PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[Mr Ed (The Stables)]

I did jury service about 15 years ago now, It was actually a murder case I was on, and despite more than half of my fellow jury members believing there was a good chance the suspect was guilty we just did not have enough clear evidence to find them guilty,

Also in between breaks of being called back into the courtroom ( of which there was a lot as the judge loved to call for a break every 2 hours lol) I got speaking to people on jury service on another case and some of them had lost there jobs as they had been on this particular fraud case for over over 6 months,

Apparently fraud cases are the worse ones for coming to a conclusion as there is usually so many people involved, money trails, different accounts, different countries, various forms of communication, that in the end quite a few of the cases end up collapsing or the people involved being given a not guilty verdict

I always remember the judge and his closing speech to us jury members before we left for the deliberation room, he said ( you must be 100% in your decision, if there is any shed of doubt then you must return a not guilty verdict)

I wonder if this independent panel will work to the same remit, if not 100% in us being guilty then they have to drop all the charges against us,

I actually think that if we get cleared on the main 3 charges then the rest will collapse,

Its a civil hearing so the verdict is on "The Balance Of Probabilities" and not "Beyond All reasonable Doubt" as in a criminal case.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Clearly the hearing, with the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, is key to the outcome. That's why the more I think about it, I'm a little dubious about this alleged offer of a 6-point deduction (although I'm confident that some sort of settlement approach was made).

The PL would have to be very confident about their case, and the sort of penalty that might be imposed if so, to see a 6-point deduction as a 'generous' offer. I'd see that more as Masters potentially trying to keep the cartel onside. "Look guys, I made a decent offer but they weren't having it".

On the other side of the coin, if city have been ‘at it’ wouldn’t they have snapped their hands off for 6 points, a monster fine and some words that finally put this all to bed?

 

[Eebo]

C£60-70m pa

No-one is sure what the details of the allegations are, but for Etihad they are probably saying that 8 million per year of the sponsorship was paid by Etihad directly and the rest by "someone else" assumed by the PL to be ADUG, over all the years 2009/10 to 2017/18.

The Etihad sponsorship began at around 40 million a year and is now thought to be around 65 million a year, so anywhere between 30 and 55 million a year funded by ADUG over 9 years, so say 300-400 million.

Then you have any amounts for Etisalat, Aabar, ADTA they think they have on top.

Iirc, UEFA at CAS suggested 200 million, but they weren't looking at the same number of years as the PL.

Thank you both very much.

The amounts are much bigger than I was guessing at, but not enough for the rags and others to explain why we outperform them on the pitch. that still comes down to their owners wanting to take money out rather than put it in.

For me that is what is behind the rules and the charges. it's not racism per se, it's a battle over different business models. The American owned clubs want a cosy arrangement where owning a premier League club is just a way to make a return on their investment like an NFL franchise

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

They call that getting off on a technicality……

Although there does seem to be a possible loophole.

 

[supercity88]

Clearly the hearing, with the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, is key to the outcome. That's why the more I think about it, I'm a little dubious about this alleged offer of a 6-point deduction (although I'm confident that some sort of settlement approach was made).

The PL would have to be very confident about their case, and the sort of penalty that might be imposed if so, to see a 6-point deduction as a 'generous' offer. I'd see that more as Masters potentially trying to keep the cartel onside. "Look guys, I made a decent offer but they weren't having it".

As this is all playing out in public I would be staggered if the PL had offered a 6pt deduction. Everton were given 10pts initially, reduced to 6 on appeal. So immediately the public perception will be that City have "gotten away with it". I would have thought any offer would be around the 10pt mark so it's at least parallel to Everton's initial penalty, with no opportunity to appeal.

That's before you consider the public fallout from there being a settlement, which would have gone down like a lead balloon. The public would have seen that as incredibly dodgy and also believed that we bribed our way to get to that point.

But if it is true that some settlement approach was made, which I don't dispute and it's logical to reduce ongoing legal costs and speed this up, you can only conclude that City will win this. There's no way a Barrister of Pannick's stature turns down a settlement unless he's very confident the panel will clear us. You don't get to his level by making the wrong judgement call on a matter like that, and City wouldn't be so blind as to ignore his counsel on it.

 

[pauls]

I see Owen Slot in The Times has written a piece about City being the biggest cheats in history. The same Owen Slot that is The Times rugby reporter…….married to Arsenal’s commercial manager…..writing a snide City piece just before we play Arsenal.

Nothing to see here !!

Probably pissed off because it looks like his hit piece on the APT case has failed.
All these journos are the same, like to give criticism without boundaries but take their ball home when the tables are turned.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

The 6 point offer completely bamboozles me too, that's if there's any truth in it whatsoever. I can't comprehend why we'd go from chat about expulsion, titles being stripped, all the players and staff having to be sold and all the rest of it, to a sanction in a similar ballpark of Everton/Forest etc. Even if Masters and the PL along with their solicitors thought they had us bang to rights and wished us to settle prior to the hearing, there'd be a much more middle ground they'd have likely offered us.

They could offer us that and if we settled then we could plausibly still win the league.

 

[wonderblue]

As this is all playing out in public I would be staggered if the PL had offered a 6pt deduction. Everton were given 10pts initially, reduced to 6 on appeal. So immediately the public perception will be that City have "gotten away with it". I would have thought any offer would be around the 10pt mark so it's at least parallel to Everton's initial penalty, with no opportunity to appeal.

That's before you consider the public fallout from there being a settlement, which would have gone down like a lead balloon. The public would have seen that as incredibly dodgy and also believed that we bribed our way to get to that point.

But if it is true that some settlement approach was made, which I don't dispute and it's logical to reduce ongoing legal costs and speed this up, you can only conclude that City will win this. There's no way a Barrister of Pannick's stature turns down a settlement unless he's very confident the panel will clear us. You don't get to his level by making the wrong judgement call on a matter like that, and City wouldn't be so blind as to ignore his counsel on it.

There's no way the PL would have offered us 6-10 points after being hit with over 115 charges. It surely would have had to have been significantly higher IMO.

 

[cheekybids]

We're definitely fucked as this Football 365 are very reliable ....

View attachment 132359

“90% of 365 readers in for a big shock……..”

 

[Stoned Rose]

I did jury service about 15 years ago now, It was actually a murder case I was on, and despite more than half of my fellow jury members believing there was a good chance the suspect was guilty we just did not have enough clear evidence to find them guilty,

Also in between breaks of being called back into the courtroom ( of which there was a lot as the judge loved to call for a break every 2 hours lol) I got speaking to people on jury service on another case and some of them had lost there jobs as they had been on this particular fraud case for over over 6 months,

Apparently fraud cases are the worse ones for coming to a conclusion as there is usually so many people involved, money trails, different accounts, different countries, various forms of communication, that in the end quite a few of the cases end up collapsing or the people involved being given a not guilty verdict

I always remember the judge and his closing speech to us jury members before we left for the deliberation room, he said ( you must be 100% in your decision, if there is any shed of doubt then you must return a not guilty verdict)

I wonder if this independent panel will work to the same remit, if not 100% in us being guilty then they have to drop all the charges against us,

I actually think that if we get cleared on the main 3 charges then the rest will collapse,

Balance of probabilities.

So, it’s more likely something happened than it didn’t.

They’d have to provide very cogent reasoning for coming to such a conclusion.