PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Chris in London said:
I suppose it's a matter of judgment, and mine is that the cub would not be interested in giving Plod free access to our books in the hope of getting an all-clear, nor (at least at this stage) would Plod be interested in doing so. If the charges are proved my guess is the SFO would facing mounting public pressure to launch an inquiry of their own, and would do, but I still doubt that even in the event of the PL charges being successful there would actually be any criminal charges brought.

Others may see it differently, but I don't.
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It wouldn't be free access though. It'd be the same as any other criminal investigation, where we'd supply the relevant evidence against us & our defence, as we would in any other case.

I'm not expecting City to do any of this btw, but if I were constantly being besmirched in public this way, I'd definitely consider calling in the authorities, listing the accusations, providing my evidence & asking them if I have a criminal case to answer. If no, I'd tell my accusers to put up, or STFU.

Actions like this have been taken by individuals previously. I recall the husband of a family who'd recently moved to a new town, having dog shit posted through their letterbox & threats made, because rumours started he was a notorious, recently released paedophile who'd been rehoused. He went to the police who publicly confirmed he'd never been spoken to in connection with such heinous crimes, let alone recently released from jail for it.

At what point do we say enough is enough & go nuclear to bring this witch hunt to an end?

My family in London are all Spuds fans. When Joe Lewis pleaded guilty to insider trading which carries a maximum sentence of 45 years, I sent the article to them saying "I always wondered how you guaranteed your £1bn stadium & paid for Maddison".

After their recent accusations of City being FFP/PSR cheats & criminals, now it's radio silence. Are the PL or UEFA investigating where Spud's money came from?
 
M18CTID said:
Thanks. Is that the first time the Mancini allegations surfaced though? Could've sworn DS mentioned that before 2022.

In any case, the article itself smacks of a hatchet job and is full of innuendo, just like their original "revelations". I should've stopped reading at this:

"Manchester City, represented by almost a dozen top lawyers, appealed the ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). UEFA lost the case, despite the existence of clear evidence for the questionable business practices employed by Manchester City." That bolded bit is nothing short of a disgrace and totally ignores the CAS findings
Then there is this when talking about the PL investigation:

"According to information obtained by DER SPIEGEL, that investigation is focusing on three primary allegations.
  1. Underage players were allegedly pressured to sign contracts with Manchester City through monetary payments, in violation of the rules.
  2. Club sponsors in Abu Dhabi are suspected of having provided only a portion of their payments to the club themselves, with the majority apparently coming from Sheikh Mansour himself.
  3. Roberto Mancini, who is currently the trainer for the Italian national team but who spent the years from 2009 to 2013 as the trainer for ManCity, is thought to have received a significant portion of his compensation secretly by way of a fictitious consultancy contract."
Now I could be wrong but I'm sure the first one isn't a part of the PL investigation, yet DS reckons it is and is implying that they've been told this. Either they're lying or someone is leaking details of the investigation to DS. Not totally beyond the realms of possibility but I'm calling bullshit on that.
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No, like I said, the allegation had been there since 2018.

It’s the linked documents rather than the article itself, I didn’t even bother reading the article tbh or what Der Spiegels thoughts on it are themselves. Couldn’t care less!
 
meltonblue said:
No, like I said, the allegation had been there since 2018.

It’s the linked documents rather than the article itself, I didn’t even bother reading the article tbh or what Der Spiegels thoughts on it are themselves. Couldn’t care less!
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Thanks, and that's what I thought!

For me, the documents relating to Mancini don't prove anything. Like the leaked e-mails, of course things can be read into them but on the flip side, plausible explanations can be read into them too.

My own theory regarding the Mancini contract is that, if anything, it wasn't done for our benefit but for his in terms of paying less tax (perfectly legal I think if it can be showed that he did the requisite work for Al Jazira). There was no real upside for City as we were posting record losses at the time, so a couple of million quid a year off the books doesn't even scratch the surface of those losses, and of course FFP didn't even exist when the contracts were signed in 2009 so there was absolutely no need for us to enter into such an arrangement - well, certainly not for the purposes of deceiving the Premier League.
 
Dribble said:
But in 2014 Khaldoon continued that if they came at us again, rather than pay a £30m fine, we'd spend £30m assembling the finest legal team in the world.

The Red Top Mafia & Spuds just keep coming at us. If this thread has shown me anything, it's in the big scheme of things, normal business practices are being hyped up to Enron levels of corporate fraud & criminality.

UEFA & the PL just won't leave us alone to play football. Even Aguero was accosted during an interview last week, where he emphatically told the journalist every trophy he gained at City was won fair & Square on the pitch.

At what point is enough, enough?
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Simon Cliff said in an email sent at at the end of April 2014: "Khaldoon said he would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years." The football association, according to the email, now had the possibility "to avoid the destruction of their rules and organization."

There was no "if they came at us again" with Khaldoon at the time that I can see. Khaldoon was talking figuratively. We settled with UEFA in May 2014 so he didn't the need the 50 best lawyers etc,

So, we took the pinch. We were happy with the settlement. It was paradoxically a good deal for us (according to prestwichblue and I agree with him).

But I understand your sentiment.
 
M18CTID said:
Thanks, and that's what I thought!

For me, the documents relating to Mancini don't prove anything. Like the leaked e-mails, of course things can be read into them but on the flip side, plausible explanations can be read into them too.

My own theory regarding the Mancini contract is that, if anything, it wasn't done for our benefit but for his in terms of paying less tax (perfectly legal I think if it can be showed that he did the requisite work for Al Jazira). There was no real upside for City as we were posting record losses at the time, so a couple of million quid a year off the books doesn't even scratch the surface of those losses, and of course FFP didn't even exist when the contracts were signed in 2009 so there was absolutely no need for us to enter into the arrangement to deceive the Premier League.
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Agreed. The issue is more who was negotiating and paying it though. If it was completely separate then there’s no issue at all.

I don’t think any of it’s not explainable, just that it needs explaining where it didn’t before.
 
Mad Eyed Screamer said:
It all depends if it is a Manchester United company car with 4 employees of the club inside and no-one can recall who was driving at that particular time....
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That's easy - it would be the one who is having a shit on the hard shoulder!
 
halfcenturyup said:
Presumably the government was completely funding Etihad at that point? Maybe they meant the sponsorship specifically, but, like I say, I didnt follow that at all. I would be interested if you could add more, or give me some links to the court documentation?
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The answer to your question is Yes or No. It depends!

Here is one link. See the bottom of page 19 for specific reference to City.


The web link has disappeared for the other legal doc (the one Colin used) but I can send you the big PDF by email if you message me.
 
Dribble said:
But in 2014 Khaldoon continued that if they came at us again, rather than pay a £30m fine, we'd spend £30m assembling the finest legal team in the world.

The Red Top Mafia & Spuds just keep coming at us. If this thread has shown me anything, it's in the big scheme of things, normal business practices are being hyped up to Enron levels of corporate fraud & criminality.

UEFA & the PL just won't leave us alone to play football. Even Aguero was accosted during an interview last week, where he emphatically told the journalist every trophy he gained at City was won fair & Square on the pitch.

At what point is enough, enough?
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I took the 'pinch' comment to not be directed at the FFP system itself - as has been said, the club had agreed to fall in line with it.

I thought that declaration was a warning that the club were swallowing this one, with an unspoken reference to the moving of the goalposts so City missed by a lot rather than a little. In return for not trying to knock the sandcastle over, the punishment was reduced to the fine/suspended fine/squad limit.

Edit: 'reduced' from the potential higher penalty possible.
 
urban genie said:
I Doubt it, we have been accused in an internal business matter between the Prem and one of its members, only if they can prrove guilt of fraud and wrong doing would/could it be passed on to authorities.

At present the HMRC, SFO and police are not accusing us of anything or feel need to investigate us for any wrong doing, that is up to the prem to prove, then they may get involved.
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If they can't prove guilt or fraud, then how does this play out with regards to the statute of limitation?
I read on this thread that the six year limit would not hold if there's fraud or deception.
Unless my understanding of this is wrong.

Edit: I have just read the post from Chris which answers my question.
 
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M18CTID said:
Thanks. Is that the first time the Mancini allegations surfaced though? Could've sworn DS mentioned that before 2022.

In any case, the article itself smacks of a hatchet job and is full of innuendo, just like their original "revelations". I should've stopped reading at this:

"Manchester City, represented by almost a dozen top lawyers, appealed the ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). UEFA lost the case, despite the existence of clear evidence for the questionable business practices employed by Manchester City." That bolded bit is nothing short of a disgrace and totally ignores the CAS findings
Then there is this when talking about the PL investigation:

"According to information obtained by DER SPIEGEL, that investigation is focusing on three primary allegations.
  1. Underage players were allegedly pressured to sign contracts with Manchester City through monetary payments, in violation of the rules.
  2. Club sponsors in Abu Dhabi are suspected of having provided only a portion of their payments to the club themselves, with the majority apparently coming from Sheikh Mansour himself.
  3. Roberto Mancini, who is currently the trainer for the Italian national team but who spent the years from 2009 to 2013 as the trainer for ManCity, is thought to have received a significant portion of his compensation secretly by way of a fictitious consultancy contract."
Now I could be wrong but I'm sure the first one isn't a part of the PL investigation, yet DS reckons it is and is implying that they've been told this. Either they're lying or someone is leaking details of the investigation to DS. Not totally beyond the realms of possibility but I'm calling bullshit on that.
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The first “ one” wouldn’t fall under the jurisdiction of either the PL or come that the FA it would be something that FIFA would have to take forward
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
No, he was released some ten years later.

The one who didn’t fire the shot, who was executed had his conviction overturned in the ‘90s. Not a pardon, that’s different and doesn’t extinguish the finding of guilt.
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That book was part of my GCSE English literature exam.

Carry on as you were, just thought I’d offer some useless information. :-)
 
M18CTID said:
Thanks, and that's what I thought!

For me, the documents relating to Mancini don't prove anything. Like the leaked e-mails, of course things can be read into them but on the flip side, plausible explanations can be read into them too.

My own theory regarding the Mancini contract is that, if anything, it wasn't done for our benefit but for his in terms of paying less tax (perfectly legal I think if it can be showed that he did the requisite work for Al Jazira). There was no real upside for City as we were posting record losses at the time, so a couple of million quid a year off the books doesn't even scratch the surface of those losses, and of course FFP didn't even exist when the contracts were signed in 2009 so there was absolutely no need for us to enter into such an arrangement - well, certainly not for the purposes of deceiving the Premier League.
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Football has a littered history of payments made off the books HMRC has been all over this for years.

There rarely is any benefit to the clubs save NIC , but creative ways in which players/ managers can avoid paying IT and of course employees NIC is an attractive route for the employee.

This isn’t an FFP charge it’s all do do with the requirement in UK football, a long standing one at that, that all remuneration for players /coaches/ managers is paid through the clubs Payroll .
 
terraloon said:
Football has a littered history of payments made off the books HMRC has been all over this for years.

There rarely is any benefit to the clubs save NIC , but creative ways in which players/ managers can avoid paying IT and of course employees NIC is an attractive route for the employee.

This isn’t an FFP charge it’s all do do with the requirement in UK football, a long standing one at that, that all remuneration for players /coaches/ managers is paid through the clubs Payroll .
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How do you define "all remuneration"?
 
Berts Neck said:
Have done so, but please clarify what you wish posters to discuss on this thread as clearly there is some crossover.
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Up to the mods, I guess, but in general I think as much discussion as possible should take place in the main thread. Ideally, I'd leave this thread as much as possible for those who wish to add additional answers to the FAQs - eg some of the accountancy issues I've skipped over.
 
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