally.
Over here just for the game or other business to attend to?

hopefully making it uncomfy for newcastle directors

 

[foggy1974]

I saw Khaldoon arrive at the match today in his Range Rover. Didn't think he attended many matches normally.
Over here just for the game or other business to attend to?

No Lamborghini

 

[LesBleuMiserable]

Are we planning to take anyone out or just clearing our own name.

John Henry’s wife could be a good date. Does she like an Argentinean steak I wonder? Low brow perhaps a Shwarma with chips?

 

[whipper]

I forget which fake journo tweeted:
City are trying to drown the PL in paper.
I expect he is now saying we did not co-operate.

Or "City have used half the amazon rain forest, to drown the PL in paper" Far fetched ya say? :)

 

[Chris in London]

Hard to say. But it wouldn't have been a capricious decision not to cooperate. It would have been done on legal advice, as it was during the UEFA investigation.

I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that we can't be forced to incriminate ourselves, where the investigation is demanding documents that we don't believe have any relation to the specific charges.

So if the only charges related to Mancini's Al Jazira contract, then unless they had reasonable grounds, they couldn't demand all our sponsorship documents, for example.

Sort of.

The way it works is that the PL opened an investigation based on the leaked emails in Der Spiegel. As part of their investigation they were entitled to ask for, and we were obliged to provide, certain documents. We failed to do so, almost certainly having taken legal advice, and quite possibly (given the arguments we ran in the subsequent court case) on the basis that we were concerned about confidentiality being maintained.

It is true that the only disclosable documents within that investigation are documents that relate to the matters being investigated. However the rules in place at the time said this:

1. "Section W: Disciplinary

   Power of Inquiry

   W.1. The Board shall have power to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach of these Rules and for that purpose may require:

   W.1.1. any Manager, Match Official, Official or Player to appear before it to answer questions and/or provide information; and

   W.1.2. any such Person or any Club to produce documents.

So there isn’t really an option to ‘take the fifth,’ so to speak. If there’s an allegation that we have cheated, the PL has the power to request documents that are relevant to that allegation.

It seems to me very likely that since Der Spiegel accused us of systematic cheating over many years the PL’s inquiry was wide enough to cover everything they asked for. Certainly that appears to have been the conclusion in the arbitration which was upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. So whilst in theory we could have said ‘we aren’t providing X, it’s not relevant to your investigation’ the likelihood is that the investigation was so wide everything the PL asked for was potentially relevant. The question of what charges should be brought gets answered at the end of the investigation, not its beginning, so the charges we eventually faced were not relevant to what information we provided.

So to take the Al Jazira contract as an example, if that was all that was being investigated, we might well have said ‘we aren’t providing you with documents about image rights, they are irrelevant to your investigation’ But since the investigation was into, basically, everything , the disclosure requests were within the PL’s powers.

Our failure to comply with that is why, IMO, we are in trouble on the non-cooperation charge.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Sort of.

The way it works is that the PL opened an investigation based on the leaked emails in Der Spiegel. As part of their investigation they were entitled to ask for, and we were obliged to provide, certain documents. We failed to do so, almost certainly having taken legal advice, and quite possibly (given the arguments we ran in the subsequent court case) on the basis that we were concerned about confidentiality being maintained.

It is true that the only disclosable documents within that investigation are documents that relate to the matters being investigated. However the rules in place at the time said this:

1. 
   
   
   

So there isn’t really an option to ‘take the fifth,’ so to speak. If there’s an allegation that we have cheated, the PL has the power to request documents that are relevant to that allegation.

It seems to me very likely that since Der Spiegel accused us of systematic cheating over many years the PL’s inquiry was wide enough to cover everything they asked for. Certainly that appears to have been the conclusion in the arbitration which was upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. So whilst in theory we could have said ‘we aren’t providing X, it’s not relevant to your investigation’ the likelihood is that the investigation was so wide everything the PL asked for was potentially relevant. The question of what charges should be brought gets answered at the end of the investigation, not its beginning, so the charges we eventually faced were not relevant to what information we provided.

So to take the Al Jazira contract as an example, if that was all that was being investigated, we might well have said ‘we aren’t providing you with documents about image rights, they are irrelevant to your investigation’ But since the investigation was into, basically, everything , the disclosure requests were within the PL’s powers.

Our failure to comply with that is why, IMO, we are in trouble on the non-cooperation charge.

By "the investigation was into, basically, everything", did you mean everything in the DS emails?

 

[Sir peace frog]

Said it before but I think these charges have their roots in the red clubs, the history teams.

They threatened to sell to the ME.
Then we got the charges.
Then they have cooled down on their threats to sell to the ME.

great hangman

M...... E.......


i'll have an A :)


WNTTFWFFS YLF :)

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Sort of.

The way it works is that the PL opened an investigation based on the leaked emails in Der Spiegel. As part of their investigation they were entitled to ask for, and we were obliged to provide, certain documents. We failed to do so, almost certainly having taken legal advice, and quite possibly (given the arguments we ran in the subsequent court case) on the basis that we were concerned about confidentiality being maintained.

It is true that the only disclosable documents within that investigation are documents that relate to the matters being investigated. However the rules in place at the time said this:

1. 
   
   
   

So there isn’t really an option to ‘take the fifth,’ so to speak. If there’s an allegation that we have cheated, the PL has the power to request documents that are relevant to that allegation.

It seems to me very likely that since Der Spiegel accused us of systematic cheating over many years the PL’s inquiry was wide enough to cover everything they asked for. Certainly that appears to have been the conclusion in the arbitration which was upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. So whilst in theory we could have said ‘we aren’t providing X, it’s not relevant to your investigation’ the likelihood is that the investigation was so wide everything the PL asked for was potentially relevant. The question of what charges should be brought gets answered at the end of the investigation, not its beginning, so the charges we eventually faced were not relevant to what information we provided.

So to take the Al Jazira contract as an example, if that was all that was being investigated, we might well have said ‘we aren’t providing you with documents about image rights, they are irrelevant to your investigation’ But since the investigation was into, basically, everything , the disclosure requests were within the PL’s powers.

Our failure to comply with that is why, IMO, we are in trouble on the non-cooperation charge.

Thanks again for posting Chris. A couple of short follow up questions, for a dummy like myself to possibly understand from this.

If, as you say, we're "in trouble" for non co-operation, what are we possibly/realistically looking at in terms of punishment - if we're cleared of the other stuff? And, perhaps more importantly, if we are found guilty of non co-operation does that have consequences in terms of can they then force us to hand over further documents in effect causing this whole thing to drag on even further after the hearing?

IE, we're forced to hand over further documents and from which they obtain further evidence to reopen or begin *another* investigation?

Cheers.

 

[give it to gordon]

Why are somethings investigated like City on stolen emails.
Yet when a retired ref says he was told to say he didnt see something, that is brushed under the carpet ?

City investigated for the owner investing in his business.
Ref saying the pl is bent no investigation.

I am missing something ?

 

[Centurions]

Thanks again for posting Chris. A couple of short follow up questions, for a dummy like myself to possibly understand from this.

If, as you say, we're "in trouble" for non co-operation, what are we possibly/realistically looking at in terms of punishment - if we're cleared of the other stuff? And, perhaps more importantly, if we are found guilty of non co-operation does that have consequences in terms of can they then force us to hand over further documents in effect causing this whole thing to drag on even further after the hearing?

IE, we're forced to hand over further documents and from which they obtain further evidence to reopen or begin *another* investigation?

Cheers.

I suspect it'll play out like the UEFA one, we've now dumped everything (more or less) in their laps for the panel to peruse and they'll fine us for the non-coop charge. There won't be any more requests as they should have everything needed. They can't demand random documents which is where the non-coop charge probably originated.