I don't think so to be honest. I thought I'd convered it in another post.
The first allegation is that ADUG (the company that owns the City Football Group) settled sponsorship invoices for Etisalat & Etihad and this is therefore an artificial injection of cash. This is despite the fact these two sponsors subsequently reimbursed ADUG.
There are at least two plausible reasons why this might have happened that I can think of, there are probably more. Both sponsors are state owned, funded and loss making organisations.
1)
Both sponsors trade in UAE currency, the Dirham, which I think is tied to the US Dollar. In large international currency payments, it is common to agree to purchase currency in advance off a third party to fix the exchange rate. Otherwise a sponsorship deal worth £50m could cost you anything from $50-$70m. Anyone who has ever bought property abroad in France or Spain will have done this. It could be ADUG stepped in and provided this service.
2)
They're both state funded. Whether they get a dollop of cash once a year, every six months or every quarter, it might have been that £50m didn't coincide well with their funding cycle. This could have meant settling the City bill late. A knock on effect would be that City then couldn't settle their bills by June 30th (I think all transfer payments due have to be paid by then). So ADUG just stepped in with a short term loan to fund the gap. This isn't just in City's interest to do so, but in the interest of the clubs they owe money to.
The second allegation is about image rights payments to.players and additional payments to Mancini via third parties. Neither seem to have much merit and are not out of line with what other clubs are doing.
So I can't see why there would be any reason to uphold any of those charges.
I'm sure I'd done a post on this, maybe it's just in my head!!! If not I'll write and add it next week.
