PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Prestwich_Blue]

I liked him. He was very incisive :)

Made a pleasant change to be honest. He's normally a bit of a pub bore.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Made a pleasant change to be honest. He's normally a bit of a pub bore.

That hurt here (points to heart) and here (points to bollocks) :(

 

[KS55]

Which raises the question: how do you know something is time limited if you haven't heard it? Meaning, if you haven't heard it, you can't determine if it was knowingly concealed or not?

Hear = litigate. You can argue about whether an item is admissible without arguing the substantive question. The substantive question would be whether the rules were broken. The admissibility question would be whether there was an intent to deceive irrespective of whether the rules were broken or not. Evidence, evidence.
A very common feature of criminal trials. The jury would be excluded. Currently in the Trump trial playing the Hollywood tape has been excluded but not quotations from it. Not sure I see any distinction.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Hear = litigate. You can argue about whether an item is admissible without arguing the substantive question. The substantive question would be whether the rules were broken.
A very common feature of criminal trials. The jury would be excluded.

Fair enough, still not clear how that would work in the IC environment, though, with the panel being judge and jury ....

Edit: At UEFA it was clear: anything happening before a certain date is time limited, so wasn't litigated. At the PL, what isn't clear is the process: anything happening before a certain date is time limited and so not litigated, unless the event has been knowingly concealed, in which case it is litigated. But to determine if the event has been concealed, it effectively has to be litigated? So every single allegation has to be fully litigated?

 

[Bald fraud]

Oh well the 115 media onslaught might cool down a bit now. Unless we beat Chelsea Saturday of course

 

[KS55]

Fair enough, still not clear how that would work in the IC environment, though, with the panel being judge and jury ....

Quite. It would be up to the chair to keep the panel straight.
PS. I have added to my post above.

 

[Sk@mcfc]

And it has done a lot of good since its introduction, hasn't it?

Not like we have:

Chelsea effectively asset stripped (sale of hotel) to meet arbitrary target;

Everton forced into a sale to 777 Partners and an increased chance of ultimate insolvency;

Clubs at the bottom threatening to sue one another for alleged rule-breaking;

A 6 year investigation into the audited accounts of a leading club and accusations of accounting fraud which appear to have limited evidential credibility; and

Continually changing rules to prevent aspirational clubs competing at the top.

Is there anything else I'm missing?

The grass was to long

 

[wolviedinho]

Let’s just start stripping the club of assets and pay off ffp erm sorry meant pay off the premier league oops sorry did it again! I meant pay off the red clubs…then lodge the profits to dodge next seasons assessment.

Think that’s the new version of P&S that will be passed soon -:)

 

[Dribble]

The PL quite literally have accused the club of fraud. What you say as ‘darent say the word’ actually = charged as written in the competition rules.

You can’t say with a straight face that charging with failing to file correct and up to date financial statements and failing to declare correct compensation figures for 9 years is anything but a direct accusation of fraud.


My suspicion all along has been that the PL ‘must’ believe they have something over and above what was argued at CAS as I struggle to believe that Adam Lewis would have advised the PL to move forward simply to rehash the same brief, albeit I concede that as those more knowledgable than me have said, ego can ultimately play an important role too.

Firstly we've not been "charged", it's not a legal process. We've been accused of FFP/PSR rule breaches.

The PL have apparently been investigating us since 2018, & I suspect they were hoping the accusations would just fizzle out & be forgotten.

It's quite evident that the pressure to go after us was coming from the Red Top Mafia & Spuds, & that it was the Government's IREF announcement which spurred the PL into moving from the investigation stage to accusations & tribunal hearings.

You have your suspicions which you're entitled to, but the facts are the hearing & process are being done in private, so we're all essentially trying to connect the dots to form a picture, so in this respect everyone has their own opinion on what is actually happening.

In terms of fraud, I suspect if the PL use the term, they'll lose control of the process, as it will move from their kangaroo court onto a legal footing.

As such, neither HMRC, the SFO or the police are exactly beating a path to our door. Far from it. According to our audited & verified accounts, everything all is deemed up front & above board.

Even more curious, if anything the PL are accusing City of using our legally acquired funds to pay for sponsorship, to boost our ledger income, meaning we pay far more tax than we otherwise could have.

When has anyone ever heard of HMRC complaining of receiving too much tax revenue from legal sources?

Nah, there's a far more simple explanation. The PL & UEFA created FFP/PSR to stop City from the boardroom, because they've failed to stop our progress on the field of play.

Where they've royally fucked up is the very rules meant to nobble City, are nobbling everyone else as an unitended consequence of their determination to neuter us.

We crossed the drawbridge just in time before the portcullis was slammed shut. We're now seen as the cuckoo in their nest & they desperately want us gone, but it's too late.

Whatever rules they've created to stop us, will also affect everyone else, so they've essentially snookered themselves.

Like I said, what they've accused us of adds up to accounting fraud, so the question is, why have neither UEFA or the PL ever levelled the fraud term toward us?

Again it's about opinions, but in my opinion this is the key to the whole farce. In 2014, there was a comment from a City finance officer suggesting it was like UEFA were accusing us of fraud.

UEFA never responded to that comment & ten years later, the PL have declined to do so too. I'd love them to try, but it's obvious they won't, because the moment they do, the authorities will become involved & the PL's primacy in this matter will be superceded by the state.

So again the question must be asked, with all the innuendo of fraud & other accusations etc from the PL & UEFA, why have the state never been in touch with City regarding these allegations to our knowledge?

Could it be that there's a world of difference between breaching the rules of a private members club, & committing a criminal act as defined by the actual law of the land?

 

[Chris in London]

It depends which allegations you are talking about, imho. And what the allegations actually are. Proving an allegation doesn't automatically mean "knowing concealment" (proving fraud presumably does). And I am not sure a mistake, or a difference in interpretation on an accounting matter, if you will, is either as, if you believed you were in the right, then there could be no "knowing concealment".

Anyway, that wasn't my point. My point is that I have never heard that a tribunal process, as described by @domalino , won't take into account the limitation periods of the Limitation Act in its judgment. I was asking, really, for his clarification on that and his reasoning. He may be right, the law is an ass, after all. But I very much doubt it.

If only there was a FAQs thread on all this...