Pay no attention mate. We've a problem on this forum with ManUre fans joining & posing as City fans, so there's a unhinged level of paranoia with some around here. I take people as I find until they give me a reason to believe otherwise.
It's not cut & dried pal. In 2018/19, we faced the same charges with UEFA as we do now, were found guilty, fined £30m & given a 2 year Champions League ban, which was suspended, pending our appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
On appeal, CAS found us not guilty on all charges, aside from non-cooperation for which we were fined £10m.
Because of our 2014 experience with UEFA/G14, City decided it was pointless showing our hand to them during their investigation stage again, as they would use our evidence to amend their accusations & rules to nail us, exactly as they did in 2014. Yup! That's exactly what they did, hence the zero trust between City & UEFA/G14.
UEFA made their accusations against us based on 6 emails, from over 5 million stolen from us by the notorious Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto.
Of the six emails revealed by the German rag Der Spiegel, two were spliced together from various emails sent a couple of years apart, which gave an out of context view of a sponsorship deal we had with Etisalat.
Once the original emails were viewed with an explanation from City, CAS quickly realised UEFA/G14 had zero actual evidence to backup their claims that our owner injected equity funding into City, disguised as sponsorship.
Essentially what happened was the telecommunications giant Etisalat had a sponsorship agreement with City worth £15m per season over its duration. In 2012/13, we needed to show that money in our account to comply with FFP, so asked Etisalat if they could pay it ahead of schedule.
They couldn’t, but agreed if it could be paid by a bridging loan, they'd be fine with that as they could settle that loan when the original payment schedule ended.
One of the internal City emails between two executives discussed this & it was stated if HRH could source the bridging loan on Etisalat's behalf. Enter UAE financier Jaber Mohammed, who struck a bridging loan deal with Etisalat.
Mohammed paid £15m in 2012 & £15m in 2013 to City which helped us meet FFP. In 2015 when Etisalat's deal ended, they paid Jaber Mohammed back & satisfied the terms of the bridging loan agreement.
Hopefully you're still following me up to this point? :-)
HOWEVER, when this stolen email came to the attention of UEFA/G14, they accused City of getting our owner Sheikh Mansour to pay Jaber Mohammed, who paid City which they claim essentially meant Sheikh Mansour injected money into Manchester City, but disguised it as sponsorship funds from Etisalat.
When asked for evidence of this by CAS, UEFA/G14 didn't have any. They merely connected the dots & made the accusation on their balance of probabilities, based on zero physical evidence, hence why CAS threw their claim out & totally exonerated City.
There was also a claim that City paid part of Roberto Mancini's wages off the books again to circumnavigate FFP. Mancini had an consultancy agreement with ADUG (the company who own City Football Group) to act as a consultant to the Abu Dhabi Football Club - Al Jazira Club worth £1.7m per season.
This was all above board, but UEFA/G14 opined this was done to keep the £1.7m off the books to help City meet FFP requirements. Mancini was on £2m per season basic at City, plus generous bonuses, which pushed his wages closer to £5m per season, but UEFA/G14 still stuck by their claim & added this to City's list of breaches, but again offered zero actual evidence.
Essentially, UEFA/G14 were accusing the Abu Dhabi Royal Family, Roberto Mancini, Etisalat, Etihad Airways & several other high profile multinational companies & huge conglomerates of organised fraud on an industrial scale, BUT without using the word fraud, which would turn their FFP rule "breaches" into a criminal matter, therefore taking it out of their hands & into the hands of the law.
They've inferred all sorts, but never once dared use the word fraud, realising the ramifications if they did. They offered zero actual evidence either, which perfectly highlights the difference between their FFP "Rules" & UK Law.
Their FFP rules are essentially no different to the rules of a private members club. It's like them wanting to sanction a private club member for not washing up their teacup after use. That maybe their club rule, but not washing up your teacup isn't against UK Law.
This is why City are in favour of IREF, the Independent Regulator for English Football, & the Premiere League are dead set against it. Once FFP is looked at through the eyes of UK Law, it doesn't stand a chance. In what other sphere of business isn't a wealthy owner not allowed to invest what he likes into his business?
There's a lot more to our situation, but I've tried to give you the most concise answer I can without explaining chapter & verse, going back to the beginning of our charges in 2009.
We just want to play football, but our fans have been forced to become lay-accountants merely to understand our situation. Hopefully this helps. )(
