City launch legal action against the Premier League | City win APT case (pg901)

[gordondaviesmoustache]

The reporting of the APT case from the usual suspects, is as pathetic as it is predictable. Senior 'journalists' stooping to Liverpool Echo esque levels of delusion. They may as well title the articles 'Why City's ATP victories are good for the the Premier League' and be done with it.

Unfair. Unlawful. Unreasonable. It's in black and white in the findings, City are now entitled to damages.

Side note, but the same 'journalists' are also reporting that Premier League clubs with high levels of borrowing are now in danger of breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules.... Some victory for the Premier league, lads.

The levels of intellectual dishonesty required to report this as anything other than a defeat for the PL are pathological.

 

[mancboy]

I don’t think Talkshite would be reporting that Everton are one if the four all powerful and rich football clubs, threatening the future of English football

God that narrative is so fucking boring, we are so mired in the quaint idea of tradition and that everything was better before that any time there is the threat of change or movement in the established order of anything that their is widespread outcry in the msm and social media about how we are losing our way and it is threatening the very fabric of our being and you know what happens? Fuck all happens, things change, we adapt, sometimes they are better sometimes not and we all move on till the next percieved horror.

 

[Roachy]

Just read an absolute whopper of an article from sky's Rob Harris about yesterday.

Man City and Premier League both claim victory in legal battle over rules on commercial deals

The case is separate to the 115 charges facing City under Premier League rules, which they allegedly breached by failing to provide accurate financial information over a nine-year period.

news.sky.com

Absolutely nothing to do with what the outcome was.

It is a whopper as you say, just like him. I'm sure we'll see plenty more articles like this over the next few days as the ant City PR bandwagon revs up. It's a tad frustrating that the masses fall for it, but Harris and co know their audience. They can spin it how they want, but ultimately the victory is ours.

 

[Keeper!]

According to the bbc it was a big win for the PL

MASSIVE

 

[BringBackSwales]

Given the bbc and various newspapers are saying we lost a lot more than we won, can anyone who understands this stuff advise what did we lose in yesterday’s verdict that was materially significant to us?

 

[blueste41]

This just shows how the PL are either corrupt or void of any common sense. On shareholder loans they argued that it's not discriminatory to not apply interest for PSR because any club could undertake them! Really, every single club has shareholders that could hand over millions of pounds? Using that logic it's not discriminatory for Etihad to sponsor us for 1 billion a year because any club could undertake the same deal!

 

[Keeper!]

The levels of intellectual dishonesty required to report this as anything other than a defeat for the PL are pathological.

The hurt they are experiencing is wonderful, just imagine how they will feel when the 115 case is over.

 

[mancboy]

The levels of intellectual dishonesty required to report this as anything other than a defeat for the PL are pathological.

Scousers doing mental gymnastics to support their bullshit opinion? Nah not having that there is no evidence of them doing that literally all the time is there?

 

[thismeansfour]

Apparently we're bribing everyone to sort this too. Strange we never similarly bribed the PL to not bring the charges in the first place and also bribe them to make the APT rules to our liking in Feb.
I can only assume that as we couldn't get our sponsorships over the line our brown envelope fund was exhausted.

Don't you dare talk logic and point out their nonsense.

 

[Mon Autre]

Can I just check if my understanding of things is roughly correct?

Depending on your allegiances/agenda you can essentially cherry pick parts of the ruling to claim an overall victory in the court of public opinion. The PL "won" on some points and City on others.

PL claiming victory on the finding that the concept of FMV is lawful (though I'm not sure City disputed that?)

City claiming victory on the finding that their current implementation is unlawful.

People can argue about the spin of it on forums and twitter but what is the actual outcome and impact on clubs?

It seems that clubs who favour cash injections from related parties via sponsorship (e.g. City, Newcastle etc) will benefit as the rules around FMV are likely to be loosened and they will therefore see a boost to their p&l?

It seems clubs who favour cash injections from related parties via interest free loans are now going to have to see those rules applied evenly to them and they will therefore see a big hit to their P&L every year.

So regardless of who appears to be winning any argument online or in the press, the long and the short of it is that the ruling has a net benefit to clubs like City. We'll be making more and Arsenal will be making less?

This has always felt inevitable when rules were being made not in the name of fairness, but in the name of protecting those with a head start. Loopholes left in by design were always susceptible to challenges like this.


Edit: sounds like clubs relying on loans could evade the interest fees by converting to equity. Which makes sense but would also require the agreement of existing shareholders.