PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

I genuinely don't think the Prem are out to "get" us.

In my opinion, the PL have found some kind of smoke regarding the things named (Mancini, Etisalat, player wages etc) and they've rightfully done their due diligence.

However the club refused to cooperate with any investigation. Therefore the PL has reason to believe we're cheating and has no proof that we aren't.

There is no way in hell the businessmen running the club would let it go this far of they didn't have the evidence they needed to exonerate us. If we get proved guilty of everything, it absolutely destroys the clubs standing in football. And I mean actual football, not dickheads who live on Twitter or spend 8 hours a day in front of their podcasting equipment.

I believe we'll take a heavy fine for the non-cooperation and the club are prepared for that as collateral damage.

The PL let it stew too long from the announcement and we're going to let them take the fall for that.
The club havent refused to cooperate
When the investigation was launched the PL asked for documentation some of which was deemed by the club to be outside the remit of the PL and its rules, the club believing that handing over the all that the PL asked for would facilitate their commercial rivals so they refused. The club went to the courts to ask them to decide. Unfortunately the judge decided that the PL were within their rights and that, I assume, there was nothing unfair in those rules The club appealed the decision but the High Court decided not to overrule it, they also asked that the hearing and decision should be kept private and this was supported by the PL however the judge decided it was in the public interest to allow it to be public, she also commented about the time the PL were taking and that they should get on with it as City had won numerous PLs in the meantime and that was about a year before the charges were announced.
The club have since cooperated, but i would guess they haven't just opened the books and will provide information when asked for. They will not make it easy eg supply a document knowing that once its read another one will be required and so on, this is standard practice.


 
Yep, but they will be relying on documents.

I'm not sure the documents will be enough. If they can't show knowing concealment it's all time limited. And to show knowing concealment, they will presumably have to prove intent. Unless there is a document saying the club split the salary to reduce losses it seems to me they don't have any chance on Mancini.
 
The club havent refused to cooperate
When the investigation was launched the PL asked for documentation some of which was deemed by the club to be outside the remit of the PL and its rules, the club believing that handing over the all that the PL asked for would facilitate their commercial rivals so they refused. The club went to the courts to ask them to decide. Unfortunately the judge decided that the PL were within their rights and that, I assume, there was nothing unfair in those rules The club appealed the decision but the High Court decided not to overrule it, they also asked that the hearing and decision should be kept private and this was supported by the PL however the judge decided it was in the public interest to allow it to be public, she also commented about the time the PL were taking and that they should get on with it as City had won numerous PLs in the meantime and that was about a year before the charges were announced.
The club have since cooperated, but i would guess they haven't just opened the books and will provide information when asked for. They will not make it easy eg supply a document knowing that once its read another one will be required and so on, this is standard practice.


Agreed. The club have tested the legitimacy of the PL requests for info and their rules via the courts in order to ascertain what we should and should not provide. Like UEFA, the PL were hanging their hats on the illegally acquired emails. City quite rightly, probably following legal advice, wanted to be crystal clear what information should and should not be in scope.. That does not mean we have not cooperated. I remember when the PL were in the early stages of their investigation they noted that they were pleased with how things were going and with City's level of cooperation. That position clearly changed when the PL were seeking information that City's lawyers probably felt they were not entitled to receive. I am pretty sure City will have learned from the poor handling of the investigation by UEFA. Once bitten, twice shy. If the independent commission finds against City regarding the allegations relating to non cooperation they will have to see evidence that proves City's actions were unreasonable based on the facts. Plus, they will need to be satisfied the PLs requests for info were reasonable too. It is certainly not a given that City have been uncooperative. We can only speculate at this point in time.
 

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