PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Ric said:
It’s been three days since the PL charges and I’m already finding the whole thing pretty draining. Not spending the next three years (potentially) fretting until a judgement is actually made. Fuck that! It’s no good for my mental health for a start. Just want to get back to enjoying football, or at least trying to, again.

Still think that we’ll ultimately prevail again, as at CAS, and that talk of relegation, losing titles etc is fanciful. Fans of other clubs and certain journalists are getting giddy, and things seem grim at the moment, but the story will drift away in the minds of most over the coming weeks and months.

With no immediate threat to the club’s future, I hope we go absolutely balls out in the coming transfer windows and add more trophies to our cabinet. Demonstrate that we’re not going away anytime soon, despite what they wish.
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Hear hear.
 
Bill the Blue said:
Just stepping back and weighing things up here..

We were taken over in 2008 and had investment pumped into our club to enable us to complete with the likes of the rags, dippers, tarquins and chavs who between them had enjoyed a bit of a carve up with regards to winning leagues and cups and in turn benefitting from the millions of £'s CL qualification had to offer.

In what then appeared to be a fit of panic, new PL rules were quickly being assembled to ensure we wouldn't be to gate-crash the closed shop party.

However, because we were professional, clever and smart, we managed to get into the castle just before the drawbridge closed.

Obviously, the usual suspects were well pissed off..

From thereon in, not only did we build a team capable of competing with the chosen few, we assembled a management infrastructure that blew the old guard completely away.

The old ways where owners such as the Glazers, Kronke's and FSG's systematically syphoned off £100's of millions out of their clubs was being shown up for what it was..'pure greed'..!

The Glazers have taken out £1.1 billion pounds out of the rags since 2005 and have still not repaid anything anywhere near substantial off the £500 million pounds debt they originally dumped on the club.

Not a fkin peep about about this from the cnuts in the media btw..

Bingo, constantly whinging about the unfairness of it all whilst wasting untold millions on cart horses, this after spending £130 million pounds plus on a goalie and centre back. The fkin hypocrite..

City's new owners were not only investing in the team and management infanstructure, they were investing in East Manchester, generating 100's of local jobs, building a state of the art training complex and extending and improving stadium facilities..

All along, during this time you had the usual suspects looking at what we were doing with complete disgust..

City's owners were showing the rest of the PL and wider watching world how a football club should be run..

The watching world however were not impressed. They were far from happy that our club had 'elbowed it's way', albeit legitimately, onto the top table.

The G14 were getting rather pissed off too it seemed.

City soon faced charges of cheating and corruption, threats of CL expulsion and heavy fines.

Yet another obstacle for us to climb over.

Well guess what, we faced these charges head on and not only were we cleared of all the shit levied at us, we once again showed up the entitled establishment for what it was, a jumped up kangaroo court, backed by jealous, greedy owners of clubs who over the years had creamed off untold £millions without a thought for anyone else..

Over all this time, City went about their business on the field, playing mesmerising football, breaking record after record and winning stuff..

Let's not forget, Silva, Toure, Zabletta, Hart, Lescott, Clichy, Aguero, Nazri, Dzeko, Barry and the like were not the established world stars of the day.

I remember the media piss taking by one and all when Kaka turned us down, what was it ? Oh yeah, "you might have the money but you haven't got the class or history"..

They soon changed their tune however, when from 8 points behind with 6 games to play in 2012, we won the league in scenes that will never be bettered on SKYsports TV..

It was written in the stars that Ferguson and his rags team would win the PL that year.

Let's not forget, it would have been the rags 5th PL title in 6 years, btw, not a fkin peep out of the media twats about how unfair the rags dominance was back then, not a fkin squeak..

Ferguson had already been humiliated at the swamp 6-1 and had lost the return game at the Etihad in the most one sided1-0 you will ever had seen.

His team shit themselves that night and never crossed the halfway line, let alone had a shot on our goal..

Sergio's goal killed him, his team and the PL on that day.

At that precise time, I can safely say that I had never been happier in life..

Behind the scenes though, the chosen few were boiling with rage.

Not only had City beaten them on the pitch, they had fkin smashed them off it too..

The powers that be then wheeled in VAR and sold it as the tool to end all doubt, no more grey areas, dodgy decisions, unfair calls and confusion.

It's been and still is a clusterfuck of epic proportions, Rashford's 'goal' was a fkin bent, blatent cheating, scandalous fkin decision..

Fast forward to today, the chavs ownership has changed and yet another yank has appeared on the scene.


The chavs have managed to write off £1.5 billion pounds worth of loans Abramovich had saddled them with and they have just gone and spunked in the region of £600 million on new players.

Not a fkin peep out of the twats at SKY or the usual media twats about FFP, dodgy dealings or unfairness of it all, not a fkin peep..

The rags and dippers are now being hawked around all and sundry and my guess is it's because their yank owners have finally realised that we in the UK are not the US.

We don't run our football clubs as franchises where there is no relegation or promotion and you get to cream the money off year in year out..

You invest, build, nurture, manage and plan. You then compete on a level playing field and work hard to win stuff..

Apparently not any more you fkin don't..!

In yet another roll of the dice, the PL have delved back in time to 2009 to rummage through our accounts to see what they can now stick us with..

Our accounts that btw have been meticulously pawed over time and again prior to being signed off as true and correct back in the day..

Never mind that though, over 100 charges apparently, all the usual suspects are now giddy as fcuk, baying for us to be hit with relegation, title stripping, expulsion, points deduction... All of these they all scream..

Well guess what you bunch of bent fcukers, we've beaten you on and off the pitch, we've beaten you at the CAS and I have 100% faith that we'll beat you again..

Our owners have remained firm time and again and have shown their commitment to City by fighting all these allegations off for years and I'm certain that they are not going to throw the towel in now.

We are a £4billion pound giant of the game with the highest turnover in world football..

That's why I have complete trust in the guys that run our club..

That's why I know we're not going to go away into the darkness lightly..

That's why I'm confident that we are going to straighten this out once and for all..

However, I don't want us just to finally clear our name, I want my pound of flesh..

I sincerely hope that we blow these fcukers out of the water and if that means we sue their arses off in court after this is done and the PL collapses into itself then that'll be a good start as far as I'm concerned..


We have been waiting for this day to finally arrive, we will be fully prepared and I'm convinced that we'll prevail..!
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Well said Khaldoon
 
domalino said:
I still can't quite believe this timeline.

It made sense when Stefan was talking about appeals going up to the high courts, but for a PL panel? It just doesn't really hold up.

I don't think it can be overstated how bad it would look for the Premier League to be in 2027 arguing about things that happened in 2008 from an investigation that started in 2018.
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The other thing that makes me think the timeline won't be as long as many expect, is the club's statement.

'the club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission erc etc, as such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all'

While there is no implied timeframe, it just doesn't read as something that is a start of a process expected in the distant future, but rather feels like an end of one not far away.
 
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wattle said:
Mate the uefa news broke when I was on the way to the airport with my wife to Florence for the week for our first holiday without the kids ever. It totally ruined the holiday for me - and subsequently my wife's too. My mental and physical health was already as low as it ever has been before or since so that didn’t help matters. In the end, all that worry was for nothing. I didn’t sleep for 2 full nights before the CAS result.
So, this time round I’m being much more selective in the stuff I read and watch. No sports programmes on the tv or radio and no newspaper feeds or social media, unless directed to on here about balanced content. I’m 99.99% sure we’ll be ok this time round and I don’t give a toss about anything a rag or dipper fan says. I’ll just smile and say we’ll see and walk away.
BUT, just imagine the worst case scenario happens and we get relegated to div 2 in 4 years time - because that’s as long it would take for that to happen - and it won’t- but what if?
Would it be so bad? Think about it. How amazing would it be to live through the past 10-15 years again. Rising from the bottom to the top. That was the best part of being a city fan form me. And we did it with a shit team to start with last time. We’ve got the best youth team set up and we’d obviously have the biggest budgets in whatever league we’d be in. With probably Vinnie in charge and Zabba as assistant. 3 back to back promotions in front of partisan full houses every week. It’d be amazing. To live through its rise once in a lifetime has been truly amazing. But to have the opportunity to do it again would be unbelievable. It’d also teach a few of our younger/newer fans what supporting a club was really about instead of crowing about being 2nd in the league ;)
So don’t let it affect you so much mate. I won’t agree with it in this workplace!!
City will always be here and so will we. If that’s the worst case scenario, then imagine the best case when we win the case and will be able to give back everything to those that are rejoicing now
P.s. the Abu Dhabi bank takeover of Standard Charter is no coincidence. Our owners certainly know what they are doing
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Brilliant post and I needed that, thanks so much mate. Glad to hear you’re doing better than last time when CAS was happening.

Cheers bud.
 
ayrshire_blue said:
Thanks for this. However, with regards to pillar 1 it seems concerning that, if I'm reading it right, they can leave the charge so broad right up until the point of hearing? IE they could pull out 'leaked emails' or a witness which we don't know at this point exists or they're in receipt of. Wouldn't that leave us exposed with regards to the second pillar you've mentioned (preparation).

Apologies if what I'm asking doesn't make the sense I think it does, trying to word it the best way I can.
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No need to apologise mate, it can get quite complex and confusing.
I'm basing what I know on experience as a former union rep and corporate trainer which included training managers on company disciplinary procedures and processes.

They have to notify you what they are charging you with and they would need to be specific so that you can prepare a defence (preparation).
For example, they couldn't accuse you of robbery and then spring a charge of assault at the hearing with evidence relating to this.
With regard to evidence, they can produce this at the hearing (presentation stage) just as we could do likewise providing it is relevant to the charge they have alleged during the notification stage.
This works both ways as I suspect they don't know what our "irrefutable evidence" is and we have every right not to divulge this to our accusers until the hearing just as they have every right not to divulge anything they have or think they have.
It would be up to the judge or judges (in this case arbitration panel) to look at the evidence presented from both sides and draw a conclusion. In this case, the panel would be akin to a jury in a standard court case.
If the case is on the basis of Civil Law (which I believe this is) then the judgement is based on the "balance of probability", in other words they must reach an outcome or conclusion based on what a reasonable person would think most likely happened.
In Criminal Law the judgement is "beyond reasonable doubt" and the accuser has to prove their case using a higher threshold in other words, the burden of proof lies with the accuser to prove their allegation rather than what likely happened.
The best example I can think of is to explain is OJ Simpson who was found not guilty in a criminal trial but found guilty in a civil trial after the family of the victims pursued this.
Every process has to have some kind of appeals process at the end of it if either party are unhappy with the outcome.

Hope this makes sense.
 
If the PL are being coached by UEFA, have learned from their mistakes, and have a few aces up their wizard's sleave, then it will get nasty.
 
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