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

petrusha said:
This thread is a bit crazy. By my calculation, there have been around 6,000 posts since Monday lunchtime and I haven't had time to read even a majority of them, let alone all. This one, however, is IMO worth coming back to.

As someone who's also been busy all week in addition to being a bit under the weather and has only just had a chance to read the entire document myself, I enjoyed the above contribution as well as being grateful for it. I've been rather surprised this week, and not in a pleasant way, by the manner in which people who should know better have chosen to score the Panel's determination like a boxing match.

The only way to assess things properly is to examine what has happened in the light of City's objectives at the outset. I wrote on this board back in the summer sometime that MCFC certainly wouldn't be seeking a declaration any form of control over APT infringes competition law. I have something of a background in the field in the dim and distant past (so, while as nowhere near as eminently qualifed to judge these matters than the esteemed panel, I know far more about it than your average punter and a million times more about it than your average football journalist). It was absolutely clear to me that such an aim lacked any vestige of realism. City's advisers will have been fully aware of this, too.

Yet the absence of such a determination by the Panel was laughably painted by some as a win for the PL. Not so. City were seeking to have the APT rules declared unlawful as currently constituted, preferably in a way that would require some kind of significant redraft. Meanwhile, over the summer, we had Martin Samuel - clearly briefed by the club - allege that what had upset MCFC was the treatment of and time taken to process the club's applications under the rules. City have prevailed on whether the rules as a whole is lawful, as well as the manner in which our applications have been processed.

Now, events are clearly taking place in private and for once they aren't yet being leaked, which suggests difficulties for the PL given the way that so much which is to the club's detriment finds its way into the public domain. The Panel's determination has given MCFC a strong position when new rules are drafted. To be lawful, news rules have to cover the previously omitted subject of shareholder loans, which gives City, if we're politically savvy enough to have won over sufficient allies to create a blocking vote, scope to demand concessions to us in return for our reciprocal compromises.

None of this is remotely good news for the PL, despite the way it was portrayed initially by lapdog media commentators and complicit experts who seemed not to be giving proper thought to the issues. Such a reaction just emphasises the sheer otherness of football, which for as long as it has existed seems to have operated under the stultifyingly arrogant belief that it should operate as a law unto itself, in glorious isolation from legal and regulatory regimes applicable in other spheres.

It's beyond me that anyone could look at what the PL has been shown, as a regulatory body, to have done and think that the determination exposing this is somehow satisfactory for the authority. In any other field, there'd be resignations and questions being asked in Parliament urging serious reform of the regulator in question.

I have one final point. Many on here have claimed that the view of City as cheats is to embedded in the public consciousness ever to change and that our reputation will be stained forever in the eyes of many neutral fans. I don't concur. Of course, I may be wrong, but I believe that this week's events have started to bring into the public domain information about the "organised and clear" attempts from rivals to finish City as a serious force at the top of the English and European game.

My guess is that this will be further borne out when we finally receive a decision regarding the so-called 115 charges. If so, and if we're substantially vindicated, I suspect that we'll have a powerful narrative that will be of significant allure to a new generation of fans. We'll be the club that rivals couldn't beat on the pitch so tried to nobble by nefarious means - and failed. Let's see how it plays out, but I'm already looking forward to it.

P.S. I saw a discussion on this thread about the Palace home game in December 1987. That's definitely worth coming back to, but it'll have to be tomorrow as I'm off to spend Saturday evening with my missus.
Click to expand...

Always a learning experience reading your (and @Chris in London 's) thoughts on this stuff. Those of us with no legal training rely on posts like this to get things straight in our under-developed legal brains.

So thanks again to both of you. Enjoy your weekend, matey.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
That is indeed a whole new area, but I've asked the question before about the nature of financial regulation in football. What is it for? What's the objective?

Is it to ensure a genuinely level financial playing field? No one really wants a scenario like Germany or France, where the wealthiest club by far generally dominates the league. Obviously that probably applies to us at the moment but there are a number of clubs who stand apart from the rest financially, with united & Chelsea showing that spending does not necessarily equate to success.

If that's the objective then you have to look at revenue sharing and spending caps. The notion of 'anchoring' is not one that I'm comfortable with. Why allow the lowest earning clubs to restrict the spending of the successful ones? You're handicapping clubs like us and Liverpool by doing that.

Is it to ensure genuine financial sustainability? I've said many times that the current PSR/FFP regimes, with the focus on historic profits and losses, aren't fit for that purpose. The squad cost rules are better, but still don't answer the fundamental questions around debt, which has generally been the main factor in club failure. We could have easily gone into administration in summer 2008, not because of historic losses, but because of cashflow issues and our inability to meet the £15m liability for the previous summer's transfers. FFP/PSR, even with squad cost limits, still won't prevent that liability-based scenario.

To use your example, if Musk took over Ipswich, and proposed a £1bn sponsorship over 5 years, it should fail the PL's FMV test. I don't think any reasonable person would have a problem with that. If he lent them a billion, there would be no regulatory scrutiny though, although they could still only spend so much, based on their revenue, expenses and squad cost. You could argue there should be some leeway though. But if he did lend them a substantial sum, regardless of whether they could spend it, then changed his mind a couple of years later and demanded it back, they'd be screwed, possibly terminally. It happened with Brooks Mileson at Gretna (although he fell seriously ill). Why are there no rules to mitigate impacts like this?

I'll finish with the question I started with, which is what is financial regulation trying to achieve? We've never had a satisfactory answer to this question.
Click to expand...
The problem with ffp/psr is complex but you have 3 clubs who have tyranny over the majority & I agree when you say its not a 1 size fits all solution. These rules have made chasing glory for the non cartel clubs almost impossible.

I remember Watford under Graham Taylor being promoted & finishing 2nd & also what Brian Clough did at Forest which you can't do in today's money obsessed PL.

You only have to look at the teams who sided with the cartel clubs over shareholder loans because they are safe in the NFL style money generating PL & have no interest in the football pyramid. Then you look at midtable clubs who can buy the best players from the championship.

In your hypnosis of Musk pumping a billion into Ipswich is this any different to the numerous clubs down the years who have been known as the bank of England clubs.

We know that these so-called financial fair play rules are only in place to protect certain clubs but by doing that it also protects Sky & TNT (BT) subscriptions
 
KS55 said:
The first vote on APT rules was held in Oct. 2021.
It was reported at the time that 18 voted in favour, Newcastle voted against, and City abstained. Both City and Newcastle were reported to warn that the rules might not be lawful.
Agreed there may be some confusion here!
Click to expand...

Yes that was first vote was for the suspension of APTs until the end of November to give time for the proposal. They then voted on the recommendations and whether to include them, they then voted again in December as to whether to implement the full rules, where both us and Newcastle voted against and we reserved the right to challenge the lawfulness.
 
petrusha said:
This thread is a bit crazy. By my calculation, there have been around 6,000 posts since Monday lunchtime and I haven't had time to read even a majority of them, let alone all. This one, however, is IMO worth coming back to.

As someone who's also been busy all week in addition to being a bit under the weather and has only just had a chance to read the entire document myself, I enjoyed the above contribution as well as being grateful for it. I've been rather surprised this week, and not in a pleasant way, by the manner in which people who should know better have chosen to score the Panel's determination like a boxing match.

The only way to assess things properly is to examine what has happened in the light of City's objectives at the outset. I wrote on this board back in the summer sometime that MCFC certainly wouldn't be seeking a declaration any form of control over APT infringes competition law. I have something of a background in the field in the dim and distant past (so, while as nowhere near as eminently qualifed to judge these matters than the esteemed panel, I know far more about it than your average punter and a million times more about it than your average football journalist). It was absolutely clear to me that such an aim lacked any vestige of realism. City's advisers will have been fully aware of this, too.

Yet the absence of such a determination by the Panel was laughably painted by some as a win for the PL. Not so. City were seeking to have the APT rules declared unlawful as currently constituted, preferably in a way that would require some kind of significant redraft. Meanwhile, over the summer, we had Martin Samuel - clearly briefed by the club - allege that what had upset MCFC was the treatment of and time taken to process the club's applications under the rules. City have prevailed on whether the rules as a whole is lawful, as well as the manner in which our applications have been processed.

Now, events are clearly taking place in private and for once they aren't yet being leaked, which suggests difficulties for the PL given the way that so much which is to the club's detriment finds its way into the public domain. The Panel's determination has given MCFC a strong position when new rules are drafted. To be lawful, news rules have to cover the previously omitted subject of shareholder loans, which gives City, if we're politically savvy enough to have won over sufficient allies to create a blocking vote, scope to demand concessions to us in return for our reciprocal compromises.

None of this is remotely good news for the PL, despite the way it was portrayed initially by lapdog media commentators and complicit experts who seemed not to be giving proper thought to the issues. Such a reaction just emphasises the sheer otherness of football, which for as long as it has existed seems to have operated under the stultifyingly arrogant belief that it should operate as a law unto itself, in glorious isolation from legal and regulatory regimes applicable in other spheres.

It's beyond me that anyone could look at what the PL has been shown, as a regulatory body, to have done and think that the determination exposing this is somehow satisfactory for the authority. In any other field, there'd be resignations and questions being asked in Parliament urging serious reform of the regulator in question.

I have one final point. Many on here have claimed that the view of City as cheats is to embedded in the public consciousness ever to change and that our reputation will be stained forever in the eyes of many neutral fans. I don't concur. Of course, I may be wrong, but I believe that this week's events have started to bring into the public domain information about the "organised and clear" attempts from rivals to finish City as a serious force at the top of the English and European game.

My guess is that this will be further borne out when we finally receive a decision regarding the so-called 115 charges. If so, and if we're substantially vindicated, I suspect that we'll have a powerful narrative that will be of significant allure to a new generation of fans. We'll be the club that rivals couldn't beat on the pitch so tried to nobble by nefarious means - and failed. Let's see how it plays out, but I'm already looking forward to it.

P.S. I saw a discussion on this thread about the Palace home game in December 1987. That's definitely worth coming back to, but it'll have to be tomorrow as I'm off to spend Saturday evening with my missus.
Click to expand...
Brilliant Peter.
All of us enjoy your contributions.
Enjoy your time at home this weekend.
 
petrusha said:
This thread is a bit crazy. By my calculation, there have been around 6,000 posts since Monday lunchtime and I haven't had time to read even a majority of them, let alone all. This one, however, is IMO worth coming back to.

As someone who's also been busy all week in addition to being a bit under the weather and has only just had a chance to read the entire document myself, I enjoyed the above contribution as well as being grateful for it. I've been rather surprised this week, and not in a pleasant way, by the manner in which people who should know better have chosen to score the Panel's determination like a boxing match.

The only way to assess things properly is to examine what has happened in the light of City's objectives at the outset. I wrote on this board back in the summer sometime that MCFC certainly wouldn't be seeking a declaration any form of control over APT infringes competition law. I have something of a background in the field in the dim and distant past (so, while as nowhere near as eminently qualifed to judge these matters than the esteemed panel, I know far more about it than your average punter and a million times more about it than your average football journalist). It was absolutely clear to me that such an aim lacked any vestige of realism. City's advisers will have been fully aware of this, too.

Yet the absence of such a determination by the Panel was laughably painted by some as a win for the PL. Not so. City were seeking to have the APT rules declared unlawful as currently constituted, preferably in a way that would require some kind of significant redraft. Meanwhile, over the summer, we had Martin Samuel - clearly briefed by the club - allege that what had upset MCFC was the treatment of and time taken to process the club's applications under the rules. City have prevailed on whether the rules as a whole is lawful, as well as the manner in which our applications have been processed.

Now, events are clearly taking place in private and for once they aren't yet being leaked, which suggests difficulties for the PL given the way that so much which is to the club's detriment finds its way into the public domain. The Panel's determination has given MCFC a strong position when new rules are drafted. To be lawful, news rules have to cover the previously omitted subject of shareholder loans, which gives City, if we're politically savvy enough to have won over sufficient allies to create a blocking vote, scope to demand concessions to us in return for our reciprocal compromises.

None of this is remotely good news for the PL, despite the way it was portrayed initially by lapdog media commentators and complicit experts who seemed not to be giving proper thought to the issues. Such a reaction just emphasises the sheer otherness of football, which for as long as it has existed seems to have operated under the stultifyingly arrogant belief that it should operate as a law unto itself, in glorious isolation from legal and regulatory regimes applicable in other spheres.

It's beyond me that anyone could look at what the PL has been shown, as a regulatory body, to have done and think that the determination exposing this is somehow satisfactory for the authority. In any other field, there'd be resignations and questions being asked in Parliament urging serious reform of the regulator in question.

I have one final point. Many on here have claimed that the view of City as cheats is to embedded in the public consciousness ever to change and that our reputation will be stained forever in the eyes of many neutral fans. I don't concur. Of course, I may be wrong, but I believe that this week's events have started to bring into the public domain information about the "organised and clear" attempts from rivals to finish City as a serious force at the top of the English and European game.

My guess is that this will be further borne out when we finally receive a decision regarding the so-called 115 charges. If so, and if we're substantially vindicated, I suspect that we'll have a powerful narrative that will be of significant allure to a new generation of fans. We'll be the club that rivals couldn't beat on the pitch so tried to nobble by nefarious means - and failed. Let's see how it plays out, but I'm already looking forward to it.

P.S. I saw a discussion on this thread about the Palace home game in December 1987. That's definitely worth coming back to, but it'll have to be tomorrow as I'm off to spend Saturday evening with my missus.
Click to expand...

I hope you aren’t forgetting the rules…..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.