they keep trying
but bear in mind
a utd fan football finance guy
I've got to disagree with a few of the points made by this guy. The CAS report undermines pretty much every point he tries to make.
1) CAS stated in their report that the only information UEFA provided as evidence were the emails published by der Spiegel, nothing else. They didn't present any other evidence, despite getting a team of forensic accountants to look through City's books, having access to all City's bank accounts, contracts etc. That is pretty damming.
2) In the CAS report, CAS gave 8 different reasons for arriving at their decision to clear City of all charges.
3) The CAS report states categorically that UEFA did not have a case against City.
4) The report also states City were prevented by UEFA from providing the original emails at the original hearing, and that this was an error by UEFA. Had UEFA allowed City to show the original emails, CAS determined that UEFA should have cleared City at the original hearing. That's virtually saying the original hearing outcome was fixed.
5) The unredacted emails provided by City showed one of the six published by der Spiegel were two others spliced together - ie the emails der Spiegel printed were deliberately fabricated to mislead. The redactions also allowed der Spiegel to suggest they meant something else, and crucially the emails actually referred to a deal being discussed before FFP or PSR that never went ahead.
When people write stuff like this post, they completely overlook very clear facts that indicate the conclusions they are trying to draw are nonsense.
I'll go on, der Spiegel did publish extra information about Manicini's and Toure's payments. I've read those emails. To me Manicini's agent is discussing a perfectly legal way to avoid paying income tax twice on Mancini's salary, otherwise he'd be paying about 97% and it wouldn't be worth taking the job. This happened because despite duel taxation arrangements to avoid this, Mancini crossed the default threshold in both countries for tax to be applied automatically. The additional AD contract ensured Mancini was never in the UK for over 56 days and therefore only had to pay income tax in Italy. Mancini can't be the first to be in this position. The emails show Mancini's agent duscussing this openly withb the Italian tax authorities, and chasing important documents after he was sacked. The Toure contract is all about a third-party who represents Toure helping City exploit image rights of him and other players. I can't see anything wrong in this, the emails indicate a perfectly normal business arrangement. None of these extra emails suggest any wrongdoing by City. It is purely the interpretation by der Spiegel (because the CAS report suggested they'd made it all up) they used to try to save face. At the time der Spiegel were in the mire over publishing several made up articles with editors and journalists sacked as a result. The CAS reported showed their corrupt business practices spread wider.
Rant over!
