PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

While the press debate whether a massive points deduction or expulsion from the PL is a fitting punishment for City's hideous crimes and Lord Chief Justice Jordan insists there is a case to answer a succession of mere football finance experts - Maguire, Ioannidis, Plumley and our own Stefan Borson, to name but four - have pointed out that proving these charges will be very difficult indeed since they are supposed to have taken place continuously over a period of ten years and involve companies with a global reputation for integrity and individuals well known on the world stage and respected in diplomatic circles. If we look at the commission which passed judgement on Everton, for violating PL spending limits we find that it was made up of a KC and the former finance director of a PL club. It was NOT a case of a senior judge presiding over a properly constituted court of law applying laws enacted by a sovereign body. The body which judges City's case will be similar to the Everton body and to find that City have done anything like what the PL claims is, as Stefan put it, "a big call". I think that the scale and gravity of the charges must be dawning on the PL and that any consideration of such charges is way beyond its competence.
 
StillBluessinceHydeRoad said:
While the press debate whether a massive points deduction or expulsion from the PL is a fitting punishment for City's hideous crimes and Lord Chief Justice Jordan insists there is a case to answer a succession of mere football finance experts - Maguire, Ioannidis, Plumley and our own Stefan Borson, to name but four - have pointed out that proving these charges will be very difficult indeed since they are supposed to have taken place continuously over a period of ten years and involve companies with a global reputation for integrity and individuals well known on the world stage and respected in diplomatic circles. If we look at the commission which passed judgement on Everton, for violating PL spending limits we find that it was made up of a KC and the former finance director of a PL club. It was NOT a case of a senior judge presiding over a properly constituted court of law applying laws enacted by a sovereign body. The body which judges City's case will be similar to the Everton body and to find that City have done anything like what the PL claims is, as Stefan put it, "a big call". I think that the scale and gravity of the charges must be dawning on the PL and that any consideration of such charges is way beyond its competence.
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If the pl find City guilty of fraud. What actions will these big global companies take against the pl to clear their names ? I'm not talking City here but these companies. When these companies clear their names thsn that clears City.

I get the feeling the pl are playing with fire and clearly dont understand the gravity of what the are accusing these big companies of.
 
All I keep hearing and reading, especially on Talkshite &Sly, is what potential penalties we will incur should we be found guilty. What nobody talks about is what are the consequences if, as I hope and expect, we are found not guilty. Someone should carry the can ( probably Masters) for bringing these charges against us. The club will no doubt refrain for claiming any kind of compensation for defamation of them and senior members of staff, i just wish they would come out of this swinging a few punches.
 
projectriver said:
Correct.

Let's not be silly. A proven case of multi-year false accounting creating 10 years or more of sporting advantage with severe aggravating factors (deliberate concealment) would obviously end in relegation either by expulsion or by 100 point deduction. This is not an answer about City - it would apply to any club before or after Everton. And it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
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There's no doubt that deliberate false accounting, like at Wirecard who claimed a seemingly fictitious €1.9bn cash balance on their balance sheet, or at Enron, or claiming revenue or commission from contracts that aren't yet signed, is a serious, and potentially criminal, offence.

But I spent enough years in accountancy and you know, as a CEO, that you may have to choose between different interpretations of accounting standards (or other practices) on how to present figures. That's why the law uses the phrase "true and fair", rather than insisting on 100%, to-the-penny accuracy. Things like valuation of stock, WIP, goodwill, intellectual property, and other intangible assets, investments and joint ventures, etc. That's a completely different kettle of fish to deliberate, false accounting.

As you've rightly said before, City would've had to pull the wool over a lot of experienced financial professionals' eyes if they concealed the things they did, knowing they were wrong and completely misleading. Like you, I find that very difficult to believe and I absolutely agree we'd deserve everything we got if that was the case.

But if that wasn't the case, then what was? The deal with Fordham was, in my opinion, a way of getting a few million extra pounds of revenue onto the books (rather than getting expenses off the books) in an attempt to creep within what we thought would be the maximum allowable loss that would see us escape sanction. We know from the Der Spiegel emails that Jorge Chumillas signalled there was still going to be a shortfall in the 2013 financial year. In the end, UEFA's machinations over the FFP mitigation calculation of wages ended that prospect. We must assume that appropriate legal and financial advice was taken over that Fordham arrangement.

We don't know what was or wasn't reported to UEFA regarding the image rights payments. My guess is that UEFA noticed they'd gone off the FFP spreadsheet around 2015. We do know they approached us about this and the arrangement ended for good in 2018. Let's take the view that we presented our case to UEFA and they said "Yes, we understand you've acted within the letter of the law, but not the spirit. As it wouldn't have made any difference to FFP anyway, we'll call it quits as long as you report the figures properly going forward". And we did, whereupon it made no sense to continue the Fordham arrangement, and the company was liquidated.

This is why I take issue with the black-or-white view that we're either totally innocent of wrongdoing or have knowingly committed fraud on a grand scale over a number of years.
 
Talk Shite have done a right job on Stefan's interview.

They are literally no better than Der Spiegel and that Hacker!

This whole case would have been thrown out ages ago if a criminal prosecution.

It absolutely stinks how main stream media and the public have been convinced we are guilty!
 
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