Do we know if it will be like CAS and in the public domain or will it be like the APT case where the losing side can spin it like a win again.
As a matter of theory and disregarding for a moment the current case, my experience of proceedings of this kind (much greater than that of your average punter but not that extensive compared with that of a specialist practitioner and therefore subject to correction from such a person) is that can end with enough points decided in favour of both sides for both to feel reasonably satisfied. Equally, it's possible at the end for neither side to be entirely happy.
Unfortunately, in this whole matter with MCFC and I'm talking about the stuff dating back to the original
Der Spiegel 'revelations' from over six years ago which sparked the investigations of UEFA and the PL, show that we can't expect good-faith and honest reporting of the outcome, whatever happens. The media has uniformly labelled us as guilty from the start and literally no mainstream outlet has given any meaningful consideration to the prospect we may not be.
We saw what happened after the CAS Award was published. Unequivocal statements of there being no evidence were followed by reporting marked by a farrago of lies and half-truths to explain how we'd unfairly escaped punishment. Whatever the Panel ends up saying, the media will try to hammer us, unfortunately. If things go well for us, they'll try to discredit the findings irrespective of what the evidence said.
In that case, even any small finding against us would be trumpeted as proof of wider corruption that we've managed somehow to conceal. After all, the hysterical coverage so far has created an expectation in the minds of foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy loons among the fanbases of our biggest enemies that we deserve the harshest of punishments. There are posters on their equivalents of this board who assert, in all seriousness, that we deserve to be in the North West Counties League and it's that constituency our esteemed football journalists seem to pander to.
The media has been complicit in creating that atmosphere and, on the assumption we escape a really serious punishment, the journalists involved have to explain to their readers why expectations haven't been met. Will those journalists suddenly turn round and report the verdict accurately? Not a chance. Leopards, spots and all that.
Experience shows that they don't care how ridiculous it makes them look in the mind of an intelligent reader who
really knows the case in detail, too (emphasis mine - and almost all of those who actually meet that latter criterion as well as the former seem to be posters on here as only we appear to have read everything about it in the public domain!). In a way, it's depressing but the good thing if we prevailed would be that it'd be easier for the club then to hit back. Let's hope they'd want to.
