City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)

[moomba]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

2) When the same typographical / clerical mistake happens in two distinct set of accounts, it starts to look like both set of accountants are created in tandem... i.e. not an honest 'as is' representation, but as part of a wider accounting strategy.

More likely to be a mistake in the source document.

Of course, it's a mistake. Any court in the land can see it's a mistake and Garcia's transfer is well publicised. The point is, if they are using the same source document, why? One set of company accounts should not be related to another set of accounts, otherwise they look like they are inextricably linked and not operating independently.

The devil is in the detail, and whilst one mistake does not make the entire accounts incorrect, it just opens up a door for more suspicion and scrutiny.

We're clearly not trying to con anybody that Garcia went to a different club! it just looks bad, and can only erode confidence rather than instil it.

I don't really understand your point. CFG is the parent company, if the information relating to the sale didnt come from MCFC who else would it have come from?

 

[George Hannah]

@from a rag,
Re Lampard. I know you are saying that there is nothing to see here and I would agree with you in normal circumstances but this is yet another in a long line of "iffy" situations involving City over the past few seasons . Start with this issue , why did City not clarify this situation earlier ? why let it get to this ? Also it nearly looks like Lampard himself didn't know who he had signed for . Then there is the latest issue over the hiding of losses in "subsidiary" companies.Transfering of over half the staff to another company within the group of companies , no wider public announcement it just happened and it looks like they were hoping no one would notice and it happened with 2 subsidiaries not just 1 . There's the Garcia issue citing the wrong club & country that he's gone to this is either completely amature or someone was in a hurry to provide figures to someone for a "specific" reason plus it shows a lack of respect to the player Then there was the "Intellectual Property Rights" debacle in 2013 figures where a figure of 22.7m was charged to a sister company within the group this figure was completely made up. Now you can defend your club as most would tend to do but when people are reading 5&6 significant stories about the clubs finances , how they sign players and their basic communication skills you gotta start thinking that City are not being 100% honest . Rules are for all not just some

Except that they are not especially significant. Lampard was a PR cock up in that the signing was heralded as a New York signing because no one imagined he would play anything other than a bit part for City. It was more about keeping fit with City except he turned out to be still very good. Best laid plans and all that. If he had gone to New York in January no one would have been any the wiser (or cared) about the contract structure. City should have managed the story better and ended up losing control of the narrative but it happens. The hysteria over it was far more interesting than the story itself.

Garcia is just a typo in set of accounts and Intellectual Property Rights is a perfectly legitimate concept. Its not like we invented the bloody thing.

As for 'hiding losses' we get to what this is really all about. From IP rights to Lampard its all seen through the prism of FFP by media and other clubs and fans. Buying or setting up other clubs? FFP dodge. Lampard via NYCFC. FFP dodge. Typo in the accounts? FFP dodge. One sugar rather than two? FFP dodge. Everything we do is seen through the lens of FFP and judged accordingly.

Except none of it is to do with FFP (well okay we were a bit cheeky on the IP rights). The group set up, subsidiaries, overseas teams is all about enhancing and maximising revenue streams by building a global brand in major markets with tiered sponsorship/advertising and merchandising. And I don't mean shirt sales but Nissan introducing a 'City' town car in limited colours - sky blue, white or red with black stripes for the sporty types.

Until the media and the rest pull their head out of their arses and start to analyse what it is we are really doing then we will continue to get this FFP distorted view of City's business dealings. But don't expect it any time soon. Sam Wallace of the Independent was on Sunday Supplement a week or so back and he said he had no idea why City were setting up overseas clubs. Seriously. No idea. Ever thought about doing some investigation into why Sam? No? And you wonder why we get such ill informed bollocks being printed.

I hope Soriano will be moved out before long. The bloke is a chancer and a liability. Missing our FFP targets is down to him as is the Lampard situation, if the new subsidiary company losses are linked to our current financial performance I think the board will act very quickly.

 

[Victoria-bahs]

@from a rag,
Re Lampard. I know you are saying that there is nothing to see here and I would agree with you in normal circumstances but this is yet another in a long line of "iffy" situations involving City over the past few seasons . Start with this issue , why did City not clarify this situation earlier ? why let it get to this ? Also it nearly looks like Lampard himself didn't know who he had signed for . Then there is the latest issue over the hiding of losses in "subsidiary" companies.Transfering of over half the staff to another company within the group of companies , no wider public announcement it just happened and it looks like they were hoping no one would notice and it happened with 2 subsidiaries not just 1 . There's the Garcia issue citing the wrong club & country that he's gone to this is either completely amature or someone was in a hurry to provide figures to someone for a "specific" reason plus it shows a lack of respect to the player Then there was the "Intellectual Property Rights" debacle in 2013 figures where a figure of 22.7m was charged to a sister company within the group this figure was completely made up. Now you can defend your club as most would tend to do but when people are reading 5&6 significant stories about the clubs finances , how they sign players and their basic communication skills you gotta start thinking that City are not being 100% honest . Rules are for all not just some

Except that they are not especially significant. Lampard was a PR cock up in that the signing was heralded as a New York signing because no one imagined he would play anything other than a bit part for City. It was more about keeping fit with City except he turned out to be still very good. Best laid plans and all that. If he had gone to New York in January no one would have been any the wiser (or cared) about the contract structure. City should have managed the story better and ended up losing control of the narrative but it happens. The hysteria over it was far more interesting than the story itself.

Garcia is just a typo in set of accounts and Intellectual Property Rights is a perfectly legitimate concept. Its not like we invented the bloody thing.

As for 'hiding losses' we get to what this is really all about. From IP rights to Lampard its all seen through the prism of FFP by media and other clubs and fans. Buying or setting up other clubs? FFP dodge. Lampard via NYCFC. FFP dodge. Typo in the accounts? FFP dodge. One sugar rather than two? FFP dodge. Everything we do is seen through the lens of FFP and judged accordingly.

Except none of it is to do with FFP (well okay we were a bit cheeky on the IP rights). The group set up, subsidiaries, overseas teams is all about enhancing and maximising revenue streams by building a global brand in major markets with tiered sponsorship/advertising and merchandising. And I don't mean shirt sales but Nissan introducing a 'City' town car in limited colours - sky blue, white or red with black stripes for the sporty types.

Until the media and the rest pull their head out of their arses and start to analyse what it is we are really doing then we will continue to get this FFP distorted view of City's business dealings. But don't expect it any time soon. Sam Wallace of the Independent was on Sunday Supplement a week or so back and he said he had no idea why City were setting up overseas clubs. Seriously. No idea. Ever thought about doing some investigation into why Sam? No? And you wonder why we get such ill informed bollocks being printed.

I hope Soriano will be moved out before long. The bloke is a chancer and a liability. Missing our FFP targets is down to him as is the Lampard situation, if the new subsidiary company losses are linked to our current financial performance I think the board will act very quickly.

Missing our FFP targets is down to him?? fancy that i understood it being EUFA moving the goals.

Hope he stays myself for the next 10 years.

as for the people who dot the i.. a pair of glasses

 

[FanchesterCity]

More likely to be a mistake in the source document.

Of course, it's a mistake. Any court in the land can see it's a mistake and Garcia's transfer is well publicised. The point is, if they are using the same source document, why? One set of company accounts should not be related to another set of accounts, otherwise they look like they are inextricably linked and not operating independently.

The devil is in the detail, and whilst one mistake does not make the entire accounts incorrect, it just opens up a door for more suspicion and scrutiny.

We're clearly not trying to con anybody that Garcia went to a different club! it just looks bad, and can only erode confidence rather than instil it.

The point is, when you're trying to portray two companies (even if they are part of a larger parent group) as truly distinct business, you would expect the accounts to be distinct and mistakes in one NOT to be reflected in another.
Of course in this instance, they may well have used the same source document with an error in it, but that would mean a) The source document was wrong, b) The accounts for both subsidiaries overlooked the same mistake. That's 3 mistakes in total.

The implication is that the same set of people are handling the accounts for both companies, and lends itself to suggesting the accounts aren't quite as independent as they should be.


I don't really understand your point. CFG is the parent company, if the information relating to the sale didnt come from MCFC who else would it have come from?

 

[FanchesterCity]

City have to work doubly hard to make deals look more legitimate.
Liverpool have American owners, and their key sponsors are American. United the same.

But when it comes to City, because the Sheik is deemed to be so powerful, all Abu Dhabi related sponsorships are deemed 'suspect'.
The more City start to attract sponsors from outside the Middle East, the better, simply because it's much harder to allege some collusion behind the scenes.

Also, it wouldn't do any harm if some key sponsors spoke out on our behalf too, explain why they believe City are such an exciting prospect to sponsor.
Of course there are nice soundbites when a deal is done, but it would be far better if they were knocking on UEFA's door asking why their own credibility is being threatened by UEFA and the media.

It would do us a world of good if a major sponsor spelled it out 'we are paying a lot of money to sponsor City, because we believe they are an exciting new brand, and we fully intend to make money from it in the process - that's why we're in business'.

 

[BobKowalski]

Garcia is just a typo in set of accounts

On the face of it yes - but the problem is that with the club's accounts being the subject of such intense scrutiny they really need to avoid this sort of basic error - especially a footballing one! The accounts document must surely have gone through a pre-publication review process and not to pick it up gives out an impression of sloppiness that the club could do without. The vultures are out there and they'll pounce on things like this to suggest that if City can't get these basics right then how accurate are the rest of the accounts.

If you look hard enough you will find small errors in most Annual Reports from referring to Appendix 6 when you mean 9 and getting the names muddled up on the big shiny photo of the board and directors on page 1 for everyone to have a giggle at. It happens and it happens a lot. It is checked and proof read but small errors get made. You would think from some of the reaction we were cloning Garcia in a secret lab in the Amazonian rainforest so that we can sell him to both Zenit and Shakhtar as yet another cunning FFP dodge . We got the name of his buying club wrong and no one picked up on it. The End.

The hysteria over Lampard, the selling Garcia in 'secret', hiding losses under dummy shell companies all as a dastardly plot to thwart Platini and his minions - I mean come on, the only real response is to smile politely and edge away before they get dangerous and hurt themselves on their tinfoil hats.

 

[BoyBlue_1985]

@from a rag,
Re Lampard. I know you are saying that there is nothing to see here and I would agree with you in normal circumstances but this is yet another in a long line of "iffy" situations involving City over the past few seasons . Start with this issue , why did City not clarify this situation earlier ? why let it get to this ? Also it nearly looks like Lampard himself didn't know who he had signed for . Then there is the latest issue over the hiding of losses in "subsidiary" companies.Transfering of over half the staff to another company within the group of companies , no wider public announcement it just happened and it looks like they were hoping no one would notice and it happened with 2 subsidiaries not just 1 . There's the Garcia issue citing the wrong club & country that he's gone to this is either completely amature or someone was in a hurry to provide figures to someone for a "specific" reason plus it shows a lack of respect to the player Then there was the "Intellectual Property Rights" debacle in 2013 figures where a figure of 22.7m was charged to a sister company within the group this figure was completely made up. Now you can defend your club as most would tend to do but when people are reading 5&6 significant stories about the clubs finances , how they sign players and their basic communication skills you gotta start thinking that City are not being 100% honest . Rules are for all not just some

Except that they are not especially significant. Lampard was a PR cock up in that the signing was heralded as a New York signing because no one imagined he would play anything other than a bit part for City. It was more about keeping fit with City except he turned out to be still very good. Best laid plans and all that. If he had gone to New York in January no one would have been any the wiser (or cared) about the contract structure. City should have managed the story better and ended up losing control of the narrative but it happens. The hysteria over it was far more interesting than the story itself.

Garcia is just a typo in set of accounts and Intellectual Property Rights is a perfectly legitimate concept. Its not like we invented the bloody thing.

As for 'hiding losses' we get to what this is really all about. From IP rights to Lampard its all seen through the prism of FFP by media and other clubs and fans. Buying or setting up other clubs? FFP dodge. Lampard via NYCFC. FFP dodge. Typo in the accounts? FFP dodge. One sugar rather than two? FFP dodge. Everything we do is seen through the lens of FFP and judged accordingly.

Except none of it is to do with FFP (well okay we were a bit cheeky on the IP rights). The group set up, subsidiaries, overseas teams is all about enhancing and maximising revenue streams by building a global brand in major markets with tiered sponsorship/advertising and merchandising. And I don't mean shirt sales but Nissan introducing a 'City' town car in limited colours - sky blue, white or red with black stripes for the sporty types.

Until the media and the rest pull their head out of their arses and start to analyse what it is we are really doing then we will continue to get this FFP distorted view of City's business dealings. But don't expect it any time soon. Sam Wallace of the Independent was on Sunday Supplement a week or so back and he said he had no idea why City were setting up overseas clubs. Seriously. No idea. Ever thought about doing some investigation into why Sam? No? And you wonder why we get such ill informed bollocks being printed.

I hope Soriano will be moved out before long. The bloke is a chancer and a liability. Missing our FFP targets is down to him as is the Lampard situation, if the new subsidiary company losses are linked to our current financial performance I think the board will act very quickly.

Missing the FFP targets was down to incredible outgoings with little revenue and Uefa moving the goalposts because we HAD to fail to make the point along with PSG. Soriano has done an incredible job all things considered

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I think some of us should calm down, take a sedative, have an early night and decide either not to read the Mail or Telegraph, or at least not to let them get us in a panic. City are the best run club in the PL.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I think some of us should calm down, take a sedative, have an early night and decide either not to read the Mail or Telegraph, or at least not to let them get us in a panic. City are the best run club in the PL.

You can say that again.

Edit:

Bugger, you deleted your duplicate post and now my comment looks stupid. Still, it's now in keeping with my other posts.

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Garcia is just a typo in set of accounts

On the face of it yes - but the problem is that with the club's accounts being the subject of such intense scrutiny they really need to avoid this sort of basic error - especially a footballing one! The accounts document must surely have gone through a pre-publication review process and not to pick it up gives out an impression of sloppiness that the club could do without. The vultures are out there and they'll pounce on things like this to suggest that if City can't get these basics right then how accurate are the rest of the accounts.

If you look hard enough you will find small errors in most Annual Reports from referring to Appendix 6 when you mean 9 and getting the names muddled up on the big shiny photo of the board and directors on page 1 for everyone to have a giggle at. It happens and it happens a lot. It is checked and proof read but small errors get made. You would think from some of the reaction we were cloning Garcia in a secret lab in the Amazonian rainforest so that we can sell him to both Zenit and Shakhtar as yet another cunning FFP dodge . We got the name of his buying club wrong and no one picked up on it. The End.

The hysteria over Lampard, the selling Garcia in 'secret', hiding losses under dummy shell companies all as a dastardly plot to thwart Platini and his minions - I mean come on, the only real response is to smile politely and edge away before they get dangerous and hurt themselves on their tinfoil hats.

This one has been my favourite from the last couple of days. If Ogden and Co genuinely believe that our owners are so retarded that they'd try and cover up losses in this fashion, like they were little kids trying to hide their greens under a bit of left-over potato in the hope that mummy won't notice when she clears the plates away, then they're even thicker than I give them credit for!