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

[jonah62]

Samuel was clearly briefed in advance by City and he makes the same case as contained our letter about the PL statement. Not just an opinion piece - it's the 'Authorised Version' ;-)

Will there be weeping?

On Merseyside. They love a bit of grief over there

 

[wolviedinho]

I feel this is the reason Masters ducked out of his golf day with the PL's broadcasters.

Imagine the investment the broadcasters made being undermined & threatened by the very organisation who sold them the product? It's fucking business suicide!

Personally, if I was a TV Executive, by the 2nd hole I'd have told Masters to end the bullshit. City are the most watched team on the planet, in the most popular league, & the PL are risking killing the goose that laid the golden egg all to appease the Cartel, one of whom is down in 14th & rumoured to be looking for yet ANOTHER manager?

I've honestly never seen a business go to such lengths to kill themselves & their product. La Liga & the rest must be loving this!

The city hate is so strong they want us gone. The 3 clubs behind this want it to go back to the way it was. City can fuck off with their Arab owner to div 2.

Destroying the league in the short term to get it back to the way it was is preferable to these greedy self serving cunts.

United will once again win everything and all will be warm, cosy and fair. Just as it always was before city showed up.

We are making a huge play for control of the league here and the 115. They should have just let us in when we knocked nicely at the door. Instead we got met with racism and laughter.

Well they ain’t laughing now. Not only have we destroyed their clubs legacy on the field but we are now so far ahead implosion is the best option.

The 115 is going to cause fucking mayhem when it lands.

 

[oakiecokie]

BANG!

I`m hoping it goes to BOOM !!

 

[stonerblue]

I`m hoping it goes to BOOM !!

Where's that Tyson gif...

 

[halfcenturyup]

Apologies if already posted. Fair review. You prove unlawful once it’s unlawful.

Not bad, The Athletic seem to be getting better again which is good.

Two points, though:

First, sports journalists need to get away from the simplistic "who won" arguments. You can't score legal judgments like a football match. If they really want a football analogy, they should look at Arsenal's performance at the Etihad last year. They defended almost everything pretty well, City threw everything at them, they couldn't lose the game and they didn't. Defensive master-class maybe, but they lost the league as a result (the analogy would work better if both sides scored a couple of goals as well, but whatever ...)

Second, an important point they are missing about the 115 is the relative importance of direct witness testimony over circumstantial, out of context evidence. We have the perfect example in this case. There is an email from a Brighton executive days after the Newcastle takeover saying the PL has to respond by banning related party transactions until they can put rules in place to stop clubs from Gulf states. It clearly leads to an implication that the introduction of the APT rules was based on a principle of discrimination. Yet, this same executive said in front of the tribunal that it wasn't meant to be discriminatory, the reference to Gulf states was just a front of mind reference and the intention of the email was that the rules should be applied equally and fairly to all clubs. And they believed him! The point being that the out of context email was disbelieved, and the witness statement was believed. If ever there was a clear indication of how the 115 is likely to go, that is it.

 

[halfcenturyup]

To be honest I get confused at times as well.

I'm pretty certain it's a bit of both. The allegation is:

"In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those seasons that required provision by a member club to the Premier League, in the utmost good faith, of accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs."

The der Spiegel stuff on this allegation is all about sponsorship being inflated because they allege SM was paying for it.

It wasn't inflated in terms of fair market value, I think. I don't think anyone has challenged that since the very early days, even UEFA, until the stupid APT rules.

It was "inflated" in the sense that they say Etihad only paid a portion themselves, the rest coming from Mansour.

Edit: the reference to related parties in the allegations has always confused me. There are no RPTs with sponsors in the accounts. If they are thinking of opening up the related party nature of sponsorships as defined for accounting purposes (which is the definition in the rules) they will lose unless the most serious charges are proven in which case the club has more serious problems. Not that that is going to happen, so it's all irrelevant, really.

 

[halfcenturyup]

That's why City have a problem with Nielson assessing them, they also work for those three clubs!

They also worked for City.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I'm not so sure that's right, City are being charged under rule E54, so City are having deals assessed for FMV and it is Neilson who are doing it.

Nope. E54 in 2017/18 was about related party transactions disclosed in the club's accounts. There were none with sponsors.

Edit: But see the amendment to my post above.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I wish we see it once when one of the sponsors will end up suing the PL.

That may yet happen at the end of all this. The PL is basically saying the AD sponsors have been negligent in their duty to shareholders by entering into transactions at unreasonable amounts.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Wyness mentioned Northwards of 100-150 million on Twitter

Just don't.