UEFA FFP investigation - CAS decision to be announced Monday, 13th July 9.30am BST

[Silva top]

UEFA is doing this to appease the EURO elites. Nothing will happen. UEFA and other football entities are corrupt as hell and definitely don't want the smoke with City. These organizations have too many skeletons in their closets. I think we will get minimal punishment to be honest so I'm not worried.

Why should we get any punishment if we are innocent ?

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

We've already fought. We're just sitting in the dock now waiting.

Everything else is a sham, it's just how they pull it off and how severe the sentence is.

You'll all feel this way soon enough when it dawns on you

I don't think you or many others appreciate how influential our owners are.

The last attempt at a coup saw the French Prime Minister act as a conduit.

We are investing a further £1bn in Manchester, do you not think the council have leverage at Government level?

United, as a club, would certainly start to feel it - the trams would suddenly be of lesser Etihad reliability, building plans would be mothballed, the airport would lose jobs should, as you fear, we are beaten into existence and our owners throw in the towel.

Emirates Cup, Emirates shirt sponsors, Emirates Stadium, plenty roads lead back to influence in the UAE.

Qatar also have plenty of skin in the game, regardless of the friction between them and UAE.

This is about de-legitimising our achievements as a club, nothing else.

 

[WRicko]

Ok hypothetically City broke all the rules and did all that was alledged

Then what the information was gained illegally

The rules we would have broken may be illegal and could be proved as such

None of the bodies involved would have been able to get the full story or more information from unseen emails etc that requires police assistance and assume they are still there

They are dealing with out of date information and claims

By the time they get round to punishing us we will be announcing huge profits

Possibly have won the quadruple or at least a few more trophies

Possible have another club under the umbrella

Possible bought some even better players

So even worst case scenario these bodies are on shaky ground surely

 

[willipp]

As fans and a team we can only respond one way and that’s to win as much as we can this season. That will hurt the media and other fans so much and for once a will be a very smug **** about it.

 

[Segga]

Maybe I'm just a contrary bugger but all this just makes me prouder of the club.

The thought of being a supporter of clubs like Liverpool, United or Arsenal is anathema to me. Herd mentality, piggy-backing vicarious success as compensation for personal inadequacy, yuk !

And the fact that we've given them nightmares for ten years, the Aguero m
oment, the greatest team England has ever seen, a style of play never witnessed before in English football revolutionising the game, if I was a ****, I'd hate it too. But, fuck me, I'm enjoying every second of it.

I came on to write something very similar!!
I’ve questioned myself over the last couple of years wether I’m losing a bit of the passion for the game I’ve been attending for 30 years, turning up expecting to win. Imagine it feels so empty to those United glory fans who just latched on.
Anyway all this nonsense getting thrown about from every other fan, media, clubs, it puts the fire back in me, they can not handle the fact we are here, grown men talking absolute nonsense throwing school boy insults about it gets the adrenaline going, I can’t wait for this afternoons game now!

 

[BucksBlue]

Win lose or draw on or off the pitch my love, loyalty and PRIDE towards our club grows stronger.

Sing it loud and sing it proud:

We are City
Super City
We are City from Maine Road.........

 

[Newman Noggs]

I've never been one for conspiracy theories, but it's clear that there's a concerted attempt from powerful sources in football, abetted by compliant allies in the media, to saw City off at the knees. No coincidence that it comes when we've reached a point at which, on and off the field, we've created a set-up giving us a decent opportunity to be the most successful club in England over an extended period.

No one, as far as I've seen, has so far looked at what the accusations against us mean. The fundamental allegation which UEFA are now investigating is essentially that MCFC concealed shareholder funding from its auditor under the guise of bogus sponsorship contracts and then presented the auditor's opinions to UEFA with a view to avoiding or mitigating punishment for a breach financial regulations. When they say we're 'cheats', that's what they're saying we've done.

I'm going to get a bit legal here. Apologies for that, but I can't avoid it. There's an offence under section 17 of the Theft Act under which it's a criminal offence punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment if "a person dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or another … 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": https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/17. Further, section 18 of the same Act clarifies that "offence committed by a body corporate under section 17 of this Act is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence, and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly": https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/18.

To my reading, that quite clearly would cover MCFC knowingly providing false documents to UEFA to avoid a fine or get a lesser one. So, in other words, the corollary of the allegation made against us by Der Spiegel and widely repeated over several months throughout the UK media is that the City directors who dealt with UEFA have committed a serious dishonesty-based criminal offence for which the punishment can be a lengthy term in jail.

Let's look at who they're accusing of that. MCFC's directors include Simon Pearce and Khaldoon, both key figures in government circles in the UAE. But more than that, the offence applies to any "other similar officer of the body corporate". To my mind, though I can't find case law on the point, this is likely to include what under UK company law is called a "shadow director". And this makes it even more interesting.

A shadow director, in relation to a company, is "a person in accordance with whose directions or instructions the directors of the company are accustomed to act". That will include Mansour - and, if our detractors are correct that Mansour is merely a front for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, it could go higher than that. And it seems to me highly likely that, given the reputational issues involved, that someone very senior in Abu Dhabi will have been involved in giving MCFC's directors a steer with respect to our FFP .

I agree that the gloves are off butthete are two things wrong with your argument.

1. Furnishing UEFA with false information is not, under any circumstances a criminal offence and;

2. The case law on shadow directors is extremely complex and it has been held that just being the major shareholder doesn't make a person or company a shadow director.

 

[M12Blue]

Let’s win the quad parade all four trophies round Manchester at the end of the season then proceed to crush everyone of the trophies in Albert Square. Then send them back to each association involved in trying to fuck us over.

I would absolutely love it we win the prem, and vinny doesn’t take the trophy to lift aloft, but him and the players simply dump the winners medals in it and walk away and celebrate with the fans. Now that would fuck the prem

 

[cookster]

We're about to run the gauntlet. Damage will be sustained. You know that.

Marvin can you do one for a few hours or maybe call the samaritans. You're ranting like a fucking mad man.
Juventus survived being found guilty of corruption and bribery, coming back even stronger. You underestimate the influence we have in football.

 

[George Hannah]

I've never been one for conspiracy theories, but it's clear that there's a concerted attempt from powerful sources in football, abetted by compliant allies in the media, to saw City off at the knees. No coincidence that it comes when we've reached a point at which, on and off the field, we've created a set-up giving us a decent opportunity to be the most successful club in England over an extended period.

No one, as far as I've seen, has so far looked at what the accusations against us mean. The fundamental allegation which UEFA are now investigating is essentially that MCFC concealed shareholder funding from its auditor under the guise of bogus sponsorship contracts and then presented the auditor's opinions to UEFA with a view to avoiding or mitigating punishment for a breach financial regulations. When they say we're 'cheats', that's what they're saying we've done.

I'm going to get a bit legal here. Apologies for that, but I can't avoid it. There's an offence under section 17 of the Theft Act under which it's a criminal offence punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment if "a person dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or another … 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": https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/17. Further, section 18 of the same Act clarifies that "offence committed by a body corporate under section 17 of this Act is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence, and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly": https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/18.

To my reading, that quite clearly would cover MCFC knowingly providing false documents to UEFA to avoid a fine or get a lesser one. So, in other words, the corollary of the allegation made against us by Der Spiegel and widely repeated over several months throughout the UK media is that the City directors who dealt with UEFA have committed a serious dishonesty-based criminal offence for which the punishment can be a lengthy term in jail.

Let's look at who they're accusing of that. MCFC's directors include Simon Pearce and Khaldoon, both key figures in government circles in the UAE. But more than that, the offence applies to any "other similar officer of the body corporate". To my mind, though I can't find case law on the point, this is likely to include what under UK company law is called a "shadow director". And this makes it even more interesting.

A shadow director, in relation to a company, is "a person in accordance with whose directions or instructions the directors of the company are accustomed to act". That will include Mansour - and, if our detractors are correct that Mansour is merely a front for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, it could go higher than that. And it seems to me highly likely that, given the reputational issues involved, that someone very senior in Abu Dhabi will have been involved in giving MCFC's directors a steer with respect to our FFP issues.

So will they have twigged back in Abu Dhabi that senior government figures and potentially even one or more members of the ruling family are being labelled criminal fraudsters by that august institution, the British press, egged on by our footballing enemies? Bet your fucking life they will. And that makes it personal.

Which gives rise to the question of how they'll react. Now, we've noted - to the frustration of many on here, including me - that our owner and stakeholders seem to dictate a rather nicey-nicey approach as a preference, even in situations where many fans might prefer us to show a bit more aggression. I don't know anything about Emirati business and culture so stand to be corrected by anyone who does, but I'm led to believe that they can, in contrast to their preferred mode of operation, they can be utterly ruthless when they feel they've been provoked.

In my opinion, that's where we are now. I don't, unlike one post I saw this morning, worry that our owners and stakeholders will lose heart. In my opinion, the gloves will come off. I'm not saying that we'll emerge unscathed, and, with the powerful forces ranged against MCFC, there's scope for us to suffer tremendous damage. But I doubt our owners/stakeholders will take this lying down.

I don't know how it will pan out, but I think it could get nasty. And I'd bet heavily that if, in the end, we do go down, we'll take others down with us.

Our Arab owners are indeed the primary target of the attacks on us.