City launch legal action against the Premier League | Unconfirmed reports that City have secured "potentially significant victory" (p 808)

[BrianSaladSurgery.]

Why do I get the feeling that the Times has decided to release this biased piece to deflect from Liverpool & Standard Chartered

Whats happened with the dippers and Standard Charter? Not heard me.

 

[Dodge]

It will depend on any incriminating evidence we may or may not have. For example if we have a taped conversation from say Levy calling us "artificially inflating Arab oil money cheats so we need to deal with them" then 115 falls immediately imho
We don't know, so let's hope we're keeping some highly explosive powder in the dry cellar

We've got plenty of dirt to dish on the main protagonists. Whether that be the PL, Masters, the cartel, Levy, the hateful 8, PIGMOL, Stanley Park. Its been claimed on here that we have a dossier of evidence of the conspiracy against us and the fuse is about to be lit.

Levelling up is about to be exposed in the public domain. Burn the bastards to the ground City. Fucking burn 'em. Every single one of the cunts.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Bear in mind when you reply to comments posted 3/4 hours ago that we got the information in drips and drabs so @Alan Harper's Tash may have like me been operating on the assumption we were challenging the whole associated parties rule that’s been in place for a decade.

At that point I thought it was sounding like a long shot, but if it’s just rolling back the broadening of the rules past the standard legal definition of associated parties, as people seem to think it is, then it sounds a lot more winnable even with the limited info available to us.

I certainly wasn’t meaning the past decade, so thanks for the clarification.

I still am unsure how we can prove we have been discriminated against and how we’ve been financially affected, unless we have proof of deals we couldn’t sign off.

I’m in no way an expert either, so reading, learning and reacting as we go.

 

[Rory Bluelow]

Away grounds are going to be toxic next season and beyond aren’t they? This has gone down like a complete shitbrick and everyone has lost their heads. If we don’t win we are fucked aren’t we?

The good news is the case begins next Monday ! Could be all over by next season.
What the EPL is proposing in their February rule change is fucking ridiculous, I’m sure City know what they’re doing.

 

[KS55]

The problem is how transparent the Premier League have been, particularly with Newcastle. The hypocrisy is blatant and out there in the open. 'Related party' deals have always been part of football, because business people are going to find sponsors from their personal contacts. It was never an issue when Mike Ashley was doing it, because he never threatened to win anything. It's not been a problem with Bayern Munich being sponsored by companies that own shares, even when their commercial income is vastly inflated compared to similarly-sized clubs, because they were an already established club, so no-one noticed.

One that I remember was when Liverpool got taken over by an American and the next year they had the biggest shirt deal in history from Warrior; an American company that no-one had ever heard of, who could suddenly outbid Nike or Adidas, and give a record shirt deal to a team that at the time was finishing 8th. That company just happened to be owned by a personal friend of the new chairman and was swiftly taken over by New Balance, so didn't really get any benefit from the publicity.

And this is the racism that they talk about. Two American friends supporting each other's business are seen as completely above board (and why not?). A Germany company sponsoring a club they have shares in is seen as fine. Two companies that both happen to come from the UAE are automatically portrayed as related parties purely based on that fact. There's this constant narrative just below the surface that there's something murky and shady about Arab businesses.

Spot on. Spot on.

 

[nijinsky69]

Certainly it is unclear. The Times is behind a paywall but the Guardian reports that "according to the Times, an independent tribunal has been convened for next week to hear it (City's case). The use of the word "tribunal" doesn't suggest a court. On the other hand it doesn't sound like an independent commission if it seems to have the power to award damages, though perhaps such powers would not be unprecedented. It does sound a mess that a hearing is going to consider the validity of a kind of sponsorship deal which exists only in PL financial regulations. Either way I think City's chances of a favourable ruling are high since PL rules are governed by English law.

The Times article states it’s an arbitration hearing, presumably under the PL’s rules which also govern the 115 case.

 

[markstephenhickey]

How are the premier league determining who is related to who? If a company wants to sponsor city and they are owned by a shell company in the Caymans how the fuck do they know who owns it ?

 

[meltonblue]

Well that is exactly the problem they are trying to address. What sponsor is going to give the PL, an organisation that leaks like a sieve, a commercial rationale for their sponsorship and which club is going to get two additional bids just so the PL can tell the club and the sponsor what amount is acceptable for their proposed sponsorship anyway.

It's unreasonably onerous, way beyond what could be expected to ensure fair values for sponsorship, uncompetitive when applied on a "random" basis and inherently discriminatory when specifically introduced and applied to two clubs from a particular region, imo.

But again, that's the whole point.

I agree, that’s why I said originally I didn’t like the PLs position or ours.

It was applied due to one club in the region and I’d rather we distanced themselves completely from them.

 

[BlueRockape]

This case hasn't just been brought against the Premier League, it was brought after the rule change in February. So in my opinion it has nothing to do with the main case . Journalists linking the two and saying City are doing this because we are trying to distract from the '115' are being disingenuous .

Nope they are being cunts as. Usual

 

[homerdog]

It’s us vs all

Of course it is, we keep on fucking winning it every year and the fuckers don't like it!