PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

The drafting and re-drafting of the Judges's statement takes all the time. It will be as long as a book but much more complicated to edit. Every sentence will be poured over. This is a high stakes situation. Whoever "loses" this case could face commercial and personal reputational disaster. The Judges' cant afford to get even the smallest bit of their statement wrong. If they did it would destroy their own personal reputations. And then there is the tricky situation of how both parties communicate to the public what has happened after the result. The PR battle is almost as important as the legal decison.

I can imagine a heated debate between Lord Pannick and the PL's team over the use of 'therefore' vs 'thus', and the panel holding their heads in their hands!
 
Probably discussed at great length today,but caught a little of Stefan saying it could still be some time off before any results.
Got to say it's a bit disappointing, the highlight of my day was checking in on Bluemoon for updates.(sad I know )
It may not be within their gift ,but if it's gone against the P/L suits they,would love to announce it during close season, when players ,staff and supporters are away or distracted .
 
The drafting and re-drafting of the Judges's statement takes all the time. It will be as long as a book but much more complicated to edit. Every sentence will be poured over. This is a high stakes situation. Whoever "loses" this case could face commercial and personal reputational disaster. The Judges' cant afford to get even the smallest bit of their statement wrong. If they did it would destroy their own personal reputations. And then there is the tricky situation of how both parties communicate to the public what has happened after the result. The PR battle is almost as important as the legal decison.
innocent - frivolous claim
what more is needed ;)
 
No one can convince me that we’re not within two weeks of a public announcement of the results of the independent investigation by now. As such, City would likely have already been informed. I think the club must know the outcome at this stage.
I’ve got to go with Stefan and Ashan. We don’t have it.
 
@slbsn on talksport this morning talking about the 115.

I think Stefan hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the process drafting and redrafting of the final report, ensuring no holes/gaps for the losing party to challenge the decision,

This must be taking longer than expected

I'm not sure it was realistically expected to take less time, tbh. We are probably entering the "most likely" time now ....
 
The point @slbsn was trying to make on Talksport is that these asset sales don't help the underlying financial fundamentals of Chelsea at all. They are a sticking plaster and the club will continue losing money. He was having difficulty getting that message through to Jordan, though.

This whole Chelsea thing makes a mockery of the PL's case against City, imho.
This is entirely the point. What Chelsea have been doing is like pawning the family silver to maintain their lifestyle. It's the complete antithesis of 'sustainability'.

Their 2024 accounts (for Chelsea FC Holdings, not the football club) have only just been filed (at the last possible moment) so aren't yet visible publicly, but looking at their 2023 accounts the cashflow statement showed they generated £173.5m from their operations at holding company level.

They then spent a net £545m on players (that's just cash paid and received), which was financed by net borrowing of £425.5m. That's like taking out a mortgage to buy a new car, or pay for a holiday. These borrowings appear to have come from another company within the group, rather than externally, and the holding company has lent over £1.2bn to its subsidiary companies (interest free apparently). That is worth about £100m a year to them, applying a reasonable rate of notional interest.

No financial framework worth its salt should be allowing the shifting of assets around to disguise excessive spending that genuinely threatens the future existence of the club. FFP isn't great, but it doesn't allow this. PSR is a complete joke.
 
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@slbsn on talksport this morning talking about the 115.

I think Stefan hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the process drafting and redrafting of the final report, ensuring no holes/gaps for the losing party to challenge the decision,

This must be taking longer than expected
And I think he then said there’ll be time needed to determine sanctions.
 
Far more difficult for the PL to prove the allegations on the balance of probabilities (Chelsea having already admitted to the procedure on other payments) or far more difficult for the club to provide meaningful counter-evidence?
In a way both but as we all know the onus is on the PL to provide proof beyond reasonable doubt on matters not self reported .

The real meaty accusation's don’t appear to have been self reported so the PL had to investigate. Masters told us an investigation was ongoing and the one real snippet was that it’s claimed to be far more complex given there are new owners.

Add to the pot the new owners claim no knowledge, there doesn’t appear to be a paper trail within Chelsea’s archives otherwise it could be argued these matters too would have been reported following DD.

The one thing that intrigued me and to a degree blows my last comment out the water is why did the owners hold back in excess of £100 million from the sale to
 
Remind me again (In the context of Chelsea financial shenanigans) of what City are actually accused of? Paying Mancini a few extra thousands of pounds in 2012? Illegal purchase of Yaya Toure? Over-paying sponsors by a couple of million(All multiplied by x years = 115) I mean its so fkin stark when compared to what Chelsea are doing.

Its a virtual drop in the ocean in comparison to what other clubs are actually being left to get away with.
 
This is entirely the point. What Chelsea have been doing is like pawning the family silver to maintain their lifestyle. It's the complete antithesis of 'sustainability'.

Their 2024 accounts (for Chelsea FC Holdings, not the football club) have only just been filed (at the last possible moment) so aren't yet visible publicly, but looking at their 2023 accounts showed they generated £173.5m from their operations at holding company level.

They then spent a net £545m on players (that's just cash paid and received), which was financed by net borrowing of £425.5m. That's like taking out a mortgage to buy a new car, or pay for a holiday. These borrowings appear to have come from another company and the holding company has lent over £1.2bn to its subsidiary companies (interest free apparently). That is worth about £100m a year to them, applying a reasonable rate of notional interest.

No financial framework worth its salt should be allowing the shifting of assets around to disguise excessive spending that genuinely threatens the future existence of the club. FFP isn't great, but it doesn't allow this. PSR is a complete joke.
Perhaps they're only doing in public what the rags are doing behind closed doors in the Caymans
 
The number of football fans who think the Chelsea investigation is over and it's been settled with a financial fine(wasn't that merely a rumour because of what happened with UEFA?), tells you how differently their scandal has been handled by the sports media. That includes most Chelsea fans, who give Stefan absolute pelters in the talksport comments, every time he is on. Most of them believe that issue has been dealt with and have proceeded to put their feet up.

I'm not really fuming at Chelsea or at the PL being slow(nothing new), especially since we don't know the full extent of what has been discovered and what the PL will do about it. It's the absolute frauds who've been putting City through the cosh every chance they get since 2018. They've put the fanbase through the ringer and even took shots at them on occasion. We shouldn't ever forget their part in it.

They don't seem to care at all about the things they claimed were the utmost importance when it was City in their crosshairs. No pressure on the PL to give updates on the investigation. The rumour that it was going to result in a settlement wasn't met with the uproar/end of football hyperbole we know it would be met with if it was City in their shoes. No weekly/monthly discussions on what punishment Chelsea should get. The frauds don't give a shit.

Clear and obvious.
 

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