PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

At risk of overthinking, anyone concerned about Pep’s conference today? Lasted just two minutes and very blunt.

Reading between the lines, something definitely not right. Hopefully not 115!
 
halfcenturyup said:
They may be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I am assuming they aren't idiots (I know, I know). They didn't have to include a related party reference in the most serious charges section if it was a hail Mary or an insignificant allegation. There are probably other minor allegations included in there that they haven't specifically referenced. So I wouldn't pooh pooh the idea, tbh.

In fact, I am less comfortable about what the PL could prove on ownership and related parties than on the funding of the sponsorships on which I feel very comfortable. If the club aren't squeaky clean on those, it could be damaging in the wider football environment if not in terms of sporting sanctions.
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You are perhaps, if I may say so, missing the point of the charge, which is an allegation that City breached the duty to submit its accounts in good faith. Whether a transaction is with a related party is not a black and white issue, its a judgment call. So the League will have to demonstrate that City's judgment call was not made in good faith. As I say I just don't see how you can show that call was made in bad faith when its the same call that was made by the auditors.

As to motivation for the charges, of interest and relevance may be this little snippet from para 185 of the first APT decision

"We accept the evidence of Mr. Herbert and the clubs that gave evidence in these proceedings that both the PL and the clubs had concerns since at least 2018 that the PSR were being circumvented by the failure to report sponsorship agreements with RPTs"

I wonder whether that may provide a suggestion as to where the motivation for the inclusion of this, assuming it to be included at all, within the 115 charges may have originated.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
And your evidence for that is what exactly?
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Numerous conversations. And 2. in the comment above if you don't believe me in 1.

It is lovely that you want to wrap an arm around fellow fans and tell them it is all nothing but it just isn't true. As it wasn't true that City learned of the decision months ago. I'm sorry it is not true but it is not.
 
Chris in London said:
You are perhaps, if I may say so, missing the point of the charge, which is an allegation that City breached the duty to submit its accounts in good faith. Whether a transaction is with a related party is not a black and white issue, its a judgment call. So the League will have to demonstrate that City's judgment call was not made in good faith. As I say I just don't see how you can show that call was made in bad faith when its the same call that was made by the auditors.

As to motivation for the charges, of interest and relevance may be this little snippet from para 185 of the first APT decision

"We accept the evidence of Mr. Herbert and the clubs that gave evidence in these proceedings that both the PL and the clubs had concerns since at least 2018 that the PSR were being circumvented by the failure to report sponsorship agreements with RPTs"

I wonder whether that may provide a suggestion as to where the motivation for the inclusion of this, assuming it to be included at all, within the 115 charges may have originated.
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There is a good chance that is there because if the PL's main case theory is proven, the consequence may also be that Etihad was a RPT all along. Although that would beg the question where that goes because if the truth turns out that the Etihad deal was only ever very small in reality, then the actual contract was actually BELOW market value.
 
slbsn said:
Numerous conversations. And 2. in the comment above if you don't believe me in 1.

It is lovely that you want to wrap an arm around fellow fans and tell them it is all nothing but it just isn't true. As it wasn't true that City learned of the decision months ago. I'm sorry it is not true but it is not.
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Conversations with who?
 
There's an international break on March 23rd 2026... We should probably start speculating now that it'll be released then. We've had "almost certain" predictions for pretty much every other break..
 
Chris in London said:
You are perhaps, if I may say so, missing the point of the charge, which is an allegation that City breached the duty to submit its accounts in good faith. Whether a transaction is with a related party is not a black and white issue, its a judgment call. So the League will have to demonstrate that City's judgment call was not made in good faith. As I say I just don't see how you can show that call was made in bad faith when its the same call that was made by the auditors.

As to motivation for the charges, of interest and relevance may be this little snippet from para 185 of the first APT decision

"We accept the evidence of Mr. Herbert and the clubs that gave evidence in these proceedings that both the PL and the clubs had concerns since at least 2018 that the PSR were being circumvented by the failure to report sponsorship agreements with RPTs"

I wonder whether that may provide a suggestion as to where the motivation for the inclusion of this, assuming it to be included at all, within the 115 charges may have originated.
Click to expand...

:) If we accept the most serious allegations are about fraud, we have to accept the implication that the club's auditors have been consistently and deliberately misled. I doubt that could be done other than in bad faith. It wouldn't be a big leap to suggest the implication is that they have been misled about related party transactions as well, or possibly ownership.

As for the justification for APT, I always thought the PL's arguments were pretty weak: concerned since 2018, presumably because of the leaks; club investigated by UEFA; PL investigated and charged club (speaking from memory here). Surely any decent lawyer would have pointed out the leaks were just that, UEFA never charged the club for RPTs and the PL hasn't yet proven any allegations. So what they were saying is that the PL introduces stringent rules based on hearsay and ongoing, unproven cases? Seems pretty weak to me which is why I was so surprised it wasn't more forcibly challenged.

Anyway, never mind. We will find out soon enough.
 
hoppy said:
I don't want to seem like I have gone full on Scouse conspiracy theorist, but is there a possibility that HM Government/The Foreign Office might be involved in this malarky?

A verdict against us would piss off some mighty influential trading partners with very deep pockets.
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No chance whatsoever.
I can't even be arsed going into the myriad of reasons why not.
 
Joemar99 said:
At risk of overthinking, anyone concerned about Pep’s conference today? Lasted just two minutes and very blunt.

Reading between the lines, something definitely not right. Hopefully not 115!
Click to expand...
I suspect he'a desperate to get back to coaching the team given that this will be the only day to do so.
 
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