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

Dribble said:
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.
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Quality work mate.
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
Didnt slbsn also think we had a slim chance of winning this case when it was first announced. As good as he is, he does get some things wrong ?
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A post to which it’s probably a good time to post this thought…

2 sets of legal experts and lawyers have been arguing this case for months. Same when UEFA came after us. Same with the 115 charges etc and one side thinks the law says this whilst the other argues the opposite.

Twice now our lawyers have won and I wouldn’t bet against us in the 115 case either so it’s all good and well Stefan saying he has read this or understands that etc, he has consistently claimed we had very little chance of winning which basically put him in the PL camp and he has been shown to have got that wrong.

I’m no lawyer but null and void is pretty clear cut to me and I’ve little doubt the PL are so fucking stupid, any attempts at APT v2,3,4 etc will end up the exact same way because they’re rules designed to distort the competition and businesses to the benefit of a few whilst restricting others, namely us.
 
Nephin Man said:
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.
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New man looking fly.
 
Dribble said:
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.
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Excellent post.
 
slbsn said:
None of this is either due to APT or claimable.
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the ultimate aim by whatever method and i'd be amazed if you didn't agree is to try and stop new money clubs like city(think they were too late with us) and now newcastle getting to the top by spending money they legitimately have and crucially have pretty much zero chance of going bust in doing so to get there
that is what they don't want
they by the way are the "heritage" clubs, whatever the hell that means
 
cheekybids said:
Etihad is on the shirt but it will have affect our financial planning if we didn’t know we would get the full amount.
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True, and it is possible that we did a "deal" with Etihad to keep the sponsorship even if the deal temporarily wasn't approved by the PL, rather than with the PL in which case you may be looking at interest on 100 million.

But the consequential claims on financial planning are a little way out there. The equivalent of Liverpool trying to claim from the club in the (extremely unlikely) case the 115 goes the wrong way.

Interesting that Sky said the club made all these points about financial planning and recruitment in their (as yet invisible) statement, though.
 
blueinsa said:
A post to which it’s probably a good time to post this thought…

2 sets of legal experts and lawyers have been arguing this case for months. Same when UEFA came after us. Same with the 115 charges etc and one side thinks the law says this whilst the other argues the opposite.

Twice now our lawyers have won and I wouldn’t bet against us in the 115 case either so it’s all good and well Stefan saying he has read this or understands that etc, he has consistently claimed we had very little chance of winning which basically put him in the PL camp and he has been shown to have got that wrong.

I’m no lawyer but null and void is pretty clear cut to me and I’ve little doubt the PL are so fucking stupid, any attempts at APT v2,3,4 etc will end up the exact same way because they’re rules designed to distort the competition and businesses to the benefit of a few whilst restricting others, namely us.
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I wouldn't say Stefan is in the Premier League camp ffs haha. He made an education guess about something, nothing more.
 
Coatigan said:
Other than no 5, which we won't know for some time, City have achieved everything their legal challenge set out to do. Got it.

The club have been clear that they did not challenge the need or concept of APT rules. So arguing that this has been recognised seems a bit moot.

In the simplest of terms, if you challenge a speed limit, and win, in the sense that speed limit is deemed unlawful, it doesn't mean you lost because speed limits should exist and might one day come to be implemented but with a different limit to the one you challenged. It means you won.
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I pointed similar out last night mate. City absolutely won and the PL have taken a very severe bumming.
 
slbsn said:
Overall it was a slight win for City because the PL had some significant wins. Not that complicated. A big win for City would have been APT being unlawful by object ie incapable of coming back in any form. City didn't get that.
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Stefan, could you give a link to the partial judgment? [Edit: I got it:
https://resources.premierleague.com...Premier-League-Partial-Final-Award-071024.pdf ]

City asked for these rules to be declared unlawful so won on that. They didn't seek a ruling that any APT rules would be unlawful (they'd voted for an early draft version but didn't like the final version and warned of possible legal action).
 
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halfcenturyup said:
Good post. But I think what people are having a problem with is how you can make three or four changes to rules that don't exist?

Seems to me as a hopeless non-lawyer that they will have to approve a whole new set of APT rules that, taken together, form a lawful coherent whole.

They may very well look like the November rules, but just making changes wasn't good enough?

Then you have the question about the lawfulness of the transition measures on shareholder loans and, for that matter, the lawfulness of all the financial rules including FFP and PSR, taking this judgment into account ..... It's a complete pig's breakfast that will take forever to sort out.
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Bottom line. Its not hard blues.
 
One thing that seems indisputable even on the PL's case is that between 25 September 2024 and 11 December 2024 (or whenever the November amendments came into force), there were no enforceable APT rules. Any deals signed then do not need any prior approval. Be interesting to see if anyone did that.
 
blueinsa said:
A post to which it’s probably a good time to post this thought…

2 sets of legal experts and lawyers have been arguing this case for months. Same when UEFA came after us. Same with the 115 charges etc and one side thinks the law says this whilst the other argues the opposite.

Twice now our lawyers have won and I wouldn’t bet against us in the 115 case either so it’s all good and well Stefan saying he has read this or understands that etc, he has consistently claimed we had very little chance of winning which basically put him in the PL camp and he has been shown to have got that wrong.

I’m no lawyer but null and void is pretty clear cut to me and I’ve little doubt the PL are so fucking stupid, any attempts at APT v2,3,4 etc will end up the exact same way because they’re rules designed to distort the competition and businesses to the benefit of a few whilst restricting others, namely us.
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He is on the Premier Leagues side because he got something wrong? Jeez.
 
halfcenturyup said:
True, and it is possible that we did a "deal" with Etihad to keep the sponsorship even if the deal temporarily wasn't approved by the PL, rather than with the PL in which case you may be looking at interest on 100 million.

But the consequential claims on financial planning are a little way out there. The equivalent of Liverpool trying to claim from the club in the (extremely unlikely) case the 115 goes the wrong way.

Interesting that Sky said the club made all these points about financial planning and recruitment in their (as yet invisible) statement, though.
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The question is can you sue for a hypothetical loss by being refused the opportunity to invest. There are plenty of cases when this has happened but will we succeed who knows.

Why did the premier league block the Etihad deal? They wanted to stop us investing as they thought that was the best way to stop our domination.

The premier league has achieved its aims except it’s been found to be unlawful.
 
Chris in London said:
I disagree with this. This is not a small victory, and I don’t even think it appears to be a small victory. Plus, I think everyone is entitled to enjoy this victory because if you are in a fight the alternative is a defeat.

But remember 2011 when we beat the rags in the semi final? That was brilliant, and was a reward in itself, but it would have been much less significant if we’d lost to Stoke.

Enjoy the victory, but don’t get carried away thinking we’re automatically going to win next time, too.

And that’s all the more reason for enjoying this one.
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Yaya Toure likes this.
 
slbsn said:
One thing that seems indisputable even on the PL's case is that between 25 September 2024 and 11 December 2024 (or whenever the November amendments came into force), there were no enforceable APT rules. Any deals signed then do not need any prior approval. Be interesting to see if anyone did that.
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Stupid question, maybe. Why September 2024 and not 2021?
 
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