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

[Gordyola]

I think we have 100% broken the spirit of the law, and ADUG putting money through Etihad/Etisalat so they can afford to sponsor us is very clearly not what anyone thought of as Financial Fair Play.

However I still think the club could have operated within the rules as the are written and thus be "innocent" to that extent.

The person who was topping up the Etihad money mentioned in the hacked email was His Highness this is the leader of the UAE not Mansour

 

[mindmyp's_n_q's]

I think we have 100% broken the spirit of the law, and ADUG putting money through Etihad/Etisalat so they can afford to sponsor us is very clearly not what anyone thought of as Financial Fair Play.

However I still think the club could have operated within the rules as the are written and thus be "innocent" to that extent.

Also I think it's entirely possible we're guilty but UEFA can't touch us because of some procedural thing like the illegally gained emails being the only evidence or them being outside the 5 year window or the settlement agreement meaning they can't reprosecute.

I'm not convinced though...the club has gotten things wrong before and if I'm doubting them, then its no wonder no one outside the City fanbase is really thinking we have a case.

As the day has gone on, I've been more and more convinced that the club needs to make some sort of proper, detailed public statement, because staying silent (outside the aggressive reaction statement) is going to leave fans isolated and the media with nothing but the opposing view to air.

I don't think the club will comment until after CAS.

 

[domalino]

I don't think the club will comment until after CAS.

I think that would be a massive mistake. You're probably right.

 

[nmc]

See Roan and the rest are snooping on bluemoon*....

Dan. If you are reading this.... we all think you are a turd.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

I think we have 100% broken the spirit of the law, and ADUG putting money through Etihad/Etisalat so they can afford to sponsor us is very clearly not what anyone thought of as Financial Fair Play.

However I still think the club could have operated within the rules as the are written and thus be "innocent" to that extent.

Also I think it's entirely possible we're guilty but UEFA can't touch us because of some procedural thing like the illegally gained emails being the only evidence or them being outside the 5 year window or the settlement agreement meaning they can't reprosecute.

I'm not convinced though...the club has gotten things wrong before and if I'm doubting them, then its no wonder no one outside the City fanbase is really thinking we have a case.

Your thinking is similar to mine. We've probably evaded the rules, but it's probably difficult to prove. The UEFA statement about City cooperation almost reads to say "we had some emails implying guilt, but weren't given anything to counter them".

I doubt the club can easily prove innocence, but will go after the process instead. The club is always going to be described as 'were banned', regardless of outcome, so 'innocence' isn't that valuable.

 

[Ric]

I think we have 100% broken the spirit of the law, and ADUG putting money through Etihad/Etisalat so they can afford to sponsor us is very clearly not what anyone thought of as Financial Fair Play. Frankly I don't give a shit about that, professional football allowed owners to invest for 130 years before Mansour arrived, and it will be allowed again when FFP is gone in <10 years.

However I still think the club could have operated within the rules as the are written and thus be "innocent" to that extent.

Also I think it's entirely possible we're guilty but UEFA can't touch us because of some procedural thing like the illegally gained emails being the only evidence or them being outside the 5 year window or the settlement agreement meaning they can't reprosecute.

I'm not convinced though...the club has gotten things wrong before and if I'm doubting them, then its no wonder no one outside the City fanbase is really thinking we have a case.

As the day has gone on, I've been more and more convinced that the club needs to make some sort of proper, detailed public statement, because staying silent for months (outside the aggressive reaction statement) is going to leave fans isolated and the media with nothing but the opposing view to air.

Presumably it’s not advisable for the club to make any kind of detailed statement immediately prior to a high profile court case.

 

[argyle]

Dan. If you are reading this.... we all know you are a turd.

fixed it.

 

[brummie blue]

After his decent piece in the Daily Mail, Martin Samuel is on Sunday Supplement tomorrow along with Melissa Reddy from The Independent and Mark Ogden of ESPN

I'll give it 5 minutes at assess the tone.

 

[BlueMoonz1977]

Martin Samuel in the Mail said almost the same. The one journalist I would buy a pint.

Apparently Martin Samuel is on sunday supplement tomorrow...i hope he says exactly what he said in his article...but you can bet it will be met with the other supposed journalists looking on silent....which will tell its own story

 

[BosnianBlue]

Yes, I think it’s probably a bit fanciful, and perhaps not really helpful, to think that we’re completely innocent here. There has undoubtedly been some creative accounting going on, but then find me a major corporation that doesn’t. Google, Amazon, Manchester fucking United, they’re all at it. It’s just absurd that we operate in perhaps the only industry in the world where it’s deemed more of a crime to invest in your company, rather than avoiding paying tax out of it. Mad world.

that' why I hope we'll attack the core of the problem and that's FFP itself. The last sentence from City' statement gives me some hope. They mentioned CA as first instance we're going to fight UEFA. There's zero reasons we should play friendly now, we had to try that approach o far as we were fine with the outcome. But this serious and if there is 1% of making FFP outright illegal, than we should go after it.