Thank you so much for this as it’s crystalised much of what’s been swirling in my head all week. I’ve spent hours today poring over the CAS award document looking for clues about what might come back to bite us. The UEFA charges were so specific and were narrowed even further by the time barring decision. Holding back our contextual evidence and witnesses until the appeal hearing made UEFA look foolish and oh how we laughed when the judgement was published. There are some minor criticisms of our practices in there though and I suspect you might be right that the breadth of the PL charges is to enable a totting up of small rule infringements to fuel the ‘no smoke’ theories.I remember the discussions taking place on here prior to the UEFA CAS case covering the fact that UEFA too had some of the best european legal representatives and that there was no way they wouldn't have some defacto smoking gun evidence that would counter anything we had to offer in defence.
There was no possibility all they had was a photocopy of a spliced email from 2010 and 2 other insignificant emails taken from Der Spiegels website to attempt to justify the overwhelming fraud they were alleging and which their investigative chamber and then secondary chamber of lawyers had taken many months to consider and deciding we were bang to rights.
I remember the media announcing our guilt to the world on the announcement of the charges and the sanctions and the many discussions about what cheats we are and how dare we offer up a statement to the fact we were going to appeal the decision of these fine upstanding european gentlemens' considered legal decision.
We oohed and aargghed about what possible evidence it could be that would be our downfall amid the handwringing on here discussing how the whole board should resign and it was Sorianos fault or the chairmans.
Lo and behold when it came time to show the hand of aces we all dreaded, they laughably stood there with their micro penis in hand for everyone to see.
I was incredulous when I read the full decision in how any outstanding legal mind would have thought with what they had how it could have gone any other way. The actual hubris involved to think that an independent judges panel could come to a guilty decision based on what was offered as evidence to corroborate financial malfeasance on a scale they alleged. Yet most decisions were seemingly not unanimous!
Yet here we are again, asking the same questions, querying the jurisdiction, evidential burden, quality of evidence, counter evidence and presupposing the evidential smoking gun, what it is, what have we missed etc etc.
The difference is the PL have seen the same case play out, they have been privvy to the evidence offered to try to prove disguised owner investment and more importantly our responses and defence evidence to those accusations. They would be seemingly stupid to go down the same route and expect a different outcome. So we are to suffer the double jeopardy of not only having come to an agreement previously with UEFA and took a pinch for matters up to 2014, but to face similar charges for matter bothe before that point and after it.
There is no doubt if City are found guilty the punishment will be exacting for the alleged rule breaches some of which are considerable and would require director involvement in dishonesty and bad faith to such a degree that BDO have been mislead and duped so that the financial statements are deliberately falsified. I would imagine Khaldoun is absolutely seething and HHSM will be none too pleased either. These charges are calling them cheats and liars. Make no bones about this the gloves are off, they want us hobbled permanently and this has FSG, Kronke and the Glazers American fingerprints all over it imho.
So what have they done differently to UEFA then?
A whole battery of stacked charges in relation to matters going right back to the takeover. Mancinis wages, player wages, image rights payments, Fordham consolidation of club admin expenses etc., early etisalat sponsorship payments and more. So rather than one big rule breach, seeking death by a thousand cuts. I think they believe if they can show many multiple small rule infringements and these will add up to show a code of conduct whereby they can allege we were not negligent but actively indifferent and in some cases proactive in rule breaking with little or no concern of consequence and that because of that we are worthy of being guilty of the larger allegations of malfeasance over lengthy periods of time even though the amounts may not be large by consideration of turnover.
I must admit the amount of non-compliance allegations were somewhat of a surprise as I was sure I had read City were cooperating with the PL on this investigation and CItys statement allude to this with "...particularly given the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials that the EPL has been provided with". Again I surmise that the PL have little evidential "hot potatoes" and have been on a few fishing trips for documentation CIty have obviously said at some point you have what you need and are not getting any more.
These matters are of course subjective without substantial documentary evidence in support of them and Bird & Bird would have to give compelling argument to satisfy the heavier weight of expected evidence on the "Balance of probability" for such unprecedented serious allegations.
There can be no doubt that this process is incredibly damaging to Citys brand and clearly the PL know this and are likely to seek a quick resolution if possible with some kind of plea bargain once the preliminaries have been dispensed with. I think Citys board have taken all the 'pinches" they are ever likely to take though.
Both teams of legal representatives leads are long standing Kings Counsel of great experience and it will be a duel worthy of any combative arena, unfortunately it is likely we will only have some hearsay comment as to how it panned out unless there are any real "gotcha" moments, let us hope if there are they are Lord Pannicks or even our more junior counsel if they are the nominated combatant.
No doubt the press and media will be lobbying hard for the proceedings to be more "public" crying about public interest and the like. I suspect however there will be many months of legal wrangling to come. Maybe jurisdiction will be discussed despite the rules for dispute resolution lying with an independent panel. However we are unlikely to know what's going on in the meantime as we are ever the mushrooms in these affairs, kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.
I have no idea how this will all pan out. I support the club's position on this until there is evidence produced that erodes that position whereby such a position would be untenable. The consequences of a guilty verdict in the end are inconceivable and I refuse to consider them at the moment.
I believe the clubs directors are not the crooks made out in these charges and that any decisions made regarding sponsorship or investment has always been considered with the best interests of CIty in mind. Of course we may have pushed the boundaries on occasion particularly as the drawbridge was closing, it is their job to do so. I cannot believe any of the management or directors deliberately falsified records or manipulated contractual obligations with falsified owner investment to cook the books. I am currently confident we will be exonerated apart from the usual non compliance bollocks.
Rui Pinto has a lot to answer for and I believe he's about to get what's coming to him. He's no more a whistleblower than I am, he's a petty extortionist who blackmailed Doyen Sports and was caught red handed. He then used the deposit of millions of Mb of data, including our emails, into the hands of tossers like Der Spiegel to try to exonerate himself and make out hes some sort of modern day Julian Assange - i'd throw the key away and let the little twat rot.
What I find hardest to take is that we won’t have a clue what’s happening until the judgment is published on the PL website at some unspecified point in the distant future.
And speaking of the PL website, has anybody got any idea why it has a tab identifying bars in the USA where you can watch matches? No such facility for Africa, India, China etc. etc.