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.
