Yes although maybe City had some guide from the conduct of the hearing.
I hope the media look into the UEFA investigatory process. How could they have prosecuted this case? It does seem to be a strong case of club bias overwhelming the regulatory process, and that really should not happen.
I am glad now that City went through the CAS process because for the first time we can say to the rest of football you were wrong, and you have been proven to be wrong. It was a draining process for us all.
I’m as pleased as shit with the outcome. But let’s not forget a big reason is that the clock ran down on some offences so the club has to learn from and avoid those mistakes.
EDITED to add. I think the whole FFP was a Pulling The Ladder Up exercise by Old Money and should be abolished.
The PL can't and won't do anything to City. That story will quietly disappear into the ether over the coming weeks.
Look at it like this - City's intransigence to the charges brought by UEFA made them go to war rather than seek ANY kind of settlement. The PL will absolutely NOT want to have one of it's top stakeholders going to war with it over historic financial issues when the club is so well run financially and so financially powerful.
Personally I think that every single reference I've seen to PL charges since yesterday's ruling is about appeasing the dumbest rival supporters who will cling to any hope that City are going to be 'stopped' by football's authorities.
If there is one lesson we all should have learned it is the fact that if something is being widely reported it doesn't mean it is true. This is a covenient angle for all those red-faced reporters who have been bollocked by their Newsdesks for being beaten to the biggest story of the year. It also suits City to leave this version out there.It is being widely reported that nobody associated with City knew the decision on Friday. Same at UEFA's side. It was genuinely given to both parties yesterday morning a couple of hours before it was published. That's kinda mental. We really did take a 'shit or bust' approach with this case.
Looking forward to the full judgment and Stefan's analysis of it. Will be interesting to see what it says, but my bet is it'll say more or less that everything in the leaks pre 2014 the panel simply couldn't look at, and the only post 2014 issue was the Etihad sponsorship deal which UEFA were never going to be able to prove anything about.
In the end it really was as simple as a lot of us thought it would be at the start in terms of what the main issues at play were.
The anti-city media said it is a big reason.
The cas ruling said Manchester city did not inflate sponsors deals.
The story is being totally rewritten imo and some (a lot) are falling for it.
Interesting because we have a PSG fan on here and the reality to their case is different to the headlines about them 'getting away with it'. So maybe the best we can hope for is the exoneration we got but the media propaganda gets worse.
If there is one lesson we all should have learned it is the fact that if something is being widely reported it doesn't mean it is true. This is a covenient angle for all those red-faced reporters who have been bollocked by their Newsdesks for being beaten to the biggest story of the year. It also suits City to leave this version out there.