Colin, don't take my word for it. Just read CAS. The consequences of the Independent Commission finding against us are similar to those had CAS found against us.
City themselves argued that the consequences of a finding against them was "that a finding that Etihad’s sponsorship contributions were funded, or procured to be funded, by HHSM and/or ADUG would require a conclusion that the evidence of several high-ranking officials of large international commercial enterprises …were false and that at least Mr Hogan if not Mr Pearce would be subject to criminal sanctions." (see page 72 of CAS). Their words not mine.
Likewise, there really is no question that the allegations in respect of the sponsorship contracts amount to an allegation of accounting fraud. They are alleging the revenue (and profits) from the sponsorship contracts incorporated in our accounts are, in essence, fake. It is that simple. Again, don't take my word for it. City's own skeleton argument said "The allegations made by the CFCB in these proceedings are serious and based on fraud and conspiracy involving MCFC, ADUG and the sponsors Etisalat and Etihad." (see extract on page 24 of CAS). Their argument not mine.
Most of the rest of the analysis is not hugely applicable here - these aren't allegations of subjective interpretations of the accounting standards. I've been involved in those cases professionally for years including successfully defending a 7 year SFO investigation, potential class actions and other claims. I can tell the difference.
I would definitely agree that the Mancini situation seems highly improbable given the sums involved. And Fordham was public so I don't see that being the main issue. But on the sponsorships, don't listen to me, listen to City themselves. CAS should give us some comfort but the amount evidence in play with the IC will be very different because we know UEFA tried to rely on a handful of documents. That was always hopeless for such serious allegations. Serious allegations require serious proof in the form of cogent evidence.
When we had the discussion on here about the CAS case, pretty well the only thing we disagreed on was your view that as long as Etihad paid us a sum of money, and we accurately recorded that sum of money in our books, there was no case to answer. My view was that the source of funds was crucially important.
We know, from CAS, that we received money from Etihad, we recorded it properly, it wasn't mainly funded by ADUG and that Etihad got full value for the sponsorship they paid us. That's not fraud. If that's the interpretation or implication of the PL, then they're simply trying it on.
Had Etihad only paid us £8m, and we recorded it as £60m, with no accounting entries to support the missing £52m, that would definitely be classed as presenting knowingly incorrect financial statements and therefore potentially fraudulent. But we didn't do that.
We agree, with respect to Fordham and Mancini, that there seems little mileage in the PL pursuing these. So the implication, as you say, is that it's probably the sponsorships they're majoring on. But these, as you've brilliantly and consistently pointed out on Twitter to various dickheads like Harris and others, were comprehensively dealt with at CAS, including the supposedly time-barred Etisalat contract.
So unless there's some sort of smoking gun that the PL have discovered, I'd wager these charges were going nowhere as well. But if there was a smoking gun that led to a reasonable suspicion of criminal offence having been committed, the SFO would almost certainly have been brought in by now, as the FSA did in your case, having accused your company of what (had it been proven) would have been a large-scale and knowing misrepresentation of their finances to put a higher value on the company they were selling. But I assume there was no evidence that had happened and the case was dropped, ending in a small, no-liability settlement.
The SFO haven't been involved in our case though (at least not that we know of) despite 4 years of investigation, which suggests there is no smoking gun.
The PL and UEFA may have alleged or implied fraud, but I think you and I both firmly believe that this is complete, hyperbolic nonsense and the likelihood is that the PL will end up with egg on its face over the substantive charges but having successfully smeared us.
