City launch legal action against the Premier League | Club & PL reach settlement | Proceedings dropped (p1147)

TedofChume said:
To be honest whilst it's nice that Stefan Borson provides some kick back, he really does waffle and come out with some mealy mouthed drivel at times.

At the end of the day, we were told by Platini that the whole purpose of FFP was to stop owners pumping too much money into their clubs, to try to make the game more sustainable. The PSR rules are supposed to be a more lenient/watered down version of the same, as the allowable losses are higher.

However FFP insists owner loans have interest allocated at a FMV rate and PSR doesn't (or didn't).

Judging by the Premier League's stance on this point and losing in court on it, if Mansour had simply leant City £1.5Billion at 0% then they wouldn't be pursuing City for breaching PSR... dream on.....

The Premier League have been proven by this judgement and their immediate response to be completely corrupt and disingenuous.

These hefty preferential loans at clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool have been around for over 15 years, deliberately circumventing PSR. How can they write off historical issues of interest free orclow interest loans?

I've actually calculated Liverpool's 2010 0.5% £240m loan would now stand at £735m if an FMV interest rate of 8% had been applied. They would never have had the money to buy Mo Salah, let alone Van Dijk. Alisson, Fabhino and Keita. They wouldn't have won anything at all under Klopp.

Arsenal have spent way above their means over the last 8 years using this same mechanism, to build the side they have today.

When the PSR rules were written, I find it hard to believe high quality law firms were not involved because of the sums of money at stake. These firms will have provided sound legal advice as to the legality of this issue, and almost certainly advised against it. You'd have to assume they deliberately ignored it at the behest of Arsenal, Liverpool and United to give them a loophole whilst they try to "get City"

City have had two sponsorship deals stopped this year under the APT rules that have just been found unlawful and can claim compensation. I have no idea how much they're for, but axtypical deal of £20m over 5 years is £100m. So this alone could be considerable.

Yesterday the Daily Mail, when covering this story, suggested many smaller Premier League clubs had been trying to get the Premier League to drop the PSR case against City, and settle for damages out of court.

It is now very clear to me, City are going to win their PSR case either at arbitration or on appeal in a court of law. The legal costs and compensation are going to hit £1Billion or thereabouts for this whole affair.

On the one hand, we want our club vindicated and cleared, but we don't want to destroy competitive football and the Premier League.

This is why our owners are pushing for a football regulator.

I'd love to see the Glazers. Kroenke, FSG, Joe Lewis and Boehly booted out of football for good.

I wish Stefan Borson would show more balls.
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I may be incorrect here, but didn’t Platini suggest clubs in debt were cheating, so FFP was initially about reducing debt & nothing at all to do with owner investment as you suggest?
 
Blue Mooner said:
Both excellent posts. I am struggling to understand how anyone can think that City didn't win the case. Read the judgement FFS!

The Premier league I presume wanted to defend the existing APT rules and keep them in place. City on the other hand wanted to prove that the APT rules were anti competitive and get their sponsorship deals ultimately reinstated - they manifestly succeeded.

How anyone can think or characterise that as a success for the PL is beyond comprehension.

They had a small victory in proving that the premise of APT and FMV was legal but they are going to have to re-wrote those rules to ensure they are now legal

I'm not sure, but I suspect total victory would have been the complete abolition of APT rules and FMV That might have been the optimal result but given City didn't challenge the rules in 2021 I struggle to believe that was the objective.
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I don't believe it was either.
I do however think we voted for shareholder loans to be excluded to help lure the inept PL legal team into a bear trap that they jumped into with both feet.
To be fair we probably wanted a fair "Fair Value" clause on place too.
 
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Maly said:
I may be incorrect here, but didn’t Platini suggest clubs in debt were cheating, so FFP was initially about reducing debt & nothing at all to do with owner investment as you suggest?
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To be fair he did several interviews where he contradicted himself. This reference was from the interview he did with Martin Samuel.
 
Maly said:
I may be incorrect here, but didn’t Platini suggest clubs in debt were cheating, so FFP was initially about reducing debt & nothing at all to do with owner investment as you suggest?
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Yes. Platini included debt in his proposal. The G14 said “If you include debt we will set up our own competition and leave the Champions league.” Result: debt not included in regs.
This shows that UEFA and others who act as regulators while running their own competition are compromised ab initio. See Premier League! Hence the independent regulator is a must.
 
BlueAnorak said:
I don't believe it was either.
I do however think we voted for shareholder loans to be excluded to help lure the inept PL legal team into a bear trap that they jumped into with both feet.
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I think you're dead right.

The whole PSR case against City hangs entirely on Allegation 1 - that City inflated sponsorship deals with Associated Parties (ie Etisalat & Etihad) to being above FMV.

If

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the new APT transactions is unlawful,

then it stands to reason that

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the PSR rules is unlawful too,

However, despite this point being a fait acomplis, it hasn't been proven yet in any legal sense.

The point Simon Cliff was making in his letter to the Premier League and the other 19 clubs is that the judgement means the APT rules themselves are unlawful. End of. Any decisions or actions taken under them are therefore null and void. The Premier League has not realised or accepted this yet.

Again, it stands to reason, but hasn't been confirmed in court, that:

- The PSR rules are therefore unlawful too, and any decisions or actions taken under them are null and void too.

The arbitration panel assessing City's PSR case will have this point put to them by Lord Pannick et al.

So I think it is a hugely significant judgement.

Yet at the same time, it will probably have to be proven separately in court or at a tribunal. Who knows it could go the other way?
 
Mr Fraser said:
Good old Ricky as my old dad said about him. His pace was deceptive. He was slower than he looked
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Ricky Holden was the only thing in the universe that turned slower than lead.

I seen quite a bit of him at Oldham. He had a lovely left foot. He was perfect for Joe Royle and that Latics team.
 
TedofChume said:
I think you're dead right.

The whole PSR case against City hangs entirely on Allegation 1 - that City inflated sponsorship deals with Associated Parties (ie Etisalat & Etihad) to being above FMV.

If

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the new APT transactions is unlawful,

then it stands to reason that

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the PSR rules is unlawful too,

However, despite this point being a fait acomplis, it hasn't been proven yet in any legal sense.

The point Simon Cliff was making in his letter to the Premier League and the other 19 clubs is that the judgement means the APT rules themselves are unlawful. End of. Any decisions or actions taken under them are therefore null and void. The Premier League has not realised or accepted this yet.

Again, it stands to reason, but hasn't been confirmed in court, that:

- The PSR rules are therefore unlawful too, and any decisions or actions taken under them are null and void too.

The arbitration panel assessing City's PSR case will have this point put to them by Lord Pannick et al.

So I think it is a hugely significant judgement.

Yet at the same time, it will probably have to be proven separately in court or at a tribunal. Who knows it could go the other way?
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The fact that the PL want to take existing Shareholder Loans out of updated APT but still include existing sponsorships from 2021-24 in updated APT tells me they are absolutely fucking clueless and are desperate to add "DISCRIMINATORY" to the existing "ILLEGAL, UNFAIR and UNREASONABLE" words in the recent judgement.
 
TedofChume said:
I think you're dead right.

The whole PSR case against City hangs entirely on Allegation 1 - that City inflated sponsorship deals with Associated Parties (ie Etisalat & Etihad) to being above FMV.

If

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the new APT transactions is unlawful,

then it stands to reason that

- excluding Preferential Interest Loans from the PSR rules is unlawful too,

However, despite this point being a fait acomplis, it hasn't been proven yet in any legal sense.

The point Simon Cliff was making in his letter to the Premier League and the other 19 clubs is that the judgement means the APT rules themselves are unlawful. End of. Any decisions or actions taken under them are therefore null and void. The Premier League has not realised or accepted this yet.

Again, it stands to reason, but hasn't been confirmed in court, that:

- The PSR rules are therefore unlawful too, and any decisions or actions taken under them are null and void too.

The arbitration panel assessing City's PSR case will have this point put to them by Lord Pannick et al.

So I think it is a hugely significant judgement.

Yet at the same time, it will probably have to be proven separately in court or at a tribunal. Who knows it could go the other way?
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That would only account for the charges related to PSR in that case though, which is only four of them and not the main ones.
 
Maly said:
I may be incorrect here, but didn’t Platini suggest clubs in debt were cheating, so FFP was initially about reducing debt & nothing at all to do with owner investment as you suggest?
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Yup! And then Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City Football Club, & UEFA's long drawn out proposals for reducing debt in football, were suddenly ditched & the focus switched to stifling owner investment, & then renamed Financial FAIR PLAY.

Fair to whom?

The fact David Gill was the man behind FFP is even more galling & incredulous. I asked a couple of Tarquins & a Rag to name me another industry where a business owner can't invest his/her/their legally acquired wealth into their business to grow it & compete?

Fucking crickets.... \0/
 
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TedofChume said:
I think you're dead right.

The whole PSR case against City hangs entirely on Allegation 1 - that City inflated sponsorship deals with Associated Parties (ie Etisalat & Etihad) to being above FMV.
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Ididnt think they hung on over inflated but that the owner was paying his own money through them in the back door (disguised equity) ? the FMV wasnt questioned?

i could have that wrong though, so many overlapping issues in the 3-4 cases so far. @Prestwich_Blue help?
 
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