PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[patrickblue]

What annoys me is that its often stated that City are paying Pannick, whos a KC, either £5K, £7k or £10K per hour depending what you read. However, its never mentioned that the PL have also employed several KC and their hourly rate is never mentioned

That's just pretty much the same as the pundits and match commentators constantly bringing up how much our squad cost when we're playing the likes of rags and dippers.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It isn’t, for all the reasons GDM so eloquently describes above. It’s a Guardian journalist doing what Guardian journalists always do when writing about City; present an entirely one sided narrative, sneer, reference state ownership, time barring and clever lawyers, and never entertain the possibility that we might not be guilty for a second. That offering of Ronay’s ticks every box……

Well said John. When even the supposedly honest Conn comes out with the mendacious statement about us selecting two of the CAS panel, you know the Guardian has a clear agenda.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I am one of those who tries to keep up with this thread, but has to skim through because of lack of time, there is one question I would like to ask of the better educated here.
Take the scenario that City have been found guilty of some or all of the substantive "fraud" and "false accounting" charges, based on the flimsy evidence that we know exists, and the Commission uses the "balance of Probabilities" rule to get over the fact there is no incontrovertible evidence of guilt.
The club will obviously appeal if in this position, but my question is what would the other parties who have been tarnished by the verdict do, or what remedies would be open to them.
In particular I am thinking about the Audit firms involved in the whole saga, to the auditors their independence from their client is sacrosanct - they have now been found guilty of colluding with their clients to falsify records with intent to mislead other parties, I don't think this would go down well with these people, is there anything to stop the audit firms from suing the hell out of the PL ??? - I think not, and for this reason I feel that the Commission will only be able to find the club guilty if they can provide some serious new "smoking gun" evidence, the bar must be set very high.
But there may be factors I am not taking into account

I doubt they will be found to have been colluding with the club, at worst they will be found to have been misled by the club.

But yes, you are right, there would be implications for BDO around the audit procedures carried out pre-2018 and even post-2018.

One of the things that gives me confidence in the club's position is that, if the auditors thought they had been misled by the club, they would have resigned in 2018. They didn't, so this means the club were able to convince the auditors everything was tickety-boo. If the club can convince auditors whose reputation will be in the line if they are wrong, there shouldn't be any problem convincing an independent panel.

Your question was what happens if the panel effectively says they were wrong and their audit procedures were inadequate? All hell breaks loose, I would imagine. :)

Which, as I say, is one of the reasons why it won't happen.

 

[homerdog]

What annoys me is that its often stated that City are paying Pannick, whos a KC, either £5K, £7k or £10K per hour depending what you read. However, its never mentioned that the PL have also employed several KC and their hourly rate is never mentioned

They must be representing the wankers at the PL pro bono...

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

This may all be true, but the tone of the article is a million miles away from all the other articles he has written about the subject, imo. It's interesting to consider why. He certainly hasn't developed any journalistic integrity over the last few weeks.

Maybe it's a sign of progress?

The spineless **** is just trying to hedge his bets as the determination advances towards us.

He pays lip service to a finding in the club’s favour, but the wording of the article is plainly designed for the reader to conclude that such an outcome would be in spite of the club’s conduct, not because the of it.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Well said John. When even the supposedly honest Conn comes out with the mendacious statement about us selecting two of the CAS panel, you know the Guardian has a clear agenda.

Looks like I am on my own thinking it wasn't a bad article by Ronay (inasmuch as he has any qualification at all for talking about legal and accounting issues, or football issues actually), but he did try to explain the rationale for a sporting advantage. Although, he did say rather strangely that "a few spare millions can make a massive difference on the pitch" which is weird. I think we could all point to hundreds of millions spent that haven't made any difference at all.

 

[halfcenturyup]

The spineless **** is just trying to hedge his bets as the determination advances towards us.

He pays lip service to a finding in the club’s favour, but the wording of the article is plainly designed for the reader to conclude that such an outcome would be in spite of the club’s conduct, not because the of it.

Baby steps :)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Looks like I am on my own thinking it wasn't a bad article by Ronay (inasmuch as he has any qualification at all for talking about legal and accounting issues, or football issues actually), but he did try to explain the rationale for a sporting advantage. Although, he did say rather strangely that "a few spare millions can make a massive difference on the pitch" which is weird.
I think we could all point to hundreds of millions spent that haven't made any difference at all.

Quite. I think we could provide a couple of high-profile examples of that. But you can apply that argument even to Everton, where their results got worse the more they were alleged to have spent.

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

That's just pretty much the same as the pundits and match commentators constantly bringing up how much our squad cost when we're playing the likes of rags and dippers.

More pertinently it's the value of the squad rather than the cost which is significant. Commentators conflate cost with value. The City squad probably cost a bit less than the rags squad but it's worth a lot more, possibly twice as much. This is actually successful investment. But the commentators imply that this is a bad thing.

 

[Silva61]

You will be better declaring that you don't need a TV License too, which you can do on the TV license website below. Lasts for a year and then you have to declare again. Stops them mithering you. I suppose they can still send someone around to your property to check, but the amount of people cancelling I doubt they have the resource to investigate everyone. I've not had a license for about 4 years now and never had a visit or anything.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/

You must of had some letters, they never stop sending, I get 1 each month, never bother opening them but do collect them and put the date received.
Without counting I have around 20, must be 3 year now without a licence, gives me a nice warm feeling I contribute nothing to that disgusting organisation.