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

[OrigamiNinja]

I see the Premier League have "confirmed" that existing shareholder loans won't be included in modified ATP rules - but existing sponsorship deals will be included.
The chances of another court case not happening are thus vanishingly small I woukd imagine.

You can see how this can quite quickly snowball. It goes from City fighting legal battles to half the Prem doing it. Questions start being asked about the point of it all and all of a sudden the days of over-regulation to appease certain clubs are no more.

 

[supercity88]

Apologies if answered already, but does anyone know why Everton sided with us on this? They're one of the clubs with significant interest free loans so presumably it doesn't help them? Potentially they've turned to that because of issues over APT sponsorship, which would be more beneficial to them on balance? Some of the recent comments from the club against City make it hard to fathom why they were with us on this case?

 

[BerkshireBlue]

Slightly (greatly)confused on shareholder loans. Am I right in thinking that a shareholder loan doesn't affect PSR, in so much as an owner can't just give a loan that would allow a club to pass PSR. As an example if club had an £80m shortfall for PSR, an owner can't just inject £80m as a loan to allow a club to pass PSR. Is it only that clubs should be paying interest on such loans that is the problem. Then It as been said that the loan will be converted into equity. So if the loan becomes equity can that money be used for anything and does it help with PSR.

yes that's the way I understand it. So arsenal took out a £250m interest free loan but really they should have been paying fair market value interest rates of 5% on that so they should have had a -£12.5 m added to the profit and loss sheet. Arsenal were very close to failing PSR and 3 years of missing this payment off the calcs is significant. It's also unfair and discriminatory for the rest of the league clubs. Every other club who hasn't had this benefit will be asking for compensation and for other teams to be reinvestigated. This is just the start, it's going to be messy.

 

[BerkshireBlue]

Apologies if answered already, but does anyone know why Everton sided with us on this? They're one of the clubs with significant interest free loans so presumably it doesn't help them? Potentially they've turned to that because of issues over APT sponsorship, which would be more beneficial to them on balance? Some of the recent comments from the club against City make it hard to fathom why they were with us on this case?

No one knows, glad they did but I think their input and also the teams input probably wasn't even needed anyway

 

[Stoned Rose]

Morning All. Apologies if this has been answered previously (quite a lot of recent posts to trawl through). I thought that @slbsn had previously felt that the ruling of the tribunal would not be published as this was a private mediation and that the only clues of any City success would be the removal and redrafting of the recent amendments to the APT rules? I see the judgement has now been formally published albeit with some redactions. Do we know why this has changed and the judgement published?

Because he was wrong.

 

[VOOMER]

Apologies if answered already, but does anyone know why Everton sided with us on this? They're one of the clubs with significant interest free loans so presumably it doesn't help them? Potentially they've turned to that because of issues over APT sponsorship, which would be more beneficial to them on balance? Some of the recent comments from the club against City make it hard to fathom why they were with us on this case?

Because the whole thing is a farce and they were punished on the back of this nonsense.

 

[ManCitizens.]

Apologies if answered already, but does anyone know why Everton sided with us on this? They're one of the clubs with significant interest free loans so presumably it doesn't help them? Potentially they've turned to that because of issues over APT sponsorship, which would be more beneficial to them on balance? Some of the recent comments from the club against City make it hard to fathom why they were with us on this case?

If they’re sold will the shareholder loans still be there?

 

[halfcenturyup]

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?

Nothing. The club clearly wanted the pending/amended deals re-reviewed under the original rules and pretty much achieved that with the ability to seek compensation intact.

Job done.

It's nothing other than a(nother) humiliation for the PL. They put illegal rules to a vote on the basis of their legal opinion saying the rules were legal, they have applied the rules in a procedurally unfair manner and have breached the very same rules themselves by causing unreasonable delays. The only possible wins they can claim are that the whole APT regime wasn't kicked out (the club weren't seriously pursuing that) and the rules have not been found to be discriminatory (but even that is a win for the club because it confirms for the 115 case, if confirmation was needed, that witness statements trump out of context emails).

 

[Mon Autre]

Apologies if answered already, but does anyone know why Everton sided with us on this? They're one of the clubs with significant interest free loans so presumably it doesn't help them? Potentially they've turned to that because of issues over APT sponsorship, which would be more beneficial to them on balance? Some of the recent comments from the club against City make it hard to fathom why they were with us on this case?

Obvious guess is that the benefit they'd see via APT income outweighs the interest they'd expect to pay on the loans. OR it could also be that as a club looking for a new buyer, it will be easier to sell the club if a prospective buyer has more scope to bring in sponsorship and revenue via related parties.

 

[Dodge]

So, under the current rules 0% shareholder loans are accepted but they are now unlawful.

A few clubs will need to factor in FMA interest rates into their PSR.

We’re told an easy solution to this is to turn those loans into equity - if that shareholder has the appetite to do so (which is a big assumption).

So my question is, are shareholders now allowed to pump equity into a club, regardless of how much and, if so, is there anything stopping our owners from doing the same?

I haven’t a clue and would love some clarity on that if someone on here knows the answer

With multiple shareholders, its not possible for another shareholder to just pump equity into any business, without a vote.

Similarly, if I'm an existing shareholder, another shareholder, who has "loaned" x amount to the club in which I'm invested, cannot simply decide to turn that loan into equity, as it directly affects the value of my shareholding. It's effectively a cash raise "placing" which dilutes the value of my shares. New shares cannot be issued without an EGM and full disclosure to the market.

In our case, there's no way Silverlake for instance, would say yes to our Chinese investors turning a £1b soft loan into equity, as it would decimate the value of Silverlakes shareholding.

Not as simple as you might think.