PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

bobbyowenquiff said:
Thanks. Bloody hell relegated for breaching about £13m each year. Not much of a sporting advantage there. Masters and his pals have lost their minds. Imagine the legal costs to pursue all this.
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Exactly. In the worst case scenario, if the Fordham charges were proven, I'd even question whether they could claim we'd had a sporting advantage from that. And let's not forget that they pursued this case, where the most financially advantageous alleged transactions, including the Etihad sponsorship, had already been knocked back by the world's pre-eminent sporting legal body.

It's like facing a trial for murder in the USA, where it was comprehensively proven that you were nowhere near the murder scene at the time and couldn't have done it, then being put on trial for exactly the same offence in the UK. You'd need compelling new evidence to pull that off.

Given that the sponsorship charges are by far the most serious (in terms of what we're alleged to have done and the numbers involved) you'd need pretty damning evidence to prove these in the light of what transpired at CAS. And if they did have that, I'm pretty sure this case would have been done and dusted a long time ago. The other two issues (Fordham & Mancini) largely appear to be window-dressing and if you had us bang to rights on the sponsorship/false accounting stuff, you'd not really need those would you?
 
halfcenturyup said:
That wouldn't be a breach. The club's financial position was reasonably sound in the years covered by the allegations. So, even if they find in favour of the PL on everything except Etihad, including Etisalat, it's not a problem for FFP I don't think.
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It’s hard to remember exactly what our position was the allegations cover such a long period. Media narrative is probably making even me think that we had massive losses until like last year. I know allowable losses are very significant. Are you able to do a bit more of a deep dive and take out say the 13 ish million mentioned in other comments and see what our profits losses would be in the period in question and weather it would be a pass or fail on FFP.

Would there be an argument that even if no supporting advantage or FFP fail 13 million amounts to enough difference in accounts to be fraudulent / false accounting etc
 
slbsn said:
The CAS witness evidence on this was broad and unequivocal:

Mr James Hogan, former President and CEO of Etihad: “The sponsorship obligations were paid out of Etihad’s own funds”

Mr Simon Pearce, Non-Executive Director of MCFC: "Neither ADUG nor [HHSM] funded any of Etihad’s sponsorship obligations”

Mr Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Board Member of Etihad Aviation Group and Chairman of the Board Finance and Investment Committee:

"[Etihad] did not receive any payments from ADUG or [HHSM] or any person or entity controlled or influenced by them, whether directly or indirectly in relation to any of the Sponsorship Agreements, whether by way of advance funding or subsequent reimbursement."



Mr Henning Zur Hausen, General Counsel and
Company Secretary of Etihad Aviation Group:

"All sponsorship fees payable by the Company under the Sponsorship Agreements have been and are being paid from the [Etihad’s] general funds and from sources available to the Company…[Etihad] did not receive any payments from [ADUG] or [HHSM] in relation to any of the Sponsorship Agreements.

Mr Tony Douglas, then Group Chief Executive Officer of Etihad, now CEO of Riyadh Air confirmed that Mr Zur Hausen's evidence was entirely correct and stated:

"For the avoidance of doubt, I also confirm that the sources available to the [Etihad] have never included (whether directly or indirectly) [ADUG], [HHSM], or any person or entity controlled or influenced by them.....I confirm, for the avoidance of doubt, that [Etihad] has never received any money whatsoever from [ADUG] or [HHSM] or any person or entity controlled or influenced by them, whether directly or indirectly."

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan in writing confirmed:

“I can confirm that I have not authorised ADUG to make any payments to Etihad, Etisalat or any of their affiliates in relation to their sponsorship of [MCFC], nor have I authorised or arranged or anyone else to make any such payments to them. I can also confirm that I have not made any such payments myself."
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I know. None of that says the allegedly "indirect" payment to Etihad could have come from ADEC, which was my point.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Exactly. In the worst case scenario, if the Fordham charges were proven, I'd even question whether they could claim we'd had a sporting advantage from that. And let's not forget that they pursued this case, where the most financially advantageous alleged transactions, including the Etihad sponsorship, had already been knocked back by the world's pre-eminent sporting legal body.

It's like facing a trial for murder in the USA, where it was comprehensively proven that you were nowhere near the murder scene at the time and couldn't have done it, then being put on trial for exactly the same offence in the UK. You'd need compelling new evidence to pull that off.

Given that the sponsorship charges are by far the most serious (in terms of what we're alleged to have done and the numbers involved) you'd need pretty damning evidence to prove these in the light of what transpired at CAS. And if they did have that, I'm pretty sure this case would have been done and dusted a long time ago. The other two issues (Fordham & Mancini) largely appear to be window-dressing and if you had us bang to rights on the sponsorship/false accounting stuff, you'd not really need those would you?
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The club were fined £49 million in 2014 bu Uefa and £8.5 awarded to them as a result of non cooperation via CAS. What ever advantages they believed City gained from Etisalat and two payments of £15 million. Financially City have more than paid the advantage back which would have resulted in less investment in the playing squad as a result. What sporting advantage would have been gained from that?
 
I am convinced that every single action/non-action the club has taken since 115 day has been based entirely on expert legal advice. From my point of view when this shit show is concluded I hope we see some more pro-active legal action. Without doubt those journalists (Harris, Panja etc) who have have repeatedly accused Simon Pearce of committing perjury at CAS should be receiving some special letters via recorded delivery.

Then again, the legal advice maybe "What is your objective ?, if its just revenge forget it, it could be a PR disaster"

Personally I would absolutely pursue it 100%, but Simon Pearce may not give a flying fcuk.
 
inbetween said:
The media have to be extremely careful with how they report upon this because this goes beyond football.

They need to remember soon that they're not taking on Manchester City, they're taking on a country, a country with unlimited resources and fingers in pies beyond football. Our owners are not businessmen who need to submit to newspapers, they're more like rich kings who could quite honestly buy them out and close them down.

The Middle Eastern countries don't mess about with this sort of thing and the UK government will be watching this closely. Public embarassment of the UAE is not an option because the inevitable consequence is the loss of billions of future overseas investment in the UK and especially Manchester specifically.
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If you pop over to the media thread you will see thousands of examples of the toxic media reporting on City over the past 14 or so years.

The media haven’t been ‘extremely careful’ over those 14 years so I’m pretty sure it ain’t gonna change now.

As for the UK Government getting involved, that ship sailed the day the 115 charges were announced last year.
 
LeonardoDaVnci said:
I am convinced that every single action/non-action the club has taken since 115 day has been based entirely on expert legal advice. From my point of view when this shit show is concluded I hope we see some more pro-active legal action. Without doubt those journalists (Harris, Panja etc) who have have repeatedly accused Simon Pearce of committing perjury at CAS should be receiving some special letters via recorded delivery.

Then again, the legal advice maybe "What is your objective ?, if its just revenge forget it, it could be a PR disaster"

Personally I would absolutely pursue it 100%, but Simon Pearce may not give a flying fcuk.
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Panja has an interesting way in which be posts on Twitter. Always posts sarcastic innuendo - which opens the floodgates for his followers to post the more direct libellous accusations.

See him do it so many times in relation to our sponsorships, revenue or success.
 
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