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

[the blue panther]

i wouldnt worry about villa tbh, they are still bitter about the grealish thing and are suffering under the delusion that they are still a big club because they were good in the 80s.

Tell them we'll take £150m from the PL, and Leon Bailey from them, in full and final settlement of this claim. We can unveil Bailey at the same time as we announce £1B of sponsorship in deals with Etihad, The Abu Dhabi Bank and the Emirates Palace, with Pep signing his 3 year contract extension.
City: pissing on their chips since 2008.

 

[Roachy]

Now football365 have decide to put their spin on it. Absolutely disgusting article and no surprise about who the author supports and his loyalties lie on the matter.

Man City 'ship is sinking and the fire on the deck is growing'

This Man City thing is not going well for them, is it? We have views on the City farrago as well as more on Man Utd, Chelsea and the England squad.

www.football365.com

I wouldn't expect anything less from them mate. They used the death of the late, great Rob Burrow in an attempt to ridicule us not long after he passed away. It was despicable.

 

[CC1]

So this particular tweet (from Stefan) relates to City's Etihad sponsorship deal which was a key part of the APT case. The crux of this issue is the PL's reliance on a Fair Market Value (FMV) assessment of City's Etihad deal produced by Nielsen which was significantly below where City has valued it. But City also relied on a Nielsen assessment (in 2021) which used substantially the same method. The PL's key decison-maker (Mai Fyfield, non-Exec Director) was aware of City's valuation from Nielsen and obtained an explanation of the differences from Nielsen.

As I understand, the Tribunal judgment covered the following:
1. They did not assess whether City's or the PL's valuation was correct. Instead they concluded that it was not unreasonable for Fyfield to rely on Nielsen's explanation of differences and arrive at her FMV decision. So this aspect of City's complaint was not upheld.

2. PL in its FMV assessment relied on a benchmarking analysis prepared by Nielsen. The Tribunal upheld City's complaint that they should have been shown this analysis and allowed to counter it and deemed this to be procedurally unfair.

3. More generally, the Tribunal opined that the concept of APT rules is not illegal but the rules as currently drafted are unlawful. In particular, they upheld City's assertion that loans from company shareholders should be included in APT assessments - in other words, Shareholders (owners, non-executive directors) are Associated Parties. This matters because at least 9 clubs receive such Shareholder loans that are at zero/low interest rates - in other words off-market rates. If you re-assessed those Shareholder loans at FMV, many of these clubs could fail PSR - which is the point Martin Samuel eloquently makes.

4,. This has given rise to a new food fight where the PL claims they can just tweak the current rules (e.g. add in Shareholder loans) whereas City state that the rules are unlawful so have to be discarded and re-done from scratch (and are threatening legal action if PL attempts to short cut things). Additionally, any changes to APT rules would need to be affirmed by at least 14 clubs. If 9 are depending on Shareholder Loans, they may well not agree.

5. On Shareholder loans, there is a separate fight over whether they are added in for future assessments (PL's stance) or whether all old deals need to be re-valued (City's stance). The latter would be especially problematic for clubs who might then retroactively fail PSR for prior years. Opening a major can of worms.

6. Tribunal also rejected City's claim that the APT rules were brought into disadvantage Gulf-owned clubs.

Anyway, that's my reading of things. Great minds of Bluemoon, please correct if I got anything wrong!

It sounds impossible for PL to get it sorted because the clubs that receive the interest free loans are not going to vote to include them in APT rules - and if the PL don’t get this agreed they’re back to using rules that the tribunal deemed unlawful!

Stalemate.

Surely the only resolution is to discard APT rules which will save clubs like Arsenal from failing PSR but will enable us to proceed with better sponsorship deals? Also - as far as the PL are concerned - this runs the risk of a compensation claim from City

An amateur view of course & far more complex in reality

 

[RobinHood]

These same TV companies have openly paid ex pundits & journalists to slaughter City & call us cheats. Once on the centre of the Etihad pitch in front of match going fans & watching viewers. They could & should have had the foresight to see what was going on but there been so far up the red cartels arse they watched on baying for blood.

Exactly. They're complicit in all of this.

 

[sir baconface]

So when do we expect an apology from the league? Also a few quid for the hardship endured.

On the same day Spurs win the title.

 

[blueparrot]

Now football365 have decide to put their spin on it. Absolutely disgusting article and no surprise about who the author supports and his loyalties lie on the matter.

Man City 'ship is sinking and the fire on the deck is growing'

This Man City thing is not going well for them, is it? We have views on the City farrago as well as more on Man Utd, Chelsea and the England squad.

www.football365.com

Not the biggest 365 fan these days it's become a click bait site. However you do realise that's not an article its a 'letter' from Dave a liverpool fan.The letter underneath is from a city fan giving our side.

 

[Vic]

I’m struggling to find anything online relating to Rule X and I’m slightly confused by the presence of references to Rule X.3.2 and Rule X.5.2 in the tweet, but the way I read parts 3, 4 and 5 of that tweet is that within the PL rules the only way City could successfully challenge the PL’s assessment that the Etihad deal was outside FMV via the arbitration process, was to prove (on the balance of probabilities) that particular decision by the PL was so unreasonable, that no properly minded [PL] board would have arrived at the same conclusion.


This is an extremely challenging burden to discharge. If the arbitration panel felt the decision was harsh, wrong, or even unreasonable then this alone would not be enough, and that part of City’s claim would fail.

And because the PL’s key live witness in respect of that aspect of the case, Mai Fyfield, gave credible evidence (and presumably came across as reasonable) this became an impossible burden for City to discharge.

The test referred to is essentially the same as the public law cause of action where (in very broad terms) to successfully challenge the decision of a public authority per se (where it has been made within that authority’s lawful powers) that decision has to be held by the High Court to be ‘Wednesbury Unreasonable’ following a case about a cinema in that Black Country town from the 1940s, (which I have actually stood outside when I’ve been in the town as it’s still standing, and is now a disused bingo hall!)

Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are three broad gateways to a decision by a public authority being Wednesbury Unreasonable, one being the following: a decision that was so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could have possibly made it.

It’s a notoriously difficult burden to discharge and essentially requires the claimant to demonstrate irrationality in making the decision on behalf of the defendant public authority.

This test is very similar, if not practically identical, to Rule X.3.2/Rule X.5.2.

That’s how I read it anyway!

This bit sounds odd.
"... to prove (on the balance of probabilities) that particular decision by the PL was so unreasonable, that no properly minded [PL] board would have arrived at the same conclusion."

If that's the test, the balance of probabilities doesn't come into it.

But is it a fair test? The PL is not a public authority so does Wednesbury apply?

 

[SilverFox2]

Can you imagine being told it was your job to trash the new Etihad deal because it was above market value... And then you looked at Etihad's balance sheet & growth since 2009? Lol

I'd have been giving serious consideration to a career change with new employers! The fuck would I try & defend this unbelievable bollocks in public & make a right arse out of myself! :-)

Presumably at the same time justifying Man U Chev and Team Viewer deals.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Tell them we'll take £150m from the PL, and Leon Bailey from them, in full and final settlement of this claim. We can unveil Bailey at the same time as we announce £1B of sponsorship in deals with Etihad, The Abu Dhabi Bank and the Emirates Palace, with Pep signing his 3 year contract extension.
City: pissing on their chips since 2008.

Leon fucking Bailey!? No thanks.

 

[CC1]

ect 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.

I feel that went against us because - clearly - the whole intention WAS to stop gulf states & if the tribunal had agreed we’d have won hands down.
However, as, hopefully, the shoe is on the other foot in the 115 case & we might need a witness to explain away a hacked email - maybe it’s a good development??