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

[sir baconface]

There is a second part of the panel's award to be published.

Tell us more, please.

 

[halfcenturyup]

This has crossed my mind over the last few days. I do not believe that they can retrospectively review city’s deals without, at the same time retrospectively applying the PSR / APT shareholder loan element.

However as I read on here the other day if City go back to Etihad and 1st Abu Dhabi bank and, if they refuse to budge on increasing the sponsorship, this will mean that City then have to claim the shortfall from the EPL as damages. If I have understood this correctly we live in very interesting times!!

The thing with the big companies City deal with in AD is that they are international telecomms, airlines and banks and, as such, are subject to statutory and regulatory requirements which, I imagine, make it very difficult for them to get big deals approved, probably taking months. It's not a case of Mansour just telling his brother to hurry up a bit, or change this contract like this, please. It's such a simplistic view of the financial world from the PL to a problem and it is bound to cause delays and losses.

Especially if a contract is negotiated over months, takes months more to go through the sponsor's approval process and then the PL tell them to change it and start the approval process again. And then the PL likely has to tell them they were wrong and to go back to the original amount, starting the process all over again. It's unbelievable arrogance on the part of what is, in essence, a tin pot organisation.

It may be a great rule as a legal construct, but it is such a poorly thought out rule in terms of operations, almost unworkable on both sides, completely unnecessary and with only one objective, to stall the growth of City and Newcastle. How the club's legal team couldn't convince the arbitrators of that will always be a mystery to me. I was only partly joking when I said we needed more accountants there.

But they never asked me :)

 

[Stoned Rose]

Just to be clear, the PL use profit as a prima facie measure of sustainability. As I've pointed out on here, it's nothing of the sort.

You could usefully argue that a club that sustained continuous, significant net losses probably wasn't sustainable. But you couldn't reasonably argue that a club that made profits, or only suffered small losses, was sustainable. One of the reasons for that latter position is clubs like Pompey or even us in 2008 just before the takeover. The financial issues which caused Pompey to go into administration, or us to be on the brink of that, wouldn't have been apparent from the P&L account.

The Bank of England subjects banks and other financial institutions to 'stress tests', which test the ability their capital bases to withstand severe economic shocks on both the demand and supply side. The PL should be doing the same to clubs with large debts. They should also look at forward liabilities rather than a 3-year old P&L account. In other words, like La Liga do, they should be trying to make future spending commensurate with anticipated cash resources.

This. A million times.

 

[halfcenturyup]

This is why I'm always dubious when people say the lawyers/judges on these tribunals can be trusted to come to the correct decision because there have a reputation for probity and competence to uphold. It was clearly stated that the target was the "gulf state" owners - not hinted at or implied - they used the actual words. But they still accepted the pathetic excuse that it was just an example. I doubt you'd get away with that in your school home work.

Look at it this way.

City presented an "out of context" email to the tribunal. The writer of the email appeared in person as a witness to explain the context of the email and the arbitrators accepted his explanation above the "out of context" email.

Sound familiar? It's the 115 case in reverse.

Coherent and convincing witness evidence explaining emails will always carry more weight than the emails themselves. That will help us much more in the 115 case, than it harmed us in the APT case.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

It’s just another way of saying don’t go bust but the thing is Footy clubs nearly always come back even if they do go bust because it’s fan base is loyal and stick with them. So I’m not sure, ultimately what the “problem” is.

Football has never been better off financially. Clubs at all levels, even outside the pyramid, are getting record attendances. Clubs have always gone bust and always will do because there are plenty of crooks out there. The Championship is always compared with the Premier League which is the wealthiest league in the world. But the Championship itself is one of the richest leagues in Europe. English football is booming, whatever the doom-mongers say.

 

[sir baconface]

I'm completely with Rammy. If you're a lower level club why would you back the status quo, keeping yourself in servitude to the red cartel whilst they pocket all the trophies and riches.

Because you need to raise less capital. These clubs aren’t expecting to win the league, just make a reasonable return and achieve a decent position and maybe the chance of a cup. They presumably think clubs like City just ratchet everything up.

Look at Spurs, spending hundreds of millions on players just to stand still.

 

[petrusha]

As you say “declaratory relief” just means a declaration the the APT rules are unlawful. That declaration is binding on the PL and any other club can rely on it. The two APT decisions affect only City and the PL but the declaration affects all 20 PL members.

I hope that there'll be declaratory relief in the form of anm order that the PL isn't to try to operate some form of the APT rules while the clubs decide how they should be amended in the light of them currently being unlawful. They have the absolute bloody-minded arrogance to try and, of course, I may be missing something that the Panel might regard as important.

However, I simply don't see how these rules could work in any meaningful way when there's a fucking great big shareholder-loan-shaped hole in them at present*. I therefore assume City will fight any such move by the PL with appropriate force.

* - Apologies to fellow users of teh board for my recourse here to the sesquipedalian intricacies of the technical lega argot.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Coherent and convincing witness evidence explaining emails will always carry more weight than the emails themselves. That will help us much more in the 115 case, than it harmed us in the APT case.

How much it helps depends on the witness!

 

[mancboy]

I hope that there'll be declaratory relief in the form of anm order that the PL isn't to try to operate some form of the APT rules while the clubs decide how they should be amended in the light of them currently being unlawful. They have the absolute bloody-minded arrogance to try and, of course, I may be missing something that the Panel might regard as important.

However, I simply don't see how these rules could work in any meaningful way when there's a fucking great big shareholder-loan-shaped hole in them at present*. I therefore assume City will fight any such move by the PL with appropriate force.

* - Apologies to fellow users of teh board for my recourse here to the sesquipedalian intricacies of the technical lega argot.

Amazing that the word you spelt wrong in all that is the

 

[KS55]

It’s just another way of saying don’t go bust but the thing is Footy clubs nearly always come back even if they do go bust because it’s fan base is loyal and stick with them. So I’m not sure, ultimately what the “problem” is.

The creditors have a problem, though.