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

[Dubai Blue]

Add said e-mail obvioulsy rules out Shiekh Manour as the man puttting the money in as who it was is referenced to was not his excellency it was his highness.

A thing our journis don't seem to be understanding.

Not quite. Sheikh Mansour is referred to as His Highness, not His Excellency. But his full name is usually used (i.e., HH Sheikh Mansour......). However, this was a fairly informal email between parties who would implicitly understand who was being referred to, so who knows how closely they adhered to protocol.

So, HH could theoretically mean Sheikh Mansour, but it's more likely to mean Sheikh Khalifa or Sheikh Mohamed.

Either way, it "should" be fairly simple to prove if the money was indeed coming from the EC and not from Sheikh Mansour himself.

 

[squirtyflower]

I applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

I shall ask him what he means by “football clubs should be run by football men”?

 

[urban genie]

As was said by prominent UK lawyer Mark Stevens yesterday

 

[blueparrot]

I think that’s correct. CAS is about the process and procedure - is it fair and reasonable ( and does it align with uefa process and procedure?) and ultimately - is the sanction a reasonable response to the findings of the investigation. So we do have a few bites of the cherry in terms of procedure and we must be very guilty of serious wrongdoing to have a sanction as severe as the one awarded upheld.

That's the thing for a punishment that could cost us 25% of our turnover for 2 years, first how far away from the slap on the wrist offer is it. more though is that kind of punishment within the remit of a sports body. For a punishment that big they must have evidence of not just serious wrongdoing , but fraudulent wrongdoing involving Etihad and our accountants, if they have they should be handing the investigation to the police and authorities not imp[osing their own punishments.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

I applaud you if you do go there and give him a hard time. However, if anyone accused him of racism he can (and almost certainly would) play the race card himself as he's half Pakistani.

Well he must hate himself then.

 

[waspish]

I'm just hoping that we're not reliant on precedence and what other clubs did or didn't do as our main defence. It may be that it adds to the strength of our appeal but it's risky if we do rely on it to a large degree.

Agree at cas that won’t make any difference am sure they not interested in that but if it goes to the Swiss courts that’s when all this could be heard and the cartel shown up for what they are bias to those clubs.

 

[Gordyola]

Incorrect laserblue. As Keith says:
His Highness = The Emir (when people who work directly for the government talk about the Emir in shortened form).
His Highness XXX = A senior royal, whose shortened name is XXX, whose father was probably an Emir, or the son of an Emir.
His Excellency XXX = A junior royal normally the son of a senior royal whose shortened name is XXX, but others can be promoted to this rank whi do good work for the government, like Kaldoon, for example.
On official documents, every name is expanded in full.
I worked in Abu Dhabhi for 2 years on a project, for Etisalat, where the sponsor was a HH. Get it wrong and you get bollocked.

From Der-Spiegel leaked email analysis
"As we discussed, the annual direct obligation for Aabar is GBP 3 million," Pearce wrote. "The remaining 12 million GBP requirement will come from alternative sources provided by His Highness."

With just a single sentence, Pearce confirmed the accusations that his club had repeatedly, indignantly rejected: Namely, that His Highness, Sheikh Mansour, paid a portion of the sponsoring money himself!

Der-Spiegel have clearly assumed that His Highness is Sheikh Mansour

Pearce, highly experienced Abu Dhabi protocol, won's have made a simple mistake as BlueAnorak said above doing so leads to being bollocked

 

[urban genie]

I haven't criticised anyone of being dodgy mate, I simply tried to defend my club from false accusations.

That is fine, but you have to admit what we are accused of doing is exactly what Juve, Bayern Madrid are doing too and the whole system is bent.

I have no issue with Juves owners using thier money as they please to help the club along, just for us blues it seems we are not given that same option as the old guard..

 

[blue b4 the moon]

I suppose having a ping pong player pontificating in the national media as some sort of football expert shows a degree of diversity.

Not just any ping pong player one who has admitted cheating himself and from what I remember a boring as fuck one whose method of play was to return the ball with zero flair waiting for a mistake.

Sort of the opposite of City.

 

[laserblue]

Just because he’s half Pakistani, it doesn’t absolve him from (allegedly) being a racist!!!

I agree completely but you just know he'd milk the the fact that he's mixed race in an attempt to deflect any accusation that he's racist himself (which he undoubtedly is).