PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[blue b4 the moon]

Column B is how many tickets they sold and Column A is how many attended. 2 different things and not 'inflated figures' unless they lied about sales, which I doubt. They have a 100,000 waiting list for season tickets.

I was going to ask if that was an attempt at humour but the rest of your post belies that.

Enjoy believing everything red shirted is wonderful.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

It's all supposition to be honest as nobody here actually know what the charges relate to specifically. You are right about the domino effect on a lot of the charges though (IMHO).

One thing is abundantly clear, the burden of proof is so high for the Premier League, I fail to see how the panel reaches it.

They would need to physically have former players waiting outside in the corridor to give evidence against us.

And if they had that, we would have known it in the four years we have dragged it out and it would never have gone this far.

It's a final Hail Mary, yet still predicated on non-compliance and when we are comfortable showing the supporting documents.

BDO will stand with us, as will all our sponsors and investors.

And that's before we discuss in essence, the temerity to put Khaldoon in the dock and him supposedly complicit in mass financial fraud.

The damage to his reputation alone and the boards he sits on would necessitate him to personally seek legal recourse.

It's a can of worms.

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

Pretty sure it was Kieran Maguire in the Independent. Can’t find it to link, but I haven’t looked very hard.

Yeah, its in the Independent article. I'm not sure how he knows this definitively tho

 

[Keeper!]

I'm trying not to be naïve while also trying to square the seriousness of the claims with the seriousness of the implications for related parties if demonstrated to be true.

Edit: Silverlake would presumably also say they were lied to, but for the levels of deceit we're talking about it would be need complicit parties up and down the club bordering on a criminal scale, right? And frankly those accountants not doing their job properly? It's not something people would be breezily emailing to one another? Or am I missing something?

IF we are found guilty on basic fraud we are utterly %%%ed in my opinion, the fall out will destroy the club and ownership.

 

[Metalartin]

I take it there will be no banners aimed at the Premier League yet until we are sure they are handling this unfairly?

I was think banners like "Independent Regulator NOW Please!"

I mean they have tried to charge City and came after the club more than they would dare any of their darling clubs.

But I suppose it is better to take the view that we can't argue with what they think they have, until they show us their hand, I guess. Reeks of UEFA all over again though.

 

[Iassel]

I realise that you’re getting bombarded with questions, so apologies for adding another! Is it really plausible that we would’ve been able to continually deceive/mislead a firm as credible as BDO over such a long period of time? Would it be pretty damaging to their reputation if this was all going on directly under their noses?

Speaking only from personal opinion, but with a now thankfully completed background in auditing, of course it is possible and plausible, especially if the senior audit team in charge are not changing regularly…

Of course it’s a deeply serious allegation, hence my earlier comment that the list of charges is effectively alleging the RUSADA affair of football, hence the ‘comfort’ that the arbitration panel will take this incredibly seriously and won’t be voting along partisan lines of which team scarf is in their 3rd summer cottage, but also raised the deep concern that a defeat for City would not lead to a £1m fine and a suspended 3 point deduction…

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

All the rediculous uniformed tripe is getting rolled out by the FFP experts in my circle. My favourite is people who tell me we only got away with it at CAS because it was time barred and therefore we are certainly guilty with the PL. Usually at that point its time to walk away but this week i've been grumpy as fuck and in my error tried to educate people.

Fact is they don't want to listen and generally have no interest if City are innocent or not, they will always just brand us as cheats and quote fat mick from salfords twitter page as proof we did it. Maybe thats what the PL are going after all along, tarnish our reputation regardless of the outcome.

Right. There is no winning for us. The damage is done. Under the assumption we are going to all follow the club as always regardless of the verdict, this is already over, and we already lost.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Charging the club is one thing, actually proving these allegations is another. The people who run City are not stupid. The four year investigation is a Red Herring, designed to give the PL the excuse and justification they are so desperately looking for to tarnish their reputation.

Yes. Worth bearing in mind we are no more guilty of anything today than we were last Wednesday. There's a danger that our concern as fans causes us to forget this fact. PL charges are not charges in the legal sense, they are just accusations from an unregulated body.

 

[Keeper!]

One thing is abundantly clear, the burden of proof is so high for the Premier League, I fail to see how the panel reaches it.

They would need to physically have former players waiting outside in the corridor to give evidence against us.

And if they had that, we would have known it in the four years we have dragged it out and it would never have gone this far.

It's a final Hail Mary, yet still predicated on non-compliance and when we are comfortable showing the supporting documents.

BDO will stand with us, as will all our sponsors and investors.

And that's before we discuss in essence, the temerity to put Khaldoon in the dock and him supposedly complicit in mass financial fraud.

The damage to his reputation alone and the boards he sits on would necessitate him to personally seek legal recourse.

It's a can of worms.

The seriousness for both parties is enormous, I don't think a lot of people on here realise that.

 

[dario2739]

Column B is how many tickets they sold and Column A is how many attended. 2 different things and not 'inflated figures' unless they lied about sales, which I doubt. They have a 100,000 waiting list for season tickets.

Remember years ago talking to one of our sales reps at work - the night before he'd used the companies tickets for Old Trafford and gone to the Rags v Charlton in the cup... the official attendance was around 60,000 but he said if it was half that he'd have been surprised!

There's also the documentary from years ago - was it World in Action? - where they exposed match tickets for Old Trafford being sold over the counter in the cafe (Pete the Greeks?) on the corner outside the Swamp... the investigation concluded, in not so many words, that the club themselves were releasing these tickets... why sell them for face value when you can get some nobhead down the road to flog them for 3 or 4 times that and share the profits... funnily enough, nothing happened and the story was buried!