But they let us spend all the cash from it first :-) :-)Not at all. We accepted they keep our wallet.
Beat me to it :-)But we got to keep the cash that was in it.
I’ve asked this before but will try once more. Is it also possible that the club agreed with the PL that the implementation and interpretation of these rules will be different, without needing the rules themselves to be changed?Perhaps it's easier to break it down into what I know and what I think.
Here's what I know:
(a) the Premier League has no unilateral power to change the rules without giving due notice of any proposed rule change and receiving the support of a 2/3 of the clubs present and voting. So a behind the scenes rule change has simply not happened. It would be as unlawful as the original APT rules.
(b) The joint statement confirms that the entire dispute between the club and the league has been settled. Since as well as APT 2 there were also outstanding issues from APT 1 concerning the costs of the two hearings (which will run to tens of millions), compensation and even injunctive relief, it follows that all these elements have been settled also.
(c) City had something of a slam-dunk case for costs arising from APT 1. They would be unlikely however to recover less than about 60% and more than about 80% of their total outlay. So there was an area of doubt as to the exact figure, but the broad parameters of what they were going to recover were known.
(d) City had a solid claim for damages if they could show there was a loss which flowed from sponsorship deals being thwarted by unlawful rules. But the precise measure of their loss depends on what happened afterwards, which we don't know.
(e) City had probably no realistic chance (nor even any reason) to seek any sort of injunction.
(f) City have plainly got some ongoing deal with Etihad, because their name is still being printed on the front of the shirt. What we don't know is on what basis that ongoing sponsorship has been agreed.
(g) Compensation works by replacing what you should have had if the wrongful act had not been done. So if you haven't lost out, there is no right to compensation even if someone has done something unlawful.
Okay, now on to what I think,
(a) City won't have known specifically how much they would recover towards their costs, but as I say would have had a pretty good idea. So a compromise that included a figure of £X for costs probably doesn't give City anything that they wouldn't have got anyway.
(b) Much the same point can be made in relation to damages. If the Etihad deal passes as originally agreed, what loss have City actually incurred? Likewise, if the press rumours are bollocks and City will only be able to be sponsored up to the tune of £X by Etihad, and not £Y, they have a fairly easily quantifiable claim for damages by being prevented from entering into a deal by the application of unlawful rules. Again, we don't quite know what the loss City have suffered in relation to not just the Etihad deal but also (say) the First Abu Dhabi Bank deal being rejected, but it will not be difficult to work out.
(c) I can't see any legal or commercial reason why we would have settled the APT 2 case for the sorts of things - costs and damages - that we were going to get anyway. It seems to me that there has to be something tangible which the PL was (a) able to offer, and (b) did offer.
(d) Whilst from City's perspective there might not be too much difference between getting the full value of the Etihad deal from Etihad, and getting a lower deal approved plus damages from the PL, from the PL's perspective, there is a huge difference between the two. Using the future growth issue as an illustration, if we had agree 6% future growth with Etihad and the PL said "you can't have more than 5%" over the 10 year lifetime of a £1.5bn deal that adds up to quite a lot.
Which, if the Etihad deal was wrongfully impeded, the PL was on the hook for.
Which seems to give them quite an incentive in terms of agreeing a settlement that doesn't block the Etihad deal.
From City's perspective, they would much rather have the certainty of the deal with Etihad proceeding without further hiccup, and from the PL's perspective they would sooner not be on the hook for a substantial damages claim. (I think that in relation to some other aspects of the claim, eg the delays in the FMV assessments, they are on the hook anyway but those will be for much more manageable sums.)
We don't know, but what I think is that City had the PL between a rock and a hard place. I simply can't imagine why we would have settled all the aspects of the deal if it wasn't overall something we were satisfied with. It certainly wasn't some undisclosed rule change, and a promise by the PL to apply their rules fairly in the future is scarcely worth the paper it's written on. They were under an obligation to do that anyway, and City failed to prove that they hadn't done so.
Trust the club. This is a win even if its not immediately obvious what the win actually was.
For what it's worth I do fully understand your stance about overthinking such a minimal statement, however I am in the camp of "there's no smoke without fire". I just can't see City starting it and then deciding that it wasn't a good idea. The next few weeks may tell us more, even if only by implication.
No I don't think he knows what he is talking about. Of course, City dropped the challenge over retrospective treatment of shareholder loans a) because it was always pointless and b) because that is a consequence of the settlement. It was pointless because no club could possibly have been treated as being in breach of PSR retrospectively when they simply followed the rules in place at the time. So it was all futile and game playing on this point.
As for the "ripping up the rule book completely", it is hysterical rubbish. There wasn't even a realistic prospect of the APTs being ripped up entirely because even in the worst case for the PL, there was enough in APT1a and 1b to show the PL how to re-write a completely new set of lawful rules on APT at the first opportunity. As I said, the APT ruling endorsed the lawfulness of an APT regime and City didn't challenge any other part of the rulebook.
If I may. I think you are making the mistake of looking for truth based on what is available publicly when what is available publicly is, in fact, bugger all.
I remember that when APT1 was launched, the expert opinion on here was that it wouldn't be easy to win such a competition case. I may be doing people an injustice, but I don't remember anyone mentioning the shareholder loan issue or, if they did, realising that that was the key to determining unlawfulness. Once that realisation was made, in hindsight for almost all of us, a successful outcome was (for the sake of the argument, I will use the word) easy.
I am not criticising anyone for not making that realisation, just making the point that, without it, the case looked a lot different. Some things we did learn, though, were that the guys in charge of all this are smart and don't fuck around for the fun of it.
Why am I saying all this? Well because we are again in a situation where we don't have all the pieces. I can imagine it can be awkward for people who like to have clarity, but what is clear to me from everything that has happened so far is that the guys in charge of all this are still smart, if they launched APT2 they did it on a sound basis and with a detailed strategy for resolution. I doubt very much they were outsmarted by the PL team to the extent that they had to run off with their tails between their legs.
I strongly believe they knew what they were doing and why, and if they have now settled it's because they largely achieved what they set out to do. I really can't imagine any other scenario, tbh.
Again just to be clear, I am not arguing the club didn't get what they might have wanted out of it all. Nor event hat the statement is a genuine reflection of the club's stance.
But I also think people are too readily using it to celebrate some imagined behind the scenes victory, when the statement literally states the opposite with very little if any room whatsoever, for interpretation.
As I also point out, I am not unhappy with it either. These are serious professionals and I trust their judgement, even if that was to concede fully.
The whole saga is actually very sad and these rules, regulations, whatever you want to call them are creating more problems than they are solving (if anything even needed solving in the first place).This whole saga illustrates that regulating income is fraught with weakness. A huge number of rules is required and for what? Can anybody explain how this creates competitive equality or saves clubs from financial difficulties. Masters certainly can’t.
Competitive equality is created by regulating the spend on team expenses and financial difficulties are mitigated by regulating debt.
If we dropped the regs on income, it would not make the slightest difference, except, of course, clubs would have more money for infrastructure and would be more likely to make a profit.
It's usually kept confidential.I've think I've asked before but do we know of any other club to have suffered a PL refusal to allow a single commercial/sponsorship deal on the basis it falls outside of 'their' view of what FMV might be, whether under the auspices of APT or not? Any club or any deal, at all..?
If it was something along the escalator percentage that you gave as an example though, presumably the PL could change their assessment of FMV and allow the larger percentage escalator without recourse to an actual rule change?They will not have been able to change the rules or commit unilaterally to do so. Nor would they "trade" an approval of Etihad that wasn't approved by the rules. This is why I believe the Etihad deal was probably approved anyway in advance of the settlement and any proposal re rule changes was simply a commitment to table certain amendments and, perhaps, recommend their implementation whilst leaving the vote to the clubs ie a soft commitment
How do you know? ;)It's usually kept confidential.
Not if we’ve got the Etihad deal over the FMV line. That's the endgame.Not at all. We accepted they keep our wallet.
I'm sure we can all agree that none of this was an issue when the Rag's were consistently breaking the transfer record and running away with league titles, and it wouldn't be an issue now if they were still dominating the league.
Yet the EPL have gone back to 2009 when throwing the 115 charges at usNo I don't think he knows what he is talking about. Of course, City dropped the challenge over retrospective treatment of shareholder loans a) because it was always pointless and b) because that is a consequence of the settlement. It was pointless because no club could possibly have been treated as being in breach of PSR retrospectively when they simply followed the rules in place at the time. So it was all futile and game playing on this point.
As for the "ripping up the rule book completely", it is hysterical rubbish. There wasn't even a realistic prospect of the APTs being ripped up entirely because even in the worst case for the PL, there was enough in APT1a and 1b to show the PL how to re-write a completely new set of lawful rules on APT at the first opportunity. As I said, the APT ruling endorsed the lawfulness of an APT regime and City didn't challenge any other part of the rulebook.
Don`t you mean Hugo, after all he will be spending it like confetti. ;)Who actually gives a fuck if it's a win for us or the prem? Certainly not me.
All I see is (as slbsn stated) is 1 - 1.75 billion Sponsorship deal now going to be passed all being well.
It's huge so that will do for me. Seeing the thick lemons on X and their anger is a thing of beauty. Sit back and enjoy
The Oxford English Dictionary have joined the panel to oversea this. A decision is expected to be within the next decade.What I want to know is, did they come to a settlement over the muffin or barm wording, or has that still to be agreed by the other 19 PL clubs as well?
Thanks very much for an exhaustive answer. I think it's fairly clear that City would not settle unless satisfied with the settlement, but we were given no real guide as to what the settlement involves. I suspect that the details are concerned with what has actually happened (eg the Etihad deal), and the question of future growth is very important here, but what intrigued me are the assertions that City believe they will now be treated the same as other clubs. I wonder how this was guaranteed because, as you say, a promise is hardly worth the paper it's written on. Perhaps the fear of enormously costly legal fees will encourage fair play! And one final word - I do -as we all should - trust the club.Perhaps it's easier to break it down into what I know and what I think.
Here's what I know:
(a) the Premier League has no unilateral power to change the rules without giving due notice of any proposed rule change and receiving the support of a 2/3 of the clubs present and voting. So a behind the scenes rule change has simply not happened. It would be as unlawful as the original APT rules.
(b) The joint statement confirms that the entire dispute between the club and the league has been settled. Since as well as APT 2 there were also outstanding issues from APT 1 concerning the costs of the two hearings (which will run to tens of millions), compensation and even injunctive relief, it follows that all these elements have been settled also.
(c) City had something of a slam-dunk case for costs arising from APT 1. They would be unlikely however to recover less than about 60% and more than about 80% of their total outlay. So there was an area of doubt as to the exact figure, but the broad parameters of what they were going to recover were known.
(d) City had a solid claim for damages if they could show there was a loss which flowed from sponsorship deals being thwarted by unlawful rules. But the precise measure of their loss depends on what happened afterwards, which we don't know.
(e) City had probably no realistic chance (nor even any reason) to seek any sort of injunction.
(f) City have plainly got some ongoing deal with Etihad, because their name is still being printed on the front of the shirt. What we don't know is on what basis that ongoing sponsorship has been agreed.
(g) Compensation works by replacing what you should have had if the wrongful act had not been done. So if you haven't lost out, there is no right to compensation even if someone has done something unlawful.
Okay, now on to what I think,
(a) City won't have known specifically how much they would recover towards their costs, but as I say would have had a pretty good idea. So a compromise that included a figure of £X for costs probably doesn't give City anything that they wouldn't have got anyway.
(b) Much the same point can be made in relation to damages. If the Etihad deal passes as originally agreed, what loss have City actually incurred? Likewise, if the press rumours are bollocks and City will only be able to be sponsored up to the tune of £X by Etihad, and not £Y, they have a fairly easily quantifiable claim for damages by being prevented from entering into a deal by the application of unlawful rules. Again, we don't quite know what the loss City have suffered in relation to not just the Etihad deal but also (say) the First Abu Dhabi Bank deal being rejected, but it will not be difficult to work out.
(c) I can't see any legal or commercial reason why we would have settled the APT 2 case for the sorts of things - costs and damages - that we were going to get anyway. It seems to me that there has to be something tangible which the PL was (a) able to offer, and (b) did offer.
(d) Whilst from City's perspective there might not be too much difference between getting the full value of the Etihad deal from Etihad, and getting a lower deal approved plus damages from the PL, from the PL's perspective, there is a huge difference between the two. Using the future growth issue as an illustration, if we had agree 6% future growth with Etihad and the PL said "you can't have more than 5%" over the 10 year lifetime of a £1.5bn deal that adds up to quite a lot.
Which, if the Etihad deal was wrongfully impeded, the PL was on the hook for.
Which seems to give them quite an incentive in terms of agreeing a settlement that doesn't block the Etihad deal.
From City's perspective, they would much rather have the certainty of the deal with Etihad proceeding without further hiccup, and from the PL's perspective they would sooner not be on the hook for a substantial damages claim. (I think that in relation to some other aspects of the claim, eg the delays in the FMV assessments, they are on the hook anyway but those will be for much more manageable sums.)
We don't know, but what I think is that City had the PL between a rock and a hard place. I simply can't imagine why we would have settled all the aspects of the deal if it wasn't overall something we were satisfied with. It certainly wasn't some undisclosed rule change, and a promise by the PL to apply their rules fairly in the future is scarcely worth the paper it's written on. They were under an obligation to do that anyway, and City failed to prove that they hadn't done so.
Trust the club. This is a win even if its not immediately obvious what the win actually was.