PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[cheekybids]

No.

I don't like management consultants :) Second only to lawyers in my hate list .....

I was going to go on a rant but I decided to leave it at that. Let's just say I don't rate him or how he is running the club, he has the easiest CEO job in football and wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Guardiola. All the problems the club is facing and has faced happened under his watch. Ah, I am ranting. Enough.

I think you can turn that on its head. Guardiola wouldn’t be here without him & all the great stuff has happened on his watch ;)

That’s not defending him….. just saying.

 

[slbsn]

There must be some danger in applying the rationale you would expect a “normal” commercial organisation to follow in these circumstances to how the PL is behaving?

Sure, you wouldn’t expect a commercial organisation to go against legal recommendations given the consequences (financial and reputation) when they eventually lose.

In this case, it’s different if the pressure to go against legal advice is applied by highly-adversarial shareholders who do not burden the consequences of losing the case in the way a normal commercial organisation would do.

ie, if the PL loses the case, is there really a substantial financial or reputational impact for Daniel Levy/Spurs or Tim Lewis/Arsenal?

Do they really care about the legal costs if they’re split across all PL clubs?

Do they really care about the reputation of the PL? Given the super league debacle the answer to that is clear.

They won’t lose their jobs because Masters is the face of this (potential) failure.

Finally, all of the above is before we include the factor of football being a highly emotional environment. It’s not a normal business and I don’t believe even highly-experienced businessmen like Levy/Lewis (even Khaldoon) are immune from letting emotion influence their thinking when it comes to football matters.

These are fair comments and I often talk about how football diverges from normal business reality due to emotion. But there is a limit.

And as you infer, clearly Masters cares about the outcome and he surely must have had a key role in deciding whether to launch the charges. I agree the risk and cost of losing is far less for individuals or clubs.

Look, maybe I’m the naive one here - maybe all of these non logical factors were/are the key driver. More fool me if so for crediting these people with integrity and rationale brains!

 

[halfcenturyup]

I think you can turn that on its head. Guardiola wouldn’t be here without him & all the great stuff has happened on his watch ;)

That’s not defending him….. just saying.

Possibly. He would still be a cunting management consultant, though.

Btw, I hated the title of his book "The ball doesn't go in by chance". Arrogant bollocks. I am waiting for the sequel " The Spanish airline doesn't go bankrupt by chance".

He is one lucky fucker.

 

[mcfcphil]

These are fair comments and I often talk about how football diverges from normal business reality due to emotion. But there is a limit.

And as you infer, clearly Masters cares about the outcome and he surely must have had a key role in deciding whether to launch the charges. I agree the risk and cost of losing is far less for individuals or clubs.

Look, maybe I’m the naive one here - maybe all of these non logical factors were/are the key driver. More fool me if so for crediting these people with integrity and rationale brains!

Cheers Stefan.

I don’t think it’s a case of being naive/right/wrong because no one can know for sure, which is why this is so intriguing/terrifying!

Anyway, time for some football!

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

They can be under pressure etc but nobody goes with a case like this where the advice is that the case is weak. Because in the end, in such a case, they are very likely to lose and that has consequences in itself. So I really don’t see it. This should be distinguished from the PR and the breadth of the charges where there is a tactical decision in play.

You're assuming that the PL is acting totally rationally though. UEFA's CFCB issued a harsh sanction against us based on a selective handful of emails they drew an (incorrect) inference from. But once an independent body was involved they were not able to present any cogent evidence that their inference was correct. That wasn't a rational approach but presumably their lawyers didn't stand in their way.

From the outcome of the APT case, we know that certain clubs felt we were not being honest about related parties, even though both you and me agree there's no conceivable interpretation of IAS24 where Etihad is a related party. This is why they wanted to bring in the associated party rules, where the PL have carte blanche, rather than having to rely on existing external and accepted standards that they felt we'd ignored.

We also know that the PL will be relying heavily on the rules requiring clubs to "act in utmost good faith", whereas UEFA/CAS were focused on the Etihad & Etisalat sponsorships being disguised equity funding and against their specific rules. The PL's "acting in utmost good faith" target is a much wider and more opaque one than UEFA's.

It's pretty certain that the related party issue will be part of the PL's case, and this was never tested at CAS. There's also the Mancini contract and Fordham, which weren't part of the case brought by UEFA. If the PL feel they've a chance of landing either of those then that's justified their actions.

So the PL's target is a lot bigger than UEFA's in terms of scope and how it will judge the allegations, but it will still be about interpretation. Plus the motivation would appear to be that some clubs were determined to ensure that the PL brings this case, and it wasn't solely the desire of the PL to seek natural justice for egregious rule breaking, which probably also accounted for UEFA's actions.

 

[Pelegrinni]

Could there be any possibility of unintended consequences for other clubs that could result from the Mancini/Fordham case if the IC finds against City?
I heard that other clubs used similar arrangements before the practice was banned regarding the image rights for players and managers.

 

[slbsn]

You're assuming that the PL is acting totally rationally though. UEFA's CFCB issued a harsh sanction against us based on a selective handful of emails they drew an (incorrect) inference from. But once an independent body was involved they were not able to present any cogent evidence that their inference was correct. That wasn't a rational approach but presumably their lawyers didn't stand in their way.

From the outcome of the APT case, we know that certain clubs felt we were not being honest about related parties, even though both you and me agree there's no conceivable interpretation of IAS24 where Etihad is a related party. This is why they wanted to bring in the associated party rules, where the PL have carte blanche, rather than having to rely on existing external and accepted standards that they felt we'd ignored.

We also know that the PL will be relying heavily on the rules requiring clubs to "act in utmost good faith", whereas UEFA/CAS were focused on the Etihad & Etisalat sponsorships being disguised equity funding and against their specific rules. The PL's "acting in utmost good faith" target is a much wider and more opaque one than UEFA's.

It's pretty certain that the related party issue will be part of the PL's case, and this was never tested at CAS. There's also the Mancini contract and Fordham, which weren't part of the case brought by UEFA. If the PL feel they've a chance of landing either of those then that's justified their actions.

So the PL's target is a lot bigger than UEFA's in terms of scope and how it will judge the allegations, but it will still be about interpretation. Plus the motivation would appear to be that some clubs were determined to ensure that the PL brings this case, and it wasn't solely the desire of the PL to seek natural justice for egregious rule breaking, which probably also accounted for UEFA's actions.

1. Safer to assume the opponent are not idiots or irrational. It is really very unlikely. At UEFA one of the biggest issues is that City appear not to have fully engaged and therefore UEFA could argue they acted rationally based on what was before them. I don't think it is established that UEFA was irrational - certainly CAS never made such a statement.
2. I don't agree that the PL rely on utmost good faith - the allegations are just very serious.
3. I don't agree the related party issue is part of the PL's case - it is both subjective and time barred in the absence of fraud or concealment. Furthermore they could easily have gone after related party in 2023s accounts if that was the issue.
4. Mancini and Fordham do not justify a case on their own
5. Yes PL's target is much broader but that suggests more, not less rational thinking.

To Leicester...

 

[halfcenturyup]

1. Safer to assume the opponent are not idiots or irrational. It is really very unlikely. At UEFA one of the biggest issues is that City appear not to have fully engaged and therefore UEFA could argue they acted rationally based on what was before them. I don't think it is established that UEFA was irrational - certainly CAS never made such a statement.
2. I don't agree that the PL rely on utmost good faith - the allegations are just very serious.
3. I don't agree the related party issue is part of the PL's case - it is both subjective and time barred in the absence of fraud or concealment. Furthermore they could easily have gone after related party in 2023s accounts if that was the issue.
4. Mancini and Fordham do not justify a case on their own
5. Yes PL's target is much broader but that suggests more, not less rational thinking.

To Leicester...

Half time, so:

On your 1, that is my position on the 115 case. That the PL "acted rationally" / "had no choice" based on what was in front of them (assuming the investigation saw no third party witness statements or accounting evidence that covered all the periods, an assumption on which I realise you disagree with me).

On your 3, there was a whole redacted paragraph in the APT judgment talking about why APTs are an essential part of PSR. I had assumed this was detail to do with the allegations in the 115 case. Do you think differently?

Back to the important stuff.

 

[slbsn]

Half time, so:

On your 1, that is my position on the 115 case. That the PL "acted rationally" / "had no choice" based on what was in front of them (assuming the investigation saw no third party witness statements or accounting evidence that covered all the periods, an assumption on which I realise you disagree with me).

On your 3, there was a whole redacted paragraph in the APT judgment talking about why APTs are an essential part of PSR. I had assumed this was detail to do with the allegations in the 115 case. Do you think differently?

Back to the important stuff.

1. By Feb 2023, City had no choice but to engage extensively for some time before that
3. - which para. I’ll relook

 

[halfcenturyup]

1. By Feb 2023, City had no choice but to engage extensively for some time before that
3. - which para. I’ll relook

See below. But first, a very important legal question. What does the 0 after LEI mean?

1. For the information required by the rules, yes. For information from third parties?

3.