PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

halfcenturyup said:
The various mitigations for cooperation were weird and wholly disproportionate but I found this wording to be more interesting:

"If the League had been put to proof by the club before a commission, it may have been difficult to establish, to the relevant standard, certain aspects of the rule breaches".

To me, as a layperson, that says the PL was fucked. It also says to me that the "difficulties" the PL had obtaining information from the previous owners of Chelsea would be the same "difficulties" the PL had obtaining information from third parties (ADUG and the sponsors) in the 115 case. And in City's case, it is made worse for the PL as the club can provide such third party information to the panel largely in the form and to the extent it considers necessary.

I still reckon they are fucked.
Click to expand...
I touched on the point you highlight some weeks ago.

My reading was always that the PL were between a rock and a hard place because the new owners had self reported what they had uncovered. The new owners clearly had views as to why these payments were made but the challenge for the PL was to prove beyond reasonable doubt and as that quoted line suggests the PL investigation were far from confident.

I pointed out a couple of years ago on here that I thought that a sanctions agreement would be the outcome and was ridiculed on here. My logic was and still is without access to RA it was always going to be challenging.

The new owners clearly wanted to draw a line under the matter and at some point soon the FA will deliver their verdict re the 74 charges.


That PL settlement agreement makes reference to sanctions from the FA. I as it turns out incorrectly thought we would have heard the outcome of that FA investigation and IC by now . I still wonder if the transfer ban will be imposed and or a points deduction.
 
terraloon said:
I touched on the point you highlight some weeks ago.

My reading was always that the PL were between a rock and a hard place because the new owners had self reported what they had uncovered. The new owners clearly had views as to why these payments were made but the challenge for the PL was to prove beyond reasonable doubt and as that quoted line suggests the PL investigation were far from confident.

I pointed out a couple of years ago on here that I thought that a sanctions agreement would be the outcome and was ridiculed on here. My logic was and still is without access to RA it was always going to be challenging.

The new owners clearly wanted to draw a line under the matter and at some point soon the FA will deliver their verdict re the 74 charges.


That PL settlement agreement makes reference to sanctions from the FA. I as it turns out incorrectly thought we would have heard the outcome of that FA investigation and IC by now . I still wonder if the transfer ban will be imposed and or a points deduction.
Click to expand...
But didn't they only 'admit' the wrong doing because they were threatened to be exposures because of some Cypriot hack?
 
bellsouth said:
Yes of course we would. Or rather, as we don’t know the verdict we simply have to carry on as normal - it’s taken already so long what were supposed to do, just not buy anyone for the last few seasons? We carry on until a verdict is known and the deal with it then. Same goes for new stand and any other major financial commitments
Click to expand...
I always felt that Summer of inactivity before the hearing, when we only brought Gundo back and Savinho in on the cheap, was us being cautious, not knowing how the hearing would play out. Immediately afterwards we dropped about £250m in the January transfer window and signed Haaland to a 10 year contract. that was the moment I thought they were incredibly confident on the outcome.
 
oldius said:
It's possibly because there is nothing going on.

When the verdict is 'ready' I am sure that both sides will try to work out their PR.
If the PL has come out of it very badly then it will do us long-term good if we can agree with the PL how we move forward and how the verdict is communicated.
Likewise, if we come out badly, we will look to mitigate any damage to the club, and consequently the PL brand.

Like it or not, it is in our commercial interest to be part of a strong Premier League and not one that is irrevocably damaged by outing 'enemies', whatever goes on privately.
Click to expand...
Please correct me if I’m wrong but also wasn’t there a court case to keep the whole thing on the QT that both the PL and we wanted but lost the case. Does this not mean that a result will need to be pretty transparent as much as we and the PL may want to keep things in house about whatever parts.
 
The Colonel said:
I like it, of course. I'm not sure why the 2 of them were arguing though as their views weren't completely mutually exclusive. City may have been given a good steer even if the reports hadn't landed.
Click to expand...
I think PB and SB just like arguing about whether the club knows the verdict or not, I think myself they might both be sort of right. The club knows full well if they did anything wrong or not, they also know the PL's case and the evidence put forward, it's quite possible they are as certain as it's possible to be that the club will be cleared of all charges, but no verdict has been communicated at all, not even behind closed doors. Why is it taking so long then? well my speculation is that the panel have been constrained by the charges to forensically comb through the entirety of City's accounts, I'm also wondering if the case has essentially flipped, with the panel in effect investigating the PL's decision to bring the charges in the first place. I think it was more than a bit mad of the PL to bring so many charges in one go, that alone tells you they don't know what they're doing.
 
rice10 said:
Please correct me if I’m wrong but also wasn’t there a court case to keep the whole thing on the QT that both the PL and we wanted but lost the case. Does this not mean that a result will need to be pretty transparent as much as we and the PL may want to keep things in house about whatever parts.
Click to expand...
The result has to be transparent, absolutely.
BUT...if we called for full disclosure of all communications between the PL and its clubs, and it is suggested that is the case, and it revealed wholesale manipulation and unequal treatment, for example, it is that which becomes part of the PR of the case, even though it may not be required to be reported.

I couldn't tell you about any other case.
 
terraloon said:
I touched on the point you highlight some weeks ago.

My reading was always that the PL were between a rock and a hard place because the new owners had self reported what they had uncovered. The new owners clearly had views as to why these payments were made but the challenge for the PL was to prove beyond reasonable doubt and as that quoted line suggests the PL investigation were far from confident.

I pointed out a couple of years ago on here that I thought that a sanctions agreement would be the outcome and was ridiculed on here. My logic was and still is without access to RA it was always going to be challenging.

The new owners clearly wanted to draw a line under the matter and at some point soon the FA will deliver their verdict re the 74 charges.


That PL settlement agreement makes reference to sanctions from the FA. I as it turns out incorrectly thought we would have heard the outcome of that FA investigation and IC by now . I still wonder if the transfer ban will be imposed and or a points deduction.
Click to expand...

Nothing personal, but I don't really care about Chelsea - their sanction, imho, was a fudge and not the greatest moment in PL history. As clear a case you could ever see of negotiating a settlement and then justifying it with mitigations that don't make a lot of sense. Surprised the disciplinary panel let them get away with it, to be honest. Still, it's done. I have no great desire to discuss it further.

My only point was that the PL admits, in what I think is legal terminology, that they would have been unable to prove their allegations - on the balance of probabilities - due to their inability to access Abramovic's information in the same way they will be unable to prove their most serious allegations against City due to their inability to access information from Mansour and Etihad. Unless they are saying admissions of guilt are less persuasive than interpretations of documents that are contradicted by i) witness testimony and statements and ii) financial information selectively chosen by Mansour and Etihad.

Of course, it's possible that the club left some particularly incriminating evidence on their servers - let's be honest, they don't seem to be good at controlling sensitive information. But the chances of that must be ridiculously low.
 
Last edited:
Bozzie said:
No great leap to join the dots between Parry, Gill, Leterne, FSG, the M.E.N, the New York Times and Tariq Panja allegedly.
Can you ever imagine Man U being forced to open their accounts, without any control, for the PL to trawl through at their leisure?
Click to expand...
Or Arsenal , for the PL to see if there was any mention of £200 million of loans from Kroenke.
 
terraloon said:
What the Guardian did was publish details of payments made by companies owned by RA to various individuals. I think we all can pretty much believe that the payments should have been made via Chelsea’s accounts

The new owners reported the matters discovered during DD in 2022 the press reports were published in 2023
www.icij.org

Chelsea FC, once owned by Roman Abramovich, could face punishment over secret payments, experts warn - ICIJ

Four leading sports lawyers told The Guardian that transactions uncovered in Cyprus Confidential documents may have broken U.K. league rules.
www.icij.org www.icij.org
Click to expand...

Well isn’t it funny we hacked and they couldn’t find anything so stuck two emails together and just that had the premier investigate us with those American because they are cheating fckers in big business to get ahead they all believed our owner must be cheating
 
lyonfish said:
I think PB and SB just like arguing about whether the club knows the verdict or not, I think myself they might both be sort of right. The club knows full well if they did anything wrong or not, they also know the PL's case and the evidence put forward, it's quite possible they are as certain as it's possible to be that the club will be cleared of all charges, but no verdict has been communicated at all, not even behind closed doors. Why is it taking so long then? well my speculation is that the panel have been constrained by the charges to forensically comb through the entirety of City's accounts, I'm also wondering if the case has essentially flipped, with the panel in effect investigating the PL's decision to bring the charges in the first place. I think it was more than a bit mad of the PL to bring so many charges in one go, that alone tells you they don't know what they're doing.
Click to expand...
I think it's easy to get this disagreement between two of our most respected contributors completely out of perspective. Whatever their views on the release of the findings of the IC their is complete agreement that the PL will find it impossible to prove their most serious charges. And they come from different starting points: Pb is an accountant and Stefan a lawyer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top