PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

terraloon said:
I am not aware that there has been any accusation or evidence of financial fraud. The PL are not in a position to make any such suggestion nor do I see that any of the charges relate to anything other than administrative charges against footballs set of rules.

No sponsorship has or shall I say has said to be understated so the appropriate numbers appear in Cities book . The issue for football is where that money came from
Manicis wages as per the contract went through the books. The question isn’t did city pay money that wasn’t paid through the books which would be one thing it’s was ( another contract elsewhere which again will have been accounted for ) really in respect of his work at Man City.
The image rights thing again isn’t was the money paid it was how it was paid.
The not assisting thing isn’t anything to do with fraud it’s subjective against football rules.
As for the issues around FFP and the profit and sustainability aren’t filed account issues it’s to do with the numbers supplied to UEFA and the FA/PL
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That was my view when I first saw the charges, but I have been beaten black and blue by the legal experts on here who say the alleged breaches do amount to fraudulent accounting (annual accounts not giving a true and fair view). I have promised to shut up about that (doing my best), but I will say this: if the PL is alleging such serious misdemeanours, it's good for the club because, firstly, the burden of proof is much higher (cogency of evidence) and, secondly, I don't see anything from what we know from CAS that would affect the true and fair view given by the signed, audited annual accounts from what we think we know about these alleged breaches. Not even if Mansour himself drove the sponsorship monies to Etihad in a bag with "disguised equity funding" written on it. Unless the PL has something new, I just don't see it.

But, hey ho.
 
Bluefen said:
Surely if we have over-inflated our revenues then we would have overpaid tax so HMRC have had their fair share
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It would surely be the first time in the history of the IR (now HMRC) that they have taken action against someone for over-stating their profits!
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I'm not being dramatic, a bad outcome simply starts the pile on.

Should City have been found guilty of committing financial fraud, it is only a matter of when HMRC and the Fraud Squad become involved.

These charges are accusing of exactly that. Our owner, executive board, sponsors and manager, all being complicit in it.

The PL handbook just opens the door. It's a very serious collection of allegations once someone tugs on the first string.
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You can have 100% legal books that still deceive the Premier League.

Inflating sponsorships, paying players and managers off the books, disguising owner investment...these are all things that would constitute dishonest accounting from the Premier League's point of view but not criminal fraud.
 
terraloon said:
I am not aware that there has been any accusation or evidence of financial fraud. The PL are not in a position to make any such suggestion nor do I see that any of the charges relate to anything other than administrative charges against footballs set of rules.

No sponsorship has or shall I say has said to be understated so the appropriate numbers appear in Cities book . The issue for football is where that money came from
Manicis wages as per the contract went through the books. The question isn’t did city pay money that wasn’t paid through the books which would be one thing it’s was ( another contract elsewhere which again will have been accounted for ) really in respect of his work at Man City.
The image rights thing again isn’t was the money paid it was how it was paid.
The not assisting thing isn’t anything to do with fraud it’s subjective against football rules.
As for the issues around FFP and the profit and sustainability aren’t filed account issues it’s to do with the numbers supplied to UEFA and the FA/PL
Click to expand...

I'd continue to argue the inference is certainly of financial impropriety, a guilty verdict would simply accelerate the other, more serious institutions becoming involved.

They have literally accused our auditors, our owner/executives and some sponsors of disguising investor income.

That's why I am confident we will win out. It is a very high bar, as Uefa also found out, to essentially call out our executives for lying.

A guilty verdict would open a can of worms I hate to think how deep. Starting with the fit and proper persons test, which I see is quickly being 'tweaked' again?

Having also read Steffen's comments in recent weeks, it is clear these are very serious allegations against our Board.
 
domalino said:
You can have 100% legal books that still deceive the Premier League.

Inflating sponsorships, paying players and managers off the books, disguising owner investment...these are all things that would constitute dishonest accounting from the Premier League's point of view but not criminal fraud.
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Never looked it that way. Apologies to Terraloon!
 
terraloon said:
I am not aware that there has been any accusation or evidence of financial fraud.
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If you're saying that the allegations specifically over inflating sponsorship which are specifically referenced in the PL charge sheet differ substantially from those put forward by UEFA as justification for banning MCFC and fining the club £30 million, then that would impact on a analysis of the position. If you're not saying this, on the other hand, then I invite you to read the CAS Award in City's case against UEFA because the Award is arguably the best source out there in terms of explaining the charges in question.

After all, we're accused by the PL of breaching the duty contained in its rules to provide financial information that gives a true and fair reflection of the club's financial position "with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs". This is exactly the issue that dominated the CAS proceedings, and unless we're presented with evidence to the contrary, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that the nature of the accusations from the PL is materially the same as that of the charges UEFA found proven against us.

In particular, then, I invite you to consider the text between pages 8 and 12 of the CAS Award, the Panel summarises the nature of the UEFA decision we were appealing in the proceedings at hand. In doing so, the panel quotes directly from the Decision of UEFA's Adjudicatory Chamber, so we have the findings straight from the horse's mouth as follows:

On page 9 of the Award (under the heading "Audited financial statements ...", just in case anyone doubts what's being spoken about here), it's stated that an "incorrect treatment of sponsorship revenue is reflected in the financial statements for the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016". Further, as a result:
  1. by "overstating its sponsorship revenue in the [audited] annual financial statements of MCFC for each of the years ended 31 May 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 [MCFC] submitted to the FA [audited] financial statements which were not complete and correct"; and
  2. therefore, the "declarations, representations and confirmations made by [MCFC] ... that all submitted documents and information relating to the financial statements referred to above were complete and correct, were false".
On page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that the above constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club put forward its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". In other words, they outright accused our major shareholder of lying. And the aim of this systematic, dishonest conduct was to attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP] Regulations".
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So there you have it in black and white. UEFA said that City deliberately and intentionally concealed the source of sponsorship income to circumvent the FFP regulations. In doing so, the club produced accounts that "were not complete and correct".

The offence of false accounting under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 is a fraud-based offence. By virtue of section 17(1)(b), a person "shall, on conviction on indictment, be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years" if that person "dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another" when he "in furnishing information for any purpose produces or makes use of any account, or any such record or document as aforesaid, which to his knowledge is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular".

That, in effect, is exactly what UEFA accused us of doing. The CAS rejected it, but the allegation was that the employees and officers of MCFC with whom they were dealing in the context of our FFP issues had committed conduct that happens to fall squarely within the above definition for the following reason.

If the CAS had found MCFC guilty, the relevant officers of MCFC;
  1. would have had to have acted dishonestly (they're sophisticated businesspeople who fully understood UEFA's rules and, according to UEFA, knew what they were doing);
  2. would certainly have been acting with a view to gain ... for another (the other being the club, and such gain taking the form of allowing the club to spend £200 million that otherwise wouldn't have counted as income for FFP purposes, as referred to in para 206 of the CAS Award); and
  3. would have supplied various sets of accounts and other documents that were "misleading, false or deceptive" because they'd have provided documents including but not limited to our annual accounts that duped UEFA into thinking we had an extra £50 million available to us annually while still meeting the requirements of FFP.
How else are UEFA's accusations to be interpreted if not as allegations of conduct that, if committed, constitutes a serious criminal offence. There are all sorts of reasons why a prosecution might not have ensued even with a guilty verdict from the CAS, but make no mistake, what UEFA claimed we'd done constituted conduct that was, in effect, fraudulent.
 
dadnlad said:
surely if paying players off the books one of them wouldve blabbed by now not every player leaves on good terms plus all social media they'd be showing it off
am i being too naive
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Who's daft enough to admit, to cash in hand!
And players agents could get involved, either receiving or not receiving payments from the player
 
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