PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Dribble said:
I've learned so much the last 24 hours, that I've had to shift my views accordingly.

I've been stating that the PL have charged us without viewing our "irrefutable evidence", but I now believe I was mistaken.

My evolved view is that since all this started in 2018, the PL have leveled their accusations at City, & City have provided our defence evidence.

It also seems both parties differed on two substantive points.

1. The PL wanted full unrestricted access to our accounts & internal records, but City said no.

2. City wanted the process to be private & confidential, but the Law Courts disagreed & said the process was of public interest.

In respect to point one, City told the PL to be specific about their allegations & we'd provide the relevant defence evidence, as opposed to the PL going on a fishing trip & poring through all our confidential internal business records to see what they could find.

In respect to point two, fearing reputational damage, City wanted to keep the investigation process private & confidential & without leaks, as we experienced with UEFA. The courts disagreed.

I now believe the PL have gone through our evidence, but were caught flat footed by the Government's Independent Regulator for English Football (IREF) announcement in February 2023.

Panicked, the PL rushed out their judgement filled with administrative errors by citing the wrong PL rule book indeces, which they embarrassingly had to correct.

City denied any wrong doing & appealed the PL's ruling, so another three members from the PL's internal 6-person independent adjudication panel were selected to review the charges, evidence & defence again.

This is where I believe myself, & most of us have been mistaken. It took the PL FIVE YEARS to come to their rushed decision in February, so I feel expert onlookers have estimated the appeals process will take at least two years to complete, but could easily stretch to four years!

The reason no information about the appeal is being circulated by the PL or City is because the whole process is private & confidential, & when it's complete, the PL appeals panel will publish its verdict on the PL's website.

The time being taken now isn't because the PL have only just asked City for our evidence, which would take years to go through. I now firmly believe they've had our evidence all along, but because of the volume of PL charge evidence & City's defence evidence that the PL's appeal panel will have to wade through, it could take nearly as long again to review the tribunal bundles.

As always, if I'm wrong I'm more than happy to hold my hands up, & in this latest FFP case against City, I believe I've been calling this wrong.

This post now hopefully adjusts my considered view accordingly.

In Conclusion:

I doubt there's any fresh charges coming, or any new defence evidence being offered. Everything surrounding this hearing has already been submitted & adjudicated on.

The PL found us guilty on 115 charges & City have appealed their verdict. Another three members from the PL's 6-person appeals panel have been selected to review the case again, & this is estimated to take between two - four years.

The PL's appeal panel decision will be final & City can't appeal their verdict to the Law Courts, UNLESS it's to do with issues relating to the actual appeals process.

We know who the PL clubs are who're desperate to get City, which honestly doesn't bode well.

HOWEVER, before anyone starts stringing up a noose, don't forget IREF! This is the spanner in the works none of the old Sky 4, the Hateful Eight, or the PL were expecting.

I'm not holding out much hope the appeals panel will find any different to the PL's original 115 charges, BUT I believe IREF & ultimately the UK Law Courts will, just as CAS did.

It's game on folks & we're in a proper scrap with an organisation run by a cartel of legacy clubs who want us gone.

They tried to strangle us at birth, so their dominance could never be challenged by new money, so just like any progressive business would, City found LEGAL ways around UEFA & the PL's self serving FFP rules.

I believe this fight will come down to UK Sovereign Law vs the PL's Rules. This is why I believe IREF is our only & best way forward. )(
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If that’s true though, surely we’d have been ‘sentenced‘ as well, just like Everton?
 
As has been stated repeatedly, the sheer magnitude of the charges, which is essentially a few charges repeated numerous times, has the stench of seeing what will stick to the wall on the PL’s part.

However, what is more egregious to me is that this “governing body” has simply baited the waters for Joe Public to do their dirty work for them.

The defamation being aimed at the Clib from all quarters, conveniently couched in a bunch of “apparently” and “according to the filing” weasel words, has led to an ongoing and persistent sentiment of “Guilty in the Court of Public Opinion!” even before a single charge is heard.

With Everton’s recent punishment for a completely separate and distinct offense…which they admitted and put down to “deals not falling into place as intended”…the usual suspects are baying for blood!

They seem to think that if their main competition for silverware is badly hurt by sanctions, it somehow elevates their club and their club’s chances of silverware…yet seem oblivious to their own admission of lack of sporting prowess and their inability to compete against our club! Sad muppets!

Lastly, they all know the damage is done. City will forever be known, regardless of the outcome, as cheats who only won so many trophies and their historic treble because they lied about their sponsorship deals and paid people under the table to beat FFP!

There is a rumour that City are preparing a wide-ranging defamation suit to stop the bullshit. Oh, how I’d love to see the full force of Mansour and Khaldoon aimed at the pissants looking for clicks and the powers that be (League or individual clubs, or even club executives) who dare utter a bad word about City.

For my money, Ceferin (UEFA) wised up and cozied up when he saw the writing on the wall. City played the game all the way up to the legal guardrails, but did it in ways that were both legal and defensible in front of a panel of ACTUAL REAL BUSINESS LAW JUDGES

Sadly for them, the PL, with its incestuous relationships with certain red clubs and antiquated notions of wielding power, has laid down a legal land mine for City, but must now be hoping IT isn’t the one about to step on it!

Given Everton’s punishment, every know nowt with a keyboard thinks they know what could, should, and will happen to City…even before multi-million pound opening statements are made in a multi-billion pound case against a multinational corporation. Sadly for the know nowt, that company is supported by some of the deepest pockets in global business, with business reputations at stake amongst people who value those reputations almost as much as their money.

The outcome of the PL’s “all or nothing” gambit is going to be seismic and it is going to have aftershocks that will change football.

THEY have done this, because THEY fear someone else taking THEIR ball away from THEM and the Govt stepping in to regulate THEM!

Their preemptive strike in trying to look like they can police their own backyard looked reflexive when it happened, but is looking more like desperation now.

The Old Boys Network that has run British football since its inception is in danger of having the oak doors blown off their little Club and their cigars and brandy confiscated…but they’re going to use every media outlet they have in their pocket and at their disposal to try and hold on for dear life!

I’m not sure they counted on any serious backlash to their inflated, trolling net of charges, but Khaldoon & Co have made it eye-wateringly obvious now…

READY OR NOT, HERE COMES CITY!!!
 
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Greenandblue said:
I can't take any credit for this...expect for reading it, but some legend of a Blue had this email published on the Football 365 website today, quoted in full below.....it's great stuff..

"Man City DID fail to cooperate with the UEFA enquiry and were fined for it, that’ absolutely true. The context though that everybody conveniently ignores, is that City were perfectly cooperating with the CFCB investigation right up until that body leaked sensitive business information of Man City’s to the press, and then they stopped because UEFA couldn’t be trusted not to leak files to their mates that were supposed to be confidential (and indeed were of great interest to rival clubs chasing sponsorships). This was even commented upon by CAS so feel free to use this point next time you’re all pretending that you read the judgement.

In regard to the PL case, City deny the failure to cooperate charge and it’s fair to say that according to the journalists covering them, they were pretty shocked this came up. They even commented on this in their initial statement.

It’s funny how [people] rant on and on about how corrupt UEFA, the Big Four, the ECA, the PL and the rest are but when it comes to Man City apparently they’re all paragons of virtue and it’s not a stitch-up despite the 115 charges being conveniently released the day before the Independent Football Regulator vote, despite the fact that the press release was so rushed that they had to go back and edit it because they quoted the wrong regulations (which for a legal statement tells you a lot), despite the fact that UEFA attempted to break its own rules to charge City and were caught by CAS, despite the fact that City only failed FFP the first time around because UEFA DID change their rules 2 years into a 3 year Monitoring Period to disallow some exemptions, despite the fact that of the 5 actual allegations by the PL 2 of them are instantly dismissable and the other 3 have already being investigated and cleared by numerous courts.

People coping on the Etisalat deal don’t understand firstly how small that deal is and secondly how it will be clear like everything else was.

Do you know why City have 115 charges against them? Because they’re fishing. The PL spent 6 years investigating City’s accounts (with cooperation of City by the way) and came up with a bunch of easily dismissable stuff (“paying people off the books”, etc), a bunch of stuff other people have already investigated and which they have no new evidence of (sponsorship deals) and a vague charge which doesn’t really mean anything concrete and is subjectively judged (failing to cooperate).

If the PL ACTUALLY believed that they had the evidence to go against City then they’d have a small and watertight case, instead they’ve gone as wide as possible. There were 28,000 documents submitted in the Everton case as evidence relating to a single charge. How many do you believe the PL will get for 115 charges? How much manpower do you think it would take to go through and cross reference it all?

This is all irrelevant any way to be honest, because not a single one of you actually cares about this case in the terms of its legal merits. You’ve already judged City guilty so if YET AGAIN there are no financial irregularities found then it doesn’t matter to you, because despite having no legal, accounting, marketing or football business experience then you all know better than every court in the land. Stop pretending you’re on some moral crusade for truth and start acknowledging that you just want City to fail for other reasons and you’re hoping through ignorance that the financial irregularities that still remain completely unproven is the thing that will topple them because your clubs have no ability to compete on the pitch due to terrible mismanagement. Oh and the guys who were “there’s no smoke without fire”/”just because it’s not proven doesn’t mean it’s not true” the other day, please please please disqualify yourself from jury service because you’re a danger to society.

I’m sure this will result in some face saving deal for the PL who will hand down some massive and hilarious sentence docking 5 billion points and stripping every title ever won ever which they know will be completely unenforceable and will be overturned about sixteen seconds into the appeals process. But they get their big PR win for a few months, City get dragged through the press as per usual and the fact that it all gets dismissed on appeal won’t matter a jot to people because everybody wins in that scenario apart from those of us who would prefer Governing bodies not to purposely attempt to stitch up people because they happen to be taking revenue away from clubs they’d prefer it to go to.
And no, you still don’t understand how the time barring thing worked."

GOOD MAN, WELL SAID!
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Outstanding!

Edit*
Also the 'fishing' makes alot of sense.
The PL wanted to see all our accounts, we refused.
So what better way to see a large bunch of our accounts than using a scattergun approach with such a large number of charges.
Others have said some of the charges are laughable, now we know why.
(Probably been said already on here I know)
 
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halfcenturyup said:
And United breaching UEFA FFP? The PL seem to think any breach in the PL should be a 6 point deduction. Not so fussed about UEFA breaches then?
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This is the bullshit we're facing. ManUre just say "Soz mate, it was an honest mistake", they take a slap on the wrist & it's all good & forgotten.

With City, they want us gone, plain & simple. This cosy private cartel world of UK & European football is as corrupt as fuck.

IREF is our only hope though this, which will hopefully create a fairer more level playing field for all football stakeholders, & not just the elite legacy clubs.

I also feel there'll be another sting in the tail for them. When IREF is finally setup, I can see calls for similar regulatory boards throughout Europe.

This will have a desired knock-on effect that so many different national rules probably won't sync, which will force the European Commission to act & standardise football regulation across Europe, in line with all other business sectors.

Ultimately, Manchester City Football Club will get the independent regulation we've always desired, which will smash the cartel' power that has kept the G-14 at the top of football for decades.

The G/14’s only way out of it? Leave their Association's & setup up their own invite only Super League. 乁⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠_⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠ㄏ

This time though, you'll have one league of 14 teams playing each other weekly & in whatever bullshit cup matches they can cobble together.

I look forward to matches against Real, Barça, Inter, Milan, ManUre, Arse & the Dippers, but I wouldn't want to be playing against them every week & six times a season each. It'd become a right snooze-fest!

PLUS if players stick with those breakaway clubs, they can kiss goodbye to international football too.
 
jrb said:
From what little is known publicly about the case, and findings from the CAS verdict, it is entirely possible that City could be found guilty of not co-operating with another investigation. However, Ioannidis (leading sports lawyer and professor at Sheffield Hallam University) and Plumley (sports finance expert and also at Sheffield Hallam University) contend that the Premier League must instead prove its most damning allegations - held to a higher standard than a normal civil case because of their seriousness - to satisfy the judging panel.

"It would not be good enough for the Premier League to argue that Manchester City failed to co-operate with the Premier League’s investigation," they write. "The Premier League would have to go beyond this, by proving that Manchester City, as a matter of fact and evidence, failed to produce accurate financial information (and/or lied about it) in relation to their revenue, within the meaning of the current regulations.

"This is not an easy burden for the Premier League. But it should not be easy, because the allegations produced are of a very serious nature.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Premier League FFP charges for Man City could cause 'mutiny' as UEFA warned

Manchester City are preparing their evidence to refute strong accusations from the Premier League that could change the game
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
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With the Uefa case, City openly admitted not cooperating, because there were leaks. They obviously tried to dismiss that claim at Cas, arguing the non-cooperation was justified and therefore not punishable. Cas partly agreed, and reduced the punishment by two thirds, but still said there was Some non-cooperation.

With the PL case, City are saying they cooperated completely, and are fully challenging the accusation.

If anything they have shown they know when they aren't cooperating, and that are ok being honest about it. So the pressure of that charge should in theory be much higher on the PL than UEFA.
 
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