PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[halfcenturyup]

I respectfully disagree ;)

Decisions like this are made all the time based on likelihood of winning, costs, implications for the brand & competition & if the slightest amount of effort had been put into managing the fall out as it had in trying to destroy City they’d have saved millions. They have chosen to ignore breaches to other clubs & in this case they can say it’s been investigated by the highest court in sport.

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. You bastard. Actually, I don't.

Of course decisions are taken based on various factors. I am saying that the PL imo had no choice professionally in February 2023, after it had considered all the factors, but to continue.

I think it was a mistake to start an investigation at the same time as UEFA, although I can understand why they did. I think it was a bigger mistake to continue the investigation after the CAS judgment (that was the time to quit and say it had been investigated by the highest court in sport) and I am struggling to see a reason for that other than club pressure. But I don't see proceeding in 2023 as a mistake. Even if you don't buy the "professional" argument, the internal political fall-out of dropping the case would have, imho, outweighed any of the other factors, including the additional costs to be incurred.

 

[KS55]

That wasn't the intended implication.
The 'throw enough mud' was the sheer number of allegations made, admittedly many of them multiple instances across different periods.
Of course they'll have to be substantiated, but it does have a feel of 'hit them from multiple angles and if we don't win on allegation x, we have allegation y and z to go at'.
There is also the PR effect of 115 almost setting the scene for 'repeated offenses' and 'blatant disregard'. That number of allegations has a tangible effect on the public perception. It adds impact to headlines and regardless of the judgment, some of the negative PR will stick.

Experienced judges don’t fall so easily.

 

[KS55]

That’s not what the post says. It’s premise is the accounts are “perfectly legitimate”.

And btw I don’t agree it’s easy to get a positive audit opinion where the red flags have been raised in a very high profile company. In fact, in those scenarios companies often can’t satisfy auditors’ heightened professional scepticism so, even if a firm has historically signed off, they are forced to resign. This idea that audits happen in a vacuum is a nonsense. For years BDO have had their technical people asking for more and more comfort from the directors of City. I don’t know this from sources, I know this from absolute basic compliance requirements at professional firms.

The idea BDO haven’t asked all the tricky questions when the club has been in focus of regulators and leaks for a decade where the allegation is that the accounts are a fiction is a nonsense theory. If City are liable, BDO are either part of the cover up (they aren’t) or are another party that’s been outright lied to. But they simply must have asked many questions and been shown many key documents.

I posted something along these lines, when was it? Seems years ago. Circles within circles. A poster who was an auditor confirmed what I said. Rinse and repeat.

 

[halfcenturyup]

You can have a perfectly legitimate and audited set of accounts that the PL still deemed to be in bad faith and misleading (In terms of how you chose to account in order to circumvent their own set of rules).
If you sell shirts at the stadium shop on matchday, that could be deemed matchday revenue. However, you could alternatively just attribute them to merchandise regardless of matchday. Neither is wrong, but the PL might try to argue you've chosen a specific categorisation to give a skewed picture that favours FFP. That becomes very subjective very quickly and any club on their right mind would always choose to account for things favourably. I seem to recall Liverpool declaring huge figures for infrastructure consultancy and the PL not batting an eyelid.

As an example, you may have an internal team working on infrastructure improvements and their costs are attributed to infrastructure. The PL may take a view that they were just regular staff with a whole range of duties not attributed to infrastructure projects.

There is nothing illegal in the accounts as there can be many ways a company chooses to categorise its finances, but the PL make specific exemptions for some costs and not for others. So then it becomes a matter of the PL viewing things one way, and the City viewing them another.

Another example with a multinational might be that a department in the USA is paid as USA employees, perfectly legitimately, but once in a while they do some work for the UK branch and countercharge the UK. The countercharge might be far less than it would have cost to employ folks in the UK directly. Is this a form of disguising your real costs? I would say no, it's simply how multinationals work by using the most favourable country to gain the best tax advantages, labour and materials costs. Would the PL be irked by this? Very probably.

Fair post. You clearly have some accounting experience, so I won't insult your intelligence by saying you are wrong that accounting treatments can be interpreted more than one way. They clearly can.

But where I think you are wrong is in implying that that can be applied to the 115 allegations. You only have to look at the very first two alleged breaches (B16 and E3) to see that it is much more serious than that. They are the rules on acting in good faith and filing accounts that meet legal and regulatory requirements. So by alleging the club has breached those rules, the PL is saying the club has filed accounts that don't meet legal and regulatory requirements (basically, inter alia, true and fair view) in bad faith. Pretty damning and serious stuff imho, and in no way comparable to a disagreement about an accounting treatment.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I posted something along these lines, when was it? Seems years ago. Circles within circles. A poster who was an auditor confirmed what I said. Rinse and repeat.

All true. But it does no harm to rinse and repeat these things for people who haven't been as closely involved in this thread as some of us sad sacks, or who have taken an interest recently. We should encourage discussion, I think.

Anyway, I don't think @Prestwich_Blue was being too serious. Just a little mischievous. The rascal.

 

[cheekybids]

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. You bastard. Actually, I don't.

Of course decisions are taken based on various factors. I am saying that the PL imo had no choice professionally in February 2023, after it had considered all the factors, but to continue.

I think it was a mistake to start an investigation at the same time as UEFA, although I can understand why they did. I think it was a bigger mistake to continue the investigation after the CAS judgment (that was the time to quit and say it had been investigated by the highest court in sport) and I am struggling to see a reason for that other than club pressure. But I don't see proceeding in 2023 as a mistake. Even if you don't buy the "professional" argument, the internal political fall-out of dropping the case would have, imho, outweighed any of the other factors, including the additional costs to be incurred.

2 wrongs don’t make a right…… That reasoning makes perfect sense.

Respectfully yours :)

 

[M12Blue]

When we get the all clear from the Kangaroo tribunal we may be not guilty by the people who matter but even if that's written in the next Kings speech it'll still be the stick other fans and the media beat us with.

Unless the club show some balls and start throwing a few twats in front of the courts and suing them for all they are worth.

A few renditions of ‘we know what your are’ will soon fade away on match days once 115 has gone away

 

[KS55]

When we get the all clear from the Kangaroo tribunal we may be not guilty by the people who matter but even if that's written in the next Kings speech it'll still be the stick other fans and the media beat us with.

Unless the club show some balls and start throwing a few twats in front of the courts and suing them for all they are worth.

I don’t think they will sue, it’s not their style. Shame.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

Well I am not the brightest on here but we are not guilty of anything until some tosser shows me a physical piece of evidence.
Anyone can make accusations, I well know in my job but what is required is proof beyond any doubt.
I know civil cases are different when it comes to the Burden of Proof but no fucker will ever convince me City have cooked the books for how long and disguised investment until my dying day.
See you at Leicester

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

Well, it’s match day and all I can say is ‘Fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em all’!

Beat Leicester today and all will be reet.

 

[bluebarry]

After 7985 pages I've decided to take the radical decision to just wait for the formal outcome. Anyhow, I'm off to Leicester now to er, watch football!

 

[give it to gordon]

I don't disagree, but at the same time there's another legal team who believe there's merit in the PL's case, unless they are ignoring counsel's advice.
Could there be a case that the PL don't see much merit, but want to at least be seen to have taken us to task. If they lose, then so be it, they can claim to have done their utmost and let public opinion still deem we 'wangled it' somehow.

With the APT ruling we won a very significant argument regarding loans, but we didn't win every point. Some of the subjective beliefs about Middle Eastern ownership were not deemed to be valid.

It would be a wonderful outcome if not a single allegation can be substantiated. It would be a perfect outcome if we could disprove each allegation. However, I think it's fairly reasonable to wonder what the other side is coming at us with and if the panel may interpret some things negatively.
The hurried and erroneous manner in which the charges were initially published leads me to believe they were brought forward in haste. The PL must have been under pressure from within and/or without. Hopefully, that's reflected in their case, but I'm still anticipating they'll get something to stick. The old 'throw enough mud' approach. It's worked with the general public and no panel is entirely infallible.

Well if the pl legal team wrote the original charge sheet with all those mistakes on it. Than the pl legal team are shit or the pl ignored their legal team.
Either way that legal team is earning a pretty penny from the pl

 

[johnevans]

After 7985 pages I've decided to take the radical decision to just wait for the formal outcome. Anyhow, I'm off to Leicester now to er, watch football!

Indeed, Baz.. reading this thread during the past few days, I've been channelling my my 'Inner Grandchild'.. as in 'Are we there yet?'..!

Given it's Christmas, I suggest this thread should be renamed after Dickens's 'The Circumlocution Office'..!

So, getting back to the nitty-gritty, enjoy the game with the boys and bring back the three points.. PLEASE bring back the three points!!

 

[journolud]

When we get the all clear from the Kangaroo tribunal we may be not guilty by the people who matter but even if that's written in the next Kings speech it'll still be the stick other fans and the media beat us with.

Unless the club show some balls and start throwing a few twats in front of the courts and suing them for all they are worth.

would love to see this but don't think it will happen. What I do thik we'll get will be a strongly worded statement that effectively "dares" the media to continue with the cheat line and we'll see a change in tone from them, albeit through gritted teeth.

Fans of other clubs can fuck off, don't care what they might try and call us

 

[mcfcphil]

It may well be true that the PL continued with the referral of allegations in February 2023 against the advice of their lawyers and under pressure from certain clubs but, personally, I'm not sure the PL had much option but to continue the process whatever the opinion of their legal team on the chances of success.

The implications for any future investigation of closing down an investigation before the PL had seen any of the significant counter-evidence available would be catastrophic and "make a mockery" of the disciplinary process, as had already been pointed out by CAS in their judgment on non-cooperation.

Once the PL had continued with the investigation after the CAS verdict, it seems to me they had no choice but see it through to its conclusion in front of an independent panel. What's more, I think the club were happy with that as it will finally draw a proper line under the whole sorry chapter. I would even go so far as to say the club manipulated the situation to force the PL down this path. A sort of "if you really want to continue with this investigation, it will cost you at least 50 million and you will still lose before a truly independent panel" approach after the CAS judgment. The club almost said as much in their statement on the allegations. Which is why I am very much of the opinion that the club has played a blinder here and has the PL exactly where it wants them.

All imho of course.

Edit: And by club I mean Mansour and Khaldoon with a sprinkling of Pearce, of course. This is way above Soriano's pay grade.

No chance, imo.

If the club had the opportunity to end this after CAS they would have done so.

Even if there is a 1% chance of defeat in the PL case, it’s a risk too high to support your theory of City forcing the PL to take us to court in order to clear own name.

 

[halfcenturyup]

No chance, imo.

If the club had the opportunity to end this after CAS they would have done so.

Even if there is a 1% chance of defeat in the PL case, it’s a risk too high to support your theory of City forcing the PL to take us to court in order to clear own name.

Possibly, but I don't think the club would have had the choice of settling after CAS, it was up to the PL to continue the investigation or not. It was posted on here that the PL offered to settle later on, before the allegations were referred, but the club said no. If that is true, it doesn't look like the club was in any hurry to settle.

Anyway, I suppose we will never know for certain, so your opinion is as valid as mine :)

 

[slbsn]

It may well be true that the PL continued with the referral of allegations in February 2023 against the advice of their lawyers and under pressure from certain clubs but, personally, I'm not sure the PL had much option but to continue the process whatever the opinion of their legal team on the chances of success.

The implications for any future investigation of closing down an investigation before the PL had seen any of the significant counter-evidence available would be catastrophic and "make a mockery" of the disciplinary process, as had already been pointed out by CAS in their judgment on non-cooperation.

Once the PL had continued with the investigation after the CAS verdict, it seems to me they had no choice but see it through to its conclusion in front of an independent panel. What's more, I think the club were happy with that as it will finally draw a proper line under the whole sorry chapter. I would even go so far as to say the club manipulated the situation to force the PL down this path. A sort of "if you really want to continue with this investigation, it will cost you at least 50 million and you will still lose before a truly independent panel" approach after the CAS judgment. The club almost said as much in their statement on the allegations. Which is why I am very much of the opinion that the club has played a blinder here and has the PL exactly where it wants them.

All imho of course.

Edit: And by club I mean Mansour and Khaldoon with a sprinkling of Pearce, of course. This is way above Soriano's pay grade.

The PL wouldn't have acted against their lawyers advice - no chance. Of course the PL had the option (and in fact obligation) to terminate a hopeless case. Like it or not, the PL believe they have good grounds for their charges and some prospects at the hearing - lets not be silly. By February 2023, it is very likely the PL had seen what City believed to be their compelling defence evidence - the PL's lawyers must have believed it did not fully answer the allegations. The PL may well have known the case had some weaknesses but I don't believe the PL thought it was in any way hopeless.

The PL had to investigate after CAS because they reacted to complaints from clubs to do so - I am told the PL is duty bound to investigate if parties complain. But they did not need to bring a charge nor frame it as "115" - that was a poor and naive PR choice.

There is no way City were genuinely pleased to "draw a line" by having a drawn out, multi year process and 12 week initial hearing. I am sure, in fact, it has been a nightmare for the executive side of the club to have this running for years and years both in cost and reputational damage.

And I also disagree with this separation from Soriano - he is the CEO - it is absolutely not above his pay grade.

 

[BamberBridgeBlue]

The PL wouldn't have acted against their lawyers advice - no chance. Of course the PL had the option (and in fact obligation) to terminate a hopeless case. Like it or not, the PL believe they have good grounds for their charges and some prospects at the hearing - lets not be silly. By February 2023, it is very likely the PL had seen what City believed to be their compelling defence evidence - the PL's lawyers must have believed it did not fully answer the allegations. The PL may well have known the case had some weaknesses but I don't believe the PL thought it was in any way hopeless.

The PL had to investigate after CAS because they reacted to complaints from clubs to do so - I am told the PL is duty bound to investigate if parties complain. But they did not need to bring a charge nor frame it as "115" - that was a poor and naive PR choice.

There is no way City were genuinely pleased to "draw a line" by having a drawn out, multi year process and 12 week initial hearing. I am sure, in fact, it has been a nightmare for the executive side of the club to have this running for years and years both in cost and reputational damage.

And I also disagree with this separation from Soriano - he is the CEO - it is absolutely not above his pay grade.

Isn’t it possible that the Premier League faced (faces) an existential threat which clouded their judgement? In their opinion (based on them seeking approval from Rags and Dippers for senior appointments) they are nothing without the old top 4. If they didn’t bring the charges maybe some Premier League clubs were threatening to leave? Perhaps they felt compelled to bring the action otherwise, no Premier League. In this situation maybe they did go against legal advice.

Btw Keith Moon liked your post. Go and get fucking showered.

 

[CC1]

The PL wouldn't have acted against their lawyers advice - no chance. Of course the PL had the option (and in fact obligation) to terminate a hopeless case. Like it or not, the PL believe they have good grounds for their charges and some prospects at the hearing - lets not be silly. By February 2023, it is very likely the PL had seen what City believed to be their compelling defence evidence - the PL's lawyers must have believed it did not fully answer the allegations. The PL may well have known the case had some weaknesses but I don't believe the PL thought it was in any way hopeless.

The PL had to investigate after CAS because they reacted to complaints from clubs to do so - I am told the PL is duty bound to investigate if parties complain. But they did not need to bring a charge nor frame it as "115" - that was a poor and naive PR choice.

There is no way City were genuinely pleased to "draw a line" by having a drawn out, multi year process and 12 week initial hearing. I am sure, in fact, it has been a nightmare for the executive side of the club to have this running for years and years both in cost and reputational damage.

And I also disagree with this separation from Soriano - he is the CEO - it is absolutely not above his pay grade.

Sounds a bit worrying & few positives here Stefan. We must also have great belief to take it this far - what are our main definite “wins”

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

Hi @slbsn - I may have missed it, but if you're willing and able to, could you elaborate on that 'soft signal' of positivity.

We may as well start the morning with a hint of good news, today is one of those now dreaded things known to other fans as 'match days'...

Etihad Airway are heading for annual record profits, which adds strength to our other 'issue' with the PL re APTs and renewal of the sponsorship

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/etihad-airwayss-nine-month-profit-up-66-booming-passenger-numbers-2024-11-14/?utm_source=chatgpt.com