CAS judgement: UEFA ban overturned, City exonerated (report out p603)

[Nails]

As previously mentioned Martin Samuel has written another great article in the Mail today but just look at some of the bitter brain damaged comments. Beyond belief.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...tep-war-against-Manchester-City-FFP-saga.html

It's the Daily Mail. Regular readers are contractually obliged to be brain-damaged.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

At long last a post of sense and perspective to counter some of the paranoid dross we've been treated to. There seems to have been an attack of almost collective amnesia. Let me remind everyone that in the last ten years our club, little citeh, the national laughing stock have won 4 PL titles, 4 league cups and 2 FA cups (as well as runners up once) and we can throw in 3 community shields. I think that's all but we've won so many I lose count! Off the pitch things are at least as good. Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008 for £90 million and paid off the debts. Revenue was about £79 million pa. He has invested some £1.5 billion just in City and (say) £1 billion in the other members of the group, although I suspect that's an overestimate. City's own revenue stands at over half a billion a year. The CFG now has major investment from American and Chinese conglomerates and is worth - not valued but made worth, by actual investment - $5.5 billion. That represents a pretty hefty return for the Sheikh, but it also means City have little to fear if "the Sheikh walks away". I reckon that's a pretty good decade as decades go at City!

And what's happened to our rivals, the awesome cartel? Stony broke, borrowing right left and centre and hardly a trophy between the lot of them and so desperate they have to rely on a set of ready bent rules to ruin us. But we are not the little guys here. We don't need to break their rules to win. Khaldoon tells them that any independent court will rule in our favour, and it does. And any rules which are bent enough to hurt us will absolutely destroy them. The only thing they can do is to pick up their bat and wickets and go and play somewhere else with their own little gang.

So, for god's sake let's shut up about City being passive and supine, taking everything the cartel throw at us. At the moment the cartel are flat on the canvas and he ref's checking VAR to make sure he's actually said "ten".

Bang on the money. We kept our council but eventually had no choice left but to take on the biggest dog of them all and we took it down with a bang. That is how big players operate. Quietly. The world knows that now despite a bit of bleating from the defeated.

Our fans need to lose the victim status. The project could be about to reach its pinnacle, it’s absolute nadir, if David Silva lifts the champions league this summer for our exonerated club. Imagine how that will feel following this ruling?

 

[Jacko1956]

Well said. For years people have said we should just igore the bile which has been spread. The biased attitudes towards City didn't happen overnight. Our reputation has been trashed and we need to be more proactive with the people doing it. It was pressure from the media (driven by our commercial rivals) which ended up with us being charged. The way we are reported and perceived is crucial to our reputation. Whatever the judgement says we should hold a media briefing and present our irrefutable proof and dismantle the fake media narrative line by line. We should communicate this directly to every single person on our fans' database, all our partners, all our, investors, and everyone else. Being on the backfoot for 10 years has got us nowhere.

We leave in a society who have to get what they want and if the dont they just wont except it. Brexit, the general election to name two, The fact CAS are represented by some of the finance independent judges in the world doesn't hold water with them, it wasnt the result they wanted and hope by continually crying foul play to whomever is prepared to listen they will get there own way. Nanny society full of slapped arses is the norm nowadays.

 

[The Clansman]

At long last a post of sense and perspective to counter some of the paranoid dross we've been treated to. There seems to have been an attack of almost collective amnesia. Let me remind everyone that in the last ten years our club, little citeh, the national laughing stock have won 4 PL titles, 4 league cups and 2 FA cups (as well as runners up once) and we can throw in 3 community shields. I think that's all but we've won so many I lose count! Off the pitch things are at least as good. Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008 for £90 million and paid off the debts. Revenue was about £79 million pa. He has invested some £1.5 billion just in City and (say) £1 billion in the other members of the group, although I suspect that's an overestimate. City's own revenue stands at over half a billion a year. The CFG now has major investment from American and Chinese conglomerates and is worth - not valued but made worth, by actual investment - $5.5 billion. That represents a pretty hefty return for the Sheikh, but it also means City have little to fear if "the Sheikh walks away". I reckon that's a pretty good decade as decades go at City!

And what's happened to our rivals, the awesome cartel? Stony broke, borrowing right left and centre and hardly a trophy between the lot of them and so desperate they have to rely on a set of ready bent rules to ruin us. But we are not the little guys here. We don't need to break their rules to win. Khaldoon tells them that any independent court will rule in our favour, and it does. And any rules which are bent enough to hurt us will absolutely destroy them. The only thing they can do is to pick up their bat and wickets and go and play somewhere else with their own little gang.

So, for god's sake let's shut up about City being passive and supine, taking everything the cartel throw at us. At the moment the cartel are flat on the canvas and he ref's checking VAR to make sure he's actually said "ten".

Yep - nailed it as ever BSHR. In due course, I would love City to expose exactly who was pulling UEFA's strings (I think we can all have a pretty good guess but I would love to have the "irrefutable" proof).

I also hope City are smart about their media interactions going forward and don't get too embroiled with the "small fry" in the press as I think this could be counter productive and time consuming. We need to get our side of the story out there via Samuels and others and take firm action against the bigger players if they persist in any false narratives.

Oh, and we tell Pep that he's going nowhere ;)

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I haven't caught up with what people are saying. I am GUESSING the award says:

a) certain matters were time barred (UEFA say it is 5 year limitation that the Panel found)
b) the Panel makes no finding on those time barred matters (it doesn't need to so may hide behind that)
c) the non-time barred matters were unproven (not established) - UEFA's evidence inconclusive to support such serious allegations. There may be some discussion of the standard of proof
d) it may excuse UEFA for making unproved serious allegation partly because of City's obstructive conduct in co-operation
e) it will support UEFA's argument as to the importance of co-operation
f) it will support UEFA that "MCFC’s disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations" was an aggravating factor

So all in all fairly dry. Probably. I don't see it likely it will criticise UEFA. If it was scathing of UEFA I don't think it would have awarded €10m, it would have said words to the effect that "although we accept UEFA's argument as to the importance of non-cooperation, in this case UEFA's conduct in pursuing the investigation was so unfounded that we consider MCFC's breach to be largely excusable."

This seems more than likely but I have one proviso. In their earlier appeal to CAS City had argued that UEFA was time barred from reopening any matters before 2016. CAS clearly did not rule on this question then but UEFA had been warned of one line of City's argument and it was to meet with CAS's agreement later. I cannot see that CAS will refrain now from criticising a body which misunderstands its own rules to such an extent that it has to ignore them and reinterpret them. Nor did CAS seem other than highly critical of the poor evidence that UEFA brought forward, especially as I suspect their own lawyers had expressed such opinions while preparing for the hearing.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Bang on the money. We took on the biggest dog of them all and took it down with a bang. That is how big players operate. The world knows that now despite a bit of bleating from the defeated.

Our fans need to lose the victim status. The project could be about to reach its pinnacle, it’s absolute nadir, if David Silva lifts the champions league this summer for our exonerated club. Imagine how that will feel following this ruling?

There's more to it than that. Our owners' integrity, honour & probity has been dragged through the mud, which is not a good thing to do in the Arab world. There will be repercussions.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

I'd say we were given a 2-season ban to take us out of the game, as it would have cost us probably close to £250m over those 2 years and probably another 2 or 3 at least beyond that to recovery anything like the state we are now, if we ever would. That was the price of avoiding a breakaway of the G-14.

So, you must be saying that there will be a G14 led breakaway now.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Bang on the money. We kept our council but eventually had no choice left but to take on the biggest dog of them all and we took it down with a bang. That is how big players operate. Quietly. The world knows that now despite a bit of bleating from the defeated.

Our fans need to lose the victim status. The project could be about to reach its pinnacle, it’s absolute nadir, if David Silva lifts the champions league this summer for our exonerated club. Imagine how that will feel following this ruling?

You might want to change Nadir for Zenith, unless I’ve had a lot more to drink than is usual for 4.30 on a Wednesday....

 

[laserblue]

At long last a post of sense and perspective to counter some of the paranoid dross we've been treated to. There seems to have been an attack of almost collective amnesia. Let me remind everyone that in the last ten years our club, little citeh, the national laughing stock have won 4 PL titles, 4 league cups and 2 FA cups (as well as runners up once) and we can throw in 3 community shields. I think that's all but we've won so many I lose count! Off the pitch things are at least as good. Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008 for £90 million and paid off the debts. Revenue was about £79 million pa. He has invested some £1.5 billion just in City and (say) £1 billion in the other members of the group, although I suspect that's an overestimate. City's own revenue stands at over half a billion a year. The CFG now has major investment from American and Chinese conglomerates and is worth - not valued but made worth, by actual investment - $5.5 billion. That represents a pretty hefty return for the Sheikh, but it also means City have little to fear if "the Sheikh walks away". I reckon that's a pretty good decade as decades go at City!

And what's happened to our rivals, the awesome cartel? Stony broke, borrowing right left and centre and hardly a trophy between the lot of them and so desperate they have to rely on a set of ready bent rules to ruin us. But we are not the little guys here. We don't need to break their rules to win. Khaldoon tells them that any independent court will rule in our favour, and it does. And any rules which are bent enough to hurt us will absolutely destroy them. The only thing they can do is to pick up their bat and wickets and go and play somewhere else with their own little gang.

So, for god's sake let's shut up about City being passive and supine, taking everything the cartel throw at us. At the moment the cartel are flat on the canvas and he ref's checking VAR to make sure he's actually said "ten".

Great post Blues. But it's 5 League Cups ;)

 

[jrb]

Either City and their legal team were very clever, or UEFA and their in-house legal team were very thick.

Article 37.

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

Between 2012-2016.

https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/about-uefa/news/025a-0f8e7535cab3-07272066f9f6-1000--club-financial-control-body-adjudicatory-chamber-decision-on-ma/?referrer=/insideuefa/about-uefa/news/newsid=2638659