UEFA FFP investigation - CAS decision to be announced Monday, 13th July 9.30am BST

[cookster]

A couple of massive bids are going in next week for players, that should please us.

You're such a prick tease but I like it.

 

[mrbelfry]

Did you mean inane, or insane ?

I'll let you judge

 

[Shaelumstash]

Explain what you mean by 'Financial Doping'?

Can you just briefly explain what you think the difference is between investing in your own business and “financial doping”. Thanks.

 

[Blue Llama]

It’s actually DIRTY oil money.
I’m assuming that the North Sea oil revenues (some of which was used to regenerate the city of Liverpool) was seen as ‘clean oil money’.
I wonder why there is such a difference in terminology.

Its also interesting that a few months ago Jim Ratcliffe one of the UK's richest men was linked with the purchase of a football club. It doesn't matter if it was true or not his possible interest was seen as beneficial and positive. He successfully operates within limited companies so does not have to bend to shareholders whims every 12 months and nothing wrong with that. However, a large part of his business interest are oil related but again this must be clean oil as none of the media raised any objections at the time.

 

[mrbelfry]

Can I add to the ramblings by adding that I was under the impression that the Etihad sponsorship was deemed fair value anyway regardless of whether it was related party or not.
And that we agreed on the other two sponsors, to give up certain practices.
All were fair value, I thought.
Am I wrong?

I think the fair value rules only apply if it's a related party but I might be wrong

 

[GaudinoMotors]

This may be a whoosh moment for me however i'll treat your Question as genuine (for now)

You have to go back to the very beginning and look at the very instigation of FFP
City did indeed sign up to abide by the rules put in place and set about putting in place various schemes to increase incomings and reduce outgoings (all of which are within the rules) we even employed the same people Uefa employed to draw up those rules to find ways around them. Essentially we believed those rules were put in place to stop us investing in our own business at a time when we were committed to do so to within the 10 year business plan that had been drawn up where escalated investment was critical to making that plan a success.
At the end of the 1st accountability period 2013 - 14 we had indeed spent a lot of money in fees and wages for players. Based on the rules that were in place we were able to discount a substantial amount of the excess monies as pre arranged wage commitments before FFP was thought of. We were however still struggling to meet the 3 year loss amount for the period that was allowed 34 Million. So we submitted our accounts as verified by our accountants and City do this publicly - not in the Cayman Islands where nobody gets to see it. We felt we had nothing to hide. However no sooner than the audited accounts were submitted Uefa changed the rules to ensure we couldn't claim the pre 2010 wages. It meant we would fail the test by a lot rather than by a little. We were clearly mislead and City were angry that their good faith had been abused.
The failure ensured Uefa carried out an investigation of our accounts and disagreements regarding sponsorship amounts and as to what is and isn't allowed. Suffice it to say agreements were reached on all those sponsorships and schemes whereby some were allowed to stand as they were whilst City agreed to curtail others and not continue with other schemes. NONE of the sponsorships was deemed to be overvalued but we agreed to be punished for failing the overall break even requirement. Such agreements are part of the process of FFP and are in fact integral to its operation. We suffered a huge fine, a restriction on squad size for the CL and agreement to abide by the break even amounts going forward under close scrutiny by Uefa.
We stuck to the rules, increased our sponsorships across the board (middle Eastern sponsorship now roughly accounts up to only 20% of our income only). We currently sit 5th in DeLoittes money list and expect to exceed income of £600 Million turnover this reporting year with no debt ensuring we have no fear of breaching the break even amount and will make a healthy profit (without our owner putting a penny in) for the last 3 years. This amounts to the completion of the first 10 year phase of City business plan and its utter success (despite the initial couple of years requiring the expenditure)
Last year following a hacker stealing lots of private information from servers all over the world (mainly Portugal) trying to blackmail banks without success certain emails were ahem given to a German newspaper (der Spiegel) who act as a whistleblower for alleged corrupt practices particularly within football.
They produced a series of articles quoting elements of emails they allege showed that Citys owner had in fact paid monies to some of Citys sponsors to pay the sponsorship fees. I should point out this doesn't artificially inflate these sponsorships as they are currently at values commensurate with our position in football and it was agreed by Uefa at the time we were investigated. What is surprising and what most journalists and twitter gobshites don't understand is that this process (if proven and City say it isn't) is not either illegal or against FFP rules. I accept it wouldn't be in the spirit of the Regulations but that is another argument. Most would argue that depriving an owner of investing money in his own business is not in the spirit of competition law in Europe as well.
So now Uefa have again investigated City on the back of those alleged emails and despite agreeing to keep stum and carry out a thorough process have done neither. They or as the press like to say "sources close to the investigation" have obviously blabbed to the press regarding findings and punishments to be administered before due process has been completed. So City declared guilty before the case is heard then!
So City have been referred to the Uefa FFP Adjunctory Chamber of the process for consideration of sentence and today we also find out that this investigation has been rushed is indeed incomplete because the matter had to be concluded within a 5 year period of the initial findings, ending today as they are FFP rules for the limitation of alleged offences.
It is still unclear what they are actually charging City with breaching but City have issued some extremely strong legal statements indicating we have given irrefutable evidence to the investigation that proves we are innocent of the charges of financial irregularity. Also indicated as any innocent party should faced with a guilty verdict that they will appeal any findings to an appropriate judicial review, likely in this case to be the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS)
That covers 5 years of bullshit and farce and there are other trivialities like members of both investigatory boards having "conflicts of interest" i.e Rick Parry ex of Liverpool Board being on the AC board deciding any punishment.

You can find all the Der Spiegel reports on line and reading through this thread in its entirety will greatly inform you of the intricacies of the whole sham that is FFP if you care to look. I for one am now reasonably well versed in the actions of Uefa in response to these investigations and their documented process. Most of the things about FFP that will surprise anybody are what is allowed as opposed to what isn't.

What a brilliant summarisation, if that's a fair word for such an excellent post.
Now I can stop simply saying "fck off, we done nowt wrong you scouse cnut."
Thank you

 

[city saint]

the way I see it is the worst that can happen is a 1 year ban and the best that can happen is ffp and eufa get blown away and we spend what the fuck we like.so im happy that the club has took the gloves off

 

[91:23]

This 5 year statute thing. Have UEFA done what a planner who I used to work with done by making an announcement today? He used to have a deadline for issue of plans and basically would send out a draft on the deadline, knowing it wasnt 100% to ensure that he had hit his dates?

 

[mrbelfry]

Mr Belfry
I believe related party only refers to individuals or bodies corporate if they have a controlling interest in the company. Merely giving money to a company doesn't enable anyone to conclude they would have a controlling interest in that company. Proving that would likely be impossible.
"Dear Etihad please can we have a good look at your bank accounts for 2012-13?
Err absolutely not fuck off! We can assure you we paid the full sponsorship amount to MCFC
Oh OK."

Etihad have already said they paid didn't they? There must be some issue with what ADUG allegedly did otherwise it's a huge loophole that we should have exploited better to avoid failing

 

[Chris in London]

What I mean by "financial doping" is that, from looking from the outside it would seem that the club has been spending disproportionately relative to it's earnings over the last 10 years or so. As I said I'm not particularly clued up on this and was just looking for some answers from sensible people who are interested in actually discussing the topic rather than throwing out childish insults. I should have known better.

It hasn't. Look at the accounts (which by the way are audited.)

Assuming that what you mean by 'disproportionately' is 'consistent with FFP regulations' City's accounts have been within the 'allowable deviation' for every year since FFP regulations have been in place, bar one. In relation to that year, City were fined €50m (two thirds of it suspended) and suffered a reduced squad size. In every other year they have been compliant. Again, look at the accounts if you don't believe me.

When you come on here and use words like 'financial doping' it rather suggests you have been listening to either a bunch of outraged accountants or Arsenal fans for a very long time without actually understanding the facts of the matter.

Sorry if you feel that is harsh, but as a number of people have said, using loaded phrases like 'financial doping' rather suggests your mind has already been made up. So what's the point of the conversation?