PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

halfcenturyup said:
If it makes you feel any better, the four independent panels that considered the Everton and Forest cases (and their appeals) were all chaired by judges or KCs and the remaining members were all judges, KCs, CAs and lawyers of various ilks.

There shouldn't really be any cause for concern on grounds of independence or undue influence.

The PL will be feeling the pressure you mentioned, though, hence Masters saying nothing at all very loudly this week. But rest easy. The case will be decided on the evidence presented by the PL and the counter-evidence presented by the club. My money, for many reasons on the most substantive allegations, is on the club.

However, to answer your question specifically: the panel's decision can be appealed to another three-man panel chosen by Rosen, then there are limited opportunities to take the case to arbitration and, finally, very limited opportunities (to the extent that it would be virtually impossible*) to go to a "real court". Hope that helps.


* On the other hand, a HHGTTG quote: "Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning in this way: "If such a machine is a virtual impossibility, it must have finite improbability. So all I have to do, in order to make one, is to work out how exactly improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!""

In this case, the finite improbability generator is a highly skilled and very expensive team of legal advisors who are grappling with the very problem of appeals, I would imagine. The tea is probably the same.

:)
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Masters has refused to comment on the case at all till this week. I think he knows he is losing and his claim that; “It’s up to the panel. We just enforce the rules,” is damage limitation.
 
Metalartin said:
I actually don't mind the twitter posts on here. It's useful to know what arguments are being concocted so you can destroy them.

I stopped reading that Magic Hat post because the bullshit started so early(skim read the rest). That person always makes bold claims in the strongest terms possible, but never backs it up. It literally feels like smoke and mirrors when you're reading it, because it is.

Oh wait... Magic Hat? Is it a parody account and we're all being clarkied?

"Look at my hands there's nothing in my hands... Everything I say is 100% real and not just want I want you to believe and spread all over the internet because I have a vendetta against City"

He's claiming CAS agreed the emails were real(really? wow) and unambiguous. That last part is bullshit because City provided the context which der Spiegel and UEFA got wrong.

He goes on to say that CAS made a 'finding of fact that the emails stated the planned intention to subvert FFP'. It's worded wierdly, probably because it's more magic hat smoke and mirrors. The "finding of fact" is the setup to make you believe CAS agreed the emails proved there was a planned intention to subvert FFP. He doesn't show you a quote from CAS(which should be a minimum requirement) where they said this, instead expecting you to take what he says at face value.

The next section gets worse. He moans "CAS was a farce" but must think the 'Independent' CFCB of UEFA's investigation and arbitration was totally legit and that decision should have stood? Next he's claiming UEFA messed up by only using a fraction of the emails available(bullshit again) and that's why the PL case will be different. I disagree, none of the emails released since seem to strengthen the case on the main allegation. The other stuff is either a new allegation that UEFA didn't attempt(probably because it was seen as a none starter) or no more believable than it was before. At any rate, he doesn't seem to undertand the emails alone would never meet the required standard of proof. They were only ever a reason to investigate to find actual evidence of what they think has occured, based on their interpretation of what was said in them. Yes there definitely are multiple interpretations, the correct context is key and only City truly knows it.

Then he's claiming CAS didn't apply the correct standard of proof, which is bullshit again. Since they were the ones that essentially pointed out UEFA failed to prove any of their claims to the standard required(swiss civil law, comfortable satisfaction) for the allegations that weren't time-barred. Or based on a trumped up non-cooperation charge which City didn't really deny, they claimed they had good reason and I agree with them. UEFA did not apply due process, never looked likely after UEFA leaked information before it even got to arbitration. They breached trust, broke their own confidentiality agreement, and most likely ignored a 200page document of evidence in City's defence(not interested in the truth, only making the charges stick by any means necessary).

I'm not a law or finance expert but from what I do know about CAS and the emails in question, I can spot his bullshit a mile off. Come to think of it, it does remind me of a certain twitter journalist.

The question is:

Is he really that pitifully informed/delusional/incompetant for something he spends so much time and effort convincing everyone he's an expert on?

Or

Is it more that he thinks most people are idiots and will believe anything he tells them, if he sells it hard enough?
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It's been a while since I've read the CAS report, but my understanding was that UEFA and Der Spiegel had laughably got some of the interpretations about the emails wrong, and where there was ambivalence there was no other evidence outside of the emails and witness statements and banking transfers for the defence. They made the point that even if the emails were talking about doing something bad there would need to be more evidence to show that someone actually did the bad thing.
 
Stoned Rose said:
Yes we all know who this is.

You would be best placed to not respond to it, not repost it anywhere and send it to anyone.

Do not give this little **** any oxygen.
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I particularly enjoyed the little drama between the alter egos to try and persuade everyone they were different people. Classic psycopathy. Serious issues going on there.
 
halfcenturyup said:
I particularly enjoyed the little drama between the alter egos to try and persuade everyone they were different people. Classic psycopathy. Serious issues going on there.
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Somewhat bizarrely, while that "spat" was going on, Nick Harris mysteriously unblocked me from Twitter despite having me blocked for the past few years, whereas Magic Twat blocked me!
 
Assuming no smoking gun, (which considering the number of PL leaks on other matters is highly unlikely) then I'm inclined to follow the logic of our main experts, and believe that ultimately City will be exonerated from the serious charges, essentially because:

1/CAS has already found in our favour
2/ The charges are so serious and the threshold so high that it will be virtually impossible to prove without reasonable doubt that City deliberately lied

However, I also believe that this will be reported in such a "no smoke without fire" shitstorm that the general consensus will be that City "got off" on a technicality

It won't particularly bother me, but those looking forward to our day in the sun, will be in for a shock.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
The core allegation was that Etihad only directly contributed £8m, while the rest came from somewhere else. UEFA claimed it was from ADUG, therefore should be treated as equity investment. City & Etihad denied that, and presented evidence at CAS that this additional money had come from central Abu Dhabi funds, for marketing purposes, which CAS accepted as the truth.

Anyone who's followed my postings on here will hopefully confirm that I already knew that, via a document that was in the public domain via a court in New York that was hearing a case under the 'Open Skies Agreement'. This was a presentation which was prepared for Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and explicitly stated that the Etihad sponsorship was being paid by the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. That's why I was quite confident we would beat UEFA at CAS, and that we'll beat the main substantive PL charge.

As to why varying amounts were paid under the Etihad contract, there was no explanation of that but my view (which was slightly supported by the leaked emails) was that we could call off what we wanted, when we wanted it, subject to the overall terms of the contract. I recall Nick Harris getting all giddy and saying that the Etihad contract was for far more than we said it was, due to the amounts paid in 2013, 2014 and 2016. He added those up and divided by 3, but there was nothing stated for 2015. So the assumption must be that either we received no cash from Etihad or relatively little, having called off additional cash in the previous years.

If Etihad were paying us £600m over 10 years, that doesn't have to mean they'll pay us £60m each and every year. We would probably declare £60m a year in the accounts but how the actual cash flows are structured is completely irrelevant.
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The commission will have a very hard time proving otherwise. I think people have been led astray by the somewhat Heath Robinson start to the deal.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Assuming no smoking gun, (which considering the number of PL leaks on other matters is highly unlikely) then I'm inclined to follow the logic of our main experts, and believe that ultimately City will be exonerated from the serious charges, essentially because:

1/CAS has already found in our favour
2/ The charges are so serious and the threshold so high that it will be virtually impossible to prove without reasonable doubt that City deliberately lied

However, I also believe that this will be reported in such a "no smoke without fire" shitstorm that the general consensus will be that City "got off" on a technicality

It won't particularly bother me, but those looking forward to our day in the sun, will be in for a shock.
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We had a look in the crystal ball earlier in the week when Jeff Stelling asked ‘how would the football family react if we are found not guilty’.

They ain’t interested in us being cleared and the charges not holding.

Not interested in justice - just the angry mob looking for blood.
 
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