PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[applecentral]

For what it’s worth mate, yours and the other ‘legal’ lads who post I just see it as you erring on the side of caution and maybe even helping to manage our expectations from your own knowledge and experience, and it’s really appreciated the lengths you all go to, whether we agree/understand, or not.

Amen to that. These guys who help us with understanding the legal side are worth their weight in gold and we should all feel privileged to read their posts.

 

[JewelZee]

No way we will come out of this unscathed. The PL will need to save face. If we aren’t found guilty of the bigger charges we will be found guilty of something so that the stains on our character stay forever. Forget smoking guns and all that shite. Anyone who believes otherwise is deluded.

We have so much more to lose than they have to gain. Fuck their saving face. I don't think it's at all delusional to think City will fight with every ounce of their being to come out unscathed as far as any damaging sanctions. I expect City to shove these charges up the PL's ass and I'm not a bit delusional about anything.

 

[applecentral]

I don't claim to speak for the others, but from my point of view the temptation to try to dampen expectations is always strong. Most people on here understand that, in a football match, the objectively stronger of the two teams sometimes doesn't win and the better of the teams in any given match can also lose. But they expect law to be an exact science when it also isn't and can often go either way (albeit for different reasons).

Issues that look black and white to a layman can often be very much subject to wildly differing interpretations when outstanding legal minds get to grips with them, and this is what I try to convey. I remember Stefan posting on here before the CAS proceedings that, in any litigation, there's a risk of 30% that you'll lose even if you think your case is iron-clad.

Now, when I was a UK government lawyer back in the day, we had a case that we considered pretty much a cert and our QC (as his title then was) put our chances at 80%. That still meant we were a 1-in-5 shot to lose even when we thought we had a slam-dunk. (We did win in the end, by the way.) But the percentages are immaterial. The key point is that, even where your case seems really strong, you never know for sure how it'll go.

I was asked yesterday what would happen where, in effect, the evidence were exactly the same as before the CAS on the substantive point considered in the latter forum and we appealed an adverse decision of the PL panel on the ground that it was so perverse that it must demonstrate a failure of the panel to act in accordance with its statutory duty. My view is that such an argument would be have significant merit.

Unfortunately I can't even begin to try and guarantee that the High Court would agree. That's the difficulty in posting on legal issues here when there's an understandable desire from other posters for certainty that doesn't really exist.

A big thanks to you for your posts. You put a lot of effort into your postings helping us more mentally challenged people to understand what’s going on in this case. A big thanks from me.

 

[Dirty Harry]

I don't claim to speak for the others, but from my point of view the temptation to try to dampen expectations is always strong. Most people on here understand that, in a football match, the objectively stronger of the two teams sometimes doesn't win and the better of the teams in any given match can also lose. But they expect law to be an exact science when it also isn't and can often go either way (albeit for different reasons).

Issues that look black and white to a layman can often be very much subject to wildly differing interpretations when outstanding legal minds get to grips with them, and this is what I try to convey. I remember Stefan posting on here before the CAS proceedings that, in any litigation, there's a risk of 30% that you'll lose even if you think your case is iron-clad.

Now, when I was a UK government lawyer back in the day, we had a case that we considered pretty much a cert and our QC (as his title then was) put our chances at 80%. That still meant we were a 1-in-5 shot to lose even when we thought we had a slam-dunk. (We did win in the end, by the way.) But the percentages are immaterial. The key point is that, even where your case seems really strong, you never know for sure how it'll go.

I was asked yesterday what would happen where, in effect, the evidence were exactly the same as before the CAS on the substantive point considered in the latter forum and we appealed an adverse decision of the PL panel on the ground that it was so perverse that it must demonstrate a failure of the panel to act in accordance with its statutory duty. My view is that such an argument would be have significant merit.

Unfortunately I can't even begin to try and guarantee that the High Court would agree. That's the difficulty in posting on legal issues here when there's an understandable desire from other posters for certainty that doesn't really exist.

I hear you mate, even in my limited experience I’ve seen cases go to judicial review (I read them out of necessity, and about 10 times before I take them in lol, because they affect me rather any interest btw) where the original verdict etc seems absolutely correct and logical and yet, at the judicial review, things have been highlighted by a peer where they believe the original judge erred on their interpretation on certain points and overturned, so although the finer points are most definitely lost on me, interpretation, even by people of equal standing, can often be very different, and as your posts always pint out/intimate (quite rightly) , it’s something we as fans need to be aware of and bear in mind.

 

[ysmsa]

I hope they charge us a little earlier next season, maybe November time.

Brilliant.

I do like a League Cup trip and win at the end of February to banish the winter blues.

 

[BlueBlood84]

What agitates me is the feigned shock and disgust at 'extra payments to Mancini'

I mean who gives a fuck, why is that so horrific in a league which has teams that have paid ridiculous compensation to sack managers who have failed to reach their targets. The whole thing is rotten.

 

[nmc]

If city are being retrospectively charged for not complying to the present PL rules - for 2009 to 2018 then surely none of the other 19 teams in the league will have complied with regulations not in place at the time? Will being singled out form a part of our present objections I wonder?

 

[waspish]

What agitates me is the feigned shock and disgust at 'extra payments to Mancini'

I mean who gives a fuck, why is that so horrific in a league which has teams that have paid ridiculous compensation to sack managers who have failed to reach their targets. The whole thing is rotten.

Those payments were for a job he he had finished before becoming our manager

 

[Stoned Rose]

What agitates me is the feigned shock and disgust at 'extra payments to Mancini'

I mean who gives a fuck, why is that so horrific in a league which has teams that have paid ridiculous compensation to sack managers who have failed to reach their targets. The whole thing is rotten.

Yeah but that couple of extra million to Mancini is obviously the one and only reason we have won any trophies.

I’d even go as far as to say it’s the only reason we’ve ever won a game.

 

[Centurions]

Those payments were for a job he he had finished before becoming our manager

TBH I'd never considered when exactly he was employed by the AD club, perhaps the PL want the full details of his contract there and want us to procure them? It would explain the stalemate.