PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[bluemoon32]

It's a funny read this thread, some, obviously intelligent posters, post their thoughts/opinions on the matter & even they can't agree on anything . What chance do the rest of us have ha.
Only on bluemoon

 

[halfcenturyup]

UEFA sanction - much my thoughts on that one. The pandemic was obviously a curveball which has no precedent. My understanding is that City were always missing FFP at the time of 'taking a pinch', but the change meant they missed by a mile instead of just by 'some'.

Several clubs got fined at the same time as MU, so UEFA may have taken a view that some of the problems were unavoidable.

Forest - I don't know anything about this one, but it's hard to see it being more. They're hardly the first to abuse EFL P&S in order to get promoted (Leicester, QPR...)

Chelsea - the Abramovich era stuff seems to have dealt with in the best way possible, make it open and say it was them not us.

Everton - hadn't heard about the naming deal, but I did see that some of their excuses were quite poor.
I do however think that the penalty was large because otherwise it would be pointless. 10 pts is enough to drop one rung of a nominal ladder of table subsections from top 2 -> top 4 -> EL placings ->midtable -> relegation issues.
Penalising 3 pts would encourage deliberate breaching by spending in January to survive (WIgan RLFC did this blatantly some years ago, spending heavily and taking the 2 pt penalty the season afterwards).

If I remember the 2014 settlement correctly, we failed FFP, obviously, but there were some allowances that could be claimed in mitigation, principally wages under pre-FFP contracts. The club was pretty sure those allowances would have just saved us (after some fancy footwork in selling intangible assets and after using the lawyers who drafted the FFP rules as advisors), but UEFA changed the rules at the last minute so that we were still over with the allowances. When the allowances were disallowed, the club was over the acceptable limit by a long way. Hence the severe punishment.

The bastards.

 

[Coatigan]

From your discussion with @gordondaviesmoustache yesterday, I took it that there was only a limitation period in terms of bringing charges against the club from the date of discovery. The date of discovery presumably, but not definitely, being the Der Speigel article. In order to appropriately uncover what is alleged against us I would have thought it was legally acceptable for the PL to go back and review the accounts from the whole period covered by the P&S rules. They can't go back to 2002 because they've not discovered anything that would make that relevant. As to what they can and can't go back and check - I'm sure this will be one of the many arguments!

Behind the scenes clearly the PL would know they don't stand much chance of success with more recent accounts because it would be ridiculous to find us guilty of any breaches if CAS didn't (if we take the same accounting period). So they naturally will want to go further back, which UEFA couldn't, to uncover anything else which would help them find differently to CAS. My nervousness with this, as I've said before, is that CAS found 2-1 in our favour. So one of the judges still wasn't convinced. So what we presented to them was in no way irrefutable by definition, and I can't help but wonder if initially there were a few slip ups as the club tried to side-step the rules as best they could.

The fact that politics is at play behind the scenes, in our favour, makes this even more interesting though. Without that I strongly believe we'd be screwed. But with it we've got the power to ensure that the PL investigation gets axed, an independent regulator takes over and Khaldoon is the fucking chairman of it.

That's how I (now) take it too. And agree with the rest.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

If I remember the 2014 settlement correctly, we failed FFP, obviously, but there were some allowances that could be claimed in mitigation, principally wages under pre-FFP contracts. The club was pretty sure those allowances would have just saved us (after some fancy footwork in selling intangible assets and after using the lawyers who drafted the FFP rules as advisors), but UEFA changed the rules at the last minute so that we were still over with the allowances. When the allowances were disallowed, the club was over the acceptable limit by a long way. Hence the severe punishment.

The bastards.

You may be right - my recollection was that we were going to miss but not by huge amounts (still >10 million though), and hoped to get away with a slap on the wrist.
As you say, the change meant we missed by a long way.

 

[BerkshireBlue]

"United, who were one of a number of clubs who had been placed on a Financial Fair Play watchlist by Uefa, stated they lost €281m due to the pandemic but could only write off a €15m loss in the accounts they submitted to European football’s governing body.

The Carabao Cup winners, whose Old Trafford ground was empty when games were played behind closed doors, reported €234m of losses due to Covid during 2019-20 and 2020-21 and then a further €47m in 2021-22, a period Uefa monitored. The Premier League permitted Covid-19 adjusted losses for the 2021-22 campaign but Uefa did not, as United did not breach domestic FFP regulations"

Manchester United fined for breaking financial fair play rules

United were penalised for ‘a minor technical breach’ around their reporting of Covid-19 losses

www.independent.co.uk

does that mean they failed FFP by £281m-£15m=£266m? Why hasn't the amount they've failed by been released. Not very transparent is it

Also there's no such thing as a technical breach it's either a breach or it isn't

 

[supercity88]

does that mean they failed FFP by £281m-£15m=£266m? Why hasn't the amount they've failed by been released. Not very transparent is it

Also there's no such thing as a technical breach it's either a breach or it isn't

In a situation where a club is making significant losses (putting the rivalry to one side) it would be mental to fine them more money considering the rules were brought in (apparently) to stop clubs from overspending and going bust. However, a ban from Europe probably wasn't considered necessary because the rags can take care of that part themselves.

 

[Coatigan]

I think the problem is that lawyers have a way of describing the law which is perfectly clear to them but absolutely unintelligible to any normal people, like accountants. :)

I think what I summarised is, in essence, the situation but I expect to be blasted (again) soon if I am wrong .....

I don't think it is particularly unintelligible to normal people. Or particularly clear to them either, if being completely honest.

Or if it really ever can be clear to anyone, such is the nature of it and why there are lengthy arguments over how it is interpretated and applied (and I don't mean on this thread). Hence quite often you see 'both' sides of it presented, and that's where different people take different thigns on here.

 

[nmc]

A shame there were no CCTV cameras at railway stations back then!

It wouldn’t matter. Klopp got caught red handed meeting Virgil Van Dyke - I think it was in Blackpool of all places - tapping him up whilst he was under contract to Southampton - what did the FA and PL do ? Allowed Liverpool to apologise and Liverpool stated that they’d no longer pursue the player…. Then signed him at the next transfer window.

 

[Bluesince1979]

If they’re in need of evidence, I’m sure they can ask their red-shirt mates and Daniel Levy to fabricate some ;)

Talking about Levy ….
Wasnt gonna mention it as it seems a little inconsequential and may be totally normal but …

Did a job for a guy who owns a humongous ground works company, hes based up here but he was contracted to work on the spurs stadium throughout.
He said at the start of the contract they were getting paid direct by spurs, all tickety boo.
Half way through the costs of the build were going through the roof, well over budget and talk from the spurs hierarchy was that costs are going to have a huge impact on FFP. Dont forget my customer is the MD of this groundwork's co so he was dealing with top guys at spurs.
He was told they need to change how they pay him and ultimately the monies came via a polish company in the end. He also said liverpool did something similar on their stand extension

As i say, ive no idea if it actually means anything. Im thick as shit with all these financial goings on.

May mean something, may not

 

[supercity88]

You may be right - my recollection was that we were going to miss but not by huge amounts (still >10 million though), and hoped to get away with a slap on the wrist.
As you say, the change meant we missed by a long way.

You might be right. I thought we'd always claimed to be complying with the rules but that it came down to UEFA deciding to only allow wages to be discounted for the 2011/12 season and not for 2012/13 (which was the original rule for pre-FFP signed players). The club had obviously shown this in their books, planned and purchased players accordingly and was then fucked! But took the fine and sanctions because they didn't really hurt our short to mid-term plan. The legal fees would have cost more than the fine I'm sure!