PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Lancsblue60 said:
Do you think this is posted just before a quite important game in the Champs League, just to add more pressure and maybe put us off tonight?
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Think this through, Our owners are very wealthy, very committed and as it turns out brilliant at building at successful football club. So in terms of all the fans in England we are probably 5% of the total. That means a whapping big 95% are highly resentful, fearful and often hateful. All of us are "journalists" now so it's a dying profession. The ones that remain are micro managed and assessed by the number of clicks they get per article. They all have "go to" stories/subjects for slow news days and virtually anything absolutely anything that is negative about MCFC will deliver the clicks. I think it was Tony Cascarino who blew the gaff on this in an article in the Guardian. There are literally thousands of examples of this in the media thread. Nowadays I never read anything in the MSM about City and would recommend an app like Fotmob for all your footy needs. Just forget about the MSM and enjoy every goal, every win and every trophy even more because they hate us so frickin much...

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If pep had the slightest inkling we were guilty and would be punished he wouldn’t be at the Etihad tonight. No chance. His legacy his reputation damaged forever. No way he’d be gone
 
I still can’t get my head around the charges levied against city.

Where is the proof of our wrongdoing? The league will only have our financial statements to go on which have been audited by accredited accountants year after year.

The more I think about this whole shit show the more bizzare it becomes. All roads lead back to der spiegal. It doesn't matter if the league or the media or anyone else believe us, it’s in black and white and free to view.

Talking watergate levels of scandal if true.

What a load of bollox, it really is. If City had intended to defraud the league I would like to think we would have did a better job of it than this mess. We can’t even afford a fucking LB.

Cleared by CAS and once this circus is over we will be cleared again.
 
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Chris in London said:
What a great post.

I agree there is a degree of mitigation in the point that we were entitled to dispute the legality of the disclosure sought. There is also mitigation in the point that whilst we might have initially challenged the extent of the disclosure sought, having lost on that particular argument we have complied in full with the disclosure obligations since. (That is certainly the inference I draw from the skipful of paperwork TH referred to us as having provided.)

But there is also something in the point that we have taken every possible point we could on every occasion we could (eg challenges to the constitution of the arbitral panel, the publicity appeal) each of which can be justified in isolation but, when taken together, might lead the tribunal to think " I know what you lot were up to." There is also something in the fact that we've had one big fine for non-cooperation so we knew what was coming and we did it anyway.

So I think whilst there are real differences between the current proceedings and the UEFA/CAS round, we are facing a whopper of a fine. Again.

So why have they charged us, notwithstanding said skipful of material?

I go back to the possibilities:

(a) they have a whistleblower. Personally, I doubt it, because we'd have heard about it if they did. And they would have had to disclose it to the club in the course of the investigation "we have a witness who says...". We have discussed the legal difficulties they are in if they don't have this evidence already, and I like Stefan's point that even a whistleblower may not be enough.

(b) They just haven't thought it through in terms of the legal hurdles they have to get over. Again, I doubt it. Bird & Bird are not fools and they will have gone to a top silk just like we have.

(c) Stefan's point that we might have got the law wrong. At the risk of sounding arrogant and hubristic, we haven't.

(d) They are under pressure to bring charges against us even if the charges won't succeed.

To my mind that is the most probable explanation in an area where all the possible explanations have serious question marks about them. I do agree with you about the different pressures, internal and external, they must be under. There must also be a degree of interaction between them - the pressure from the red tops is exacerbated by the pressure from the media (quite possibly because the red tops have their own client journalists). We all know people and organisations who will take the path of least resistance when they shouldn't. The PL was (a) under pressure (implicit or otherwise) from the government in view of the white paper and the intention to appoint a regulator unless it could show it was getting its act together, (b) under pressure (probably) from the red tops to throw the book at us because 'they must be cheating mustn't they' and (c) under pressure from the media (certainly) for not taking decisive action against that dodgy bunch from Abu Dhabi.

I'd agree that, chances are, they were under pressure and they caved.
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Agree it’s (d) & that’s why I can’t understand non cooperation until we have legally exhausted arbitration.
 
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