City launch legal action against the Premier League

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

A panel of experts will be formed. Ex players such as Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Lee Dixon and sports journalists such as Simon Stone and Ian Herbert. This panel, experts all in valuing the worth to a company of sponsoring a football club, will make binding decisions for the good of the game.

It certainly won't be anywhere near as crude as that. The "panel" will almost certainly include those with experience of "business" but if they have experience of "football business" this will almost certainly raise questions of bias and of their objectivity. They may have been involved negotiating takeovers at City or Newcastle (both highly improbable) or share purchases at OT (more likely) or even sponsorship deals at "big" clubs (unlikely to be Everton or Brentford!!!). All this will mask the fact that sponsorship is a matter of judgement of what a company can afford for the benefits it thinks it will receive and it is hard to see how any "panel of experts" can make such a judgement without access to sensitive information to which they have no right. I suppose, on the other hand, the Quatari tourist board deal with PSG as an obviously "above FMV" deal, but this does not involve City, Newcastle or any PL team, and there is no evidence of deals based on anything other than commercial grounds - BUT it is surely acceptable for a company to wish to finance success of a football club as a way of stimulating commercial growth, otherwise it is hard to accept the original argument that sponsorship would enable English clubs to compete with top European clubs. No question of FMV then!

 

[the-ecstacy-of-eight]

have i got this right ? basically any company from the middle east is "associated" to our owners(so its being claimed), if an american owned club gets sponsorship off an american company ,no problem

Nail, meet Hammer.

BANG! Right on the head!

 

[spinney]

have i got this right ? basically any company from the middle east is "associated" to our owners(so its being claimed), if an american owned club gets sponsorship off an american company ,no problem

thats about it !

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Yes. If Jamie Carragher did summations!

Fyi, sponsorship is already regulated, and City have had no problem with this since it was implemented. The Etihad deals have also passed the fair market value test, and are not deemed inflated.

The challenge is to the February addition, where parties deemed associated, have to do an additional level of justification, show competing lower bids, and the PL have the right to adjust the value of the deal. After, it has already passed the fair market test btw. That is what is being challenged.

There are a few issues there. One it doesn't apply to all deals, so there is an implied 'targeting', two who determines what is associated, three who determines the ultimate 'fair' value and how, and four it fucks the sponsors over by revealing their competative bidding process.

I see why City are challenging it, I also see the logic for the challenge to be successful, to a large extent.

Why would other PL clubs need to see competing lower bids for a private business? It is not supposed to be a competitive tendering process like a local authority contract where public money is involved. This is total madness and will not stand up to any scrutiny. It must be a breach of competition law. Imagine a small group of carpet dealers joining together to stop a rival carpet warehouse getting external investment. It is not their business to scrutinse the accounts of their commercial rival. Does Harry Styles have to explain why he has invested in the new Co-op Live arena which is 50 per cent owned by CFG?

 

[Gone for a Burton]

It certainly won't be anywhere near as crude as that. The "panel" will almost certainly include those with experience of "business" but if they have experience of "football business" this will almost certainly raise questions of bias and of their objectivity. They may have been involved negotiating takeovers at City or Newcastle (both highly improbable) or share purchases at OT (more likely) or even sponsorship deals at "big" clubs (unlikely to be Everton or Brentford!!!). All this will mask the fact that sponsorship is a matter of judgement of what a company can afford for the benefits it thinks it will receive and it is hard to see how any "panel of experts" can make such a judgement without access to sensitive information to which they have no right. I suppose, on the other hand, the Quatari tourist board deal with PSG as an obviously "above FMV" deal, but this does not involve City, Newcastle or any PL team, and there is no evidence of deals based on anything other than commercial grounds - BUT it is surely acceptable for a company to wish to finance success of a football club as a way of stimulating commercial growth, otherwise it is hard to accept the original argument that sponsorship would enable English clubs to compete with top European clubs. No question of FMV then!

The rags and (Chevrolet?) along with another Yank company with links to the window fitters.

FMV my arse in parsley !!

 

[halfcenturyup]

Just to add a little semi-irrelevant spice. The investigation of City was, I believe, carried out by Bird &Bird Solrs. who acted as Liverpool’s ffp advisor.
The evidence that this whole shenanigans is not kosher is quite extensive. I hope our lawyers pile on with this and all the other factors showing the PL and the Redshirts to have acted in bad faith. That bad faith gives us the ability to appeal to the high court.

I am pretty sure that our legal teams are brainstorming every way to get this into, first, tribunal and then, finally, the actual court system in the very unlikely (in my view, anyway) event that the panel finds in favour of the PL on the most serious charges. Yes, I know, the possibilities are extremely limited but they are earning how much an hour?

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Just to add a little semi-irrelevant spice. The investigation of City was, I believe, carried out by Bird &Bird Solrs. who acted as Liverpool’s ffp advisor.
The evidence that this whole shenanigans is not kosher is quite extensive. I hope our lawyers pile on with this and all the other factors showing the PL and the Redshirts to have acted in bad faith. That bad faith gives us the ability to appeal to the high court.

Liverpool/FSG in particular have been acting in bad faith from day one. Hacking our scouting software, helping to leak private commercial information from the UEFA Investigations Committee, ongoing toxic private briefings to the media, signing letters demanding we should be banned from Europe even before our appeal, facilitating the attack on our coach and doing nothing to investigate it. Even their former manager said it was "a bad day for football" when we were cleared by CAS. Now their fans have started their own campaign within the FSA by launching an attack on our club behind our representatives' backs. All this is in the public domain but the UK media has ignored it. The press know it is going on because some of them have been complicit.

 

[KS55]

Liverpool/FSG in particular have been acting in bad faith from day one. Hacking our scouting software, helping to leak private commercial information from the UEFA Investigations Committee, ongoing toxic private briefings to the media, signing letters demanding we should be banned from Europe even before our appeal, facilitating the attack on our coach and doing nothing to investigate it. Even their former manager said it was "a bad day for football" when we were cleared by CAS. Now their fans have started their own campaign within the FSA by launching an attack on our club behind our representative's backs. All this is in the public domain but the UK media has ignored it. The press know it is going on because some of them have been complicit.

Martin Samuel criticised the red shirts for ‘a constant stream of emails and phone calls to the PL’ complaining about us. He’s got their number.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Why would other PL clubs need to see competing lower bids for a private business? It is not supposed to be a competitive tendering process like a local authority contract where public money is involved. This is total madness and will not stand up to any scrutiny. It must be a breach of competition law. Imagine a small group of carpet dealers joining together to stop a rival carpet warehouse getting external investment. It is not their business to scrutinse the accounts of their commercial rival. Does Harry Styles have to explain why he has invested in the new Co-op Live arena which is 50 per cent owned by CFG?

That's my view as well. There are good sporting reasons to ensure that sponsorships are not vastly overstated by companies affiliated in some way with the club, but there really is no excuse for the unnecessary, onerous and (possibly) discriminatory nature of the current rules. Especially as I can't think of a single example of sponsorship in the PL that has been so far out of kilter as to be obvious. Ever.

There are other, more reasonable ways to ensure "comparability" of sponsorships without such measures.

 

[The perfect fumble]

have i got this right ? basically any company from the middle east is "associated" to our owners(so its being claimed), if an american owned club gets sponsorship off an american company ,no problem

Not wishing to be pedantic, that would be any company from the UAE, particularly Abu Dhabi.

I travelled the Middle East for over 25 years, I supplied hospital equipment, and on the shelf in my office I had, amongst others, two hefty books, The Trading Families of Saudi Arabia and a smaller volume Trading Families of the UAE.

Each book explained which families operated in what sectors of the economy, their size and clout, because that's how their economies worked. The ruling family kept the oil but the other sectors of the economy, banking, construction, retail, ports and so on, were dished out to the lesser families, that way stability was maintained, everyone got a slice of the cake and it was bad for business if anyone attempted to upset the order of things, think 1930s Chicago gangsters.

So everything that matters is associated in the UAE and everyone knows it, but everyone pretends that it's not, and importantly the Emiratis have the documents to prove that's it's not.

Power and influence don't show up on a balance sheet, but they're there nonetheless. The Premier League knows this, Liverpool, Arsenal and Utd know this, the emails expose what we all know! Except they don't and no amount of screaming and shouting is going to change that.

That's why we'll win.