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

[Coatigan]

The problem you'll have by taking on Leterme is the AC chamber has given a more severe sanction that the one year the IC was said to recommend.

I'm not sure that is strictly true.
Indeed, many here have said/assumed as much. But given that AC Milan, Galatasaray and a few others have all been given a 2 year ban as the initial verdict, for FFP breaches, i can only assume that is the default (rather than the unprecedented harsh) position, for ffp breaches.

Interesting read, the rest of your post.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

You may be right simply because none of us knows for sure at this stage but I wouldn't put anything past a corrupt process run by a corrupt organisation like UEFA. Just look at some of the reported facts about the bias and corruption involved in the case:

• In December 2018 - three months before the start of the IC investigation - UEFA's Chief Investigator Yves Leterme publicly stated that City would be found guilty and banned from the Champions League. This proves that the case was pre-judged (irrespective of any evidence from City whether read or unread) and is one of City's main grievances in their appeal to CAS.
  
• In a flagrant case of conflict of interest the IC panel included Rick Parry, ex-CEO of Liverpool and self confessed lifelong Liverpool supporter.
• While the investigation was still in progress there were several leaks from someone within UEFA to the New York Times and Associated Press confirming that City would be found guilty and banned. Tariq Panja of the NYT has admitted the leaks came from within UEFA but of course won't name his source.

These three points do not invalidate the tenet of projectriver's post since all three refer ti the IC and the AC may have given City's submissions adequate consideration. I suspect they simply decided the emails were to be believed and nullified City's contentions.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

A slightly easier comparison is from Swiss Ramble.

I read this yesterday and I do wonder if we’ve maybe just tried to be a bit too clever with all this? The bit that stuck out, for me at least, was him (SR) saying that, even if the Etihad deal was deemed a related party City would NOT have failed ffp. Seems we are being done for saying the wrong thing but not for doing the wrong thing. I know deep down that can’t be right but.......

 

[Centurions]

I read this yesterday and I do wonder if we’ve maybe just tried to be a bit too clever with all this? The bit that stuck out, for me at least, was him (SR) saying that, even if the Etihad deal was deemed a related party City would NOT have failed ffp. Seems we are being done for saying the wrong thing but not for doing the wrong thing. I know deep down that can’t be right but.......

As far as I'm aware there's no reason we'd need to hide it if we were a related party, UEFA quite happily passed it off as fair market value and related or not wouldn't affect that. We only failed at the time because of their own rules not being clear enough regarding which wages we could or couldn't disregard.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

I read this yesterday and I do wonder if we’ve maybe just tried to be a bit too clever with all this? The bit that stuck out, for me at least, was him (SR) saying that, even if the Etihad deal was deemed a related party City would NOT have failed ffp. Seems we are being done for saying the wrong thing but not for doing the wrong thing. I know deep down that can’t be right but.......

PB has also expressed that City appear to have been careless in certain aspects, and that this would have been waved through.

 

[nmc]

Would you prefer that we left it up to our PR department to present our case to Delaney rather than let our eminent lawyers make our case to CAS?

precisely. Let Delaney et al drown in their ignorance

 

[nmc]

I think the answer is no liability whatsoever.

The UEFA CFCB Procedural Rules state “Members of the CFCB are not liable for any action, decision or failure to act in
connection with proceedings before the CFCB.”

https://it.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/Clublicensing/02/60/83/59/2608359_DOWNLOAD.pdf

Unless there’s a way around that. I’m assuming that means we can sue UEFA as a body, but not specific individuals within the two chambers?

Id assume the only way we could go after an individual is if they acted outside their remit. At UEFA anything goes so that’s pretty unlikely.

 

[Nails]

That unfortunately reflects the present newspaper industry in the UK where proprietors use their newspapers to drive specific messages and themes - facts, balance and truth were sacrificed many years ago. You only had to read Good Times Bad Times by Harold Evans to see the immediate impact Murdoch had at the Times and how he twisted and manipulated the whole organisation. 40 years on I suggest its got a lot worse.

Abso-bloody-lutely.

 

[laserblue]

These three points do not invalidate the tenet of projectriver's post since all three refer ti the IC and the AC may have given City's submissions adequate consideration. I suspect they simply decided the emails were to be believed and nullified City's contentions.

Those examples I gave were to illustrate the deep rooted and quintessentially corrupt nature of UEFA and the consequent lack of a fair hearing and relates to my earlier contention that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the IC and the AC didn't read City's evidence in their defence because the case was pre-judged. They're eminently capable of anything as we saw, for example, with the underhand change in the application of Annex XI after City had submitted their accounts in 2014 which ensured City failed FFP.

 

[Metalartin]

A slightly easier comparison is from Swiss Ramble.

Someone appears to have tried to piggyback that tweet with their own spin on the facts.

They found that 84% of ‘other commercial income’ reported by the club originated from sponsors based in Abu Dhabi. UEFA auditors reportedly found that three of the four contracts (telecommunications company Etisalat, investment firm Aabar, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority)

Not sure if this is correct or whether that would show we've done any wrong if it were true. Do they think City can just write "other income ;)" and not state where it came from? I sincerely doubt that.

signed with companies from Abu Dhabi were overvalued – up to 80% higher than what was considered ‘fair value’ for the deals.

Surely that's not correct, UEFA were already aware of those deals being related party and it's not like UEFA can't see what their value was each season.