Its not uncommon against the rule or illegal to transfer assets / Image rights between companies within the same group. Football clubs have been very backwards on things like this till recently. I think this looks bad seeing as we do not really know what was done with them and it was done once before I think with a different company but I do the emails actual prove over value or just that it happened ? Have UEFA worked out what fair value is ? I do not think they have whilst investigating the emails otherwise we would know.
For any of this to make sense the sponsors in question need to be related parties otherwise you cannot have the influence to make them do these thing which are not in there interest. These emails do not change the ownership of any of the entities in question.
Second with regard to Etihad what would make sense would be for the government to give Etihad the money it need to honour its commitments.To city or anyone else when it was in trouble The Abu Dhabi United Group are not connected to Etihad. Why would they pay them back ? and how would that help with FFP ? or get round FFP ?
My understanding of the emails was that UEFA where arguing Etihad paid a low amount and Abu Dhabi United topped it up. The argument on here is that that not what happened what happened is Etihad got help from the government and paid the full amount or split between the two and these emails where just reminding people at City that they had to account for it so it was best that it went to the Etihad account at city and did not go to our owner.Thats fine since Etihad and the Government are not related parties to City.Your suggesting Abu Dhabi United paid it back for some reason do not see how that affects FFP
I'm not suggesting anything.
I have no access to City accounts and i don't know what has been done or not done behind close doors. What i think is FFP was designed to stop City and PSG and changes were implemented along the line to make those clubs fail. I also think City and PSG used tricks to go around, find loopholes because they are ambitious and won't settle for being middle of the pack clubs. Now, both clubs used different methods. PSG invented a new type of contract "nation branding" and argued that it was worth hundreds of millions because there were no equivalent, thus no fair value market. I don't think anyone can argue it wasn't an attempt to blindsight the rules. In my opinion, what City has done according the hacked emails is way smarter. The only problem is that those emails have been made public.
As you said "My understanding of the emails was that UEFA where arguing Etihad paid a low amount and Abu Dhabi United topped it up", UEFA is considering the money was coming from your owner through those sponsorships. This, de facto, makes them related parties. Thus, UEFA is taking the numbers directly given by the sponsor as written in the email as the new market value. Scummy move, especially applied retroactively, while City can't balance the books anymore by selling a player.
My whole viewpoint on that case is that UEFA was pressed to trap the new (arab) money clubs by the established elite and those emails gave them the ammunition to fire a shot at City. However, i don't think City is the only club to do that. Pretty sure that there must be some backdoor deals when Jeep or other firms from the Agnelli decide to sponsor Juventus or when Audi, Adidas sponsor Bayern while being stakeholders. And, i have zero doubt the Emir of Qatar has been pressing those Qatar firms to sponsor PSG. Just that UEFA doesn't have emails of the same nature listing how the payments will be made. These emails are the basis of their argument that you have been lying and not cooperating.
As stated in this tweet, i think the difficult task for City is not the problem of the fair value of their sponsors (they can say the value was accepted by UEFA in 2014) but the fact they are accused of untruthful reporting of their financial situation. And this is prolly on this axis UEFA will try to justify their sanction.