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

[Machiavelli]

I agree
But I don't trust the cheating cûnts in Switzerland

This will all be dealt with sooner or later.

 

[Len Rum]

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?

Correct I have deleted my OP.

 

[Barry Conlons wig]

Then the club has already lost.

If you think public perception doesn't matter then you are beyond naive. Being cleared in the courts doesn't matter, everyone has already decided we are guilty no matter the verdict.

And that massive negative public perception has real life consequences for the club and the fans, whether its players or managers getting fed up of lack of recognition and constant criticism, turning new players/managers away or just stunting the growth of the fanbase and sponsors not wanting to be associated with City.

I really hope the club doesnt think that a simple win in the court over the latest FFP investigation will solve anything.

Jesus christ stay away from bridges pal---shakes head in shame

 

[foggy1974]

remember that the accounts were produced before the Der Spiegel allegations. Therefore the absence of related parties in the accounts is less meaningful than it otherwise would be. I don't know if it's the done thing, but I think Etihad and City's auditors should review the evidence in the light of the Der Spiegel publication and submit it as evidence. In their professional opinion are in the light of the email hack, these sponsorships considered as related parties. I am pretty convinced that Etihad could not be considered as such. To be so, Sheikh Mansour would have to have control over the Etihad's commercial activities. I'd like to see someone prove that. And that's before you even consider if it's inflated which again is doubtful.

The problem is not UEFA's technical case but that the cartel are pushing hard now. This is their moment. It's now or never for them.

I think it's always good news when Tebas speaks. It just makes it very very obvious that this is not a technical matter, but a political battle. Quite evident that footballing authorities are not the neutral arbiters they would like to portray

Is it a case with the noise from Tebas and the UEFA president, that UEFA are concerned that they have a flimsy case and are muddying the waters with help from G14 clubs.

 

[jrb]

Why is Tebas still being allowed to lie, accusing City of inflating transfer fees and wages, so other European clubs have no choice but to follow?

We come in 18th for our first signing. Kev. Look at how many times Barcelona, Madrid, and the PL European Royalty clubs come in the top 20 most expensive signings/transfers. Tebas(t***!) has a point about PSG though.

The 100 most expensive football transfers of all time

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.go...ansfers-of-all-time/ikr3oojohla51fh9adq3qkwpu

 

[Fame Monster]

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.

What I don't understand is, if someone as rich as Sheikh Mansour could use sponsors as a vehicle to pump as much money into Manchester City as he wanted, how on earth did we fail FFP in the first place? It doesn't make any sense.

 

[laserblue]

Don’t see how they can pre date 2014 as there is a 5 year statute of limitations.

That's why UEFA referred the case to its higher chamber exactly 5 years to the day after City were originally punished despite the all the evidence not having been considered and the case not completed. If they'd have waited just one more day they couldn't have proceeded.

 

[City Raider]

Some talk of a settlement on here. I hope we don’t go down that route, it’s an admission of guilt. Let’s do what we should have done first time round, take them on. The worst that can happen is we are found guilty and punished, which will look exactly the same with any settlement. The best that can happen is clearing our name and blowing ffp out of the water. I think a potential one year CL ban is worth the gamble as long as the club are genuinely as confident as their PR suggests.

 

[moomba]

I was wondering today.....how are Bournemouth packing in their 10,000 crowds ( great attendance if they were in league2) not under greater scrutiny and not vilified like we are.
Who is financially doping them? They fill a premier league slot a Leeds, villa, Derby , Sheffield we'd or say forest. WBA all should probably occupy?
How are the media not all over this? Can a blue mooner explain a bit on this?

Careful. The owner is a blue, we might get charged for that as well.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

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.

I doubt you are.
I do think you need to get out more though!

Nice work.