PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[slbsn]

Thanks for confirming they could be seperate things like I said

You claimed we had no idea what they were. We do.

They have “admitted offshore payments”

They've not “admitted another accounting error but what that is no-one knows”.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I think the tossers at Talkshite & a lot of the cretins in the Media have invented a new legal term for city,
"Guilty until proven Guilty"

Or given their views even after the CAS verdict "Guilty even when proven innocent".

 

[oldius]

For football fans across the nation, a club is guilty until proven guilty, until it is their own club.

This is the great danger of playing out proceedings in the public arena. It is worse for us by virtue of our outstanding sporting success.

 

[BerkshireBlue]

Have no idea what you are saying but appears to say that your initial over simplification was therefore a misleading and partial answer?

I was trying to simplify it for people on here. Ultimately there will be no limitation period for any of the charges until the evidence is fully presented during the trial. If that evidence was not known to the PL before 6 years ago and is of strong enough high bar then we'll be found guilty no matter when the offense took place. All charges will be looked at in depth, there won't be any charge instantly ruled out due to limitation. That is just wishful thinking

 

[Stoned Rose]

This is a quote from the “legal expert” referred to in the Ziegler article in today’s Times.
“Manchester City will have hope that the Leicester case shows an independent panel looking at the Premier League rules in forensic detail rather than doing what is expedient.”
Not sure where to start but on what legitimate basis could a so called independent panel do “what is expedient” rather than decide the issue on the basis of the evidence in detail.
It suggests that the EPL consider the panel is there to do its bidding and explains the surprise and disappointment expressed in their statement following the Leicester appeal verdict.
As others have said the governance of the EPL looks more and more flawed.

Zeigler makes things up.

He quoted sources that don’t exist.

He makes up timelines that turn out to be bollocks.

For me, he’s not a source.

 

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

Yes that's true, and I do love the mathematical coincidence going around...

City PL champions in 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 = 115, and 5 in a row ! (hopefully)

That would be a lovely banner for 1894 to produce the next time our Alison comes a callin..

This is beautiful

 

[Stoned Rose]

It certainly seems like it. I have heard our panel is Neville, Carragher and Aldridge.

;)

Let’s hope someone has ordered enough crayons.

 

[supercity88]

For football fans across the nation, a club is guilty until proven guilty, until it is their own club.

This is the great danger of playing out proceedings in the public arena. It is worse for us by virtue of our outstanding sporting success.

That's the funny thing with the Leicester situation. They were looking to take legal action (can't recall if they ever did) against Everton when they were relegated. Their fans were probably condemning the rules and how unfair things were at that point in time, to now be celebrating how poorly written they were and the fact they found a big glaring hole in them to avoid sanctions.

 

[cheekybids]

Correct, imho. It seems to me the PL have all the evidence they need from the der Spiegel leaks to start an investigation and to refer the allegation if they don't think the club has countered effectively.

But now they have to prove that allegation in front of an independent panel and, even before they can do that, they have to prove that the club deliberately concealed information, committed fraud or covered up a mistake. It's always been my view, given the wording of the rules in place at the time, the counter-evidence that the club will most likely provide and the difficulty in proving that any action towards the PL was deliberate (given that the club's position is presumably that they acted completely honestly and in good faith), that it is very probable that the Mancini issue will be time limited.

As our legal people on here always tell us,though, nothing is ever guaranteed in these things.

No need to circumnavigate FFP when it wasn’t around at the time.

 

[Stoned Rose]

Re the Mancini Al Jazira contract, the PL will need to prove that Mansour/City were paying him directly. How would they be able to do that? They have no jurisdiction to access private bank records in the UAE, even the UK government wouldn't be able to do that. And Mancini is hardly going to admit to it as he would then have to pay UK tax on the earnings.

It's the same for our owner funding sponsorship from UAE companies, it is up to the PL to prove the allegations not for City to prove they aren't true. I honestly don't see how the PL can gather enough evidence to prove that beyond reasonable doubt.

BALANCE
OF
PROBABILITIES

FFS.

 

[slbsn]

I was trying to simplify it for people on here. Ultimately there will be no limitation period for any of the charges until the evidence is fully presented during the trial. If that evidence was not known to the PL before 6 years ago and is of strong enough high bar then we'll be found guilty no matter when the offense took place. All charges will be looked at in depth, there won't be any charge instantly ruled out due to limitation. That is just wishful thinking

But nobody suggested that. Your simplification just went too far the other way. SOL will apply unless some pretty serious things are proved. Your suggestion in the original message was a mere presentation of a doc or email the PL didn’t know about would kill limitations was wrong, hence I said so.

Based on what we have seen of the Mancini stuff I suggest it is the sort of matter that will likely be time barred - not definitely of course.

I’d also suggest those in this thread are sophisticated enough to take a full answer rather than an extreme view one way or the other.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I don’t agree that’s the test. The PL have to prove the consultancy was actually part of his employment with MCFC and, therefore, that the consultancy was a sham and the contract disclosed under the relevant rule was also incomplete. I don’t even think they need to show financial benefit to City although that would help prove it by explaining why City would create a sham. Remember the burden is on the PL - if they can’t prove it was a sham (Mancini for one says it was not), then it will be time barred anyway in all likelihood.

That's what I was trying to say in my normal clumsy way, I think.

 

[Champions again in 2012]

Yes that's true, and I do love the mathematical coincidence going around...

City PL champions in 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 = 115, and 5 in a row ! (hopefully)

That would be a lovely banner for 1894 to produce the next time our Alison comes a callin..

Apologies if posted but it seems we made a net gain of £115.8m in the transfer window that has just ended

115 is truly the magic number

 

[Stoned Rose]

But nobody suggested that. Your simplification just went too far the other way. SOL will apply unless some pretty serious things are proved. Your suggestion in the original message was a mere presentation of a doc or email the PL didn’t know about would kill limitations was wrong, hence I said so.

Based on what we have seen of the Mancini stuff I suggest it is the sort of matter that will likely be time barred - not definitely of course.

I’d also suggest those in this thread are sophisticated enough to take a full answer rather than an extreme view one way or the other.

@BerkshireBlue you’re arguing with someone who will intellectually decapitate you.

 

[BerkshireBlue]

@BerkshireBlue you’re arguing with someone who will intellectually decapitate you.

I'm not arguing, we're agreeing

 

[Kippax77]

Yes that's true, and I do love the mathematical coincidence going around...

City PL champions in 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 = 115, and 5 in a row ! (hopefully)

That would be a lovely banner for 1894 to produce the next time our Alison comes a callin..

You are Carol Voderman and I claim my... £115

 

[KS55]

Where is this?

In my imagination, Stefan.
Ziegler will certainly post something like this soon; he has jumped the shark. His stuff is full of unnamed, unchecked sources, fake experts and the like.

 

[KS55]

I don't think they need to prove that on Mancini. They only need to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the arrangement was made for a financial benefit to the club and deliberately concealed from the PL. It's up to the club's counter-evidence to show a reason it was done that on the balance of probabilities wins the argument. Shouldn't be (too) difficult.

Well, yes but there was no rule at the time to require disclosure of any outside contracts that managers had. The rule is explicitly limited to disclosure of a contract with the club.

 

[Chris in London]

Why would this be the case? Who is responsible for each side’s costs?

You are responsible for your own costs but you may (usually will) if successful get an order that the other side should pay your costs. That however doesn’t mean the other side will pay all your costs, simply that proportion the court thinks was reasonably incurred. So if spend £1m pursuing a case and are awarded costs of 50K you have to pay the rest yourself.

If the PL spent £10m pursuing Everton and only recovered £1.7m that could be said to be eye-watering

 

[halfcenturyup]

Well, yes but there was no rule at the time to require disclosure of any outside contracts that managers had. The rule is explicitly limited to disclosure of a contract with the club.

Yep. It seems to me there are two issues with Mancini.

First, the disclosure requirements around P7 and P8. After the Leicester verdict, it's pretty unlikely that those were breached according to how they are written.

So that leaves the impact of Mancini on the true and fair view given by the club's financial information. It's an uphill battle to prove the Mancini component, I think, due to materiality (it's small), the common nature of the arrangement (probably supported by legal and tax clearances) and the fact, as you say, there was no financial benefit in covering it all up as FFP didn't exist then and the losses at the time were huge anyway (certainly when the first contract we know about was signed).