PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Chris in London]

Clearly that's based on the Mancini Al Jazira contract and I assume they're saying we falsified the accounts by keeping that £1.75m off the books. In the first full year of Mancini's tenure that was about 1% of our turnover, plus we lost nearly £200m.

Even in the event that the commission find that was a dodge, so what? It's completely insignificant. But why would we even try to hide £1.75m in the context of that scale of losses? It's hardly on the Enron scale of fraud.

I presume the PL rule they're citing however is the one where we have to give full details of the manager's remuneration, hence the charge. But they'd need to show that Mancini (and City) had no intention of him fulfilling that contract.

They would have to show that contract was a sham, which in itself is an allegation of dishonesty

 

[City_Sean]

One aspect we just don't is will MCFC park the legal bus or go on the attack ? There is plenty of historical evidence how competitors manavoured their employees into positions of influence to target rules at MCFC. Just read the comments from Gill ex MUFC
CEO as he takes up his new exciting role in UEFA. In hindsight its so obvious what his intentions are...

Manchester United's David Gill elected to European Club Association

Manchester United chief executive joins Real Madrid president on the 15-man board

www.theguardian.com

I think people really need to drop this idea that City "will go on the attack".

They won't, if they were going to it would have been better doing so before the clubs name was reputationally damaged.

 

[M18CTID]

Clearly that's based on the Mancini Al Jazira contract and I assume they're saying we falsified the accounts by keeping that £1.75m off the books. In the first full year of Mancini's tenure that was about 1% of our turnover, plus we lost nearly £200m.

Even in the event that the commission find that was a dodge, so what? It's completely insignificant. But why would we even try to hide £1.75m in the context of that scale of losses? It's hardly on the Enron scale of fraud.

I presume the PL rule they're citing however is the one where we have to give full details of the manager's remuneration, hence the charge. But they'd need to show that Mancini (and City) had no intention of him fulfilling that contract.

Like you say Col, it makes no sense whatsoever to hide £1.75m when we were making huge losses at the time and weren't even subject to FFP anyway. Also, IIRC, wasn't Mancini already working for Al Jazira some months before he was appointed our manager?

 

[M18CTID]

That's a question I was pondering myself last night. On the one hand, if Etihad paid us £50m, and we recorded £50m revenue, then that's clearly not fraudulent, regardless of the source of Etihad's funds. But if SM gave us all or most of the money, then we'd have presumably broken FFP rules.

This is the point (the source of Etihad funding) that Stefan and me didn't agree on. He argued it didn't matter where the money came from but my view was that it did, as far as FFP was concerned.

Yes, it did matter where the money came from. But like the Mancini thing, it makes zero sense whatsoever for us to do what we're being accused of. Why would SM need to provide it when the option was always there for Etihad to legitimately use central funds?

 

[KS55]

Yes that's a clear concept to help follow it but if I followed the arguments city were saying it wasn't even SM to the sponsor, it was HH someone different entirely.

A likely story. The weakest part of our defence. Best left out and say the email just means HH (whoever that is) will use his influence.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

A likely story. The weakest part of our defence. Best left out and say the email just means HH (whoever that is) will use his influence.

It really wasn't, as the document used in the Open Skies case pointed towards 'HH' potentially being Sheikh Mohammed, or at least one of the senior members of the royal court that deal with financial stuff. And I'm sure that latter one was correct.

 

[petrusha]

Like you say Col, it makes no sense whatsoever to hide £1.75m when we were making huge losses at the time and weren't even subject to FFP anyway. Also, IIRC, wasn't Mancini already working for Al Jazira some months before he was appointed our manager?

It was reported when we appointed Mancini that he already had a consultancy agreement with Al-Jazira. In some quarters, that club's entry into the arrangement was interpreted as a move by Mansour to ensure that Mancini didn't take another job before City were ready to sack Hughes and appoint the Italian.

However, that would seem to presuppose that Mancini had been tabbed by City as the first choice to succeed Hughes well in advance. In fact, though he did have an impressive track record, we spoke to two other managers before offering him the job. These were Mourinho and Guus Hiddink, IIRC, with the former making clear that he viewed City as a stepping stone at the time and the latter preferring the easier life of international management.

Surely that refutes the idea that the Al-Jazira arrangement was entered into purely to get Mancini to City? And if it wasn't, then presumably it was a genuine relationship, so why shouldn't it have continued when he was with us?

 

[hammocity]

A soft loan wouldn’t count as revenue revenue helps with FFP

Abramovich was still topping his soft loan up after FFP.

 

[KS55]

It really wasn't, as the document used in the Open Skies case pointed towards 'HH' potentially being Sheikh Mohammed, or at least one of the senior members of the royal court that deal with financial stuff. And I'm sure that latter one was correct.

I wasn’t convinced. Plenty of references elsewhere to HH meaning Mansour.

 

[KS55]

Did we not agree with UEFA not to increase the Etisalat & Aabar deals back in 2014 as part of the settlement?

Yes. I assume that was part of UEFA accepting our argument for the future.