PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

BillyShears said:
That's sort of my point. The league have basically opened a can of legal worms, and then thrown at an independent panel and said "go ahead and prove this" knowing full well they can't. What are the panel going to do, bring in all the auditors, accountants, etc and make them give evidence? The scale of what they have to prove, as has been widely reported, is way bigger than can be realistically expected of a 3 man panel doing a part time job.

This only goes one way for me, and that is a quiet statement on the league's website in two years time saying that nothing has been proven and the league have decided to move on and not appeal the decision.
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I don't see it going that long mate, too much outside noise now for City also not to be demanding a quick resolution, certainly with irrefutable evidence on hand.
 
BillyShears said:
Interesting take. I am the opposite. Going into CAS I was very apprehensive because I had the feeling that there was a groundswell of opinion that regardless of the rights and wrongs of what we'd done, we needed to be banned simply because of the Football Leaks revelations. Everything was 'fresh' in that moment and the time lapse between UEFA's announcement and the CAS case was months.

Things are hugely different this time round and the major difference is time. We're looking at a process that is going to take upwards of 18 months, so by the time we're at something approaching a decision from the panel, we'll be well into 2025 if not 2026. Glazers will be gone. FSG will be gone. The landscape in the league will be totally different. The power dynamics also totally different.

You also have to look at the charges themselves. Whilst UEFA pointedly accused City of inflating sponsorships, which in many respects COULD have been argued just with the Football Leaks documents, PL charges are of false accounting. FL even on their face, can only 'prove' things from the relevant years of the leaked documents. The PL is relying on a discovery process where City will hand over documents which I presume they think will make us more guilty. That's naive beyond some belief. The PL have to prove false accounting all by themselves. The discovery process won't help them IMO.

I've seen the commentary around a potential whistleblower, and it feels remarkably far fetched to me. A whistleblower, at best can testify to what they saw, or were asked to do. But that is one person. On the other side City will be able to wheel out dozens of people, and dozens of documents and filings which attest to the veracity of their accounts. It is an enormous ask of any 'independent panel' to start accusing high ranking board members and executives all of lying based on the word of what would surely be a disgruntled employee. But in any case, I think it is unlikely that a whistleblower even exists, because if they'd had one, this wouldn't have taken 4 years to get here, and it would be all over the media that the league had a whistleblower.

Finally, there is the actual reasoning for why we've been charged now and in the manner that we have. My personal opinion is that the charges are the punishment. The idea here is simply to inflict maximum reputational damage onto the club. I reckon after 4 years they've realised "we'll never be able to prove this case, but if we bin it we'll forever be panned for not trying" so they've gone with the big long charge sheet knowing that it is now the panel's job to find us innocent but the smears will stick in the meantime.

The politicking at play is on another level to anything we've seen since Abu Dhabi came in.
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Interesting take and largely where I stand with it.

Am I right in thinking for us to be found guilty of the charges by the panel there has to be concrete black & white evidence?
And not a jury type decision based on someone’s opinion.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I don't see it going that long mate, too much outside noise now for City also not to be demanding a quick resolution, certainly with irrefutable evidence on hand.
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As my mother always used to say "it'll take as long as it takes!" haha.

I'm very relaxed because I have come to accept that no matter how well run the club is we'll always be talked about in the way we are until this generation of the mainstream football media is put out to pasture. There are simply too many red affiliated members in their brethren who genuinely believe that the right thing in English football is for the hierarchy of the 80's/90's to exist forever and nobody should be allowed to challenge it.

The charges and the Premier League don't scare me one bit.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I am on the same page, certainly in terms of a high burden of proof, but I don't think it is as simplistic as just wanting to taint the brand, which they are happy to throw in to the mix at this stage?

They are accusing various auditors and sponsors of also being complicit in fraud.

That's opening up battle lines on so many fronts, aside from City and our own reputational damage.

I am maybe crediting someone at the Premier League with a modicum of legal intelligence, but they have left an open goal for BDO, Etihad and others to go after their own pound of flesh if we are cleared?
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I understand your view on us not going after premier league for damages, but I wonder what view the likes of Etihad would take on this if/when cleared.
 
I see Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central and a Blue has welcomed the findings of the Paris Dipper UEFA enquiry. Come on Lucy, you know they're to blame but please make some noise about the shit being thrown at us, it could help a little and you could become a legend!
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I am on the same page, certainly in terms of a high burden of proof, but I don't think it is as simplistic as just wanting to taint the brand, which they are happy to throw in to the mix at this stage?

They are accusing various auditors and sponsors of also being complicit in fraud.

That's opening up battle lines on so many fronts, aside from City and our own reputational damage.

I am maybe crediting someone at the Premier League with a modicum of legal intelligence, but they have left an open goal for BDO, Etihad and others to go after their own pound of flesh if we are cleared?
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BillyShears said:
That's sort of my point. The league have basically opened a can of legal worms, and then thrown at an independent panel and said "go ahead and prove this" knowing full well they can't. What are the panel going to do, bring in all the auditors, accountants, etc and make them give evidence? The scale of what they have to prove, as has been widely reported, is way bigger than can be realistically expected of a 3 man panel doing a part time job.

This only goes one way for me, and that is a quiet statement on the league's website in two years time saying that nothing has been proven and the league have decided to move on and not appeal the decision.
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Everyone seems to be overlooking the massive missing piece in the jigsaw here, which is that we don't know who the investigators were.

The PL said they would appoint 2 experts in the field, but that's it AFAIK. Who those 2 are (ie are they actually serious people in the finance/legal world or are they career football bureaucrat) is going to have a massive bearing on how much we should treat these charges as serious vs. motivated by politics.
 
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When the CAS case was pending and then being heard, I posted very bullishly
”We will win”. I posted it at regular intervals and CAS confirmed my optimism.
I am less optimistic this time because:
1. Who are the assessors? At CAS they were all high powered guys who could see the arguments clearly. Is that the case here? Does anyone know who will be sitting in judgement?
2. Our positions on the Mancini contract and the image rights issues may be rickety.
I think we will be found guilty in at least one of these if only as a sop to the redshirt bastards if we are cleared on all the major points. We will certainly be found guilty of non co-operation.
Total damage: £10m fine.
 
Should we actually be found guilty of any charges, wonder if the relevant sponsor(s) would take a case out against the PL for defamation?

I'd guess the actual outcome of all this will be a bit of smoke and a verbal/written censure for not fully cooperating.
 
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