PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Hoghead]

Why would that be the case seeing as the years they are looking at if I remember rightly are 2009 to 2018

Sorry for seemingly being thick, but I don't understand your question.

 

[halfcenturyup]

It would be insanity to pursue for that reason - of finding us guilty.
So probably not that.
So we should consider if there might be other reasons to do it, perhaps driven by other interested and influential parties - such as the constant drip drip dirty marketing propaganda that such a drawn out process produces, especially if backed by a willing media (even if that willingness is just to continuously jump on the sensationalist gravy train to get more engagement).

Tbf to the PL, they had a difficult decision to take. Assuming the club has withheld third party evidence that would irrefutably prove its case (which I strongly believe), the PL had a list of allegations without sufficient evidence from the club to counter them. I am talking the sort of evidence that the club provided to CAS (to third party statements, financial information from third parties and the like).

What should the PL do? They couldn't really use the evidence presented at CAS because they hadn't seen it themselves, just read about it in the CAS award. I am not so sure they could do anything else at that time, but refer the allegations that hadn't been sufficiently countered to the IP. As I have said a few times, I think the club has played it all well, legally speaking, forcing the PL to shit or get off the can, knowing if they shit out 115 allegations, the club has the irrefutable third party evidence to counter them.

The time when the PL could have changed tack was during the investigation, but after the CAS award. They could have accepted that verdict, on Etihad for example, and the explanation given for Etisalat, and just investigated the others that were new or time limited at CAS (to the extent they aren't also time limited here). But they didn't, so here we are.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

The answer to Magic Twats question of "reason" for the content of the emails is of course the answer City gave both prior to and during the CAS case and that is in the "context" of the whole run of emails. This includes a) those released by der Spiegel and used as evidence by UEFA (and now the PL) and b) those that were held only by City prior to CAS, that we witheld once we knew information was being leaked to Panja (Parrys mate) at the New York Times but released to CAS.

We have seen partial excerpts of some additional emails in addition to their "evidence", but these have large swathes of text redacted hiding their overall context so it's impossible to get a thorough answer to the question of the "context" he poses. I suspect he knows that hence the bluster.

The fact remains, the PL must prove to the required standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities, whatever is suggested in those emails, perceived as equity investment by either ADUG or HHSM, was in fact what occurred.

As rebuttal evidence, City say they have irrefutable proof to the contrary of those allegations. At CAS it was accounts for receivables and expenses for Etihad, senior Etihad and City officials' testimony to business conduct. Expert witness testimony from "accounts experts" to the veracity of payments and transactional activity. I.e. checks carried out on movement of monies between Etihad accounts in respect of sponsorship liabilities. City say the above proves the Etihad sponsorship monies were funded partly from Etihad funds and partly from ADEC (Abu Dhabi Executive Council/Committee) central funds.

The key question therefore is, what additional evidence do our accusers have that proves all the above offered by City as evidence, are lies, untruths and fraudulent fabrications?

There has been nothing suggested, offered or discovered by the one eyed, shithouse media throughout the now, in excess of 5 years of this witch hunt. Imagine that, nothing, nada, zilch, zero. Despite the despotic will of Harris, Delooney and the WhatsApp boys who claim to be the best investigative journalists out there, they cannot turn up a single shred of "smoking gun" evidence.

I will offer a reason and that is because there isn't any or at the very least the PL don't have any. I would boldly suggest if they thought City had any and that City were going to hand it over from a formal legal fishing request whilst tugging a forelock, that they must have been under some painfully sad delusion.

This is of course in my opinion as nobody knows, apart from the two parties now that full discovery is likely to have taken place. I base this opinion on what UEFA too brought to the party. The same questions were asked prior to CAS. "Is there a whistleblower", "they must have additional information", what could it be that such serious charges are being brought sufficient to ban City from the CL for 2 years, we all asked. Surely barristers for UEFA must have something incredibly damning and defamatory. Well we found out at CAS they had fuck all. They turned up with der Spiegel emails in one hand and their dick in the other. They couldn't sufficiently prove anything they accused us of apart from none co-operation, which we admitted with mitigation their investigation was leaking like a sieve.

Now I hear the same questions being asked of the legal team for the PL (Bird & Bird). So I say, "You want to allege we fraudulently cooked the books for 10 years", you allege Citys owner, the deputy PM of AD, is a fraud, cheat and a charlatan, the executives of Etihad are liars and cheats, that high proflle accountants and auditors, Deloitte and similar are complicit or negligent to wide scale fraud. Well you better have more than your cock in your left hand and some 12-14 year old emails in the other when you turn up at this Committee hearing or Lord Pannick will defer his use of lube.

Great post. If there was damning evidence against City it would have been leaked by now. Everything else has been. Remember Ceferin’s “concrete evidence” turned out to be photocopies of partial emails from a German magazine article! Oh how the CAS judges laughed.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I tend to agree with this, the PL seem to think they have a case otherwise they could have just reviewed evidence and said no case to answer. I don't necessarily think the PL is right but I struggle to understand why they would go over the stuff CAS has already cleared, seems like insanity to do so with all the costs involved.

Perhaps the purpose of the PL witch-hunt is just to damage City. UEFA had no evidence. They were bluffing and tried to get City to settle. It was political. They wanted to be seen to be doing something. Perhaps the PL have made the same mistake. Masters has nothing on his CV which suggests he has any skills to be a CEO of the PL. He is just another bluffer.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Do we reckon we’ll get another charge for the backhander we paid Ilkay to come back?

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Once the PL referred the allegations to the IP, I am not sure what else they could do apart from seeing the process through especially if one believes, as I do, that the club has said no to a settlement. It would be professional suicide to drop the case now. Much better to get a verdict and spin it. These guys are akin to politicians anyway. They would be able to point to a success on non-cooperation if they get one, for example, and spin it as the club "playing the game" on the other allegations.

I have explained before why I think they referred the allegations, why it wasn't particularly clever and why they maybe didn't have much choice but I think, once that was done, the die was cast.

That sounds very plausible to me. Masters comments suggest they are using that narrative: “We tried to enforce the rules. The panel will decide.” But he’s a moron. The media will tear him to pieces if the PL lose on the main allegations.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I would argue that dropping the case would have been bad due to people's assumption of guilt but if the evidence supplied did not show on the balance of probability that there was a case to answer then it is the correct course of action.

That said it could be completely different from employment law investigations which is my job but it seems similar. Put it this way in my experience when an investigation shows no case or proper procedures have not been followed it unlikely to take to hearing (and definitely not if no case to answer)

As Jordan said, there is undeniably case to answer. I hate it when he is right. How the evidence falls on the balance of probabilities depends not just on what the evidence is, but how it is presented and argued. I am comfortable that the club's legal team are competent enough to present what the club calls irrefutable evidence very well, but I am also sure the PL thinks their team is competent enough to challenge it.

If you have been involved in employment cases, I am sure you have experienced situations where one side or the other thinks it's a slam dunk, but something happens to sway the balance the other way?

I guess the PL consider the chance of just coming away with, say, a non-cooperation success far outweighs the damage that would be caused by dropping the case.

 

[Plays By Sense Of Smell]

Tbf to the PL, they had a difficult decision to take. Assuming the club has withheld third party evidence that would irrefutably prove its case (which I strongly believe), the PL had a list of allegations without sufficient evidence from the club to counter them. I am talking the sort of evidence that the club provided to CAS (to third party statements, financial information from third parties and the like).

What should the PL do? They couldn't really use the evidence presented at CAS because they hadn't seen it themselves, just read about it in the CAS award. I am not so sure they could do anything else at that time, but refer the allegations that hadn't been sufficiently countered to the IP. As I have said a few times, I think the club has played it all well, legally speaking, forcing the PL to shit or get off the can, knowing if they shit out 115 allegations, the club has the irrefutable third party evidence to counter them.

The time when the PL could have changed tack was during the investigation, but after the CAS award. They could have accepted that verdict, on Etihad for example, and the explanation given for Etisalat, and just investigated the others that were new or time limited at CAS (to the extent they aren't also time limited here). But they didn't, so here we are.

Certainly a possibility, and viewed like that, quite a strong one...

 

[I'm Blue]

Magic Hat

latest .

"If anyone can provide a plausible argument for the existence of these emails other than for the subversion of the rules, I will delete ALL my threads on Man City’s 115. Every single one."

Doctored hacked emails.
Get deleting dickhead.

 

[mayo31]

Unless they have some zingers up their sleeve and some expert witnesses/whistle blowers who come out of the woodwork, which I doubt very much, it all boils down to the balance of probability. That bit does concern me because we leave the realms of objectivity and are firmly in the realms of a subjective conclusion.

$20 dollar hooker someone said, is Stormy Daniels the whistleblower