PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[cheekybids]

Exsanguinate?

@gordondaviesmoustache to the thread.

I read that in a darlek voice…..

 

[KS55]

I don't understand why people think it will all be secretive. There will be a written decision with extensive content on all the charges, all the discussions, all the witness testimony and the panel's conclusion on each and every point.

It's there with Everton and Forest. It's there from CAS. You just have to Google and read and sadly the majority of people so happy to talk about us can't manage to do that.

People want a running commentary coming out of the hearing, but that is pure prurience.

 

[dubblue]

Just heard two dads at my son’s football laughing about Rodri’s injury and their heart bleeds 115 times for them. Holding my tongue is getting difficult.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Just heard two dads at my son’s football laughing about Rodri’s injury and their heart bleeds 115 times for them. Holding my tongue is getting difficult.

Nothing a couple of headbutts can’t sort out.

 

[cheekybids]

We all know what the witnesses (all of them, not just Simon Pearce) said at CAS.

What we don't know is what the witnesses have said since.

But what's important to understand is that the club does. These cases are not ambushes, and they are not intended or permitted to be ambushes. If there is evidence showing that Simon Pearce or anyone else was lying at CAS, or might have been lying, by this stage of the proceedings that will not be a surprise to anyone. It will have been part of the PL's case for months if not years.

In other words, CIty will have known what the PL rely on - whether or not it is more emails from Der Spiegel = for months if not years. You go into this kind of hearing with your cards, in terms of the evidence you are relying on, already on the table lying face up. Of course, it may be something else entirely, for instance evidence that may have emerged during the disclosure process, or something else the PL have found (like a whistleblower). Either way, we can say for sure that the PL will have disclosed some time ago the evidence they intend to rely on to discredit MCFC's witnesses, and MCFC know exactly what it is that is being said against them and their witnesses.

So knowing the scale of the task they face, what can we read into the reported offer to settle for a small points deduction? IF - and it's a bit If - there really was an offer to settle for 6 points (or whatever it was) that makes me think three things.

First, IF the reality was that senior MCFC officials did lie at CAS, given that they have now seen the detail of the case against us I would be gobsmacked that the club did not take the deal. That is because the reported offer would have got the club off a particularly nasty hook at relatively modest cost, and would have been covered by a non-disclosure agreement so that the details did not enter the public domain. Such a settlement would plausibly allow the club to say 'we're not guilty but settling this for points we can win back through the season was the sensible thing to do rather than spend half the season with this hanging over us.'

Secondly, why would the PL make such an offer? Again, there are a number of reasons, but to make an offer to settle on the basis of such a lenient sanction (lenient in the context of the allegations) is a pretty clear pointer that someone somewhere along the line has spotted some pretty major weaknesses in the PL's own case. Don't get me wrong - cases with weaknesses can still succeed, and even strong cases can come apart in the courtroom - but experienced advocates can usually spot the winners from a fair distance out.

Likewise, even experienced advocates can get cold feet, but the reported offer struck me as being an attempt by the PL to get something over the line rather than face complete humiliation. I have told myself again and again to try to avoid looking at this through blue-tinted glasses, but each time I look at this I come back to a mental image of the CPS offering Fred and Rose West 6 months each for ABH.

Thirdly, disputes like this can only be resolved in two ways: one, you agree it with the other side, two, you let the panel make the decision. There are a number of reasons why we might not have accepted a settlement offer, the most probable - by far - is that the club thinks it will achieve a better outcome by going to trial. Which means that the club either thinks a non sporting sanction is likely even if City lose on the most serious charges - which I personally don't see happening in a month of Sundays - or they think the chances are that MCFC will be exonerated on everything that might lead to a sporting sanction.

Which is most of it bar the non-co-operation charge in my view.

I stress that the assumption that the PL made us an offer that, if the charges prove to be true, would be seen as ridiculously low is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the above. However if the account of that offer is in its essentials correct, to my mind that demonstrates a highly confident MCFC and a pretty desperate PL.

IF, I repeat, that offer was made.

Maybe the analogy is trading standards charging Fred with poor workmanship for the way he bricked up his fireplace.

 

[frothy]

Just heard two dads at my son’s football laughing about Rodri’s injury and their heart bleeds 115 times for them. Holding my tongue is getting difficult.

Nut the bastards

 

[cheekybids]

People want a running commentary coming out of the hearing, but that is pure prurience.

The rules all clubs signed up to don’t allow it.

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

Maybe the analogy is trading standards charging Fred with poor workmanship for the way he bricked up his fireplace.

No that won't work as that would be a breach of an "implied condition" of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 in relation to work carried out namely "That the work will be carried out with reasonable care and skill. That the work will be carried out within a reasonable time."
The alleged breaches of FFP are specific conditions (rules) not implied.

 

[Newman Noggs]

People want a running commentary coming out of the hearing, but that is pure prurience.

It's also a reflection of a pervasive curtain-twitching narcissism and self-importance. Who the fuck do these people think they are that they should be made a party to confidential proceedings. As bad as Everton demanding to be "kept informed"

 

[Cobwebcat]

Just heard two dads at my son’s football laughing about Rodri’s injury and their heart bleeds 115 times for them. Holding my tongue is getting difficult.

Still we have just won four in a row so my heart bleeds for them.

Imagine that they’re so shit we win a fifth without our best player, now that would be a laugh.

They’re crying inside. You know it. That’s enough. However, next time your lad plays and they are there (warn your lad in advance you don’t mean it) shout out your lads name and say “you've got to do better than that or you will end up at United”