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

[eastmanc]

They apparently chosee one each and the two then chose the third.

Like CAS.

 

[Colin Bells Boots]

If you did some due diligence on Panja going back to the time when he was based in Manchester you would soon find out that there is no point engaging with him. I enjoy your contributions and, like others, have found them very helpful during this complex legal saga. I just think that some people in the media need a wide berth.

On a more important note for the forum, if we are successful with 115 shite and Masters and friends are thwarted, I guess we will be celebrating with cheese on toast from the many options put forward.

@Ric please start a recipe thread for the foodie clan.

 

[bigA]

Sam Wallace is an arsehole.
A fully paid up Rag full of self entitlement.
Originally the "Manchester" Football Correspondent of the Telegraph he bacame "Northern Correspondent - 'coz he only ever did stories in the rags.
The club need to ban this areshole/weasel from City games ASAP.
I really have had enough of the club rolling out the red carpet for journalists who continue to kick us in the face.

Agree with that sentiment and we should start banning even more of these hacks such as the likes of Jonathan Liew, Miguel Delaney, Martin Ziegler, Barney Ronay to name but four. These scumbags have done anything and everything to tarnish and smear the clubs reputation.

If or when we are cleared of the alleged charges, the club should seriously look at all the articles they have printed in their various rags and take any legal action necessary against them and their employers and paymasters.

 

[Dribble]

You mean "Think about what she's actually saying" according to your interpretation?

By all accounts, according to many WHU fans too... I merely call it as I see it, just as you have. We just have a difference of interpretation.

 

[give it to gordon]

On the subject of Shareholder Loans and the PL's rules and regulations many, like myself, may find todays article in the NY Times' Athletic by Phil Buckingham and Matt Slater a useful summary of the current state of play.

In successfully arguing that shareholder loans should face the same assessments as any commercial deal, they did enough to ensure that associated party transactions (APT) rules could be declared unlawful.

So the APT rules now need to be amended, but can the league get a two-thirds majority of clubs to back the repair job, especially when City’s lawyers scrutinise their handiwork?

What are shareholder loans?

They do exactly what it says on the tin: it is money loaned to a club by their shareholders. They amount to a form of funding, a means for owners to inject cash into the football project without seeking equity in return. Typically these are long-term arrangements, often free of interest payments.

And clubs are certainly fond of them. Fourteen of the 20 Premier League teams in the 2022-23 season had shareholder loans recorded in their most recent set of accounts and City’s legal team were only too happy to highlight the extent of their use during this case. It was cited that £1.5billion ($1.96bn) out of £4bn total borrowings across the division — 37 per cent — were through shareholder loans.

“The main motivation (behind shareholder loans) is that it’s an easier mechanism for an owner getting their money back,” says Chris Weatherspoon, an accountant and financial analyst at the football website Game State. “If they put in equity, that’s them effectively giving up any right to a return, short of paying out dividends, which hardly any club does or even can do, as most are in a position of accumulated deficits, or making their money back when they sell up.

“It’s also more tax efficient. Interest costs on debt — if owners charge them — are tax-deductible for clubs, so reduce the club’s tax burden; dividend payments aren’t.

Why did City raise them as an issue?

City came hard at the Premier League when launching their legal challenge in June, saying the APT rules in place were “discriminatory and distortive”. They also called their existence “unlawful” and set about picking holes in a set of regulations designed to prevent clubs earning increased revenue through inflated commercial deals.

Everything, in theory, had to reflect fair market value (FMV). Only, shareholder loans have never done that. No bank would lend hundreds of millions interest-free, so why should a club benefit from such an arrangement through its owners? It was, City argued, the very definition of an associated party transaction and “at odds with the whole rationale of PSR (the league’s profit and sustainability rules)”.

“The exclusion of shareholder loans from the APT rules distorts competition in permitting one form of subsidy, namely a non-commercial loan but not another, namely a non-commercial sponsorship agreement,” City were cited as saying in the verdict.

And, most importantly, City’s argument over shareholder loans was accepted by the independent panel. That will force a change to the Premier League’s rules, with shareholder loans integrated into the broader APT regulations.

Any money loaned to a club by their owners will need to reflect FMV and see interest rates charged in line with commercial loans. The changes will bring the Premier League in line with UEFA, European football’s governing body, which applies FMV to shareholder loans in its financial fair play (FFP) calculations.

The last paragraph. How did clubs with shareowners loads pass UEFA ffp if UEFA ffp states the these loans must be FMV.

 

[oakiecokie]

Not sure why you bother tbh. You may as well engage with an ironing board.

Well I suppose its one way of ironing out the creases of a complex case.

 

[Dannyblue52]

The last paragraph. How did clubs with shareowners loads pass UEFA ffp if UEFA ffp states the these loans must be FMV.

If this is so and now in the public domain EUFA should investigate these clubs and charge them for breaches of FFP. Don't hold your breath though!

 

[Colin Bells Boots]

If this is so and now in the public domain EUFA should investigate these clubs and charge them for breaches of FFP. Don't hold your breath though!

God loves a trier :)

 

[give it to gordon]

If this is so and now in the public domain EUFA should investigate these clubs and charge them for breaches of FFP. Don't hold your breath though!

We joke about it but I can't see other European leagues will be happy that these English clubs arent playing by the same rules as the rest of Europe

 

[Vic]

My view hasn't changed at all. It is best illustrated by my view on costs - as I explained yesterday, I don't believe the PL will pay more than 10-20% of City's costs and it is most likely that the parties agree to pay their own costs.

You've missed the point on Panja. Panja promoted Leaf's original view as well considered when it was an immediate reaction. When I pointed that out, Panja tried to make out I was discrediting Leaf's position which I was not. I was merely pointing out it was limited because he couldn't have read it. Now Leaf has seemingly considered things and appears to say things are consequential, Panja should promote that view as equally as the provisional view.

I don't agree with either of Leaf's view myself. I believe the shareholder loan stuff is largely irrelevant, that APT is not null and void, that even if it is the teams will pass a replacement in line with the original APT (now found to be lawful) and that the key finding is that you can put the all the 2024 changes in the bin as unlawful (as City warned the PL and clubs in October 2021).

City say the rules are null and void. Why are they not?

s.2(4) of the Competition Act - the decision to bring in the rules was unlawful, therefore prohibited, therefore void.