PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[halfcenturyup]

Having just read back on all his posts in the last 24 hours, I'm retracting my initial good Scrooge comments and am now going back to bad Scrooge. He's determined to fight the world with his expertise that one

Just for good measure, let me say this on non-cooperation. We don't really know enough about the alleged non-cooperation to come to an informed opinion either way. The allegation may be proven, or it may be thrown out based on a number of factors that may or may not be relevant.

I didn't explain that very well, but one thing I can say clearly: the club won't be found not to have cooperated just to give the PL some sort of consolation win. The judgment will be totally independent of PL influence and decided on the merits.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

Has Keith fucked off to the moon yet??

Fucking hell....

 

[Winchester]

If posters had a day off ud have nothing to browse lol

No.m8 my family come first
WRONG

 

[CC1]

Having just read back on all his posts in the last 24 hours, I'm retracting my initial good Scrooge comments and am now going back to bad Scrooge. He's determined to fight the world with his expertise that one

He’s a conundrum:-) :-)

 

[Keith Moon]

1. We do know with near certainty - neither party has guided the media away from explanations in the media. It’s the CAS allegations re run plus Fordham, Mancini etc and a dollop of non coop.
2. The threat to City is if they have actually carried out the alleged wholesale fraud and concealment. Btw evidence isn’t “uncovered” - they just got given it in disclosure
3. Nobody needs the Pinto docs any more. The damage was done years ago. Now the authorities have due cause to ask questions directly and require disclosure

Last reply

Well, if we’re innocent, we have nothing to fear. But nobody on this thread knows that for sure, so if we’re speculating about how this will end, we also have to consider what could go wrong if Perce & co have been a bit more creative than what is allowed.

Got it, thanks for the discussion.

 

[hello]

Of course they have more evidence than UEFA had. UEFA had six or seven leaked emails that spanned four years out of the ten years the PL has looked at. The PL has also been reviewing the club's records (accounting, communication and otherwise, much more than UEFA had access to and much more, for that matter, than Pinto had access to) for more than four years. No-one in their right mind will tell you they don't have more evidence. But that isn't the point.

And once again, the PL wont have proof that Mansour funded any sponsorships. They will have circumstantial evidence which the panel will weigh against the club's counter evidence. It's possible Mansour did what is alleged, but it is very unlikely and very difficult to prove to the standard required even if he did.

None of that has anything at all to do with Pinto.

If you take a step back then one sequence of charges is virtually impossible to disprove and that's the good/bad faith. It stands to reason a set of rules that were written/rewritten and amended every time time they failed the primary purpose of stopping city and latterly Newcastle from joining chumps league on a regular basis to the deferment of the usual red shite.
I doubt any of us would say the club wouldn't have worked with accountants and legal experts whom they deemed the best to see how to remain complaint under each set of BS rules. Essentially city will be saying the thousands of emails are nothing more than brain storming discussions whilst the premier league have to persuade the panel of deliberate deceit/concealment/fraud on the basis of those discussions.
When factored in with the extremely heavy (Like Luke Shaw heavy!)weighting applied to personal testimony in recent panels I believe that the club not only picked a better legal/accountancy team of experts over the period but acted on their advise to ensure compliance as opposed to the premier league who clearly disregarded their legal teams advise with the publication of the botched charge sheet. Whilst that's the only public record of the premier league disregarding legal advise how many more times might masters have caved to red shirt influence to go with their desires over the advise of expensive KC experts? Hopefully a fucking load ;)

Fully agree with Pinto being an irrelevant **** though.

 

[Keith Moon]

1) We know what we're accused of but not necessarily the detail behind the allegations. But it's not hard to work those out. They all must relate to information published by Der Spiegel, so that's Etihad/Etisalat, Fordham and Mancini's Al Jazira contract. Neither UEFA nor the PL can legally go on a 'fishing expedition'; they have to have specific grounds where they believe breaches may have occurred and can only request documents relating to those areas.

2) Of course it's possible the PL has evidence that UEFA/CAS didn't have but given the weight of evidence presented by us at CAS, and the lack of any cogent evidence uncovered by UEFA, I'd suggest it's highly unlikely.

If the PL had convincing new evidence proving everyone knowingly lied at CAS, we'd almost certainly have settled before the hearing.

3) If Pinto had better evidence than the seven emails then UEFA would have had it years ago. The emails were basically innuendo and completely shorn of context. And I'm not sure this case is about strength of evidence anyway, but more an attempt to blacken our reputation.

Pinto can claim what he likes but his best shot was those seven emails, two of which had to be spliced together to make them look worse than they were. And there's plenty of people claiming to be in the know telling us they know the outcome of the Independent Commission hearing even before it finished. So I'd treat peoples'' claims with great suspicion.

Good points. I actually agree with you about the outcome, don't think they can prove Misrepresentation of Financial Information, they might win Fordham and we’ll get done for Non-Cooperation.

 

[thomas1307]

Good points. I actually agree with you about the outcome, don't think they can prove Misrepresentation of Financial Information, they might win Fordham and we’ll get done for Non-Cooperation.

if they was to win on the fordham stuff would they be a points deduction or fine or both

 

[bluwes]

He should change his user name to Keith Loon

Or MagicHat.Has to be Nick.

 

[halfcenturyup]

if they was to win on the fordham stuff would they be a points deduction or fine or both

That would depend on what "winning Fordham" means, imho.

We don't have the information on here to determine what the allegation on Fordham actually is or what the counter evidence will be, so it's impossible to form an educated opinion on how likely an unfavourable outcome is or what a possible sanction, if any, would be.

If I were to make an uneducated guess, I would say the PL won't succeed on Fordham because of the precedent set by Chelsea and their hotel and because it's not material enough to the accounts, anyway. But it's just a guess based on the little we know.

 

[Tarzan41]

1) We know what we're accused of but not necessarily the detail behind the allegations. But it's not hard to work those out. They all must relate to information published by Der Spiegel, so that's Etihad/Etisalat, Fordham and Mancini's Al Jazira contract. Neither UEFA nor the PL can legally go on a 'fishing expedition'; they have to have specific grounds where they believe breaches may have occurred and can only request documents relating to those areas.

2) Of course it's possible the PL has evidence that UEFA/CAS didn't have but given the weight of evidence presented by us at CAS, and the lack of any cogent evidence uncovered by UEFA, I'd suggest it's highly unlikely.

If the PL had convincing new evidence proving everyone knowingly lied at CAS, we'd almost certainly have settled before the hearing.

3) If Pinto had better evidence than the seven emails then UEFA would have had it years ago. The emails were basically innuendo and completely shorn of context. And I'm not sure this case is about strength of evidence anyway, but more an attempt to blacken our reputation.

Pinto can claim what he likes but his best shot was those seven emails, two of which had to be spliced together to make them look worse than they were. And there's plenty of people claiming to be in the know telling us they know the outcome of the Independent Commission hearing even before it finished. So I'd treat peoples'' claims with great suspicion.

There is no suggestion of concealment re Fordham as far as I am aware. Isn’t it likely to be time barred?

 

[gocity]

No, I do understand how the disclosure process works, but I’m concerned about what may have come in from the sidelines and helped the Premier League piece things together.

Of course, I also understand that new documents are irrelevant at this stage, but the last times new documents were mentioned by Pinto or his lawyer were in November 2023, February 2024, and June 2024.

They’ve had three years since CAS to uncover new evidence, and while it’s likely that the EIC got the juiciest stuff the first time around, it can’t be ruled out that there was more. DS/EIC received 3.4 terabytes out of the 17.5 terabytes.

Give it a rest for all our sakes

 

[halfcenturyup]

There is no suggestion of concealment re Fordham as far as I am aware. Isn’t it likely to be time barred?

The scheme wasn't concealed, but there is talk in the leaked information about ADUG reimbursing Fordham (or Fordham's owners) for losses they incurred under the scheme. If those reimbursements weren't passed down to the club then there could be an argument that those expenses were excluded from the club's accounts to improve the club's FFP position, and were concealed from the PL until the information was leaked.

Speculation, but it may not be time limited in those circumstances.

 

[KS55]

But it’s not certain. These are my points—can you please tell me where I’m wrong?

1. We don’t know what we are accused of or if there is new evidence regarding the 54 charges of Misrepresentation of Financial Information.
2. The major threat to City lies in whether the Premier League has new evidence that they have either uncovered themselves or obtained from FootyLeaks/Pinto/EIC.
3. Pinto claims that there is more material and that data has been shared with authorities.

You really should not be giving credence to spurious claims from Pinto. As both myself and Stefan have pointed out, he would not have saved the best till last and anything he has produced is by definition less cogent than stuff which was rejected at CAS.

 

[Keith Moon]

If this extra data didn't go to DS, where do you think it went? I assume you think the French authorities for use in their investigations of potential criminal activity under their jurisdiction, via the Portuguese authorities. Why would those authorities, or even the British authorities for that matter if they were interested, provide a party to a private civil dispute in the UK with illegally obtained data? What you are saying doesn't make sense.

Pinto's data only caused the UEFA/PL nonsense because of what was leaked in the press. There is absolutely no chance the authorities would provide additional information to the PL. And, as we have already discussed, Pinto was in no position himself to do it after his arrest in 2019.

I think you need to give this up.

In a civil case, it is generally possible to request files or documents from a governmental body, so it’s possible that the authorities provided additional information to the Premier League. What happened in Portugal is that the authorities received the data but then kept it under wraps, which is why they also chose to share the data with other countries.

 

[KS55]

Just for good measure, let me say this on non-cooperation. We don't really know enough about the alleged non-cooperation to come to an informed opinion either way. The allegation may be proven, or it may be thrown out based on a number of factors that may or may not be relevant.

I didn't explain that very well, but one thing I can say clearly: the club won't be found not to have cooperated just to give the PL some sort of consolation win. The judgment will be totally independent of PL influence and decided on the merits.

Hope that helps a little.

If Tolmie’s hints about the emails showing mala fides by the PL are correct, I would be asking why we should cooperate with a body that has itself broken the contract.

 

[KS55]

If you take a step back then one sequence of charges is virtually impossible to disprove and that's the good/bad faith. It stands to reason a set of rules that were written/rewritten and amended every time time they failed the primary purpose of stopping city and latterly Newcastle from joining chumps league on a regular basis to the deferment of the usual red shite.
I doubt any of us would say the club wouldn't have worked with accountants and legal experts whom they deemed the best to see how to remain complaint under each set of BS rules. Essentially city will be saying the thousands of emails are nothing more than brain storming discussions whilst the premier league have to persuade the panel of deliberate deceit/concealment/fraud on the basis of those discussions.
When factored in with the extremely heavy (Like Luke Shaw heavy!)weighting applied to personal testimony in recent panels I believe that the club not only picked a better legal/accountancy team of experts over the period but acted on their advise to ensure compliance as opposed to the premier league who clearly disregarded their legal teams advise with the publication of the botched charge sheet. Whilst that's the only public record of the premier league disregarding legal advise how many more times might masters have caved to red shirt influence to go with their desires over the advise of expensive KC experts? Hopefully a fucking load ;)

Fully agree with Pinto being an irrelevant **** though.

I like the jurisprudential brilliance of your last sentence.

 

[I'm Blue]

In a civil case, it is generally possible to request files or documents from a governmental body, so it’s possible that the authorities provided additional information to the Premier League. What happened in Portugal is that the authorities received the data but then kept it under wraps, which is why they also chose to share the data with other countries.

I now think you’re wumming.
It’s certainly looking like you are trying to get fans on this forum to start panicking over what might be or not with if’s and speculation.
‘IF’ we’re guilty then we’ll deal with consequences if it happens.
But what we won’t do is start panicking over shite posted on the internet, from the lying media or what some bloke has said down the pub.
Our chairman and club as assured us we are innocent of what’s being alleged.
We’ve heard from people with connections to the club that City remain confident in beating the charges.
So unless proven otherwise we should trust the people that run our great club and wait for the judgement.
By all means we should discuss it but with less of the speculation, if’s and maybe’s.

 

[city saint]

In a civil case, it is generally possible to request files or documents from a governmental body, so it’s possible that the authorities provided additional information to the Premier League. What happened in Portugal is that the authorities received the data but then kept it under wraps, which is why they also chose to share the data with other countries.

go and have a beer or a shag and stop posting for a few days.steffan has explained numerous times your wrong.accept he knows far more than most of us on the way it all works.its christmas be happy

 

[Blue Maverick]

If Tolmie’s hints about the emails showing mala fides by the PL are correct, I would be asking why we should cooperate with a body that has itself broken the contract.

Excuse my ignorance but what are mala fides?