The Guardian reported at the time that Mancini and Khaldoon were "acquaintances" and I am pretty sure the chat at the time was that Mansour had been speaking to him about football issues. So I would imagine there was a prior relationship. If that was contracted, who knows?
As for what Mancini has said, that probably suits both parties. With all the noise around the appointment, the last thing that was needed was talk of some sort of plan to remove Hughes?
ExplainI think your missing the point if your post above is in response to the last few pages of comments on here
I don’t believe we have but regardless of the rights or wrongs of the rules and any comparisons with rules in other businesses (the world as you call it ) you cannot break the rules you sign up to.Explain
This is where I diverge slightly from Stefan's somewhat apocalyptic view that we're effectively being accused of fraudulent accounting and therefore expulsion from the PL and criminal charges are a potential outcome. I'm not sure that follows necessarily but I'm not an expert so he may well be correct. He definitely knows there's a fine line.
Accounting can often be a matter of interpretation as to how you show something and there can sometimes be a fine line between interpretation and deception. Accountancy at its heart requires being prudent about assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses. Don't undervalue expenses/liabilities and don't overvalue revenue/assets.
Valuation of stock is a classic example. The higher you value your stock in hand, the higher your reported profit. Companies are supposed to value stock at the lower of cost or net realisable value. So if you buy something for £100 and plan to sell it for £200, the stock value of that item should be £100. But if you'd had that item for sale for a while, and it had been superseded by a newer version, you might just want to get rid of it for £75, which should be its NRV and the value shown in the accounts. However you might leave it at £100. That's not necessarily 'true and fair' but it's not fraudulent either. It's an opinion. I used to do the audit of a brickworks in Little Lever and there were hundreds of thousands of bricks in stock that had to be valued. You couldn't count them and you certainly couldn't look at each one and estimate its NRV. And they were made there, not bought in so you made a best guess as to the total value of the stock. It may have been overvalued but that was the best we could do, as long as we could justify it.
At Wirecard my former KPMG colleague, Markus Braun, put $1.9bn of cash on the balance sheet that they didn't have. My former bosses at Independent Insurance deliberately withheld large claims from the system, thereby reporting profits that were actually significant losses. The software company Autonomy, who used to sponsor Spurs, are alleged to have claimed revenues on potential contracts they hadn't actually signed (among other things) leading HP to pay an inflated price when they they bought them.
So what could we have done? Have we inflated the value of sponsorships? No, at least according to UEFA/CAS. Was the Mancini contract an attempt to hide expenses? Unlikely but even if it was, it was a pin prick given the losses we were reporting. Did we attempt to deceive anyone over the players' image rights payments? No, as there was a clear trail to Fordham.
And who are we alleged to have committed fraud against? We were privately owned by Sheikh Mansour for the whole period under charges. Silverlake bought in in 2019, whereas the charges only cover the period to 2018. There's our auditors and other advisers potentially but have they (or anyone else) lost anything if we did? No. So who's the victim (don't say it!) here?
At worst, we've submitted potentially inaccurate accounts to the PL, which might impact our FFP position but (unless this 'fraud' is far more extensive than we think) definitely not the PL's Profit & Sustainability Rules.
Absolutely all this.
In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those seasons that required provision by a member club to the Premier League, in the utmost good faith, of accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue) ...
17 False accounting.
(1) Where a person dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another,—
(a) destroys, defaces, conceals or falsifies any account or any record or document made or required for any accounting purpose; or
(b) in furnishing information for any purpose produces or makes use of any account, or any such record or document as aforesaid, which to his knowledge is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular;
he shall, on conviction on indictment, be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.
(2)For purposes of this section a person who makes or concurs in making in an account or other document an entry which is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular, or who omits or concurs in omitting a material particular from an account or other document, is to be treated as falsifying the account or document.
Jesus Christ! Not this again.
Though the CAS saved us, UEFA found us guilty of lying, in our audited accounts and various financial submissions to them, about the source of GBP 50 million annually such that we presented it as income that could legitimately be expended under the FFP rules on transfers and player wages among other things when those funds in fact constituted owner investment that couldn't be spent on those items under the rules.
That UEFA made such a determination is there in black and white in the CAS award. MCFC certainly considered that the allegations were tantamount to accusations of fraud on the part of the club: see point 13(a) of City's case reproduced in para 61 of the Award and point 48 of City's case reproduced in para 61 of the Award.
As for UEFA's view on the matter, on page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that MCFC's conduct constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club offered its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". So they outright accused the club of systematic, dishonest conduct, and of lying about that conduct in an attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP] Regulations".
Thankfully the CAS stated many times (twelve, if I remember correctly) in its award there was "no evidence" of our having done what UEFA alleged we had. However, make no mistake, the allegation was that we lied and falsified our accounts to facilitate extra spending of GBP 50 per season.
The PL charges, as far as anyone can judge from information in the public domain, repeat the accusation. In particular, the PL's statement of charges featured the following allegation (reproduced from here, with the emphasis mine) that City have breached:
The references in that accusation to the duty to act "in ... good faith" and to produce financial information giving a "true and fair view" in addition to the specific mention of "sponsorship revenue" suggests that the PL's charge is exactly the same as UEFA's in this regard. Those formulations really don't lend themselves to any other credible interpretation.
Below, I reproduce section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, which deals with the fraud-based offence of false accounting:
We may have been vindicated by the CAS, but UEFA found MCFC as a club guilty of conduct that inevitably entailed the commission by individual officers and employees of the club of the offence under section 17 of the 1968 Act (see the summary of UEFA's case above) because they:
The wording of the PL's charges against MCFC clearly signpost that, again, we're in this territory. They're not likely to make insinuations with regard to bad-faith conduct and accounts not giving a true and fair view if all that's under discussion amounts to a legitimate difference of opinion as to how certain items should be accounted for under the relevant rules. The current media hysteria about the "charges" against us isn't due to them relating solely to accounting issues!
- would have had to have acted dishonestly (they're sophisticated businesspeople who fully understood UEFA's rules and, according to UEFA, knew what they were doing);
- would certainly have been acting with a view to gain ... for another (the other being the club, and such gain taking the form of allowing the club to spend £200 million that otherwise wouldn't have counted as income for FFP purposes, as referred to in para 206 of the CAS Award); and
- would have supplied various sets of accounts and other documents that were "misleading, false or deceptive" because they'd have provided documents including but not limited to our annual accounts that duped UEFA into thinking we had an extra £50 million available to us annually while still meeting the requirements of FFP.
I ultimately think it was outrageous for UEFA to put forward the case against us it did based on the evidence it had. Our club was dragged through the mud as a result, but more importantly it was a serious attempt to inflict serious, lasting damage on our club. Now the PL seems to be repeating the exercise, and, if it's putting forward a similar case, it needs calling out on that.
As it stands, the PL seems to be happy to throw around accusations of incendiary seriousness. And if the PL wants to act in such a way, we should be highlighting that rather than diminishing it. LET THE PL FUCKING OWN ITS CONDUCT.
I don't for one minute think PL have any sort of smoking gun. I would go as far to say any evidence the PL have city will be well aware of as they will have supplied it.Lets face it, if the PL had some smoking gun or whistle blower the club would be fully aware of the situation by now. And if we were bang to rights there would be things happening now that would indicate a problem. For example we may look to offload players to secure market value transfer fees, key people at the club would be moving on to new roles outside of the club.
What we wouldn't be doing is spending money on redeveloping the stadium, that on its own makes me feel very confident about the future.
How do you respond specifically to what said by Prestwich blue ?Jesus Christ! Not this again.
Though the CAS saved us, UEFA found us guilty of lying, in our audited accounts and various financial submissions to them, about the source of GBP 50 million annually such that we presented it as income that could legitimately be expended under the FFP rules on transfers and player wages among other things when those funds in fact constituted owner investment that couldn't be spent on those items under the rules.
That UEFA made such a determination is there in black and white in the CAS award. MCFC certainly considered that the allegations were tantamount to accusations of fraud on the part of the club: see point 13(a) of City's case reproduced in para 61 of the Award and point 48 of City's case reproduced in para 61 of the Award.
As for UEFA's view on the matter, on page 11, under the heading "Disciplinary measures", it's stated that MCFC's conduct constituted "a series of very serious breaches, over [a four-year period] which were committed intentionally and concealed". Moreover, when the club offered its defence to UEFA, it did so "putting forward a case that ADUG knew to be misleading". So they outright accused the club of systematic, dishonest conduct, and of lying about that conduct in an attempt "to circumvent the objectives of [UEFA's FFP] Regulations".
Thankfully the CAS stated many times (twelve, if I remember correctly) in its award there was "no evidence" of our having done what UEFA alleged we had. However, make no mistake, the allegation was that we lied and falsified our accounts to facilitate extra spending of GBP 50 per season.
The PL charges, as far as anyone can judge from information in the public domain, repeat the accusation. In particular, the PL's statement of charges featured the following allegation (reproduced from here, with the emphasis mine) that City have breached:
The references in that accusation to the duty to act "in ... good faith" and to produce financial information giving a "true and fair view" in addition to the specific mention of "sponsorship revenue" suggests that the PL's charge is exactly the same as UEFA's in this regard. Those formulations really don't lend themselves to any other credible interpretation.
Below, I reproduce section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, which deals with the fraud-based offence of false accounting:
We may have been vindicated by the CAS, but UEFA found MCFC as a club guilty of conduct that inevitably entailed the commission by individual officers and employees of the club of the offence under section 17 of the 1968 Act (see the summary of UEFA's case above) because they:
The wording of the PL's charges against MCFC clearly signpost that, again, we're in this territory. They're not likely to make insinuations with regard to bad-faith conduct and accounts not giving a true and fair view if all that's under discussion amounts to a legitimate difference of opinion as to how certain items should be accounted for under the relevant rules. The current media hysteria about the "charges" against us isn't due to them relating solely to accounting issues!
- would have had to have acted dishonestly (they're sophisticated businesspeople who fully understood UEFA's rules and, according to UEFA, knew what they were doing);
- would certainly have been acting with a view to gain ... for another (the other being the club, and such gain taking the form of allowing the club to spend £200 million that otherwise wouldn't have counted as income for FFP purposes, as referred to in para 206 of the CAS Award); and
- would have supplied various sets of accounts and other documents that were "misleading, false or deceptive" because they'd have provided documents including but not limited to our annual accounts that duped UEFA into thinking we had an extra £50 million available to us annually while still meeting the requirements of FFP.
I ultimately think it was outrageous for UEFA to put forward the case against us it did based on the evidence it had. Our club was dragged through the mud as a result, but more importantly it was a serious attempt to inflict serious, lasting damage on our club. Now the PL seems to be repeating the exercise, and, if it's putting forward a similar case, it needs calling out on that.
As it stands, the PL seems to be happy to throw around accusations of incendiary seriousness. And if the PL wants to act in such a way, we should be highlighting that rather than diminishing it. LET THE PL FUCKING OWN ITS CONDUCT.
How do you respond specifically to what said by Prestwich blue ?
My comment was to compare real world business with the fantasy world of football , no doubt we have signed up to rules and regulations , surprised clubs like Barca and Real and oursleves have not tested FFP in court , it would be interesting to see that outcome.I don’t believe we have but regardless of the rights or wrongs of the rules and any comparisons with rules in other businesses (the world as you call it ) you cannot break the rules you sign up to.
However my main point and the main discussion on here over recent pages have been about cooking the books fraud etc that seems to be what we are accused of that is wrong in both football and the business / real world regardless of the reasons be it to pass FFP etc