PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Rory Bluelow]

Sorry for all the replies in one go. With the time zone difference and waiting until I finish my working day it means most other posters are asleep. Also takes me a while to read everything and catch up… you lot are posting while I am asleep and then working…

Thanks. These have been a brilliant series of posts from clearly a professional in the field. They’ve complemented other posters asking (to a layman) quite deep and difficult questions - unless you are a practicing lawyer or an expert in various regulations/complex accounting - and and in my mind significantly clarified some key issues.
This is a great forum with some really high quality posters - not what I see on Red Cafe or RAWK if I have a mooch on there ! Most of the people who give us fans shit on this stuff haven’t a clue what they’re talking about, so it really helps to slap them down if we can get at least some understanding.

 

[Len Rum]

I guess there may be a difference between not being illegal and not being compliant with FFP?

I raised this issue before.
IMO it is possible to submit accounts that are correct but do not comply with FFP.
So the PL accusations do not necessarily mean we are being accused of not submitting correct accounts, just that they are non FFP compliant.
This must surely have implications for time barring which could rule out FFP allegations that fall within the time barred years in which correct accounts have been submitted.

 

[Shads]

Can someone with more expertise than me explain the difference between doing something illegal, which I don't believe City have done, and something being done in 'good faith'? Seems like that is going to be very tricky for either side to demonstrate to me? For example, the last few pages of Fordham discussion indicate to me that City acted legally, but perhaps not in 'good faith' by shifting costs to another company. Am I wrong?

Probably more a Colin or Stefan question, but from a legal perspective the idea of dishonestly providing improper accounts would essentially make them not legal. The idea of good faith is an honest belief of the preparers and those who sign them off that they are true and accurate.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Can someone with more expertise than me explain the difference between doing something illegal, which I don't believe City have done, and something being done in 'good faith'? Seems like that is going to be very tricky for either side to demonstrate to me? For example, the last few pages of Fordham discussion indicate to me that City acted legally, but perhaps not in 'good faith' by shifting costs to another company. Am I wrong?

If all this extra money that has been diverted via Etihad, Al Jazzera and Fordham is accounted for and the correct tax paid by all parties I imagine there is nothing illegal by law. I would imagine if the club were inflating income City could have been paying too much tax.

What we are accused of her is doing things not in the spirit of the rule book. The FFP rules in 2009 were not in play yet but we’re coming down the track. Could the club argue that as these were new rules there are interpretations of what a club could and couldn’t do to be in line for when FFP was introduced.

 

[M18CTID]

I dont disagree. There remains issues of mitigation that could be used to deflect that charge. The original emails were provided to CAS and only then accepted as evidence. It showed the der spiegel emails to be doctored to cause the worst possible outcome for City. The other interesting issue is time related in respect of how long businesses are required to keep documents. It is 6 years. Therefore requests for documents older than 6 years May no longer be available. They may have been legitimately destroyed for example. That is also not a failure to cooperate.

I believe this is what Daniel Levy has been busy doing since last Friday when Pep called him out!

 

[mrtwiceaseason]

Can someone with more expertise than me explain the difference between doing something illegal, which I don't believe City have done, and something being done in 'good faith'? Seems like that is going to be very tricky for either side to demonstrate to me? For example, the last few pages of Fordham discussion indicate to me that City acted legally, but perhaps not in 'good faith' by shifting costs to another company. Am I wrong?

The difference between unlawful and illegal ,unlawful is against the rules of the the land ,illegal is a poorly bird ;+)

 

[M18CTID]

Thanks. These have been a brilliant series of posts from clearly a professional in the field. They’ve complemented other posters asking (to a layman) quite deep and difficult questions - unless you are a practicing lawyer or an expert in various regulations/complex accounting - and and in my mind significantly clarified some key issues.
This is a great forum with some really high quality posters - not what I see on Red Cafe or RAWK if I have a mooch on there ! Most of the people who give us fans shit on this stuff haven’t a clue what they’re talking about, so it really helps to slap them down if we can get at least some understanding.

I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent posters on both those forums. The trouble is that when it comes to stuff like this, the relevant threads on both sites will attract all the brain dead dickheads who end up drowning everybody else out!

 

[Pontypool Blue]

Is this still going on?

Let me summarise for the hard of caring. You said "Football is big in profile and reaches many parts of society but it is tiny in financial terms. Financially City is about the same size as a big Tesco branch."

The other guy said: "Valued at roughly 3 billion with the Silver Lake sale, wasn’t it? That’s one bougie Tesco’s branch!"

Yours was a good point in principle. The response was presumably made in jest and, at worst, misunderstood the rather vague term "size".

There are metrics where the size of MCFC is bigger than a Tesco store, there are metrics where it is smaller. Can we just leave it at that. Enough already.

FFS - Just go to asda and be done!
I've been trying to catch up-to date and currently I'm swimming backwards!

 

[BringBackSwales]

One thing that stood out from that Daily Fail article:

"There is no indication that 'Project Longbow' is illegal."

Is this an old or a recent article?

Edit just found it, 2018, not new news

 

[slbsn]

Probably more a Colin or Stefan question, but from a legal perspective the idea of dishonestly providing improper accounts would essentially make them not legal. The idea of good faith is an honest belief of the preparers and those who sign them off that they are true and accurate.

Anything dishonest per statutory accounts is an offence. But mistakes are not necessarily dishonest. Bad faith in providing information to the PL is not illegal but it would be a breach of the PL rules. Bad faith leading to dishonesty and/or false accounting is an offence and serious. Split PL Rules and statutory accounts. Split dishonesty from inadvertent mistakes and from negligent auditing. And around the edges are lots of allegations and grey. I could go on but you get the idea.