Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

[MCFC1993]

Not trying to tell the 1894 Group how to do their job, but haven't we got a home fixture next Month against a German club?
Surely, there's an opportunity for a banner.

A caricature of Hoeness and Rumennigge wearing Bayern's shirt with Die Spiegel replacing their front of shirt sponsor would be my suggestion. I'd chip in for that.

I'm sure Hoffenheim would love it as well.

 

[MCFC1993]

I largely kept my powder dry on this because I wanted to see all four parts of the story before forming a view, but given part 3 was so piss poor I think I have enough to articulate my thoughts.

The biggest criticism seems to be the complaint that City inflated sponsorship deals to circumvent FFP. Except they didn't inflate the sponsorship deals. The sponsorship deal with Asabar, for instance was £15m. Not £3m, or any other figure, but £15m. That's the amount that Aabar were contractually obliged to pay.

There is absolutely nothing in the FFPR that requires that any third party sponsorship money must, for instance, come from distributable profits. Where a third party gets the money from to sponsor a team is neither here nor there: what matters for the purposes of the FFPR is the sponsorship income. And in the case of Aabar, the amount of sponsorship income was £15m.

The complaint, when properly understood, cannot be that City overstated the sponsorship deal, because they didn't. They reported sponsorship from Aabar of £15m, which is exactly what the contract said. The complaint must be that Aabar would not have entered into that contract in the first place if it had not been made clear to them that £12m would be provided from elsewhere. So in other words, the value of the sponsorship was artificially inflated (assuming the emails are genuine).

That however does not contravene the regulations. Nowhere does UEFA get to impose its own 'true and fair' valuation of the sponsorship deals other than in the case of related party transactions, which IIRC Aabar wasn't. So, assuming the emails are genuine, and the additional sponsorship money actually originated from HHSM, did we breach the spirit of the regulations? yep. Did we take advantage of what the regulations don't say? Absolutely. Did we actually breach the regulations then in force? Absolutely not.

So the complaint when you boil it down to its bare essentials is that we found a way round the regulations, and didn't tell UEFA what we had done.

Well cry me a fucking river. We all know these regulations were designed as a means of ossifying the status quo and making it more difficult for a team to progress in that competition. Der Spiegel actually say that in terms - they say that City could (and they imply should) have lowered their on-pitch expectations. So if people want to cry about it now because we found an arguably immoral way round regulations that themselves were immoral from the get-go, me my guest.

For my own part, and if you are reading this Matthew Syed, I'm talking to you, I have an absolutely clear conscience. The club I support has breached no regulations, and the worst that can be said of them is that they have fought fire with fire. If you have a problem with that, feel free to write more of your sanctimonious shite. I have no problem with it whatsoever.

I think that is post of the year mate.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

A caricature of Hoeness and Rumennigge wearing Bayern's shirt with Die Spiegel replacing their front of shirt sponsor would be my suggestion. I'd chip in for that.

I'm sure Hoffenheim would love it as well.

I’d chip in too.

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

It's very interesting and reassuring to read the informed posts by people such s prestwich blue and Chris in London. These fellas certainly know their stuff, which seems completely at odds with most of the main stream journalist reporting of this. They just repeat the crap from der spiegel as irrefutable evidence of city's "crimes"·

Also refreshing to hear adrian durham defending city in talk sport an asking for people to ring in and explain what city have actually done wrong. Well, guess what, no caller rang in with evidence of the crimes.....mainly because your average Joe does have a clue about any of this....and no crimes have been committed.

There needs to be an absolute revelation from der Spiegel tomorrow because this is fast becoming a damp squid....

 

[Chris in London]

Thanks
So the question arises is this a 'loophole' in FFPR or was it intentional in FFPR that related party monies could be channelled to clubs through non related parties?
PS and then on a different issue there's the Bayern money referred to above by @laserblue !

It was intentional in the sense that UEFA meant to put in place the regulation that they actually put in place. They didn’t do it by accident. My guess is that the possibility someone might try to circumvent FFP this way didn’t occur to them. I’d say it was a loophole. Normally I’d say taking advantage of a loophole is morally dubious, but given that the entire raisin d’etre of FFP is to fuck us over in favour of the G14 cartel, on this occasion I don’t see any problem with taking advantage of what the regulations don’t say.

Bayern’s issues are different. Hoeness and Ruminigge broke the law of Germany. They are criminals, convicted of offences of dishonesty, and punished according to German law. UEFA regulations are nothing more than the rules of a game. And we didn’t breach those rules.

 

[Stoned Rose]

All this gets more and more ridiculous every day and is clearly nothing more than a vendetta of jealous elements of German sporting life waged by a sensationalist German publication based on dubious materials probably obtained illegally. There would appear to be very little chance of a reopened enquiry based on this trash.

In Britain, of course, we have holier-than-thou table tennis players who simper that one cannot disobey rules because they are unfair. That is a judgement for the courts to make and they have not yet pronounced on the question. The law declares that any attempt to restrict investment, unless the aim of that investment is anti competitive, is void as are any punishments to enforce the limit on investment. Whatever can be said in favour of the legality of FFP I have yet to come across a serious legal opinion that the break even rule is anything other than an anti-competitive, protectionist measure to maintain a cartel which violates the right to invest. The law deals very severely with cartels. Sheikh Mansour has, as PB pointed out in his interview with City fan TV, invested in ways which are wholly acceptable to any sports' governing body and he has not, in any way, put the financial stability of the club in jeopardy. He has done nothing to damage competition. These considerations have to weigh heavily with UEFA if it wishes to revisit the question. If the break even principle is not sound in law the whole attack on City is shown to be nothing more than bile and jealousy.

It is clear that City gave serious consideration to legal action in 2014 and we can assume that City accepted neither the legality nor the fairness of the break even principle. I would be grateful to Prestwich Blue if he could tell me which deals reported by Der Spiegel as in any way "cheating" were concluded after the settlement agreed by the club and UEFA in 2014. Also, City have undergone the same inspection process that other clubs have, since 2014 without difficulty and, indeed, only last year (?) UEFA refused flatly a request from La Liga to look into City's compliance with FFP. Is there anything in these "revelations" which, even if they were true and admissible as evidence, which has not already been dealt with by UEFA.

I have never hidden my view that the break even rule is untenable in law, that UEFA could only prevent investment in a club if the aim of that investment were anti-competitive. It also seems that nothing City has done is against the law and nothing is, in fact, against the FFP regulations. But I would be very grateful for enlightenment on this, PB.

One of only a handful of contributors on this forum who always gains my full attention.

Good work as always mate.

 

[willipp]

It's very interesting and reassuring to read the informed posts by people such s prestwich blue and Chris in London. These fellas certainly know their stuff, which seems completely at odds with most of the main stream journalist reporting of this. They just repeat the crap from der spiegel as irrefutable evidence of city's "crimes"·

Also refreshing to hear adrian durham defending city in talk sport an asking for people to ring in and explain what city have actually done wrong. Well, guess what, no caller rang in with evidence of the crimes.....mainly because your average Joe does have a clue about any of this....and no crimes have been committed.

There needs to be an absolute revelation from der Spiegel tomorrow because this is fast becoming a damp squid....

Don’t be fooled by Durham for one second. He knows where the majority lie with this and just pushes the opposite opinion to get calls in.

 

[shemnel]

just had a gander and nosey around some news outlets...this stuff is pretty low down the football pages (in general), says a lot.

Expect a bit of a bump up the ratings with some tax stuff tomorrow, and then fizzle and pop. Thrash United. Life resumes.

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

Don’t be fooled by Durham for one second. He knows where the majority lie with this and just pushes the opposite opinion to get calls in.

Yes, perhaps. But it's clear that the vast majority of football fans and the general public do not have a clue about ffp and so I think any damage to city's reputation will be limited.

 

[doobyedoobye]

I expect many journalists will rue the day they jumped on the anti City band wagon...