Football Leaks/Der Spiegel articles

Jazzman said:
Here is a copy of some of the article from the English Spiegel site:

>>>>>
Off the field, however, the club's leadership is under serious pressure. Due to rules violations, the club finds itself facing expulsion from the Champions League. Revelations made public at the end of last year by DER SPIEGEL exposed flagrant transgressions by Manchester City. The reports were based on internal documents from the club that were provided to DER SPIEGEL by the whistleblower platform Football Leaks.

The European football association now wants to take a closer look at Manchester City once again. At the same time, there are additional revelations that shed light on the questionable conduct of the club's directors. If UEFA is serious about following through on the strict course announced by its president, Aleksander eferin, it has no choice but to impose tough sanctions against the Premier League titan.

Just how angry some of the association's investigators are that Manchester City evidently deceived them years ago is shown by the reaction of Yves Leterme, the head of UEFA's Investigatory Chamber. A former Belgian prime minister, Leterme said it would be a serious problem if DER SPIEGEL's reporting was confirmed: "This can lead to the heaviest punishment -- exclusion from UEFA competitions," he said.

No Matter What the Cost

In 2014, Manchester City reached a settlement with UEFA to avoid such a penalty. UEFA had discovered violations to its Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, which prevent club owners from investing unlimited sums of money in their organizations -- a club is not allowed to spend significantly more than it earns. Since Manchester was bought by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, though, the club hasn't made much of an effort to keep its strategy a secret. It has been trying to buy its way to the top of the football world by spending exorbitant sums of money on infrastructure and players -- no matter what the cost.

UEFA investigators didn't believe the club's assertions that certain sponsors from Abu Dhabi had no connection to the sheikh. They suspected that those companies were also utilized as surreptitious investment vehicles to inflate the club's revenues.

The club's boss, Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, said at the time that the settlement felt like little more than a tiny pinch and added that the team would continue pursuing its strategy. Considering the gravity of the accusations facing it, Al-Mubarak's club had gotten off extremely lightly.

A Special Construct

The documents provided by Football Leaks made it clear just how brazen Manchester City was willing to be. Beginning in 2012, the team devised a special construct to systematically circumvent FFP rules, with team executives outsourcing costs to other companies, effectively hiding them from UEFA auditors. If they spent more during a season than intended, they had their sponsors from Abu Dhabi increase the fees they paid to the team and backdated the money transfers to the beginning of the season.
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This is what i really dislike about the whope Football Leaks thingy.

I believe the hacking being true and thus the documents being true. However, just by reading the article, you can see the way it is reported is not "normal" but driven by an agenda.
In bold you can see harsh, derogatory terms associated with City and the personal conclusion of the authors that are calling for sanctions. And saying that, they are not calling for any kind of sanctions but the harshest possible. How can they retain credibility when they are not even reporting but acting as a judge ?
Underlined, you can then see why it is not adding up. They use words like "suspected", "if confirmed" which paints another story : there is nothing certain as they claim (or nothing easy to prove). They even talk about infrastructure while it is one of the areas owners are authorized to invest in without suffering FPF sanctions.

Also, as some other posters said, why are those informations only focusing on Chelsea, PSG and City ? I mean, i'm not deluded. I'm pretty sure those 3 clubs have done some shady things but not because they are shady by essence but just because this is how football business and industry work. Just look at Barcelona and Neymar transfer, they actually did something that led their president to prison. PSG, City and Chelsea have not done things legally wrong in those Football leaks (except maybe the racial profiling described at PSG but that is in fact common in other french clubs). If they really wanna dig things, why is no one really wondering why the spanish justice didn't want the athletes names being known in the Puerto case ? Just the bikers names went out and they push the whole other samples under the carpet because it involved their dear football clubs. I'm not saying only them are doping (i think all athletes dope one way or another at very high level) but there was clear evidence there and the press didn't push to know more.
 
Also, about the whole youth transfer trafficking, the specialized guys in France are saying one of (if not) the worst offenders are the RB clubs and Dortmund but, in the press, they always have a good image.
 
I think all targets for rule breaking are based on selection rather than fairness.

UK Revenue gets more money from targeting middle earners rather than expensive court cases against high earners individually.

UEFA are encouraged to target City because we broke their cartel.
Does anybody really think all is forgiven once our Management Team showed the rest of them how to grow a World Class PL team?
 
Metalartin said:
Anything new in the latest articles? Or are they rehashing what they've already leaked?
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Slides no.3 and 5 look pretty damning in terms of a deliberate attempt to funnel money past FFP regulations. Whether they constitute an act of illegality that would see us trounced in Court is another matter though, and tellingly we are 4 months down the line without a charge having been forthcoming. I do need some soothing words of reassurance from PB though
 
Exeter Blue I am here said:
Slides no.3 and 5 look pretty damning in terms of a deliberate attempt to funnel money past FFP regulations. Whether they constitute an act of illegality that would see us trounced in Court is another matter though, and tellingly we are 4 months down the line without a charge having been forthcoming. I do need some soothing words of reassurance from PB though
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Doubt that anything illegal has been done and certainly not by City. City have invoiced Etihad for the sponsorship received. Etihad may have invoiced ADUG but again, that is not illegal.

The fact remains that UEFA cannot check Etihad's books to see if rules have been contravened.
 
Exeter Blue I am here said:
Slides no.3 and 5 look pretty damning in terms of a deliberate attempt to funnel money past FFP regulations. Whether they constitute an act of illegality that would see us trounced in Court is another matter though, and tellingly we are 4 months down the line without a charge having been forthcoming. I do need some soothing words of reassurance from PB though
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I will just wait for PB's take too, I'm bored of the subject but it's hard to ignore it. I'm fed up of them trying to push it in the media "for the public's best interests"(such crap it's blatantly fanboying the history clubs, over new investment), FFP shouldn't even be a legal restriction.

Lets just team up with PSG, Chelsea and any other clubs who have been in their cross hairs, to get FFP abolished. Then take UEFA, the hackers and Der Spiegel to the cleaners, while we are at it.
 
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