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

[bobbyowenquiff]

RT @gtperformer84: @premierleague @LFC @TAGHeuer Richard Keys exposed as footage showing suspicious link to Premier League chief resurfaces?

https://t.co/mnVVWBVGVd @beINSPORTS_EN

Richard Keys exposed as footage showing suspicious link to Premier League chief resurfaces?
August 7, 2020 Olly Hawkins
The plot has thickened in this seemingly ongoing Saudi takeover saga as Richard Keys’ (BeIN Sports) relationship with an influential Garry Hoffman comes under the microscope.


Who is Gary Hoffman you may ask? Well, he is a former Barclays banker who was appointed the Premier League’s Chairman on June 1st.

Suspicious timing when you look at the turn of takeover events we’ve experienced since then, and even more suspicious when you hear what Richard Keys has had to say about his “very good friend” below.

Given Keys is a Qatari-based journalist working for BeIN Sports (strong opponents to this Saudi buyout) and has made it abundantly clear he’s against this NUFC takeover, the following clip makes you wonder to what extent did their relationship influence this deal?

Not only that, this relationship he boasts about with the man he knows “very well” seems all the more intriguing given the amount of inside knowledge he’s claimed to have had on the takeover over the past few months. A potential breach of NDA’s? A conflict of interests?

The latter seems very possible when you consider the Premier League have just hired someone whose ex-employers at Barclays are in the middle of a legal dispute with Amanda Staveley’s PCP!

Add into this the fact Keys has been erasing some of the comments he’s made detailing his relationship with Hoffman and it’s not a good look at all – for him, Hoffman, the Premier League or Qatar/BeIN Sport.

He will point the finger at piracy, but this stinks of a conflict of interests and points to something many of us have feared all this time – the Premier League don’t ideally want this deal to go through and have allowed themselves to be influenced by parties outside their remit, not simply focus on this pass or fail test that should be completely objective.

Who knows, but a lot of the above does not sit right with me and should be investigated.

None of this is a surprise to any City fans. It is blatantly obvious that the Newcastle deal was destroyed because of pressure by the Qatar regime which bankrolls the Premier League to the tune of £500m. That's an interesting graphic. It would be good to see another one showing the relationship between The Associated Press and Al Jazeera TV and people like Rob Harris.

 

[KS55]

He was poor. Gave a couple of goal kicks to them instead of corners, gave us a corner instead of a goal kick, missed the penalty which had he have given it wouldn’t have been overturned but with the system supports the on field decision, missed a blatant foul on KDB just outside the box and huge push on Silva in last couple of minutes. That’s just off the top of my head. He was very poor and if that’s th3 best ref in Germany then their standards are lower than ours.

About as good as the german judge at CAS

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Another thing I can't get my head round that struck me recently. CAS said the the emails gave UEFA sufficient grounds to investigate yet the actual evidence, when it came to putting it to CAS, wasn't sufficient to prove any wrongdoing on our part. I understand that I think. Yet when UEFA turned up, we refused to cooperate having taken legal advice which presumably stemmed from the emails being "the fruit of the poisoned tree" which meant that they may never have been admissible as evidence.

So CAS believed UEFA had grounds to investigate but seems to have completely dismissed our arguments that we reasonably felt we had grounds, on legal advice, to not cooperate. It wasn't because we were just being awkward or obstructive for the sake of being so. We were advised by our legal representatives not to.

Yet they upheld the non-cooperation charge when we clearly had at least as strong a case for that refusal to cooperate, if not a stronger case, than UEFA had for investigating us.

 

[Impeccable One]

It doesn't matter why the club decided not to cooperate, except the reasons given may have supported the lowering of the fine. The fact is, to play in the CL, you must agree to the rules. One of those is a club must cooperate with any UEFA investigation. We were correctly found guilty of breaching this rule.

And, just because a lawyer/attorney advised you to do something doesn't mean it's the right(legal) thing to do. It's their view it's the right thing to do when looking at the big picture(CL Ban) but you then have to accept that action will have negative consequences(a fine).

 

[BlueAnorak]

Another thing I can't get my head round that struck me recently. CAS said the the emails gave UEFA sufficient grounds to investigate yet the actual evidence, when it came to putting it to CAS, wasn't sufficient to prove any wrongdoing on our part. I understand that I think. Yet when UEFA turned up, we refused to cooperate having taken legal advice which presumably stemmed from the emails being "the fruit of the poisoned tree" which meant that they may never have been admissible as evidence.

So CAS believed UEFA had grounds to investigate but seems to have completely dismissed our arguments that we reasonably felt we had grounds, on legal advice, to not cooperate. It wasn't because we were just being awkward or obstructive for the sake of being so. We were advised by our legal representatives not to.

Yet they upheld the non-cooperation charge when we clearly had at least as strong a case for that refusal to cooperate, if not a stronger case, than UEFA had for investigating us.

That's Swiss law for you. Public interest seems to trump everything else.
The only thing that annoys is that in our previous trip to CAS, they came down heavily on UEFA leaking - even though they found that, because as we hadn't been found guilty at that time they couldn't rule on the case. The difference in the two judgements could probably be used as the basis for an appeal. That said though, they did lower the fine, so maybe not, but I think City will let sleeping dogs lie.

 

[Blueboy73]

Another thing I can't get my head round that struck me recently. CAS said the the emails gave UEFA sufficient grounds to investigate yet the actual evidence, when it came to putting it to CAS, wasn't sufficient to prove any wrongdoing on our part. I understand that I think. Yet when UEFA turned up, we refused to cooperate having taken legal advice which presumably stemmed from the emails being "the fruit of the poisoned tree" which meant that they may never have been admissible as evidence.

So CAS believed UEFA had grounds to investigate but seems to have completely dismissed our arguments that we reasonably felt we had grounds, on legal advice, to not cooperate. It wasn't because we were just being awkward or obstructive for the sake of being so. We were advised by our legal representatives not to.

Yet they upheld the non-cooperation charge when we clearly had at least as strong a case for that refusal to cooperate, if not a stronger case, than UEFA had for investigating us.

Unless CAS are in some way insuring themselves against opening the floodgates from an influx of case involving European clubs going straight to CAS?
Hypothetically if another club refuses to co operate with a future investigation, they could argue that they felt uefa are not acting fairly citing our case as a precedent and argue that a non-cooperation charge is unfair if CAS hadn't sanctioned us for this?
I'm not saying that this is the case but their judgement in our case reduces the likelihood of another club forcing the issue at CAS before exhausting all the avenues available to them which in their opinion includes co-operation with investigations no matter how weak the case is.
The fine is laughable in my opinion for the reasons you have cited however CAS are an arbitrator who look at process and concluded we chose not to follow the process even if the reasons for not doing so are valid.
I'm not saying this is the case but it isn't beyond the realms of possibly.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It doesn't matter why the club decided not to cooperate, except the reasons given may have supported the lowering of the fine. The fact is, to play in the CL, you must agree to the rules. One of those is a club must cooperate with any UEFA investigation. We were correctly found guilty of breaching this rule.

And, just because a lawyer/attorney advised you to do something doesn't mean it's the right(legal) thing to do. It's their view it's the right thing to do when looking at the big picture(CL Ban) but you then have to accept that action will have negative consequences(a fine).

UEFA's rules can't override the law. And the law is more often shades of grey than black and white. If you buy a car that you later find was stolen, then you won't be prosecuted if you acted in good faith in buying it. One of the defences to a charge of defamation is that it was an honest opinion i.e. you had genuine reason to believe what you had said or written.

So why couldn't CAS say "Manchester City didn't cooperate but they genuinely believed, on good legal advice, that they were justified in doing so. This therefore mitigates the charge."

 

[Impeccable One]

UEFA's rules can't override the law. And the law is more often shades of grey than black and white. If you buy a car that you later find was stolen, then you won't be prosecuted if you acted in good faith in buying it. One of the defences to a charge of defamation is that it was an honest opinion i.e. you had genuine reason to believe what you had said or written.

So why couldn't CAS say "Manchester City didn't cooperate but they genuinely believed, on good legal advice, that they were justified in doing so. This therefore mitigates the charge."

There is no 'law' about cooperation. In fact the law in most countries supports non-cooperation allowing the accused to remain silent.

However, the rules of playing in the CL state you must cooperate with an investigation. If the cooperation could be proven to have contributed to the breaking of a 'law'(criminal act) then you can claim to have reason for not abiding by the UEFA rule. But that's not the case here. Our reason(in its simplest form) was the potential exposure of confidential information. CAS determined that wasn't a good enough, or proven, reason. The club have accepted that decision.

Perhaps my best analogy is buying a season ticket to watch City. You agree to the rules. Get caught smoking in the ground and you could have your ticket cancelled without reimbursement. Smoking is a legal act, but you can't argue it was in your best interest to smoke, so you don't have to abide by that rule.

You said . . So why couldn't CAS say "Manchester City didn't cooperate but they genuinely believed, on good legal advice, that they were justified in doing so. This therefore mitigates the charge." - a defence of I was told not to do it, is not a defence. You have to be able to argue the underlying reason for that conclusion. Which City did, and CAS said wasn't good enough. Can you imagine how many crooks would bribe a lawyer to tell them to do something if the recommendation of a lawyer was sufficient justification legally ? :O

 

[Centurions]

It doesn't matter why the club decided not to cooperate, except the reasons given may have supported the lowering of the fine. The fact is, to play in the CL, you must agree to the rules. One of those is a club must cooperate with any UEFA investigation. We were correctly found guilty of breaching this rule.

And, just because a lawyer/attorney advised you to do something doesn't mean it's the right(legal) thing to do. It's their view it's the right thing to do when looking at the big picture(CL Ban) but you then have to accept that action will have negative consequences(a fine).

The fine wasn't lowered or reduced as I've seen others on here mention. UEFA didn't specify any sort of breakdown for the fine (whether it was 'injecting equity funds into the club' or for non-cooperation).

CAS scrapped everything and came up with their own value for non-cooperation. Which as said earlier, was probably correct despite our feelings towards UEFA.

 

[Newman Noggs]

UEFA's rules can't override the law. And the law is more often shades of grey than black and white. If you buy a car that you later find was stolen, then you won't be prosecuted if you acted in good faith in buying it. One of the defences to a charge of defamation is that it was an honest opinion i.e. you had genuine reason to believe what you had said or written.

So why couldn't CAS say "Manchester City didn't cooperate but they genuinely believed, on good legal advice, that they were justified in doing so. This therefore mitigates the charge."

Possibly that would be pre-judging UEFA's internal enquiry into the leaks issue. That wasn't an issue that CAS could rule on in this hearing and as Impeccable One says, they cannot sanction non-cooperation without a proven very good reason. Maybe we could appeal in the extremely unlikely event that UEFA's internal enquiry confirmed that there were leaks.