PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

iwasthere1968 said:
I'm seeing more and more of " they have more documents" , is this based upon their requests ( which we originally refused)?
Or is it factually known that they are contesting specifics?
The sheer mass of invoices , journals , P.Os , ledgers , etc over 10 years (?) , would be daunting to trail through particularly if they're on a fishing trip. .
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It's just logic that they have more documents - the investigation was more thorough and we can assume better supported by disclosure. It always was logic, it's nothing new. But the PL's problem is the same no matter how many documents they have: they have to show that what was described in any documents actually happened, at least to the extent it outweighs the club's counter-evidence. I still can't see how they can do that.
 
malg said:
I've had two news stories today telling me we're getting a two year transfer ban, which given our current squad would be worse than relegation and this one.......looks like we're fucked as I'm sure Football365 is quite reputable......

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Lol look who has posted it football365.

Corporate fraud that would ruin our top men, ruin Etihad Airways, ruin our accountants, ruin most of our sponsors. This would have a huge impact to worldwide deals and multi billion companies.

I haven't read the article but the headline is laughable
 
slbsn said:
Even if that was correct (and it’s not) that would still be far more information than was used at CAS. And the requirements of disclosure under both the PL rules and English law are for parties to disclose relevant documents regardless of whether they support the defence or the allegations. By the time of the charges, the PL had a lot of documents and emails from City.
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Thanks for that detail.

Have City been given access to the PL emails that detail their internal reasoning to actually charge City?
 
Tevez City said:
100 point deduction take us to which league ?


The good side of it will be low pressure football for few years, that will be great for our health.
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Which league?
A theoretical 100 point deduction would see us finish bottom of the PL and we would, therefore, be relegated to the championship.
 
iwasthere1968 said:
I'm seeing more and more of " they have more documents" , is this based upon their requests ( which we originally refused)?
Or is it factually known that they are contesting specifics?
The sheer mass of invoices , journals , P.Os , ledgers , etc over 10 years (?) , would be daunting to trail through particularly if they're on a fishing trip. .
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I'm sure it was posted on here that the Panel in the 115 case ordered the PL and City to submit all email/whatsapp/text communications involving the PL and City?
 
terraloon said:
Having worked on HMRC investigations I can tell you it’s quite amazing just how much of the “groundwork “ is very low level clerical work.

Most of the guidance to those clerical staff would be directed by some very smart people who some are engaged in forensic accounting indeed if you go back to the UEFA / CAS case you will get a flavour of the sort of work these people are skilled to do & whilst not exclusive the sort of issues and challenges that will have been faced by the PL are not that different to those faced by many other organisations carrying out investigations.

As I pointed out some while ago it’s not the stuff that is written down that causes the problems it’s the stuff that’s not that creates the real issues from an investigator’s point of view
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I suppose that's my point the multitude of transactions hitting the ledgers , the numbers of prime documents all form part audit ( I know its not all checked ) . They either have a very clear idea what they're going for or they're fishing . If the later they'd be lucky to stumble on anything due to the sheer numbers.
Oh and by the way City changed the structure of their organisation ( conpanies / cost centres etc ) during this time , another level of tracking complexity for them to overcome.
 
terraloon said:
Having worked on HMRC investigations I can tell you it’s quite amazing just how much of the “groundwork “ is very low level clerical work.

Most of the guidance to those clerical staff would be directed by some very smart people who some are engaged in forensic accounting indeed if you go back to the UEFA / CAS case you will get a flavour of the sort of work these people are skilled to do & whilst not exclusive the sort of issues and challenges that will have been faced by the PL are not that different to those faced by many other organisations carrying out investigations.

As I pointed out some while ago it’s not the stuff that is written down that causes the problems it’s the stuff that’s not that creates the real issues from an investigator’s point of view
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Boy do I know the levels that need to be looked at albeit for a different reason !
I do agree with you.
 
SilverFox2 said:
Thanks for that detail.

Have City been given access to the PL emails that detail their internal reasoning to actually charge City?
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I doubt it would meet the relevance test. But hard to be sure. Contrary to the view here, it’s very unlikely City focussed on the PL rationale on this case (as distinguished from APT).
 
slbsn said:
I doubt it would meet the relevance test. But hard to be sure. Contrary to the view here, it’s very unlikely City focussed on the PL rationale on this case (as distinguished from APT).
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Thanks Stefan.

Emails have never been a problem for City then?
 
Chris in London said:
I don't disagree with any of that except the first line.

The charges don't appear serious, they are serious. The F365 headline on p8367 illustrates the point neatly. What has been alleged IS corporate fraud. The evidence relied on in support of those allegations may well turn out to be a pile of horseshit, and from what we know of it it IS a pile of horseshit, but that doesn't make it any less serious an allegation.

The Mancini stuff is a good example. So far as we can tell, he had a contract with us and a contract with Al Jazeera for some consulting. The allegation is that this was actually City paying Mancini some disguised remuneration beyond that stated in the accounts.

To make that allegation stick the PL would have to show that Mancini and City AND Al Jazeera all conspired and colluded to agree to contracts that all three knew were shams - "sham" in the technical legal sense, meaning something that ALL the parties knew was untrue. That, again, is tantamount to an allegation of fraud.

Forget the fact that there's no obvious reason for the club to have done so, forget the fact that there seems to be bugger all evidence to support that allegation, forget the fact that it's essentially impossible to prove that without putting that very serious allegation not only to City but also to Al Jazeera and to Mancini himself in the witness box, it is a very serious accusation. The charge involves an allegation that a dishonest and unlawful conspiracy was entered into and carried out by MCFC, Mancini and Al Jazeera. It doesn't matter if there's fuck all evidence to support the charge, the charge is serious.

You may well be proved entirely right that the process is the punishment, and the fact that the PL might have embarked upon very serious charges with very little prospect of success may beg further questions, but the seriousness of the charges is defined by what is alleged, not by the evidence that is relied on.
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slbsn said:
I don’t see how you can suggest the allegations are the same as CAS plus some other things and then say they are not serious. City themselves said they were “very serious”. The word “serious” appears TWENTY FIVE times in the CAS decision.

And I am certain the disclosure in the PL case is far beyond CAS which was extremely limited on any basis and insufficient to prove the alleged fraudulent conspiracy. Again, we don’t need to speculate - these are City’s words.

BTW I am not suggesting every aspect of the PLs behaviour is “entirely rational”. On the contrary, I’ve criticised lots of aspects even from the limited amount we know. But I think it is very dangerous to underestimate the other side when it is manned with some of the best quality lawyers in the country who would simply not pursue a hopeless case.

Fortunately, it is crystal clear, City have taken the whole matter very seriously hiring a huge squad of high quality specialists with a money no object approach.

Personally, I accept on the face of the emails, there has been a case to answer (ignoring the debate about whether it’s fair/legal for the PL to go after a case essentially the same as CAS, if they have)

I’ve been burned in litigation too many times to take anything for granted, to be too confident or to underestimate opponents even where I think they are totally wrong on something.
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I posted what you've replied to quickly while I was on the tram going home. then was out for the evening.

Having reflected I agree that my language was imprecise and there's no doubt that in the worst case scenario these are potentially serious charges. That worst case scenario involves us deliberately concealing legitimate expenses via Fordham and Al Jazira, and also deliberately reporting equity contributions that should go into the balance sheet as revenue. Additionally, by doing that we've presented a false picture of our finances (a potential criminal offence in itself) and have also misstated our finances vis-a-vis the PL and UEFA's financial control rules. So, yes, that certainly would entail serious consequences if proven.

My position however is that this worst case scenario is a false one.
  • The Mancini contract is a complete red herring, involving a total sum of less than £6m over three years when we reported huge losses. And if the PL has thrown that red herring into the pot, some on here feel it really can't be too confident in the rest of its case. The possible real reason for that contract w not to hide what should have been legitimate expenses off the books but to either carry on a contract that might have been in place prior to Mancini joining us, or to confer some tax advantage to him.
  • The Fordham one wasn't done to conceal expenses but was a device to increase revenue in 2012/13 in order to try to take advantage of the Annex XI provisions. Had we known in 2011/12 that we were never going to meet the requirements then I very much doubt we'd have entered into the arrangement. And we know that UEFA discussed this with us around 2014 or 2015, and no charges ever arose from that.
So you could take the view that these were fraudulent arrangements, knowingly entered into to hide expenses, or you could take the view that these were maybe artificial contracts but there was nothing illegitimate about them and that they were within rules that existed at the time, maybe at worst pushing the boundaries of the letter of those rules. My view is the latter opinion. And even if we take the worst case scenario view, it's probably unlikely there will have been any impact on FFP or the PL's Short Term Cost Control rules that were in force at the time.

Then there's the sponsorship charges, where we're assuming that there's potentially
  • A second attempt to challenge the legitimacy of those sponsorships in some way, meaning that we've significantly overstated our revenue and have deliberately misreported equity investment as revenue
  • An attempt to prove we've misreported related parties.
The first is potentially the most serious of all the charges, but unless the PL have a smoking gun that UEFA didn't have, that's unlikely to succeed. And, as I've said, the only snippet I've heard on this is that we presented the same evidence to the IC as we presented to CAS. But of course we don't know yet hat the PL found as part of its discovery process.

The related party issue, as I've said before, is one that runs through all our previous entanglements with the authorities, from the 2014 settlement, via CAS and the APT rule through to these charges. This will be the first time it's been properly tested and it would be a major shock if the Abu Dhabi companies were declared to be related parties by the IC. Our auditors, as Stefan has said, will want to be 200% sure of their ground on this, and that's not changed their view in the slightest. And even on the off chance that the IC did come down on the PL's side, then there has been nothing more han a technical misreporting, rather than financial chicanery.

So these are potentially serious charges I agree but my view is that the scenarios that make them serious (deliberate concealment) probably didn't exist.

Maybe you're being ultra-curious and maybe I'm being over#confident. We'll only know when we hear the outcome though.
 
My comfort and confidence and certainly not hubris regarding the most serious charges, is that in order for any document, group of documents or evidence to be any kind of "smoking gun", it must sufficiently i.e. more likely than not, prove that City and its directors, employees, auditors, accountants, several huge company sponsors and their directors all conspired in some multi faceted corporate fraudulent activity to benefit City by, in effect, by our ownership paying our sponsorship money.

I simply don't believe that happened. If you can believe that one thing, then the evidence required cannot exist.

If you can take that step, then in order for the PL to prove its case they must have to rely on lots of circumstantial evidence pointing to a probability of those events having occurred and that evidence sufficiently outweighing all of City's rebuttal evidence, owners, directors and employees testimony, our own and 3rd party documentation proving we did nothing wrong.

Again if you believe that it didn't happen it would seem that this must be an impossible task for the PL.

It must follow in the event of a "not proven" case and i wont include any of the none co-operation allegations in that statement, that the PL have some serious questions to answer in respect of this case and the way it has been investigated, conducted and prosecuted. That would be particularly more likely if the panel are critical of the PL in their findings. I am particularly eager to find out what additional evidence was discovered that prompted such numerous and widespread charges!

I cannot see how Masters and Brittain survive such a finding and surely the calls for external regulation would follow, more loudly than ever.

Not long now. Keep the faith blues.
 
Kinkys Left Foot said:
My comfort and confidence and certainly not hubris regarding the most serious charges, is that in order for any document, group of documents or evidence to be any kind of "smoking gun", it must sufficiently i.e. more likely than not, prove that City and its directors, employees, auditors, accountants, several huge company sponsors and their directors all conspired in some multi faceted corporate fraudulent activity to benefit City by, in effect, by our ownership paying our sponsorship money.

I simply don't believe that happened. If you can believe that one thing, then the evidence required cannot exist.

If you can take that step, then in order for the PL to prove its case they must have to rely on lots of circumstantial evidence pointing to a probability of those events having occurred and that evidence sufficiently outweighing all of City's rebuttal evidence, owners, directors and employees testimony, our own and 3rd party documentation proving we did nothing wrong.

Again if you believe that it didn't happen it would seem that this must be an impossible task for the PL.

It must follow in the event of a "not proven" case and i wont include any of the none co-operation allegations in that statement, that the PL have some serious questions to answer in respect of this case and the way it has been investigated, conducted and prosecuted. That would be particularly more likely if the panel are critical of the PL in their findings. I am particularly eager to find out what additional evidence was discovered that prompted such numerous and widespread charges!

I cannot see how Masters and Brittain survive such a finding and surely the calls for external regulation would follow, more loudly than ever.

Not long now. Keep the faith blues.
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On the money
 
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