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

[Prestwich_Blue]

Decent summary on reddit if anyone interested:


Summary of main findings:

•The Leaked Emails were the main driving force behind UEFA's arguments. Man City produced the original documents when asked to do so. Thus, it was determined that while the leaked versions were somewhat cherry-picked, "this did NOT affect the veracity of the Leaked Emails on which UEFA primarily built its case".

•Man City's argument that the Leaked Emails should be inadmissible FAILS because of the strong public interest involved. While the leaks were illegal (and the person responsible is curently serving a prison sentence in Portugal), UEFA did not partake in the leak, and the fact that multiple articles were printed in multiple media outlets only further proves that the public interest outweighs Man City's interest.

•Man City's allegations that the CFCB violated their due process rights (with the multiple leaks from within the Investigatory Committee, plus the allegedly expedited process) are NOT sufficiently substandiated by the evidence and arguments they produced.

•Man City's argument that the Settlement Agreement the club made with UEFA in 2014 precludes UEFA from pursuing this case is NOT compelling; the issues at hand are not covered by the Settlement Agreement.

•With regards to the idea that the charges are time-barred, CAS considered that the arguments presented by Man City and UEFA were BOTH wrong, and that in reality only "crimes" committed after the 15th of May 2014 may be prosecuted. This cuts out part (less than half) of the alleged "crimes".

(!) •With regards to Man City disguising funding as sponsorship money, CAS found that UEFA's decision to sanction Man City was NOT correct, since their entire case is built almost entirely on just those leaked emails, without sufficient accounting or transactional evidence. The nature of the allegations would necessitate communication with 3rd parties, yet no evidence of those was presented. UEFA argued that Mr. Pierce (director of Man City, among others) made arrangements for these crimes, but Mr. Pierce's testimony was considered compelling ("no reason to believe that his testimony was inaccurate").

(!) • UEFA basically produced clearly insufficient evidence for most of its claims. Originally, its entire case was based on just those emails, but then they attempted to introduce the documents they received from Man City (after they made an amicable agreement on which ones can legally be subpoenaed) into their argument. However, it remained LACKING. The burden of proof is on UEFA (a fact that was agreed-upon by both parties), but they simply failed to meet it.

(!) •On the other hand, Man City did provide direct accouting evidence, as well as compelling testimony that explained the role that key individuals play in the organization (as well as the 3rd party status of companies such as Etihad).

(!) •CAS found that most of the requests for evidence made by the CFCB were reasonable, but that Man City was "very reluctant and at times uncooperative" with regards to producing them. There are 2 specific examples mentioned, and they comprise the reason for the fine.

•UEFA recognized that Man City only partially produced the desired documents, yet explicitly accepted the fact that NO inferrence can be made from this fact (that is, they CAN'T claim that there reason Man City was uncooperative was because they hid incriminating evidence). They did this in order to get a rapid process, one that reached its conclusion before the start of the 2020/21 season.

TL;DR: UEFA simply did not produce the evidence necessary to prove these statements. Their entire case rested on the Leaked Emails, and CAS could not determine that the crimes mentioned were in fact executed. A small part of the offenses were time-barred (those made prior to May 15, 2014). Basically, CAS recognized that UEFA felt pressured to start the investigation (as the leaks published in multiple news agencies were compelling enough to start an investigation, but not sufficient to prove the end result) and to finish it before the start of the next season.

Excellent summary.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Ok, so now we know. We know that this case had very little evidence and some of that evidence was in fact fraudulent. This case would never have seen the light of day in a proper, non kangaroo organization, with proper checks and balances such as a CPS. It is also clear that City had no confidence in giving their rebuttal evidence as they could not trust UEFA enough to look at it dispassionately and stop the investigation.

But why?

Why did UEFA continue with such a prosecution? I would be interested in Prestwich Blues view if I may be so bold. Was it just to besmirch us or because the 'royalty' of clubs insisted on giving it a whirl.

All in all, a bloody sad day for UEFA, democracy and fair play.

Why?
The rest of the pigs in the top money trough don't want to share their money swill with us.

 

[Shads]

From my quick reading, which I haven't finished, CAS declared that anything that happened prior to 2014 was time-barred but not anything after. So they could examine the sponsorship revenues that were paid after 2014 and found those were properly paid and weren't disguised equity funding. That clearly implies that had the other payments not been time-barred, they would also have been found to be properly paid.

Therefore anyone claiming we got off "on a technicality" is completely wrong.

I wish I could agree with you but after reading it all carefully I cannot. There is no implication at all. They would not examine them because it was time barred and this will give the opportunity for those that wish to say that we got off on a technicality. I suspect City could easily have applied all the same arguments and got in the relevant high ups from Etisalat but as they were not required to, they did not.

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

Good spot that lady Bob am wondering if thats actionable.

 

[ultimateharold]

Good spot that lady Bob am wondering if thats actionable.

That's not a CAS conclusion, but one of the points City's team tried to raise.

 

[Shads]

Reading the parts about the leaks and the hacked emails, with CAS' subsequent denial of our claims, it backs up those who suggested that the first day hadn't gone that well for us.

I would go further and say that we lost on all our preliminary arguments apart from getting the Etisalat sponsorship deal issues time barred. The panel agreed with UEFA on everything else until the main issue of the Etihad sponsorship deals after 2014. This was the main thrust of the UEFA case and they were totally blown out of the water.
It’s almost as if the panel gave UEFA those earlier wins to enable them to examine as much info as they could and leave the reader in no doubt that City did not do what they were accused of.

 

[Shads]

So who is obligated to cover for all city’s legal expenses? It’s a high profile case and am sure it wasn’t cheap .

The judgment has each party bearing their own costs.

 

[Shads]

Sheikh Mansour himself sent a letter to the Panel saying he had expressly not made or authorised the payment of any funds to Etihad. UEFA, rather foolishly, tried to argue that he might have been unaware of such an arrangement, something that CAS found completely implausible.

Even better than that UEFA were asked whether or not they thought HHSM might not be telling the truth and they accepted everything he said in full.

 

[Shads]

So it turns out the time barred stuff was from before FFP?

That’s just not correct. None of the emails were barred in any way. The time bar was regarding sponsorship payments from Etisalat made in 2011-13. That was after FFP but prior to the 5 year limitation period.

 

[Shads]

I'm no lawyer and I've only skim-read the full document but it wouldn't surprise me if we now appealed that fine. I've heard we took legal advice before refusing to co-operate, therefore we must feel there were legal grounds for our failure to provide the evidence UEFA asked for. And the CAS judgement says that UEFA's AC failed to ask for the evidence again.

I would Be shocked if we appealed the fine. We took a deliberate and as it turned out spectacular gamble to refuse to give the documents. CAS were well within their rights to state we breached Art 56 because we clearly did. Any Appeal will likely fail miserably. CAS make the statement that UEFA May have found a different result had we supplied all the info. We all know that is not likely either but it is an assumption they are entitled to make.