PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Norbiton said:
Most people reading it won’t know the issues relating to our sponsorships and that the fair value of the Etihad contract has never been challenged. So from Ronay’s article they would be led to believe that funds were being found to top up the Etihad agreement rather than pay part of it, thus giving us more revenue than we were declaring. Ronay doesn’t actually claim that the extra funds came from our owner, but fails to point out that, if that is the case, we haven’t been disguising equity as sponsorship and haven’t broken any rules.
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I haven't read / won't be reading the article but I would imagine he has deliberately left that open ended so the readers draw their own conclusion.
 
Norbiton said:
Most people reading it won’t know the issues relating to our sponsorships and that the fair value of the Etihad contract has never been challenged. So from Ronay’s article they would be led to believe that funds were being found to top up the Etihad agreement rather than pay part of it, thus giving us more revenue than we were declaring. Ronay doesn’t actually claim that the extra funds came from our owner, but fails to point out that, if that is the case, we haven’t been disguising equity as sponsorship and haven’t broken any rules.
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Can you dumb it down a notch for me?
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Would agree but he certainly isn’t stupid, as the article is quite carefully constructed to appear balanced - and the conclusions contained in there are superficially plausible.

He presents three scenarios. The first being that we are found guilty - because we are guilty and that the club will engage in ‘vengeful’ retribution following it. The second scenario is the we are cleared but it’s inevitably qualified on the basis that it could be a just outcome, but by implication may very well not be. And the third scenario, and one he posits as the most likely, is a middle ground and one that crucially involves an admission of guilt on our part.

There is a common theme running through those three scenarios, namely that the club has done something wrong, a view that is underpinned by his description of the emails as ‘compelling’ despite them manifestly not painting the full picture (how could they?) juxtaposed against his derision at the club’s deployment of the word ‘irrefutable’ to describe the evidence we have/had in our possession to rebut these charges, through the prism of a gratuitous and grossly exaggerated reference to the hourly rate of our leading counsel. Along with, of course, the obligatory and misleading reference to the time-barring of the UEFA charges.

And he finishes off the article to remind everyone of the wider geopolitical consequences of a finding of guilt - a worthwhile point but plainly designed to bolster the inference of that gult, given its location at the end of the article.

It’s a carefully constructed, but wholly specious work of sophistry, and whilst conspicuously better written than most of its ilk, is still consciously designed to project the unwavering position that the club must have acted dishonestly.

Maybe it has, it’s perfectly plausible, however unlikely, but it’s the absence of any suggestion at the possibility that the club has not, and what the consequences are that would flow from that (rather than us simply getting away with it) that has marked this wholly dishonest species of article for the last two and a half years.
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I thought it was a sophisticated attack piece on us. We really cannot win this. Whatever the outcome we are guilty and will always have a 'but' after our achievements instead of the admiration and plaudits that have been richly deserved. I know many will say ignore but our great club has a place in wider society and we cannot forever be labelled as cheats by a biased click obsessed media.

Its interesting to think about when the tipping point was with them. The take-over? Our first title? Pep's arrival? Pinto's hack?

We must win this. There can be no outcome other than the material nature of the charges are found to be utterly false. Then gloves off if these bloodsucking hacks even whisper anything that contradicts that.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm saying that there's a difference between doing something because you genuinely think it's OK, based on proper professional advice, and doing something you know is deceitful and illegal.

Based on the evidence provided at CAS, we know that ADUG did not fund the Etihad contract and therefore, on the basis of that evidence we believe the charges under that heading are likely to fail. But the PL's lawyers could potentially have uncovered details of a conspiracy to spin the story of the central funding as a knowing lie. I doubt it, but it's a possibility.

Financially, the Fordham and Mancini allegations aren't that significant but it's the motivation for those that's potentially important. Again, I very much doubt there was any overt, malign intent to deceive in either of those, but if there was that would have a wider impact that just the figures.

I've just found out that an ex-boss of mine died last year. He ran the insurance company I worked for and when it collapsed he was convicted of fraud and went to prison for 7 years. Insurance company premiums are their main revenue and claims are their main expenses. If you pay out less in claims than the revenue you bring in, you make a profit (and vice versa of course). Claims can take many years to finalise though, so they have to be carefully managed, and reserves put aside to cover potential liabilities that may arise. Those reserves are audited and professionally assessed by actuarial experts.

We'd written some bad business over a couple of years however, and losses started to become apparent on that business. Rather than admit those, which would have spoiled the good reputation the company had built, they were hidden by not putting new claims on the system. There is a legitimate reason for not putting them on the system short-term, because you might not be clear on what the potential liability is. Bujt once you have a figure, they need to go on the system, be visible, and reserves adjusted accordingly. Bujt they were witholding them even when the potential liability was established, which meant the company appeared to be more profitable than it actually was.

The point I'm trying to illustrate is that you could be questioned on not entering claims but you coulld say you had a legitimate reason not to, citing the difficulty of establishing a potential figure for liability. If you could show a pattern of doing that but only over a short term, then that might be judged as reasonable. But if you keep claims off the system for a longer time, even when liability is established, and there's a paper trail showing that you did this deliberatley and knowingly, then you'll be in trouble, as three of the directors were.
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That all makes sense I don’t think we did what’s alleged or with malign intent but I think the Premier League think we have or at least want to get us for that. I don’t think they have anything new to prove it and don’t think they could ever get it due to the need to get it from Etihad etc and of course it not being true.
 
WRicko said:
That all makes sense I don’t think we did what’s alleged or with malign intent but I think the Premier League think we have or at least want to get us for that. I don’t think they have anything new to prove it and don’t think they could ever get it due to the need to get it from Etihad etc and of course it not being true.
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I am convinced that the malicious motive of a small group of clubs to damage City has driven everything. Masters has just taken the line of least resistance and carried out the instructions of that clique. The Comms narrative against City has been weaponised since day 1. The end game for these club directors is not to win the case but to damage City’s reputation. The evidence is irrelevant to them.
 
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