PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[halfcenturyup]

I know there are other considerations at play in terms of what criminal investigatory bodies do and don't investigate. However, even if one limits oneself to the quality of the evidence available in the public domain, there's no way they'd start looking at this seriously as a criminal case.

Unless there's compelling evidence available to the PL of which we remain unaware, it's hard to see them getting close to meeting even the civil standard of proof in terms of the charges against us. There's nothing that's public knowledge that might come close to satisfying the much more stringent criminal standard of proof with respect to the conduct of individuals involved in the matters covered by the accusations against MCFC. That being so, it's reason enough for any relevant criminal investigatory body to decline to go anywhere near it.

On the basis of what we know at the moment, there is no way that the panel will find in favour of the PL on the most serious issues. So the whole thing is moot, really, but what we are discussing at the moment is what happens if the PL does have something we don't know about and the panel finds in favour of the PL.

It seems to me, at the very least, in view of the public interest in the case, the profile of the individuals involved, their other shareholdings and directorships and the egregious nature of the conduct there would have to be an investigation to determine if there is enough evidence for a Companies Acts prosecution.

If there isn't, it reflects badly on the panel's judgement, irrespective of the different burdens of proof (talk about a "technicality"). If there is, but the prosecution fails, likewise. Which is (one of) the reason(s) why I think the panel finding in favour of the PL on the most serious issues is very unlikely unless they really have a slam dunk that will hold up to the higher burden. It won't be painted like that, of course, but there cogency-o-meter will be at atmospheric levels, I think.

But ...

wtf do I know

Edit: Good to have you around, btw. Hope everything is good with you and yours.

 

[Centurions]

Good god, are we back to the "will there be a criminal trial if found guilty..." nonsense? Can anyone recall how long the last one lasted so I can plan to come back when it's over? What came next last time? I've forgotten where we are on the Groundhog day merry-go-round.

 

[KS55]

Good god, are we back to the "will there be a criminal trial if found guilty..." nonsense? Can anyone recall how long the last one lasted so I can plan to come back when it's over? What came next last time? I've forgotten where we are on the Groundhog day merry-go-round.

PL Governance is a crock of shit.
Close thread. Await verdict.
Start next 1,000 pages of Yah Boo, Told You So.

 

[Damocles]

PL Governance is a crock of shit.
Close thread. Await verdict.
Start next 1,000 pages of Yah Boo, Told You So.

PL governance is one of those contradictions in terms. Like local United fans or government intelligence.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

Good god, are we back to the "will there be a criminal trial if found guilty..." nonsense? Can anyone recall how long the last one lasted so I can plan to come back when it's over? What came next last time? I've forgotten where we are on the Groundhog day merry-go-round.

The PL like UEFA can find City guilty and punish without evidence, In the second UEFA case City did something clever, they forced CAS to only look at the evidence, hence the only charge proved had no evidence. They have done something similar with the PL panel. The investigators tying all the charges together with the bit that has no evidence, ( non cooperation ).
So it is possible the PL finds us guilty, and it is highly likely that City would take this all the way to Crown Court, at a guess i would say 2 to 3 more years of this, Halfcenturyup post was excellent because it has a good chance of happening, and was very informative:)

 

[1961_vintage]

PL governance is one of those contradictions in terms. Like local United fans or government intelligence.

Oxymorons the lot of them.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Good god, are we back to the "will there be a criminal trial if found guilty..." nonsense? Can anyone recall how long the last one lasted so I can plan to come back when it's over? What came next last time? I've forgotten where we are on the Groundhog day merry-go-round.

I've never bought this apocalyptic view that Stefan and others have taken. Had we made deliberate attempts to conceal or over-inflate income we had received, or knowingly misstated costs we'd incurred in order to show a false financial position, then there might well be an issue. But we haven't.

We've been accused of over-stating the Etihad & Etisalat sponsorships on the grounds that the former only provided a small part of the rated sponsorship, and the latter was paid by ADUG. But CAS put all that to bed comprehensively and unless the PL has incontrovertible evidence that wasn't available to CAS then there clearly been no fraud. And that's the biggest one financially. Had we only received £10m from Etihad but declared it as £60m, with a £50m debt to make up the difference, with that never being paid to us, then that could well be seen as fraudulent. But we correctly declared all revenue we received from Etihad and CAS established that this wasn't disguised owner investment.

Mancini's Al Jazira contract was fairly minuscule in comparison to other costs, at a time when we were reporting huge losses. So that is hardly an attempt to conduct a major fraud.

The image rights stuff was actually an attempt to boost revenue by selling IP to what was probably not a truly independent third party. It wasn't about keeping costs off the books but getting income on the books to try to avoid FFP penalties. UEFA were aware of this well before 2018, yet no action was taken, other than an agreement to end the scheme. Had it been considered fraudulent, then the PL (the licensor) would almost certainly have been informed and action taken. It's entirely possible that as that licensor, the PL were involved anyway. Yet nothing came of it.

For those reasons I highly doubt that any criminal action would follow even in the unlikey event we were found in breach of all three charges.

 

[Maly]

Oxymorons the lot of them.

Shouldn’t that read Gordon? :)

 

[halfcenturyup]

The PL like UEFA can find City guilty and punish without evidence, In the second UEFA case City did something clever, they forced CAS to only look at the evidence, hence the only charge proved had no evidence. They have done something similar with the PL panel. The investigators tying all the charges together with the bit that has no evidence, ( non cooperation ).
So it is possible the PL finds us guilty, and it is highly likely that City would take this all the way to Crown Court, at a guess i would say 2 to 3 more years of this, Halfcenturyup post was excellent because it has a good chance of happening, and was very informative:)

I wouldn't take anything I say as gospel. :)

And for the record, I agree with @petrusha and @Prestwich_Blue (who would dare not to?) that it won't come to any of that because, based on what we think the issues are, the PL won't be able to prove the most serious allegations, which are about the funding of sponsorships. The rest is just dressing.

 

[Paladin]

I've never bought this apocalyptic view that Stefan and others have taken. Had we made deliberate attempts to conceal or over-inflate income we had received, or knowingly misstated costs we'd incurred in order to show a false financial position, then there might well be an issue. But we haven't.

We've been accused of over-stating the Etihad & Etisalat sponsorships on the grounds that the former only provided a small part of the rated sponsorship, and the latter was paid by ADUG. But CAS put all that to bed comprehensively and unless the PL has incontrovertible evidence that wasn't available to CAS then there clearly been no fraud. And that's the biggest one financially. Had we only received £10m from Etihad but declared it as £60m, with a £50m debt to make up the difference, with that never being paid to us, then that could well be seen as fraudulent. But we correctly declared all revenue we received from Etihad and CAS established that this wasn't disguised owner investment.

Mancini's Al Jazira contract was fairly minuscule in comparison to other costs, at a time when we were reporting huge losses. So that is hardly an attempt to conduct a major fraud.

The image rights stuff was actually an attempt to boost revenue by selling IP to what was probably not a truly independent third party. It wasn't about keeping costs off the books but getting income on the books to try to avoid FFP penalties. UEFA were aware of this well before 2018, yet no action was taken, other than an agreement to end the scheme. Had it been considered fraudulent, then the PL (the licensor) would almost certainly have been informed and action taken. It's entirely possible that as that licensor, the PL were involved anyway. Yet nothing came of it.

For those reasons I highly doubt that any criminal action would follow even in the unlikey event we were found in breach of all three charges.

On the image rights stuff, it is miniscule compared to the financial shenanigans Chelsea have been getting up to recently, and also the clubs selling academy players to each other, in order to gain cashflow advantage. These things are loopholes. There's nothing wrong with exploiting them before they are closed.