I would like someone of legal standing to confirm the evidential burdon of "Balance of Probabilities" is for all intents and purposes the same as "Comfortable Satisfaction". This would confirm any submissions at CAS in Switzerland would have the same evidential weight at any UK arbitration hearing.
My thoughts on this are that the PL starting point is the hacked emails, it's apparently the only evidence that was available pre-CAS hearing to all plaintiff parties. They then waited until UEFAs case at CAS had been heard and judged.
I suspect that was clearly a strategy to then avoid making any similar mistakes or trying to use decided evidentiary rulings by the panel which would be detrimental to their case - its a lovely double jeopardy for City as its tantamount to being prosecuted twice for the same offence the 1st being a trial run to iron out any "prosecution" wrinkles.
I was aware that UEFA conducted via Ernst & Young a review of Citys sponsorship values and no allegation of inflated sponsorship was borne out, surely this alone is sufficient to exclude any "overpricing allegations". As a comparison didn't the same firm on behalf of UEFA find extreme overvaluation of PSG's main sponsors and make a forced reduction? It therefore can hardly be said to be a partisan finding.
The problem they now had was UEFA had no additional evidence to substantiate their claims of owner funded sponsorship in respect of Citys major sponsor, Etihad and in fact City submitted evidence like the complete email trail and substantive multiple witness testimony, with additional documents, definitively refuting these allegations. These included the positive identification of "HH" referred to in the emails as not being the individual UEFA hoped it was. I cannot see how these allegations can be re-visited without consideration of the same rebuttal evidence from the defendant, with the same outcome.
The press loved to include the time barring issues as some kind of proof of wrongdoing however they are merely untested allegations. UEFA offered no evidence again because they had none however the rebuttal evidence for any such allegation was never heard despite the fact City stated such rebuttal evidence was present. I think its true any attempt to include those allegations would need the establishment of fraudulent behaviour on the defendants part. That is a sizeable hurdle to get over and I suspect rebuttal evidence will again be plentiful should those allegations be "somehow" allowed.
Its therefore difficult without substantive knowledge to know exactly what it is the PL are accusing us of, despite the broad brush strokes like breaking of "profit and sustainability" rules and all in the absence of "good faith". They certainly seem to be an accusation that the initial breaches were repeated annually indicating either any initial financial false information was subsequently compounded, without a necessary correction or that the practice employed creating any anomaly was repeated ad infinitum.
We can guess they may want to test the data surrounding the up front payments of Fordham re player image rights as a suitable vehicle to achieve those income results submitted or evaluate the contract arrangement of Roberto Mancini with AD and how it was paid and by who. Is it anything to do with our secondary AD sponsorships, Aabar or Etisalat which we agreed not to increase in subsequent years, once their value was established in our communication process with UEFA with whom we seemed to have a reasonable working relationship at the time. I was under the impression all these matters had already been tested by UEFA who were satisfied these income streams and expenditure were properly accounted for. Is it possible one set of FFP rules makes different requirements than another? If so the whole thing is a farce.
Other matters include the infamous procedural "Agreement" between City and UEFA following the failure to meet the break even requirements in the 1st FFP period. City cried foul and PB has done numerous breakdowns of how UEFA moved the goalposts of the requirements to exclude some pre-2010 contractual wage agreements meaning we eventually failed by a lot, instead of just passing as we had planned according to UEFAs initial guidance document. We took our medicine in the infamous "pinch" as an end to it all. Nobody was ever privvy to the actual contents of the "Agreement" however Khaldoon was livid with Infantino and remained unrepentant claiming that we did not breach the FFP rules. Will these details now be raked up? Can we be punished again somehow by something that did not exist in 2013?
A lot of water and football has passed under the bridges of time since then, yet now we are having to revisit it all in new sets of allegations of impropriety of the most serious nature. There can be no doubt they are accusing us of "Cooking the books" and submitting false information via our accounts as these are the legal company documents that substantiate any additional FFP documentation supporting Fair and sustainable documents to the PL and UEFA. They accuse us of doing this deliberately with mens rea in an attempt to deceive and profit as a result. There can be no greater insult to our ownership and company officers than we are liars and cheats. The halls of our Abu Dhabis owners home should be quivering with indignation at such allegations. I am hoping this instills a steely determination that those responsible for these allegations will be the ones proven to be completely wrong in the case of these matters.
So what evidence is there to back up such serious allegations - we don't know, can't imagine and whats worse we're likely to never find out as these are private proceedings and the arbitration hearings are behind firmly closed doors. Will there be a final judgement available in the public domain as thorough and revealing as the CAS judgement?
In the meantime we must suffer the barbs of partisan social media buffoons, the ire and faux outrage of media know noughts, the taunting of rival fan bases who have as much idea about FFP rules as they do about the concept of Schroedingers Cat or the existence of dark energy.
I don't have time for it - these are the most joyful times to be a blue in my lifetime and no 36 year old virgin Arsenal fan from Romford living in him mums basement with a laptop is going to spoil it by pouring out his vitriol on twitter. Just cry more will be any responsive tweet.
According to the plebs we are the "Cheaters", no evidence, no trial, just the court of public opinion. Its us against the world blues, so let's circle the wagons, put our big boy pants on, laugh off the scorn and ire of social media, put our trust in the boys and our magnificent manager. Lets cross our fingers Lord Pannick and his team do the business off the pitch while the boys in blue do it on the pitch and bring us all an FA Cup win over our most hated enemy and then seal their immortality by winning old big ears and shutting up the doubters and haters once and for all.
Up the fucking blues - see you at Wembley and then in Istanbul! 1-2-3-4-....
