PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Didsbury Dave said:
It might have some incompetents but as the most successful league in world sporting history there are clearly people in and around the organisation, including their legal advisors, who wouldn’t just throw god knows how many tens of millions at an irrefutable case. I can’t see a panel sitting for three months and deliberating/documenting for 9 months either.
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Dickie Masters comes from a sales & marketing background & I’ve worked for a CEO who came from that, previously others I’d worked for were primarily from engineering, finance or science. The difference in detail, risk was astonishing. Lost many legal cases against advice including to myself & only wanted to be surrounded by yes men/women. Called anyone who advised against unrealistic plans as blockers & took it to receivership as the infrastructure would not support the growth without huge investment in operational infrastructure. They’d only considered the production equipment, not technology, energy, space, foundations.

The other consideration is that maybe they felt the cartel clubs would jump to a super league & a lengthy expensive legal case keeps them happy & buys you time.

The level of competency was displayed with the release of charges littered with errors.
 
I get a little annoyed when people bring Newcastle into the equation , they have done nothing in the fight against the red cartel and spuds. They could have quite easily brought some pressure against the Prem, and between City and themselves really got some changes .
As it is Only City took up the fight, and if we win then Newcastle will reap the rewards of City's war without doing anything to have those benefits. Doesn't quite sit right with me .
 
Chris in London said:
It always amazes me that some people seem to think in terms of these claimed groupings as though the league was made up not of 20 self-contained and frankly self-interested entities but instead two blocs, for all the world like the Eastern bloc and the Western bloc during the cold war days.

There are certain issues on which City's interest are akin to Newcastle's. On others, they are not. They have made common cause with United about (for instance, IIRC) the squad cost ratio suggestions, but were on diametrically opposed sides during the APT votes. Villa and Forest take the same view as City where it suits their interests to do so, not when it doesn't. Equally, the idea that every one of the US owned clubs has exactly the same agenda and exactly the some priorities and will therefore vote in exactly the same way on every single issue seems to me to be obvious nonsense.

Likewise all 20 of the clubs in the league.

I sometimes wonder, as an aside, why it was that clubs like Brighton and Brentford took the side of the history clubs on the APT issue, but doubtless they will have had their own reasons for doing so.
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We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
 
Chris in London said:
It always amazes me that some people seem to think in terms of these claimed groupings as though the league was made up not of 20 self-contained and frankly self-interested entities but instead two blocs, for all the world like the Eastern bloc and the Western bloc during the cold war days.

There are certain issues on which City's interest are akin to Newcastle's. On others, they are not. They have made common cause with United about (for instance, IIRC) the squad cost ratio suggestions, but were on diametrically opposed sides during the APT votes. Villa and Forest take the same view as City where it suits their interests to do so, not when it doesn't. Equally, the idea that every one of the US owned clubs has exactly the same agenda and exactly the some priorities and will therefore vote in exactly the same way on every single issue seems to me to be obvious nonsense.

Likewise all 20 of the clubs in the league.

I sometimes wonder, as an aside, why it was that clubs like Brighton and Brentford took the side of the history clubs on the APT issue, but doubtless they will have had their own reasons for doing so.
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Of course, but cliques will naturally develop on certain issues and with the inevitable horse-trading with other clubs it's a short step to a "tyranny of the majority" on those issues.

I think it's undeniable in our case that a clique formed early on and has been doing its best to throw several spanners in our works.

People using "American clubs" or "red cartel" is just a way of simplifying the jargon because, in our case, most of the "anti" clique play in red and are owned by Americans and have lunches together in New York to plot their moves .....
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Interesting debate on here (for a change).

There's two contrasting views, one that the PL entered into this in an entirely fair-handed, non-judgemental way, without any pressure and solely motivated by the desire to uphold the sanctity of their financial framework. The other group believe this is largely politically motivated and that a cabal of US-owned clubs are collaborating to try to derail us.

Re the former belief, there are also people who believe that there's a man with a beard who lives on a cloud and can bring down plagues of locusts, floods, fire & brimstone and turn people into pillars of salt merely by twitching his nose, or finger, or however he does that sort of thing.

The club, on the other hand, is in the latter camp, and I'll repeat what a senior official told me a while ago. That official was close to the group around our owner and this was said while both UEFA and the PL were investigating us. The exact quote was "We know who's behind this. It's the US-owned clubs, plus there's a geopolitical element".

It also wasn't coincidence that Levy's name got mentioned. It's been said that it was him who rang Masters after the CAS verdict to push him into launching the PL's charges, which they did so hurriedly that they got some of those laughably wrong.

Remember what Khaldoon said about knowing who's saying what about us? I doubt that was bluff.
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Yes but you’re totally ignoring what is the heart of this discussion, certainly from my point view: what is the “this”?

A series of outright lies which will be dramatically exposed whilst Manchester City ride triumphantly into the sunset placing the heads of all rival chairmen, journalists and FA executives on spikes as we go?

Or is the “this” actually some extremely creative accounting which could be found to be on the wrong side of the line? Or is it even worse?

There’s no doubt that City have enemies who have pushed this case. But that doesn’t turn into into some wild mass conspiracy which we are about to expose to the world.
 
I take it from the amount of time this is taking, that the original charges were written in Latin, on papyrus scrolls.
 
halfcenturyup said:
I'm still not buying the argument that a three month hearing and a nine month wait for the award is anything other than a reflection of the number of allegations and the volume of evidence and counter-evidence that has been presented.

No-one had a problem at the time with a three month hearing. No-one at the time had a problem with a long wait for the award, even if most of us thought it would be done by now.

And, most importantly, the standard of proof required for the PL to prove its allegations is still the same as it ever was. And I can't see how they can meet that standard when we have a pretty good idea from CAS of the sort of counter-evidence the club will have presented.

Finally, the idea that the PL wouldn't proceed if they thought they weren't going to win doesn't add up in my book, either. There were plenty of other factors that could have been taken into account in the decision to refer the club to a disciplinary panel, other than just the chance of success.

All imho, of course.
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I agree with all of that.

I’ve also noticed that everyone is starting to refer to the “delay” in the verdict.

There can’t be a delay because we never had a date, we have all been guessing.
 
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