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

[Postman Pep]

I think its this guy...........we are fcked!!!

Given this affair is all about pulling strings not a bad option ..... horses for courses

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Any rumours why Pannick didn't take the case and is she as good?

Still no official confirmation he didn't take it, outside of Ornstein podcast.

Heard this lady's name mentioned instead today and another male QC. Can't recall his name, from another firm though.

 

[projectriver]

Yeah, to be honest my guess is that Conn has got wind that City and UEFA disagreed about whether Etihad was a related party or not (he probably got that info off here!) and has made the leap that UEFA officially classed it as a related party deal when, as you suggest, it never got that far.

There is no "getting wind" - Conn didn't guess or piece the information in that article. He was briefed and probably shown a document with the numbers in there. How else could have such detail? I think article is very reliable.

 

[richards30]

Still no official confirmation he didn't take it, outside of Ornstein podcast.

Heard this lady's name mentioned instead today and another male QC. Can't recall his name, from another firm though.

Were you at the CFA for the assistant manager unveiling tolm?

 

[projectriver]

Still no official confirmation he didn't take it, outside of Ornstein podcast.

Heard this lady's name mentioned instead today and another male QC. Can't recall his name, from another firm though.

Mr Paul Harris QC, Barrister- cast list from CAS 1...

"For MCFC: 1) Mr Simon Cliff, General Counsel, City Football Group; 2) Mr James Cranston, Head of Litigation, City Football Group; 3) Mr Josh Blake, Trainee Solicitor, City Football Group; 4) Mr Paul Harris QC, Barrister; 5) Mr Jean-Cédric Michel, Counsel; 6) Mr Massimiliano Maestretti, Counsel; 7) Mr Rhodri Thomas, Counsel; 8) Ms Natalie Sheehan, Counsel For UEFA: 1) Dr Jan Kleiner, Counsel; 2) Mr Luca Tarzia, Counsel"

 

[Ric]

What’s I find interest is we are using Lawyers from Blackstone Chambers.

Charles Flint QC is part of their board and also works for UEFA’s AC chamber primarily dealing with FFP. I wonder if he was involved in City’s case at all?

Flint was on the five man panel of the Adjudicatory Chamber that handed out the two year ban.

 

[franksinatra]

Looks like we both have some big hitters representing either side here, probably on a knife edge after two days. I'm just very sceptical about it all, can see Cas shitting it due to too many people being majorly pissed off if it goes in our favour.
When does any big decision go our way, fingers crossed we win this one.

Have CAS not ruled on Russian athletes competing in competitions etc? This is small beer in comparison.

 

[meltonblue]

Conn never states we were classed as a related party does he? Just that the accountants queried it and that they assessed for market value anyway.

I’m not sure it overly matters though, the key thing in all of this is a paper trail showing direct from Etihad to us. That to me is irrefutable proof. I just hope even if Adug was covering it, they did it via that route and not direct. I have a feeling a lot of this may be down to us saying we think Etihad saying they have sole liability is proof enough in itself and Uefa not accepting that.

 

[Hoghead]

I wonder if our legal team are on a no win no fee basis.

 

[HarrytheBlue]

I agree it doesn't prove anything but it does look bad, when I read that I stop wondering whether UEFA know something we haven't seen yet as much. That could be key to their side of the case, they think that's strong enough to make it stick. City have said they have irrefutable evidence proving it's not how it looks, lets hope they do.

We've known from the start Etihad didn't pay that amount because they had a shortfall of funds, they only paid £8m, the rest only matters if the original source was a related party.

To me it seems like if it did come from ADEC, this whole mess could have been avoided if they paid the money into Etihad instead of ADUG. There would have been no need for the emails most likely because the City accountants would have just seen some money coming from Etihad.

The other thought I have is, even if City were cooking the books and the source was ADUG, why wouldn't they pay it into Etihad, who then wire it back to City? That seems like the worst way to cook the books, if they were going to try it. If some emails said "ADUG will pay the funds into Etihad" that would be much more straight forward for UEFA to make a case of disguised owner investment.

Neither us nor UEFA will have the opportunity to throw a last minute curveball at the other side. The case will be all about the evidence already disclosed by both sides. If UEFA wanted to throw something new at us, they'd have to disclose it and we'd be given enough time to pull together our defence. How that would affect next season's Champions League I don't know. Natural justice would be a suspension of the ban pending appeal.