PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[The Fish]

What were your views on FFP prior to your take over?
I ask because many fans outside of the clubs you mentioned are still for it to this day and I can't get my head around it. Without FFP they could always dream that one day a wealthy owner could buy them and invest in the club to compete with the worlds best. They fail to see that FFP's only objective was to keep the elite, elite and instead believe the narrative that an owner investing his own money in his own business is cheating! It's the literal definition of turkeys voting for Christmas. In any other industry in the world what our owner has done would be lauded, it's staggering to me that fans of other clubs can't see that.
So what were yours (and your friends) views of us prior your take over because I'm genuinely interested?

I understood the goal they were aiming for; ensure the community entities like a football club were protected from reckless ownership. It makes sense to have rules to prevent an owner gambling the club's future on expensive transfers. A good comparison is us and Leeds in the 2000s. They spent their Champions League money on players, we did up our stadium. They didn't recruit well, league performance suffered and they tumbled down the leagues, ruining themselves financially for years.

Look at what's happened at Bury, Portsmouth, Brighton, Leicester. They were ran by cowboys and it was the fans, the non-football staff, that paid the biggest penalty. Managers and players move on, but people were losing their jobs because some dickhead owner couldn't balance the books properly. Everton have broken the rules and they should be punished, and if it wasn't for petty partisan rivalry I'd think 10pts is harsh because at the end of the day it's not the owners who'll suffer despite it being wholly their fault. But... y'know Scouse Mackems and all that.

I didn't think Man City were/are doing anything that Man Utd hadn't been doing for decades prior. Yeah, it is a bit like cheating on Football Manager, but given the nature of the headstart Man Utd and Liverpool have, it would take something like that to truly compete with them. They were happy enough to run a club riddled with debt for as long as they could and the minute someone comes along with the financial muscle to compete they throw their toys out of the pram?

There has to be a way to protect community entities, without ringfencing the established elite. I've heard people talk about a salary cap, but that's unworkable. The minute the PL brought that in, players would jump ship to La Liga or where ever else is paying the big bucks. People have talked about ensuring a majority of players must come from a predetermined geographical area, but that's unworkable for London clubs, or clubs without a sufficiently large population base. Take Newcastle for example, there was some kind of youth recruitment rule based on where a kid grew up, 50% of our catchment area was the North Sea.

Dunno what the answer is, but FFP isn't it. It perpetuates the strength of the top clubs and restricts the others.

 

[WRicko]

I think many in the media have to be careful about the wording they use on these charges. The charges are based upon Premier League rules and they have nothing to do with criminal charges. This isn't another Italian calciopoli where actual criminal behaviour such as fraud or match fixing has taken place.

Some outlets have even mentioned a trial date despite the fact that city will not be tried in a criminal court and as a result there will not be a trial. For the media or anyone else to mention the club in the light of criminal behaviour is defamatory and libellous.

The 'charges' will it seems be heard by an independent commission which will come to some decision based upon whatever experience it has. However, city will attack this because who appoints this commission and if the rules aren't based upon legal standing then what are they based upon and how are they applied? If this is all fit for purpose then why have they waited until now to serve them given some go back to 2009?

The whole thing is ripe to fall apart. It doesn't stand a chance because it is based upon limited judgement and random decisions to apply rules, some of which don't even apply due to the length of time since they supposedly occurred. It won't get far given that it hasn't been dealt with well and city has virtually unlimited resources to attack all of this in a real court.

We are accused of inflating revenue that is fraud regardless of whether they they the panel can call it or rule it fraud or not. If they say we have done it. The press will call it fraud even if they have to be careful how they word it

 

[WRicko]

Heads aren't going to roll whatever the outcome, to use a military analogy, the privates aren't "on trial" and neither are the junior officers or the battalion commanders, it's the commander in chief.

This isn't about some minor functionary dipping into the till, or some rogue middle manager, this is about deliberate, systematic fraud driven from the top.

The Sheikh isn't throwing Khaldoon under the bus for this and Khaldoon isn't going to throw Soriano under it either.

Whatever happens they'll be no cull, because the club not only believes it's done nothing wrong, most importantly it knows it's done nothing wrong, and that won't change whatever the verdict.

As you say it isn’t just taking a little cash out the till it’s a lot worse. Even more reason for someone to take the fall. They can say they have done nothing wrong and I believe them and I will still believe them of it goes against us if it does however I have no hope on the appeal and loosing that appeal would increase pressure would be near impossible to hold the line of having done nothing wrong. Appeal to the proper legal jurisdiction is apparently very hard and therefore holding the line and saying we will wait longer for the correct verdict before taking action against any executives is also very hard

 

[halfcenturyup]

Thank you. It would help to summarise but I wouldn't want to cause you lots of work.

I gave it a go on the first section of allegations you highlighted:

B13/B15/B16: Requirement for the Club to act in good faith with the League and other Clubs

C71(i) (2009/10), C78, E3: Requirement to provide annual accounts to the League (prepared in accordance with legal and statutory requirements), together with an audit report.

C71(ii) (2009/10), C79, E4: Requirement to show (inter alia) breakdown of revenues in the annual accounts.

C72/C79 (2009/10), C86, E11: Requirement to provide interim accounts.

C75/C80 (2009/10), C87, E12: Requirement to provide forecast financial information.

E49, E50, E5!: Requirement to notify the League of any information which may affect financial information previously given to the League.

I simplified the descriptions to make them relevant to the club's case. My personal assessment:

Acting in good faith is subjective. I suppose it could be categorised with the non co-operation breaches.

The rest of this section is about the financial information. These rules don't actually say the financial information has to be accurate. Only that the accounts must be prepared in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements (note, iirc, this doesn't mean they have to comply with the PL rules) and have a "true and fair" audit opinion, and that any interim and forecast information must be prepared on the same basis as the accounts.

What they seem to be implying is that the accounts, and therefore the interim and forecast information (which is prepared on the same basis as the annual accounts) don't give a true and fair view because of some of the other issues. This could be for one of three reasons: the auditors made a mistake; the PL disagrees with a significant policy accepted by the auditors; or the club withheld information from the auditors which led to a view that was not true and fair. No chance with the first two, in my opinion. So that leaves the third and, for reasons I have explained many times, I don't think, based on what we know, that the third is a flyer either. If they can't prove that the accounts don't give a true and fair view, then all these financial breaches fall down, imo. Even if they can prove it, I think only issue that would lead to an actual FFP breach is Etihad and I would be amazed if that became a problem.

How is that?

Edit: Edited for one group I missed ....

 

[The Fish]

Did you/still do, have an affliation with a female City supporter ?

Hah! No, Mrs Fish has no interest in football and is a Posh Yorkshire lass anyway. I live in Cheshire now and obviously you get chatting to lads in the pub, or the dads at school drop off/pick up. They try and appear reasonable and humble, but for the two red clubs, the entitlement and arrogance just seeps out. "Man City winning every year is boring." as if the 80s and 90s never happened.

There was a lad I used to work with, massive City fan who may well have posted on here. He was a font of knowledge about your club, it's history, FFP, Miguel Delaney, all the good stuff. Tragically lost to cancer last Christmas, he was only 41. Get 'em checked boys.

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

Mention of Everton, they were champions at the time of Heysel which got English clubs a European ban. By the time of English clubs being invited back, Everton were well past their best and their one big chance of growing that club's finances was gone. If anyone should have been financially punished then it should have been the dippers with directed compensation going to Everton. Being one of England's most favoured red shirts though then that would never be allowed to happen as it might have happened elsewhere.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

They have charged us for not controlling our players

Add that to the 115 for not controlling our accountants.

 

[chaddblue]

Mention of Everton, they were champions at the time of Heysel which got English clubs a European ban. By the time of English clubs being invited back, Everton were well past their best and their one big chance of growing that club's finances was gone. If anyone should have been financially punished then it should have been the dippers with directed compensation going to Everton. Being one of England's most favoured red shirts though then that would never be allowed to happen as it might have happened elsewhere.

Everton would have definitely won the European Cup if they hadn't been banned

 

[Chappie]

Cheers Fish, I thought you were to rational to be him.
He went under the name of Billy the fish,many years ago.
Good lad,followed Newcasle everywhere through bad times

 

[inbetween]

We are accused of inflating revenue that is fraud regardless of whether they they the panel can call it or rule it fraud or not. If they say we have done it. The press will call it fraud even if they have to be careful how they word it

If we were accused of fraud then the Serious Fraud Office or similar would be investigating this but they aren't. The Premier League have accused us of breaking their own Premier League rules and that's it.

The Premier League cannot investigate crime, it can only report it and refer it to criminal bodies for investigation. However an investigation (not by criminal bodies) has apparently already taken place and the Premier League has charged us so there is no accusation of criminal fraud whatsoever. If there was then we'd be looking at a criminal case and trial but we aren't.

If there is no fraud whatsoever then yes it cannot be worded as such because it would otherwise be libellous to do so.