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

What do you think will be the outcome of the CAS hearing?

  • Two-year ban upheld

    Votes: 197 13.1%
  • Ban reduced to one year

    Votes: 422 28.2%
  • Ban overturned and City exonerated

    Votes: 815 54.4%
  • Other

    Votes: 65 4.3%

  • Total voters
    1,499
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I posted this in 2017 because it was clear to see the forces against City were organised. Over the past three years, a lot more of the football audience has been brainwashed, similar in politics but thats a different debate.

The brainwashing of the audience has made UEFA and rivals with agenda more bold, one can find similar trends in politics too (again a separate debate). Only thing that can overcome these organised attacks is "organisation" of all football fans that can use their own minds. I think this can be done with enough fan support and i can plan/lead/facilitate the initiative if there is enough support.

arbabarshad
Joined:
6 Jan 2011
Messages:
456

See at least that is meaningful action and something I would support. There is some rubbish reporting out there, about us, and it should be challenged. We note it about City because its our club and we recognise the inaccuracies. But undoubtedly it happens to other clubs also.
You are probably right that other fans notice it too. I think majority of fans wish for and deserve balanced reporting.

The initiative should demand fair and balanced reporting and not "for or against" reporting.

Currently, in my view and possibly some others too, the following are the reasons for the reporting standards as they are:

1) reporting exactly what people want to see i.e. Click bait reporting (in journalist's view).

It can be said that is clever and good for journalist's careers however it's not "journalism" which can be defined as something that is fact and can be evidenced. Rather, it's reporting on populism where they only report what people want to see (again in journalist's view).

2) reporting based on limited knowledge and qualification, in other words, idiotic reporting (journalists who do not understand the profession and the professional requirements for reporting, fact and evidence is an integral part of requirements).

3) reporting (intentionally) as 1) or 2) above to promote a hidden agenda. It’s very easy to mix with idiots and claim the prize. Some journalists know that they want to promote a certain narrative but they can’t do it so clearly therefore they either do it under the banner of “Click bait” reporting or “Idiotic reporting”.

4) Opportunists who try and associate with successful organisations by promoting them without rewards now but in the hope that it will reward them in longer term.

I doubt any journalist would mind being called an idiot as long as they have a career in it. Comedians, rock stars, celebrities or big brother celebrities etc don’t mind coming across as Lunatics because it’s what gives them a livelihood. I doubt many of them behave like lunatics in their normal life.

The 3) is where people are trying to hurt the club intentionally, and although, some would call it bias, other’s injustice, cheating, clickbait, incompetence, unfairness but they all result in one collective outcome for the club, a negative overall image. This results in the following:

- Fans from predominantly English speaking countries are put off by the negativity (the narrative of repeat lies long enough and people will believe).

- Sponsors whose targets are fans from English speaking countries are put off by the negativity.

- Commercial sponsorships and advertising income does not increase as it should in the short to medium term (Nike shirt deal for example). Most of the sponsorship income in reality comes from sponsors in English speaking countries.

Last night, someone posted “Coppack” was recruited by BBC from United. It would not be a surprise to anyone if he was still on the payroll of United or did freelance work for united and therefore promoted them through BBC in a subtle way. Similarly, it would not be a surprise if many other journalists did freelance work (earned money in brown envelopes) and promoted united in the media at every opportunity.

Similar things happen in politics whereby people pay money to throw dirt at their opponents to gain an advantage in the short term and this is what we are seeing in the media.

I mentioned campaign but let’s call it initiative, sounds better and that is what it is. Campaigns are run nowadays to gain an advantage mainly, but this initiative is to “demand” balanced reporting and actual journalism with facts and evidence.

I believe there are two things fans should understand here:

a) Being part of the initiative, what you would be doing is “doing your bit” for the club. By that I mean, you will be improving the perception of the club in the mainstream and improving their chances of better sponsorship deals, allowing the clubs to sign even better players and improving the facilities even further (not a fan of pies myself but may be the club can improve the standard of food or availability of the drinks at half time). Bear in mind, the club may achieve these goals even without fans initiative or contribution but it may take the club slightly longer to do it on their own. So you will still be doing your bit to help the achieve things quicker.

b) A campaign may be ridiculed by the media but the narrative of the initiative, not campaign, is to demand balanced reporting. Firstly, ridiculing a set of few supporters is easy but ridiculing a set of thousands or supporters or even hundreds of thousands of supporters who are only demanding “balanced reporting” is not that easy. It can make the person doing the ridiculing come across as fools.

The biggest challenge in my view for this initiative is the “tribalism” in football and therefore getting support from other rival but reasonable fans will be difficult but important.

At the same time, some people may even decide this initiative is not going to get anywhere because it is against a very powerful media and they do not want to be associated with a platform which is ridiculed therefore, the most important part of this initiative would be to gather as much support across multiple platforms and fan bases and have think skin to endure the ridicule that will come it’s way.

Finally, I am sure some serious discussions among fans on one platform can find ways which will be successful in dealing with appalling reporting standards in this country.

I am not going to apologize for any language, grammatical or punctuation errors in my post, because it’s irrelevant to the subject matter of the post. But I hope people do find a couple of minutes to read the post and see if they would like to be part of this initiative.
 
In a weird way, this could be the making of the Club.
I can't think of anything more likely to unite the fans than this wanton and unjust persecution by a corrupt elite. In addition, unlike our neighbours down the road, we are fully behind the Club's owners. Unity is strength.
The new chant should be "Fuck off Uefa", for 90 minutes, every game.
 
re your final paragraph
If UEFA are claiming that this has just been brought to their attention despite being clear at the time can we respond by bringing up the way they changed the regulations at the last minute to ensure we failed ffp initially?
I'm sure that will all be revealed if this goes to a proper court of law (which isn't a slight on CAS but they're an arbitration service not a court).
 
Thought there might have been a very public and very strong statement released by the club the lack of one doesn’t fill me with great hope. Can’t see what we are waiting for now.
We really have to be cautious now. We can't risk alienating CAS ahead of our appeal. This is now a legal battle and most of it will have to be behind closed doors.
 
Nah, fuck em. We’ve done NOTHING wrong. Absolutely nothing.

IMO we have.

UEFA would not have passed this judgement if there was no evidence of wrong doing. It also seems like our defence is centred on the investigation itself as opposed to nature of the charges which is slightly worrying.

However, the legacy of this shows that hacked data is admissible in UEFA’s court and the amount of shit out there about Europe’s ‘elite’ will be extremely unsettling for them.

United and Liverpool have taken the rivalry with us away from the pitch and into the boardroom. Shit is definitely going to come their way in the near future and I look forward to seeing it.
 
I just think if City had an Ace to play it would have been played a long time ago and things would never have got this far. The fact that we're relying on CAS to favour us on a subjective technical argument is a pretty weak defence IMO. I suspect we'll get a reduction which is no use as by definition we'd still be regarded as cheats and everything we'd won is tarnished. The thing is a farce manipulated by a cartel that doesn't want new boys at the table and FFP was a crock of shit from the get go with historical debt not being factored in a load of bollocks. Suits ManUre and Real Madrid amongst others. It was never going to be a fair fight. So if we're going down then let's take some of these fukkers with us and bloody a few noses. Bring it on. CTID.
Other than submitting accounts I don't think there is much more we could have done or were allowed to do. Hopefully 4 Aces get flopped out at CAS.
 
Some random thoughts about this scenario:

1) UEFA seem to be basing their case on the Der Spiegal cache of emails. Have they seen these emails or are they solely going off the newspaper reports? What attempts have they made to be sure that there are no emails not known to them? We are told this is a huge data dump - what attempts have been made to ensure they have viewed every email with relevant detail? How have they done this analysis? IF they have used the actual data dump to gather evidence have city also been provided with the same data dump?

2) I've assumed they haven't actually had access to the data dump (although it would be fun if City did have the entire cache of football leaks emails) because Der Spiegal were excited yesterday that it was their research that got us to this point. What steps have UEFA made to verify the veracity and honesty of that research? What steps have they taken to ensure the snippets of emails presented in the paper are accurate particularly when placed back into the context from which they have been ripped? What alternative understandings of the presented fragments of text did they explore and what criteria did they use to dismiss those?

3) The CAS ruling on the Galatasary case commented that Galatasary leaned too heavily on newspaper reports in defence of their case. Are UEFA basing the entirety of their case on newspaper reports?

4) If I remember correctly when we failed FFP the next few years of our accounts were under extra scrutiny? (I may be mistaken about this). What did that scrutiny involve (if it happened) and who at UEFA signed off on them? Does this form part of the case that we misled UEFA?

5) Why did it take so long for the AC to inform City of their findings? How were we informed? Have we been given more detail about what we are being punished for than UEFA have released?

6) if my understanding is correct CAS can only judge based on policies and procedures and can offer no real comment on the evidence collected by UEFA except to say if it was collected effectively or not. Therefore CAS can only acquit us based on technicalities. Will this be enough for City or will they make further attempts to establish their innocence either by explaining more clearly the context of the emails we dispute and/or legal action.
 
The level of interest in that set up would be zero too
In today's world, money trumps all. If you throw enough money at people, projects, marketing - you'll generate enough interest but the question is, who'll be willing to invest resources in such a project until it is self sustaining.
 
I don't read the Athletic but I do think though that UEFA have probably changed their position during the process and that they reported in good faith. The delays in the UEFA hearings and outcome do suggest an internal wrangle.

The Athletic is much more of a collective than a normal newspaper sports desk. They will have people like Sam Lee reporting the City side of things and people like Ornstein reporting the FA/PL side of things and Pearce reporting the Liverpool side.
 
In a weird way, this could be the making of the Club.
I can't think of anything more likely to unite the fans than this wanton and unjust persecution by a corrupt elite. In addition, unlike our neighbours down the road, we are fully behind the Club's owners. Unity is strength.
The new chant should be "Fuck off Uefa", for 90 minutes, every game.
I've posted many times that I am ready to give up as much as is humanly possible for someone who has been obsessed with City for over 40 years - but fuckin hell - have I got my appetite back now. GAME ON. Thanks UEFA ;)))
 
I'm sure that will all be revealed if this goes to a proper court of law (which isn't a slight on CAS but they're an arbitration service not a court).

So, Colin, what is the legal process here? If CAS doesn't find in City's favour, what's next?
 
In a weird way, this could be the making of the Club.
I can't think of anything more likely to unite the fans than this wanton and unjust persecution by a corrupt elite. In addition, unlike our neighbours down the road, we are fully behind the Club's owners. Unity is strength.
The new chant should be "Fuck off Uefa", for 90 minutes, every game.

No, can't let protest get in the way of supporting the team, so yes protest , boo whatever but during the game support the team more than ever.
 
IMO we have.

UEFA would not have passed this judgement if there was no evidence of wrong doing. It also seems like our defence is centred on the investigation itself as opposed to nature of the charges which is slightly worrying.

However, the legacy of this shows that hacked data is admissible in UEFA’s court and the amount of shit out there about Europe’s ‘elite’ will be extremely unsettling for them.

United and Liverpool have taken the rivalry with us away from the pitch and into the boardroom. Shit is definitely going to come their way in the near future and I look forward to seeing it.
Nah, the point is they are disputing where the funds came from for the sponsorships, who gives a fuck whether it came directly from Mansour’s pocket? They were all fair value and FFP was bollocks from day 1.
 
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