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

[slbsn]

Actually, on the very last point I disagree, and this may well be the crux of everything. IMO CAS have to rule on the rules, not on the emotions that the emails can evoke in people. The question is are UEFA within their own rules in a) using the leaks to re-try a previously settled case AND b) if they are, do the leaks prove clearly that the UEFA's rules were broken.

Khaldoon and Simon Pearce are not little guys. Soriano and Begiristain are little guys. And the confidence and bullishness isn't coming from the little guys. Khaldoon and Pearce simply wouldn't take that stance without strong advice that they were on solid ground. The ramifications of being wrong are pretty severe on every level. It's not like they're privately saying to the players "this could go either way" - every single one of them has been told that the club will be 100% vindicated. That's a balls out strategy if you're playing with a weak hand.

Correct - CAS will look at the evidence and the case as a whole. CAS is far from perfect - its a long lunch, easy money gig for a "judge"/QC/arbitrator. But if UEFA's case doesn't stack up, the appeal will succeed. The matters I have described in previous posts are not legal technicalities and the appeal is not about procedural failings.

As for this "100%", "irrefutable" balls out strategy, it may make the employees feel more relaxed but its not reality. They can't be certain of winning. By analogy we lost at Norwich and how many times have they called FFP wrongly. A lot.

 

[Stoned Rose]

But even if Pearce's reply said "Sure. Etihad are broke but I bet Sheikh Mansour will pay it out of his own pocket if we ask" It might cause red faces at the club but it isn't proof of any breach of FFP or anything else. What proof can UEFA have, compared to our accounts?

This.

Its either in black and white in the accounts or they can fuck off.

 

[Bodicoteblue]

Never understimate how stupid UEFA officials are. They have plenty of previous for making stupid decisions. People who are corrupt often become arrogant and complacent. When Platini was at UEFA he thought he could accept a £1m payment with no contract or receipt from Blatter for work he had allegedly done 10 years earlier. It all happened within weeks of him backing the Qatar World Cup bid and he thought no one would question it.
It's hard to understand this sort of mindset but I have come across a lot of corrupt people in my career. They all have one thing in common. They think they are untouchable.

Think ‘Bosman’
Uefa pitched up at the ECJ with a simple defence of ‘we know what is best for football’ and expected everyone to agree.
Got their arses handed to them on a plate.
Their arrogance seems almost pathological.

 

[BillyShears]

Correct - CAS will look at the evidence and the case as a whole. CAS is far from perfect - its a long lunch, easy money gig for a "judge"/QC/arbitrator. But if UEFA's case doesn't stack up, the appeal will succeed. The matters I have described in previous posts are not legal technicalities and the appeal is not about procedural failings.

As for this "100%", "irrefutable" balls out strategy, it may make the employees feel more relaxed but its not reality. They can't be certain of winning. By analogy we lost at Norwich and how many times have they called FFP wrongly. A lot.

Yep. Which is my vote in the poll didn’t involve the word exonerated. I don't think we've covered ourselves in glory in the way we've handled this. If we win, we are at least vindicated of something. But anything beyond that and the awkward conversations won't end in the press room.

 

[nmc]

This is exactly the point, which I've made before, about context. If Pearce's reply implicated ADUG in any way. Der Spiegel would have printed it, assuming they had it. If Pearce's reply said something like "This is nothing to do with ADUG. Etihad will be providing all the money" then that doesn't exactly help the picture that Der Spiegel were clearly trying to paint. So either they didn't have the reply (which seems unlikely) or else they did, and deliberately failed to print it.

I think the other point is that Etihad is by no means a small organisation. I'm sure they have a much more strategic approach to their capital and cash flow so there almost certainly won’t be an individual entry from the state to cover our sponsorship - I’m sure there will be a whole load of other stuff in their too. I’m sure Etihad don’t prepare their books to create transparency for UEFA or Der Spiegel.

 

[nmc]

I have read this thread daily since it started
Must admit a lot of it goes over my head. Is there any chance UEFA have something up their sleeve that City are not aware, which is why UEFA slapped us with the 2 year ban and fine?

In short no. They have found us guilty and sent us the details of their decision - which have remained confidential. They can’t really pitch up at CAS and start introducing new evidence. So the club and our legal team will know what UEFA do or perhaps more importantly don’t have.

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

I agree we are all guessing and hoping. Reminds me of the old days when all we had was hope then that deserted us as well, till 2008. I thought the IC passed onto the AC the evidence that they had considered which would not have included Citys dossier of irrefutable evidence which they had not looked at. Why would they pass on something they had not considered. Getting
dizzy with it now so in times like this Im off to the joke thread.

Even the Covid19 thread seems like light relief after half an hour on this one!

 

[BobbyBoy]

Exactly what I’ve been thinking. If that reply was a smoking gun that implicated us, there is little doubt in my mind that Der Spiegel would have possession of it and would’ve printed it in all its glory complete with bells and whistles. But they didn’t. Unless it’s a bluff on their part and they hung on to it to stitch us up further down the line by handing it over to UEFA, but City would know if such an e-mail exists and the club surely wouldn’t be so bullish about the outcome if it did.

My understanding of this is a massive haul of hacked emails were handed over to a selection of newspapers, similar to the panama offshore banking stories a few years back, the English media picked up on the daily stories in Der Spiegel and ran with them. However there was a handful of other papers in Belgium, Holland, Bosnia and Denmark that were also printing different bits. The Bosnian stories focus a lot on Dzecko and Arab's buying up property in the Baltics. The Danish stuff was about City and dodgy academies, could be a coincidence of course but 3 different publications in 3 countries unrelated to England are reporting stuff that either directly or indirectly concerns City and its owner, the only other big stories involved Ronaldo (the hacker been told he can have something for yourself????) And Ramos. The drop is also timed so PSG just beat the clock in terms of reopening their case. I've always suspected something more sinister is at play here, while posters are slagging off Gill and Parry someone somewhere is laughing their bollox off. If its who I think it is then that someone has kept a little back for UEFA or we wouldn't be here.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Genuinely think we are up against a mafia here that will not stop until they have completely fucked us over.

They think they are untouchable.

 

[Jacko1956]

I think the other point is that Etihad is by no means a small organisation. I'm sure they have a much more strategic approach to their capital and cash flow so there almost certainly won’t be an individual entry from the state to cover our sponsorship - I’m sure there will be a whole load of other stuff in their too. I’m sure Etihad don’t prepare their books to create transparency for UEFA or Der Spiegel.

Just heard that Spurs are borrowing 107m from the bank of England to see them through the current crisis as playing with no home crowd will cost them 20m a game. For fucks sake UEFA they already borrowed 600m to build the thing in the first place. If this is not breaching FFP rules what the fuck is ? This all the money from repayments going out of the game which seems to be ok and fine with UEfA but if you are debt free and make a prophet and invest all your money back into the game your a corrupt organisation. If this is allowed along with the rumoured borrowing United intend to complete and not breach FFP then our punishment should be laughed out of CAS in about two minutes, UEFA is a totally corrupt and shameful or perhaps shameless excuse for a football governing body !