PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

jimmygrimblesboots said:
Khaldoun was prepared to take a pinch when the first round of accusations and fines where dealt out bu UEFA , but it appears the clubs stance is different with these changes from the Premier league , i am not sure our club will accept a "pinch" and will prefer to go for complete exoneration.
We may accept a fine for non co-operation but this needs to be clearly defined as for the reasons we did not provide the information , when UEFA started their witch hunt some of what we provided was ended up in the media and i suspect that was the reason why Khaldoun refused in subsequent investigations to co-operate and take his chance at CAS.
Imagine if the Premeir league received all our financial records for over a decade , you can bet your mortgage it will be leaked to the media from Premier league "sources" , fuck 'em , only give them the information which is specific to the charges , everything else is off limits.
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There is another way of looking at this.

As City are in the Premier League we're obliged to follow its rules, but I'm not sure whether these rules cover the setting up of this independent panel, I somehow doubt it. Even if such a panel is allowed, if it's truly independent are we not in uncharted territory? This panel isn't the Premier League, it isn't some hybrid CAS and it isn't a court of law, yet City seem happy to sign up for it! Why? We could've told the Premier League to put up or shut up, told them "you say we've broken all these rules, so where's your evidence and what's the punishment?"

But we didn't.

Imagine for a moment that the Chair and the Chief Executive of the PL are struggling between a rock and a hard place. We know that four years ago the PL was strong armed by four clubs into this investigation, four clubs we now know were the UK driving force for a European Super League, so they have form for throwing their weight around and are clearly no fans of the present PL structure.

We all know who they are.

So four years go by, and the PL finds bugger all on City and they're quietly letting it fade away.

Up pops the four clubs again demanding the PL nail City, but the PL still has bugger all on us.

Bingo! Says the PL, we know City are innocent, or at least we can't find anything to the contrary, so we'll set up this independent panel who'll fuck about for a few years and then come to the same conclusion as us, namely these charges are a crock. We'll then turn to the four clubs driving this fiasco, with maybe two of them now under new ownership and say we did our best, but the not guilty verdict is in, nowt to do with us. And City are happy to go along with this coz we're helping the PL Chair and the Chief Exec out of a bind, and now we're best buddies.

I've no idea if this is the case, it ticks a few boxes and might explain City's relaxed attitude.
 
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projectriver said:
Not sure where this line has come from btw - City didn't admit non-cooperation at CAS. City said they cooperated.

View attachment 72574
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The panel found that MCFC had deliberately refused to provide several witnesses including Simon Pearce at the earlier meeting and refused to provide the originals of the leaked emails until the CAS hearing. These were acknowledged by MCFC as being deliberately done due to leaks from UEFA. We therefore admitted to failing to cooperate and were therefore unable to avoid a fine.
 
The perfect fumble said:
There is another way of looking at this.

As City are in the Premier League we're obliged to follow its rules, but I'm not sure whether these rules cover the setting up of this independent panel, I somehow doubt it. Even if such a panel is allowed, if it's truly independent are we not in uncharted territory? This panel isn't the Premier League, it isn't some hybrid CAS and it isn't a court of law, yet City seem happy to sign up for it! Why? We could've told the Premier League to put up or shut up, told them "you say we've broken all these rules, so where's your evidence and what's the punishment?"

But we didn't.

Imagine for a moment that the Chair and the Chief Executive of the PL are struggling between a rock and a hard place. We know that four years ago the PL was strong armed by four clubs into this investigation, four clubs we now know were the UK driving force for a European Super League, so they have form for throwing their weight around and are clearly no fans of the present PL structure.

We all know who they are.

So four years go by, and the PL finds bugger all on City and they're quietly letting it fade away.

Up pops the four clubs again demanding the PL nail City, but the PL still has bugger all on us.

Bingo! Says the PL, we know City are innocent, or at least we can't find anything to the contrary, so we'll set up this independent panel who'll fuck about for a few years and then come to the same conclusion as us, namely these charges are a crock. We'll then turn to the four clubs driving this fiasco, with maybe two of them now under new ownership and say we did our best, but the not guilty verdict is in, nowt to do with us. And City are happy to go along with this coz we're helping the PL Chair and the Chief Exec out of a bind, and now we're best buddies.

I've no idea if this is the case, it ticks a few boxes and might explain City's relaxed attitude.
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It’s an interesting take and certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. It might be a tad wishful thinking. Why would City want to help an organisation that is complicit in destroying the club? I know with Uefa we tried to stay cosy with Ceferin during and after the CAS hearing. The red shits handpicked masters so doubt he is only interested in doing their bidding.

The whole thing just needs to go away. Don’t care how we manage to do that. Either way I believe the club has did what it had to do to circumvent ffp to stay competitive. Khaldoon is clear that we have not broken any rules and provided the evidence needed to stop the charges from happening which seemly fell on deaf ears.

The rest is speculative smears with no merit. Fuck them all. It’s starts and stops with jealousy.
 
Shads said:
The panel found that MCFC had deliberately refused to provide several witnesses including Simon Pearce at the earlier meeting and refused to provide the originals of the leaked emails until the CAS hearing. These were acknowledged by MCFC as being deliberately done due to leaks from UEFA. We therefore admitted to failing to cooperate and were therefore unable to avoid a fine.
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One for the geeks and pedants. I should say I'm not convinced it matters much (if at all) but that isn't correct. Yes, it is common ground as to who and what had been provided to UEFA. However, City always argued it was entitled to do what it did. And it appears the Panel was not unanimous in finding against them.

So:

1. City expressly denied failure to cooperate (see above).
2. City did not agree they needed to provide the individuals for cross examination - it wasn't because the emails had been hacked - appears the view was wider than that (see 302(ii)).
3. City did not agree they needed to validate whether the emails were accurate.

1679256635735.png
4. UEFA did not consider it inappropriate for MCFC not to make admissions as to the authenticity of the Leaked Emails so this was outside CAS.
5. City did provide all the information in UEFA's request in Appendix 2 to the CFCB Chief Investigator’s letter dated 20 March 2019.
6. CAS found "MCFC cannot be sanctioned for its failure to produce the complete runs of emails of which the Leaked Emails formed part in these CAS proceedings, or indeed for any failure to produce evidence insofar not pursued in the present proceedings."
7. City did not admit the matters that it was ultimately sanctioned for, arguing the IC didn't make the necessary (repeated) request.
8. City also said "should there be any finding of a breach by the Panel, it would be necessary to consider what might be a proportionate sanction and therefore reserved its right to make further submissions if such a situation would arise." It was turned down on this but this again says, City did not admit anything re non-cooperation.

Ultimately, the Panel disagreed (2-1) and the fact one of the three found for City means it can't be true it was inevitable.

1679257070820.png

NB:, the conclusion then says it was a failure to cooperate on just two (not three) matters: 1679257704887.png
So I think it is clear, City didn't admit anything which is not wholly surprising as there is little reason to admit.
 
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projectriver said:
One for the geeks and pedants. I should say I'm not convinced it matters much (if at all) but that isn't correct. Yes, it is common ground as to who and what had been provided to UEFA. However, City always argued it was entitled to do what it did. And it appears the Panel was not unanimous in finding against them.

So:

1. City expressly denied failure to cooperate (see above).
2. City did not agree they needed to provide the individuals for cross examination - it wasn't because the emails had been hacked - appears the view was wider than that (see 302(ii)).
3. City did not agree they needed to validate whether the emails were accurate.

View attachment 72620
4. UEFA did not consider it inappropriate for MCFC not to make admissions as to the authenticity of the Leaked Emails so this was outside CAS.
5. City did provide all the information in UEFA's request in Appendix 2 to the CFCB Chief Investigator’s letter dated 20 March 2019.
6. CAS found "MCFC cannot be sanctioned for its failure to produce the complete runs of emails of which the Leaked Emails formed part in these CAS proceedings, or indeed for any failure to produce evidence insofar not pursued in the present proceedings."
7. City did not admit the matters that it was ultimately sanctioned for, arguing the IC didn't make the necessary (repeated) request.
8. City also said "should there be any finding of a breach by the Panel, it would be necessary to consider what might be a proportionate sanction and therefore reserved its right to make further submissions if such a situation would arise." It was turned down on this but this again says, City did not admit anything re non-cooperation.

Ultimately, the Panel disagreed (2-1) and the fact one of the three found for City means it can't be true it was inevitable.

View attachment 72624

NB:, the conclusion then says it was a failure to cooperate on just two (not three) matters: View attachment 72629
So I think it is clear, City didn't admit anything which is not wholly surprising as there is little reason to admit.
Click to expand...
Can’t disagree with any of that especially that it doesn’t make a whole load of difference, but the back and front channel messages were always ones of City refusing to provide anything meaningful until they got to CAS. The arguments we used always felt “likely to be unsuccessful but required in any event” at least that’s how they felt to me.
This time the messages are much more bullish and open that we have everything provided already in copious amounts and no hint of a failure to cooperate. To put it another way it just feels different this time on the cooperation front.
 
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