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

[Len Rum]

I apologise for the length of this but it was the only way I could reasonably cover what I wanted to discuss or relay to you lot.

Having read several articles now regarding the alleged case against us I am still unable to establish if the ICB have only used information taken from web pages of Der Spiegel to form the basis of charges against us or have they sought the alleged actual emails from the stolen cache of data or is that currently residing in Portugal awaiting its disposal from a Portuguese court following Pintos likely public castration.

Mark Goddards iterations are interesting (see page 167 of this thread) in respect of the likely investigative process employed by Uefa investigators and I think it doesn't take a great leap for normal folk to read the Der Spiegel allegations and formulate the necessary questions to put to City. https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html
Unsurprisingly i've read through the report several times looking beyond the laughable rhetoric and faux outrage (using Hoeness as some form of paragon of financial proberty being a particular favourite) and there are several references to emails (none dated surprisingly). I wanted to have a clear look at what was allegedly in the emails to try to understand and substantiate any potential charges.

The following alleged email must be post May 2013 when RM was sacked.

"We will have a shortfall of 9.9m pounds in order to comply with UEFA FFP this season," Man City's Chief Financial Officer Jorge Chumillas wrote in an internal email. "The deficit is due to RM (eds: a reference to Roberto Mancini) termination. I think that the only solution left would be an additional amount of AD (eds: Abu Dhabi) sponsorship revenues that covers this gap."

Subsequently
....sponsoring contracts would be adjusted -- for the just finished season! Etihad was to suddenly pay 1.5 million pounds more, Aabar 0.5 million extra and the tourism authority a surplus of fully 5.5 million pounds.

Looking at this as a result DS makes certain assumptions that MCFC compelled such payments however would it not be perfectly feasible that we approached our certainly friendly sponsors and asked them to make additional payments to help us out at a sticky point for certain future discounts or privileges or future contractual subsidies as long as said payments were made prior to year end?
Another infamous email is the one below

As early as April 2010, when Pearce negotiated the sponsorship deal with Aabar, he wrote a telltale email to the firm's leadership. According to the contract, the investment company was to pay the club 15 million pounds annually. But that apparently isn't the full story. "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."

however this refers to details prior to our settlement on 16.05.2014 for seasons 13/14 - 14/15 & 15/16 https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFile...ncialControl/02/10/69/00/2106900_DOWNLOAD.pdf
so I believe has no bearing on anything as the investigators would already have looked in depth at values of sponsorship contracts and been happy with them. In any event I think we may have established HH is likely not to be our owner as DS obviously thinks.

Next in line was....
Apparently, companies like Etihad in Abu Dhabi wait for the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the holding company that belongs to Sheikh Mansour and which also owns Manchester City, to wire them money. That money is then "routed through the partners and they then forward onto us," wrote Finance Director Andrew Widdowson in an email. That, at least, is how things were done in 2015: At the time, the deal with Etihad was bringing in 67.5 million pounds annually. But Chief Financial Officer Chumillas emphasized in an email to Pearce: "Please note that out of those 67.5m pounds, 8m pounds should be funded directly by Etihad and 59.5 by ADUG."

I think we have accepted that this was potentially what happened however unfortunately for DS and the rabid dogs this is not a contravention of FFP. In addition we had a statement from Etihad which said the financial obligations associated with the partnership with the club have always been and remain the airline's "sole liability and responsibility." Although the likelihood of such a sponsorship being a related party might be somewhat in question the value of the contract was never an issue therefore it certainly wasn't "Inflated" as a sponsorship amount.

The following is a load of bluster about compromises by Infantino.

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...-and-psg-pact-with-the-sheikhs-a-1236414.html

Clearly the settlements reached were necessary and are strictly a part of the FFP process as applied and if DS wanted to do their research properly (not their narrative though) they should have looked up the whole concept rules of FFP and particularly the clear and transparent requirement for settlements and sanctions of which FFP currently doesn't have and which would most certainly leave a legal loophole to be challenged. These matters are discussed in this following legal piece - although unedited makes clear ref to the position of Uefa

https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/f...airness-in-financial-fair-play#sdfootnote3sym

The DS No 2 is a litany of stuff about Project Longbow which is all about the creation of Fordham to manage player image rights which would then be purchased by CFG which outsources part of the player wages in effect with the intention of lowering costs. Again its already all been dealt with following the settlement in May 2014. It was subsequently dealt with and the agreement with City saw its demise as a vehicle to manage losses. All entirely legal im afraid and good business practice to keep initial operating costs down.

Part 3 of the DS episodes is a Bayern Munich sob storey that Pep signed for City before his contract was up at Bayern - Boo Hoo - nothing to do with anything apart from quoting Peps remuneration package and stating it was world leading. Thats what happens when you hire the best coach in the world you muppets.

DS Part 4 is another Boo Hoo piece regarding KDB purchase from Wolfsburg and the description of the CFG business model being global. It also makes reference to RM salary being paid in 2 parts the 2nd being by Al Jazira in relation to "football advisory" activities. No illegal as far as im aware and not against FFP. It doesn't in itself allege any other wrongdoing apart from a reference to the Part 1 elements regarding "hidden payments etc" (i note they were very careful not to indicate any illegal activity). Suffice to say the articles final line was
"In football, it's not just survival of the fittest, it's also survival of the richest" - I would say no shit sherlock.

Thats it - am I the only one thinking if thats all they've got they better have some good lawyers.

Great post.
I have one query. If ADUG is not a related party to Etihad ( which I don't think it is) then my understanding is that is against FFP rules for ADUG to make sponsorship payments by routing them through Etihad.
The problem for UEFA would be proving ADUG made such payments. I think @Prestwich_Blue has made the same point?

 

[decmancity]

I think a guy who openly hates us being in charge is better than a neutral or someone who tries to appear neutral.

Doesn't matter how much they hate us or how neutral they are. You really don't think one man is the main power broker in the prem do you?

No matter who takes the position, status quo will be enforced and the world will keep spinning.

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

I think therein lies the "context" issues in relation to emails.

Etihad say they were solely responsible for the payments to City for the sponsorship monies.

How do we know ADUG were not responsible for payments made to Etihad for other reasons enabling the whole amount to be paid by Etihad. Peter to pay Paul and all that but the loopholes within FFP are enormous sufficient to drive a truck through let alone a wire with 59.5 million on.

 

[Bill]

I apologise for the length of this but it was the only way I could reasonably cover what I wanted to discuss or relay to you lot.

Having read several articles now regarding the alleged case against us I am still unable to establish if the ICB have only used information taken from web pages of Der Spiegel to form the basis of charges against us or have they sought the alleged actual emails from the stolen cache of data or is that currently residing in Portugal awaiting its disposal from a Portuguese court following Pintos likely public castration.

Mark Goddards iterations are interesting (see page 167 of this thread) in respect of the likely investigative process employed by Uefa investigators and I think it doesn't take a great leap for normal folk to read the Der Spiegel allegations and formulate the necessary questions to put to City. https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html
Unsurprisingly i've read through the report several times looking beyond the laughable rhetoric and faux outrage (using Hoeness as some form of paragon of financial proberty being a particular favourite) and there are several references to emails (none dated surprisingly). I wanted to have a clear look at what was allegedly in the emails to try to understand and substantiate any potential charges.

The following alleged email must be post May 2013 when RM was sacked.

"We will have a shortfall of 9.9m pounds in order to comply with UEFA FFP this season," Man City's Chief Financial Officer Jorge Chumillas wrote in an internal email. "The deficit is due to RM (eds: a reference to Roberto Mancini) termination. I think that the only solution left would be an additional amount of AD (eds: Abu Dhabi) sponsorship revenues that covers this gap."

Subsequently
....sponsoring contracts would be adjusted -- for the just finished season! Etihad was to suddenly pay 1.5 million pounds more, Aabar 0.5 million extra and the tourism authority a surplus of fully 5.5 million pounds.

Looking at this as a result DS makes certain assumptions that MCFC compelled such payments however would it not be perfectly feasible that we approached our certainly friendly sponsors and asked them to make additional payments to help us out at a sticky point for certain future discounts or privileges or future contractual subsidies as long as said payments were made prior to year end?
Another infamous email is the one below

As early as April 2010, when Pearce negotiated the sponsorship deal with Aabar, he wrote a telltale email to the firm's leadership. According to the contract, the investment company was to pay the club 15 million pounds annually. But that apparently isn't the full story. "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."

however this refers to details prior to our settlement on 16.05.2014 for seasons 13/14 - 14/15 & 15/16 https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFile...ncialControl/02/10/69/00/2106900_DOWNLOAD.pdf
so I believe has no bearing on anything as the investigators would already have looked in depth at values of sponsorship contracts and been happy with them. In any event I think we may have established HH is likely not to be our owner as DS obviously thinks.

Next in line was....
Apparently, companies like Etihad in Abu Dhabi wait for the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the holding company that belongs to Sheikh Mansour and which also owns Manchester City, to wire them money. That money is then "routed through the partners and they then forward onto us," wrote Finance Director Andrew Widdowson in an email. That, at least, is how things were done in 2015: At the time, the deal with Etihad was bringing in 67.5 million pounds annually. But Chief Financial Officer Chumillas emphasized in an email to Pearce: "Please note that out of those 67.5m pounds, 8m pounds should be funded directly by Etihad and 59.5 by ADUG."

I think we have accepted that this was potentially what happened however unfortunately for DS and the rabid dogs this is not a contravention of FFP. In addition we had a statement from Etihad which said the financial obligations associated with the partnership with the club have always been and remain the airline's "sole liability and responsibility." Although the likelihood of such a sponsorship being a related party might be somewhat in question the value of the contract was never an issue therefore it certainly wasn't "Inflated" as a sponsorship amount.

The following is a load of bluster about compromises by Infantino.

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...-and-psg-pact-with-the-sheikhs-a-1236414.html

Clearly the settlements reached were necessary and are strictly a part of the FFP process as applied and if DS wanted to do their research properly (not their narrative though) they should have looked up the whole concept rules of FFP and particularly the clear and transparent requirement for settlements and sanctions of which FFP currently doesn't have and which would most certainly leave a legal loophole to be challenged. These matters are discussed in this following legal piece - although unedited makes clear ref to the position of Uefa

https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/f...airness-in-financial-fair-play#sdfootnote3sym

The DS No 2 is a litany of stuff about Project Longbow which is all about the creation of Fordham to manage player image rights which would then be purchased by CFG which outsources part of the player wages in effect with the intention of lowering costs. Again its already all been dealt with following the settlement in May 2014. It was subsequently dealt with and the agreement with City saw its demise as a vehicle to manage losses. All entirely legal im afraid and good business practice to keep initial operating costs down.

Part 3 of the DS episodes is a Bayern Munich sob storey that Pep signed for City before his contract was up at Bayern - Boo Hoo - nothing to do with anything apart from quoting Peps remuneration package and stating it was world leading. Thats what happens when you hire the best coach in the world you muppets.

DS Part 4 is another Boo Hoo piece regarding KDB purchase from Wolfsburg and the description of the CFG business model being global. It also makes reference to RM salary being paid in 2 parts the 2nd being by Al Jazira in relation to "football advisory" activities. No illegal as far as im aware and not against FFP. It doesn't in itself allege any other wrongdoing apart from a reference to the Part 1 elements regarding "hidden payments etc" (i note they were very careful not to indicate any illegal activity). Suffice to say the articles final line was
"In football, it's not just survival of the fittest, it's also survival of the richest" - I would say no shit sherlock.

Thats it - am I the only one thinking if thats all they've got they better have some good lawyers.

top post.

 

[Norbiton]

Great post.
I have one query. If ADUG is not a related party to Etihad ( which I don't think it is) then my understanding is that is against FFP rules for ADUG to make sponsorship payments by routing them through Etihad.
The problem for UEFA would be proving ADUG made such payments. I think @Prestwich_Blue has made the same point?

I think PB pointed out that it's public knowledge via a footnote to Etihad's accounts that part of the Etihad sponsorship was paid directly by the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. Perhaps this is the money that came via ADUG

 

[decmancity]

Will certainly get interesting if UEFA start publicly calling to open the books at Etihad, its no secret they are in trouble financially and the Abu Dhabi royal family wont take too kindly to a company trying to smear their national airline.

It seems quite clear which direction this will go in, a deal done behind closed doors and it is gone forever or ADUG tie UEFA up for years in the courts and it wont just be over FFP. Anyone else think there might be a few skeletons in the closet for the GazProm deals etc

 

[Rolee]

Really?
Shock horror.
Then we could be in trouble couldn't we?
Still doesn't seem to be in accordance with what @Prestwich_Blue said.
If what you say is true then UEFA don't have to prove that some of the Etihad sponsorship came via ADUG?

Sheikh Mansour is not on the executive council.

Of course money from the executive council would be invested in their state airline.

What am I missing here?

 

[Forzacitizens]

As far as I understand it the etihad deal isn't really the issue as PB said its 'fair market value'. So it doesn't really matter where the money came from

The issue is with the Etisalat and aabar deals.

 

[petrusha]

I think therein lies the "context" issues in relation to emails.

Etihad say they were solely responsible for the payments to City for the sponsorship monies.

How do we know ADUG were not responsible for payments made to Etihad for other reasons enabling the whole amount to be paid by Etihad. Peter to pay Paul and all that but the loopholes within FFP are enormous sufficient to drive a truck through let alone a wire with 59.5 million on.

I'm not as across this as I'd like to be, but isn't the crux of the issue that if ADUG have routed monies into Etihad to pay the sponsorship fees, that in effect is disguised shareholder funding by our owner to MCFC. So even though the amount was accepted as being a fair value, we'd nonetheless misrepresented the source of the funds and are thus guilty of misleading UEFA. And that's what they want to punish us for.

On the other hand, if ADUG merely used contacts within ADEC so that ADEC paid it, then it's not MCFC's shareholder or a party rerlated to it funneling the cash back into MCFC. How Etihad funds its deals and what relationship it, as an Abu Dhabi-owned company, has with an AbuDhabi public authority in terms of the provision of funds are neither here nor there. And Simon Pearce's reference to funding sources being supplied to Etihad by 'His Highness' is almost certainly the Crown Prince and not Mansour.

It was a matter of record in the States in the context of a state aid investigation in (I think) 2013 that ADEC was funding the Etihad sponsorship. And despite the Der Spiegel allegations that ADUG later funded them, the email they actually quoted simply referred to a figure with ADUG's game next to it with respect to the funds Etihad wasn't going to pay direct. In the absence of any further evidence and on its face, that's equally consistent, IMO, with ADUG procuring the funds as with ADUG supplying them.

It's hard to judge absolutely what's happening here because the reporting by clueless football journalists makes it so hard to tell. But this has been my hypothesis - and only if ADEC rather than ADUG has sourced the funds do the presumed allegations stick. If the funds have come from ADEC, that to me would account for why we're so bullish.

As I say, usual disclaimers apply. We could only know for sure what's happening if we had access to other documents that aren't in the public domain. And I'd be happy for this conjecture to be supplemented or corrected by people with different and/or superior insight.

 

[Len Rum]

As far as I understand it the etihad deal isn't really the issue as PB said its 'fair market value'. So it doesn't really matter where the money came from

The issue is with the Etisalat and aabar deals.

As I understand it the Etihad deal is not an issue if Etihad and ADUG are related parties.
But I don't think they and therefore it may beagainst FFP rules for a club's owner to sponsor the club by putting money through an unrelated party?