PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[halfcenturyup]

Nah this is wrong, Mancini's 2 contracts, the one with the club to be manager and the one with Al Jazira were both signed on the same day, so the "he couldn't sign as manager yet" theory can't be true.

IMO It's pretty clear they were using the Al Jazira job as a way of paying Mancini tax free money. For starters, City were only paying him £1.4m per year to be manager which is less than half what Mark Hughes was reportedly paid (£3m) by the Shinawatra regime. Which would probably make him the only employee at the entire club that earned less in 2009 than his pre-takeover equivalent.

And then there's the email (We have some payments that require to be made by Al Jazira...We will need to send monies to ADUG and ADUG will then pass on to Al Jazira with payment instruction.) which intimates money is going from City to Al Jazira. What reason do Manchester City have to send money to Al Jazira to "make payments"? That seems clear that City were using Al Jazira just as an intermediary.

The real question is not whether it happened, it's whether it was actually against the rules to do so. There's no FFP at this point, the financial rules were much less strict.

Also the amounts we're dealing with here...something like £5m total, 14 years ago?

The thing is we don't know, do we?
There could have been a pre-existing contract that was amended (for tax optimisation reasons, for example) when he signed the contract with City. All we know is what was leaked. We have no idea of the context.

And for the payments described in the emails, they don't explain how they were accounted for, which is the crucial missing element. The payments are a credit entry. Where did the debit go? Only two options: expenses or receivable. If expenses, how is that understating expenses as the PL claims? If receivable from ADUG or AJ why is that a problem when there are two contracts, one nothing to do with City?

What is missing in all this is context and accounting, without knowing those, conclusions are impossible. Clearly, it's all a bit messy, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

 

[g180aj]

It is time barred - there is no possibility anyone could argue the statute of limitations doesn't apply. The PL at least have an argument v us

Would we also be tarnished as we took the payment?

 

[BobKowalski]

Nah this is wrong, Mancini's 2 contracts, the one with the club to be manager and the one with Al Jazira were both signed on the same day, so the "he couldn't sign as manager yet" theory can't be true.

IMO It's pretty clear they were using the Al Jazira job as a way of paying Mancini tax free money. For starters, City were only paying him £1.4m per year to be manager which is less than half what Mark Hughes was reportedly paid (£3m) by the Shinawatra regime. Which would probably make him the only employee at the entire club that earned less in 2009 than his pre-takeover equivalent.

And then there's the email (We have some payments that require to be made by Al Jazira...We will need to send monies to ADUG and ADUG will then pass on to Al Jazira with payment instruction.) which intimates money is going from City to Al Jazira. What reason do Manchester City have to send money to Al Jazira to "make payments"? That seems clear that City were using Al Jazira just as an intermediary.

The real question is not whether it happened, it's whether it was actually against the rules to do so. There's no FFP at this point, the financial rules were much less strict.

Also the amounts we're dealing with here...something like £5m total, 14 years ago?

Mancini was working as a consultant for Mansour prior to being City manager. Mancini was also time barred from working as a manager as part of his severance deal with Inter. Whether he was working the two jobs, or the job in Abu Dhabi was largely a ’gift’ to Mancini is between Mancini and the people who employed him.

Mancini was initially hired by City on a six month contract so keeping the consultancy job or even signing a new consultancy deal seems likely. I assume we all remember the ‘six month break clause‘ as City manager because we sure as hell went on about on here and how this proved he wasn’t really a ‘top manager’. That he was on less than Hughes to begin with probably reflects the contract structure.

As for City paying via Al Jazira - this makes no sense as I assume Al Jazira aren’t short of cash and could pay him directly. I have no idea if the emails you refer to are genuine or not and given the rules were less strict then I can’t say I really care given as you say the amounts and the time involved.

 

[bluenova]

He didn't have to go out there. It was for a total of 4 days per year, so an hour's video call every fortnight would cover it, along with a day or two out there in the summer.

All four days might not have to be contact time. He could watch a few match videos, and have a quick chat about them.

Take the City part away, and that World must be full of high profile contracts where the recipient is being paid for their name more than anything else.

 

[g180aj]

The PL rules don't include anything about limitation. UEFA's do, so UEFA are limited to five years by their own rules.

The PL can charge as far back as they like. It would be up to the commission to decide on whether to apply the six year limitation provided for in English law. Exceptions are concealment, fraud and mistake. City will argue none of these apply, and limitation should be enforced.

The PL have every right to charge Liverpool, they just choose not to. It's probably fair to say Liverpool concealed their criminal activity from the PL.

Pretty sure Steffan has gone on record to say European and uk laws are the same and it is 6 years in both cases unless there is evidence of concealment then it’s fair game.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

I would presume Hughes, Pellegrini and other managers in the league would have similar incentives, so comparing base salaries or even total possible remuneration would still be a persuasive way of arguing he was being underpaid.

As for someone else doing the consulting, the question just becomes - Yeah but did someone else do it? Can someone show something was done in return for the £1.7m/year to rebut the accusation in the same way City could get Etihad or Etisalat execs to stand up in CAS under threat of perjury and explain that the accusations are false?

Is the onus on us to prove that something was done in return for the £1.7m/year or is the onus on them to show that it wasn't? It just seems a bit easy for us to say well actually, person X done this or that to fulfill the agreement and they'd be unable to dispute otherwise.

 

[Silva61]

I imagine to be honest its now gloves are off and we are stirring the shit to prove how the likes of the dippers have gotten away with murder over the years yet are butthurt when something doesnt go their way? We have been attacked probably way more than we would have imagined and have now decided to show our fighting side and respon

Sounds plausible, I mean lets have this right, the PL , and any other shit kicker of a club who arse licks to them , should be very worried , just in case we do actually hold a smoking gun, I'm sure the club have a few aces up their sleeves, maybe now our hierarchy are throwing a few hand grenades about.

I think City are holding many smoking guns.
Didn't Kahldoon say we get to hear everything or words to that effect.
Abu Dhabi have a very competent secret service.
May sound a bit James Bond.
He also said we have irrefutable evidence, looking forward to the day we clear our name once and for all, and will speak about it once the case is over.

 

[abu13]

I’d say Everton with breaking the rules by only £19m and getting a 10 point reduction might have a bit of an appeals case by asking why United breaking the rules by £260m (iirc) ‘a small breach’ resulted in only a £300k fine.

Applying the logic of the slavering idiots talking about 115 = 1150 points reduction, it follows that United should be revisited and have a 130 point reduction instead of their fine…

I raised earlier on in the thread that when we were fined bu Uefa we recieved a £50 million sanction for a £3 million overspend, so we were fined over 16 times the amount we failed by. Using the same logic the rags fine of £250k would mean they overspent by £15k over a 3 year period, do we really believe the same rules are being applied?

 

[Silva61]

I still can’t believe that no-one (even eBay) has pictures of this so called £50m diamond encrusted platinum shovel that is pristine and allegedly unused!!

Surely they must of had £50m worth of invoices in their accounts.

 

[GaudinoMotors]

It’s not and City know that they’ll win it by presenting their own evidence relevant to the case.

What I think is happening here is that if what TH has tweeted is true then the club are simply dropping the odd bomb here and there to remind the footballing world what other clubs have been up to. For me, there wasn’t nearly enough column inches dedicated to this hacking story when it broke in 2019. Only The Times bothered to run with it and the rest of the media couldn’t be arsed. I don’t think most fans of all other clubs know about it. If it’s reared its head again now, it might get much wider traction this time round, especially with the spotlight currently being on the PL and the various cases that have been concluded and are ongoing.

As I've said before - should never have settled - it was certainly settled far too quickly and with non of the fanfare it should have had. Hopefully we will use our future salvos with greater intent and accuracy.