PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Pingu the Penguin]

If the PL case is weak enough for them to accept they have no realistic chance of winning then, if I was Masters, I’d be throwing the towel in asap. No examination of the evidence (or lack of it) by the IC would give the PL the opportunity to blur the narrative along the lines of ‘being unable to reach the required threshold’, despite best efforts’, ‘difficult to compile evidence’ etc etc. All of which could be presented in a way that doesn’t clearly exonerate us and leaves the way open for continued negative media coverage. Would be interesting to see how the club reacted to that outcome.

Hopefully by suing the fuck out of everyone

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

Agreed. On a positive note though I think it is clear that senior people in Government (and the Opposition) know precisely what is going on within the leadership of the PL and its special relationships with certain clubs and this will ultimately work in City's favour. The UK media has been destroyed by a clickbait culture ane there is virtually no chance of impartial coverage on any issue. This is a much wider problem for society than what has happened to our club.

I sense the tide is turning a bit. Boiled bollock on talkshite was delivering another puff piece about United tthis morning and commented that the texts and calls were all saying stop being talk man United. If the audience changes the narrative will too

 

[Manchester_lalala]

We don't have concrete information. But this forum is a great crowdsourcing tool because a lot of people on it have connections with the club and other sources within football and politics and get titbits of information from time to time. When you add all these titbits up you can see the bigger picture.
This forum called the Uefa investigation right most of the time and also the CAS decision. There are always a few rabbit holes but I trust the information on this forum more than any other football media source when it comes to City. It is required reading for most of the football media, some of whom made fools of themselves with their coverage of CAS.

A few posters on here have always been consistent of either their knowledge or direct links to City. When these allegations were released by the prem, this forum shat its knickers and it was like it for a good 24 hours. A few of the people who predicted the CAS verdict right spoke up and soon eased everyone’s minds.

All you’ve got to think is how are the premier league going to have evidence that counters City’s accounts and witness statements from several of their sponsors executives. It will require a whistleblower to convince three judges, but we all know that’s not going to happen.

 

[I'm Blue]

Personally I would like all of them dropped

Personally I’d like them all shot!

 

[Ric]

What post?

What was that?

Here you go.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I agree with a lot of what you say, and in a sense what I'm about to say is not aimed at you in particular, it is just a thought that I have been having more and more recently.

I have been working on the assumption that we will be cleared of the most serious charges for reasons discussed at length in this thread.

However the thought that if/when that happens the red-tops and their client journalists will just accept it and go away seems to me to be completely pie in the sky. For as long as the rags, dippers and (to a much lesser extent) Arse and Spuds have friends in the media, we will continue to be hounded, our club belittled, our achievements denigrated.

The cloud, as you put it, that is currently hanging over us will, in other words, be replaced by another one, as sure as eggs are eggs. I don't know what the next cloud will be. If the PL case goes our way, as many of us expect, we might well see a rehash of the 'they got off on a technicality' stance that belittles/ignores the number of times CAS said 'no evidence.' We might see innuendo that we have bought the result. It might be something else completely. But the red-tops will not go away. They know that every small boy who starts supporting City is a future supporter of theirs - and therefore a potential source of income - that they have lost, and so they will keep on going in their attempt to make us the most unpopular club in the league. They can't make us unsuccessful on the pitch. But they can try and make us unpopular off it.

So the way this ends is not that the PL panel acquit us of everything and the anti-City narrative stops. The way this ends is that the media begins to be populated more and more by those who don't remember the glory days of the class of 92 and that magical night in Barcelona, whose formative years featured the Agueroooo goal, the formidables, the real treble winners, the centurions and so forth. (I remember a time when we complained we had no voices in punditland. These days we do. We regularly see Micah Richards, Joleon Lescott and Shay Given in the media, not to mention Steph Houghton, Jill Scott and izzy Christiansen. That progression will keep going.)

Alternatively, at some point Pep leaves, his replacement is markedly less successful than he is and normal service, as the red tops would have it, is resumed. We stop being a target, in other words, when we stop being such a threat.

Either way, the dirty tricks campaign is likely to continue for many years to come. And make no mistake, the red tops are behind it.

So my advice, and I repeat that this is a reply to you without being aimed at you necessarily, is to buckle down, and get used to that cloud hanging over your head. It's not going away any time soon, and when it does it will just be replaced by another.

And reflect on the fact that as dark as that cloud may seem, that is simply a reflection of the beautiful winning football we see week in week out on the pitch, and the extent to which our success hurts the red-tops to their very core.

I agree with most of that but I think there will be a sea change with Ratcliffe at United. He is a global operator who has done plenty of business with Middle East firms. I think he will keep out of the poisonous smear campaign run by the previous regime at United. I think a lot of the hate and bile was being driven by Ferguson but his power is finished now. Not sure about LFC, though the game could also change there when Klopp leaves. Our rivals are starting to modernise their own business models. They have got plenty enough on their plates to sort out instead of waging war on City. The media will follow the money, and as City get bigger, it will be in their commercial interest to change their coverage of City.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

What post?

I am not on Facebook but it was mentioned on here a few weeks back. It was a random isolated comment saying words along the lines of: "nothing to worry about. Perhaps someone good at searching on this forum can find it.

Edit:Thanks Ric for finding it.

 

[Scaley]

I’ve been wondering how our sponsors will react if the IC find in the PL’s favour thus suggesting they are complicit in fraud, be interesting to see if they challenge the PL if they suffer any damage to their reputations. Apologies in advance if this has already been covered but I haven’t got the patience to scroll through 4000 plus posts.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I'm puzzled over the charges related to non-cooperation. CAS concluded that we had cooperated fully with CAS after lodging our appeal but that, had we cooperated fully with UEFA before and after the alleged leaks UEFA would have dropped the charges. In the present proceedings City claim to have provided them with a large body of irrefutable evidence - presumably the evidence put before CAS which proved that the charges laid by UEFA were false. Now, the PL charges seem to go over the same ground as UEFA's and therefore City's evidence would appear to be truly irrefutable UNLESS the PL have compelling NEW evidence. We'll never know, but if the charges are to collapse the PL may defend itself by arguing - in an attempt to fend off an independent regulator - that it was City's awkwardness that made it such a "difficult" and "complicated" case. Whether that would satisfy H M government seems unlikely. What Khaldoon would make of it.... Or whether Masters will just say, "I'm off. Get your independent regulator in and let him sort those red bastards out."

City's statement was that it had provided a "vast amount" of evidence to the PL and welcomes the review by the independent commission of the "comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position". To me, this says two things: i) the club has given the PL everything it is obliged so to do by the rules (as you would expect given the HC ruling) and ii) the club has held back other evidence for the commission (I am guessing evidence from third parties). If that is so, this case is different from the CAS case where the club refused to comply with valid UEFA requests. And it suggests to me that the acceptance of a charge even for non-cooperation is much less likely unless it's part of a settlement including other, intangible benefits to the club.

If you like, UEFA had City bang to rights on non-cooperation. I don't think the PL does.

May all be bollocks, of course.

 

[mimicmickmickdoyle]

I am not on Facebook but it was mentioned on here a few weeks back. It was a random isolated comment saying words along the lines of: "nothing to worry about. Perhaps someone good at searching on this forum can find it.

Edit:Thanks Ric for finding it.

After seeing Cheesy's post where he says " we have got nothing to worry about " I messaged him and asked why he was so confident, he replied saying We will be fined not guilty. Make of that what you will.