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

They wouldn't dare misquote, or even atteibute a quote to something the club might not have said. Not when referring to it as a club statement.
With it not being released widely as previous statements have bren. I feel City are keeping their powder dry and moving on to the next stage of what ever the long term aim of all this is.
But... I don't know anything really so it's all just what my Blue tinted brain matter is telling me:-)
 
The point Stefan & others are missing is one which underpins all capitalist societies... The markets set the rates.

1. We've won 6 out of the last 7 PL's.

2. We've amassed the most top flight points ever.

3. We've scored the most top flight goals in a season.

4. We're the first club to complete the domestic treble & quadruple.

5. We're only the second club to win the three major trophies in one season in English football (treble).

6. We're the first club in English football to win four top flight titles on the trot.

7. We are the current CWC Champions, & are represented at the expanded tournament in June.

Taking into account this has never been done before in the history of English football, by what metric are the PL using to gauge what level of sponsorship City should be entitled to negotiate?

The PL marked down our sponsorships, but then refused to allow us to examine the historical sponsorship data they used to determine if our deals represented fair market value.

In respect to APT 2.0, how can they show metrics valuing City's sponsorship potential, after several record breaking feats which have never been achieved before? Surely we're breaking new ground?

Yes, the PL can say there needs to be an element of APT to protect the integrity of football in terms of Newcastle rocking up with a £1bn per season sponsorship deal from the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, when the last time they won a major trophy was the 2006 Intertoto Cup, & the last time before that was the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in the 60s.

But even this is fraught with danger if ever legally challenged. Sponsorship, just like transfers are only worth what someone's willing to pay, so how does a third party reach an arbitrary figure of what they think is "fair market value"? Isn't this between the seller & the buyer?

The PL can only do this in their private members club where they make the rules. This is why part of the PL's rules states that only disputes about tribunal procedures can be argued in a court of law. All their other bullshit rules wouldn't even get to trial because they contravene British law.

This is the next logical step for APT & PSR. Neither are even close to UK Law & the PL know this, hence their mortal fear of the government introducing IREF.

If I were City & ever found guilty of FFP or PSR, I'd accept it if the UK Government made it a law which governed ALL sectors of UK industry. It could be argued that no one forced City to agree to the PL's rules, but then we could argue we had little choice but to sign up to these restrictive practices, otherwise we'd have no business & would lose access to the CL.

The cartel clubs are evidently prepared to burn down the PL, if it stops Manchester City. However, it's a legal can of fucking worms of the cartel's own making, if City & others think "Fuck this! We've had enough of only being here to make up the numbers. We also want to regularly challenge for all the top trophies"!

FFP, PSR & APT were designed to protect the hegemony of the legacy clubs. If the PL continue down this path, they'll soon pass the point where they'll be able to put the lawsuit genie back in the bottle.
fantastic post mate, its where i've been all along, this protectionist racket by the scum,scousers and the self entitled tarquins is slowly being unravelled.
its like fred's corner shop not being allowed to develop the biggest and the best supermarket chain because tesco,morrisons and asda don't like it and want to keep their share
that is exactly what has been going on here
you get told football is different, no it is not
i think and i hope that is where khaldoon and the boys are going with this
 
What is materially?

Is having to sign an alternative target, or sell a player they didn't to so they could sign their intended target immaterial?
They have a lot of capacity already. So adding say £20m of interest cost (if they had to) to the calculation wouldn't change anything. They aren't not buying because of PSR.
 
Do you ever wonder if maybe you don't understand how loss works in claims?
I probably don't, but here is my question for you who is more knowledgeable.
Say etihad offered us £100m a year for the next 10 years, but the prem said no, it's limited to £80m a year under our rules. We then sign contract with etihad for the next 10 years at £80m. Are we not down £20m a year for the next 10 years? Could we then sue to receive the difference from the prem?
 
Damages, APT having been deemed unlawful as a concept

ATP as a concept has not been challenged. Neither has the concept of clubs having a vote.

Damages may or may not come to be pursued or claimed. Either way it would always be a follow-up. Had the rules not been deemed unlawful though, there would be no chance of pursuing damages. Now, there clearly is and the club have apparently stated as much in the statement quoted on Sky (which I admittedly haven't seen in writing yet).

Neither of those points takes anything away from this vertdict.
 
They have a lot of capacity already. So adding say £20m of interest cost (if they had to) to the calculation wouldn't change anything. They aren't not buying because of PSR.

Don't think you can say that with any real certainty.

That's like saying the price of electricity going up won't affect you buying me a pint. It might not. Or it might, I don't know how tight a budget you live on, and you don't know the price of the pint I'm after.
 
More than anything, this action suggests City's thinking is not in calibration with the mainstream perceptions of the situation. It was considered a Hail Mary in some quarters at the outset, or at least trying to kick the can down the road, but has become an elephant in the room for the PL, and existential for its executives, who have been negligent in twice having been found to have failed to advise its members that it had voted for rules which were unlawful. This suggests either Richard Masters is incompetent or has an agenda. Rules are subject to English Law. If they weren't, the law could be circumvented, similar to how some businesses avoid tax by registering as charities.

AI says the Fit and Proper Person's Test is designed to protect the integrity of the league, 'to assess an individual's integrity, honesty, and financial soundness', and is seasonally reviewed. My question is, how the behaviour of the people who have so aggressively targeted City pass that test. For example, Liverpool illegally hacked City's database, but their owners passed the test. They have a record of dishonesty in sport, e.g. the MLB found their Boston Red Sox cheated on its way to the 2018 World Series.

We still don't know how City's final APT challenge will go and where it goes from here, but I'm not as convinced as others it's disparate from 115.
I don't think we know if City's defence of the 115 includes saying that the whole case derives from unfairness (e.g. from the change to exclude debt as a factor in PSR). A defendant can say that the claimant is not coming "with clean hands" - it's not a general defence to say the other party has acted badly, but the 115 panel will know that the APT panel has said that the PL has acted badly in a case relating to PSR.
 
ATP as a concept has not been challenged. Neither has the concept of clubs having a vote.

Damages may or may not come to be pursued or claimed. Either way it would always be a follow-up. Had the rules not been deemed unlawful though, there would be no chance of pursuing damages. Now, there clearly is and the club have apparently stated as much in the statement quoted on Sky (which I admittedly haven't seen in writing yet).

Neither of those points takes anything away from this vertdict.
It was challenged - I explained numerous times where in the decision yesterday- and it was said to be necessary hence we have APT rules in the re-write. The only real remaining question (without seeing the pleadings) is in respect of historic shareholder loans. City appear to say the historic carve out is unlawful - they are possibly correct but it is not clear where that takes them because that is easily fixed.
 
Don't think you can say that with any real certainty.

That's like saying the price of electricity going up won't affect you buying me a pint. It might not. Or it might, I don't know how tight a budget you live on, and you don't know the price of the pint I'm after.
You can model it out quite easily
 
I probably don't, but here is my question for you who is more knowledgeable.
Say etihad offered us £100m a year for the next 10 years, but the prem said no, it's limited to £80m a year under our rules. We then sign contract with etihad for the next 10 years at £80m. Are we not down £20m a year for the next 10 years? Could we then sue to receive the difference from the prem?
Only if the ability to re-up it now those rules were found unlawful was gone. And City have a duty to take action to minimise any loss.

And btw this is what happened. City asked for the final determination to be unwound at APT1 which it was, so presumably they did not enter the 10 year agreement.

The more feasible claim would be for 24/25 if they had to accept a lower amount than proposed because they were running out of time for the start of the season. But the APT 1 decision suggests the early years of the Etihad renewal were ok for FMV.
 
I've explained above. This was a big win for the PL. It effectively said APT was legitimate (and necessary) if constructed correctly. The Tribunal also rejected things like this "We do not, however, find that the APT Rules were targeted specifically at clubs owned by companies in the Gulf region but were rather intended to apply to any club that might use APTs."
Not proven... no evidence other than an email from one of the clubs that suggested that, and that the rules were amended when the Saudis bought Newcastle.
 
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It was challenged - I explained numerous times where in the decision yesterday- and it was said to be necessary hence we have APT rules in the re-write. The only real remaining question (without seeing the pleadings) is in respect of historic shareholder loans. City appear to say the historic carve out is unlawful - they are possibly correct but it is not clear where that takes them because that is easily fixed.

I have seen what you quoted from the previous verdict. That's not 'a win' for the PL. That's just the preamble. The club have said they haven't challenged the concept, but the implementation. So agreeing the concept is valid, but then deeming the implementation is unlawful, is about as one sided a win as it gets.

Tbh, even if the club Had challenged it and I have misread this, the end implication is still the same, the rules have been deemed unlawful and will need changed, which is ultimawhat the club were after. Given, they had no issue with the rules until the amendments that made them unlawful.
 
I think the optics are central to this whole saga - and I’m more convinced by it with every development.

Seems odd that the legal aspect is secondary in a legal proceeding, but this is now a very expensive PR battle.
There’s substance to the PR win though. It’s not just spinning the news. Masters “leadership” of the Prem looks worse than ever, including pushing through November changes to the APT rules and incentivising Clubs to vote with him (going soft on the treatment of shareholder loans).

We already knew that the Prem delayed and / or blocked three of our sponsorship deals (with our sponsors mocked by the cartel). This was unlawful and it should be reassuring both to City and our sponsors that the unlawful actions have been underscored, even though the legal side of things and Prem approval had been largely resolved. The Prem have been warned about discriminating against our sponsors in future (as a bi-product of City’s actions being reported as a win).
 
You can model it out quite easily

Maybe, but I/you would need to know a lot more than we do to claim it with certainty.

In this case, you might be able to model their margins, but wouldn't know what transfer targers they might have or how much they would cost, for example, or if they are within thise margins.
 
I have seen what you quoted from the previous verdict. That's not 'a win' for the PL. That's just the preamble. The club have said they haven't challenged the concept, but the implementation. So agreeing the concept is valid, but then deeming the implementation is unlawful, is about as one sided a win as it gets.

Tbh, even if the club Had challenged it and I have misread this, the end implication is still the same, the rules have been deemed unlawful and will need changed, which is ultimawhat the club were after. Given, they had no issue with the rules until the amendments that made them unlawful.
Ok - don't agree with the bits I understand of this but we don't have to agree.
 
This is a blow to the authority and integrity of the Premier League. They drafted illegal rules. They were advised that the rules were illegal. They dismissed these claims. The case went to their own dispute resolution chamber. They lost. They denied this again, so the club concerned returned to the tribunal and now in respect to the nature of the rules, and the competence and intent of the PL executive, all is now clear. In terms of material losses, there may only be costs. In terms of legitimacy, the Premier League has been shown to be acting most unfairly and persistently against MCFC. There is a case now for the other Premier League clubs to seek the resignation of its executive and to withdraw its cases against MCFC. It would seem their judgement is impaired.
 
Only if the ability to re-up it now those rules were found unlawful was gone. And City have a duty to take action to minimise any loss.

Yes, pretty clear any loss would be minimal. As you have pointed out many times, Etihad is still on the shirt so there has been some sort of "deal" for 24/25. If the club was 20 million cash short for a year because of this, any financial claim would be small.

I am much more interested in what the club's bigger picture is, if they want to continue with APT2. There must be one ....
 

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