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

[argyle]

No doubt they are going to charge us with something, no doubt also that khaldoon won’t accept it! Gonna be popcorn time soon imo!

Depends if they dig hard enough and find us something to be guilty of. The club might negotiate a penalty again.

I want City to take a hardline, take them to court etc, but it's not the way the club do things.

 

[nmc]

The timing of this is odd, as is the sudden supposed whining by 12 premier league clubs, though how the times knows this so quickly I have no idea. A sceptic might say as we stand on the verge of a historical quadruple it is being done to derail us.

By 12 they mean United, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal are confident of bullying the rest of the league to get the majority they need - as they did with their FFP proposal.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Depends if they dig hard enough and find us something to be guilty of. The club might negotiate a penalty again.

I want City to take a hardline, take them to court etc, but it's not the way the club do things.

Unfortunately I think this is where it’s going to go, what a sad state of affairs when Madrid, Barcelona, the rags and Bayern Munich are all crying to UEFA to do something about City when they all turn over more money than us.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Depends if they dig hard enough and find us something to be guilty of. The club might negotiate a penalty again.

I want City to take a hardline, take them to court etc, but it's not the way the club do things.

Don't be sure. We will co-operate to a point but, make no mistake, the Club will absolutely go down having our day in court if it is now required.

That's the big stick we have.

 

[nmc]

We want the names of the twelve premier league clubs......for future reference like......

You can guess the first 5 of them.

 

[Allnightlong]

I don't expect us to receive any punishment, whatsoever.

This has only ever been fuelled by rivals and those with an agenda.

They have now opened a can of worms and I welcome the entertainment which will come out of it.

I also expect the Club's coffers will be swelled even further by the lawsuits which will follow and for the reputational damage.

Be sorted before the season is done.

Totally, this could be the undoing of certain camps. Could expose alot of things

 

[argyle]

I'm a bit unsure on it. You're a legal man, so I'd be interested on your take on this.

Our initial statement made reference to "materials purported to be hacked or stolen from Manchester City... ".

Initially we weren't even acknowledging that the emails were genuine.

The latest statement makes reference to the "publication of City emails". We're essentially accepting that the emails are genuine.

Our defence is now following the line that they were published "out of context".

Having read the emails published in Der Speigel, I'm struggling to see what the context could possibly be other than the obvious?

I accept the "His Highness" comment could be taken out of context.

But the emails from Simon Pearce referring to ADUG paying certain sums on sponsors behalf. The spreadsheets with ADUG's contribution listed. I'm struggling to see what the context of that could possibly be, other than what it initially appears.

Our statement goes on to say "the club's published accounts are full and complete and a matter of legal and regulatory record".

This essentially says to me - City's accounts are legitimate, they've been independently audited. Which I'm sure is true.

The leaked emails clearly suggest ADUG (City's parent company at the time) was funding the sponsorship deals of Etihad, Aarbar etc.

I assume going off the IAS for Related Party Transactions, there is no issue with that, so City's accounts are still legitimate.

PBs assertion that the Etihad deal was judged fair value and so is fireproof seems to make sense.

But the other deals that were seemingly propped up - Aarbar, Etisalat etc were not judged as fair value.

But by the IAS definition, they are not considered Related Parties to Manchester City.

So the club's assertion that "the accusation of financial irregularities is entirely false" is again probably true in a legal sense.

It seems to me, the crux of this investigation is going to rest on whether UEFA can prove Aarbar, Etisalat etc are related parties.

City's defence will be, by IAS they are not.

UEFA's may well be that they have a different interpretation.

The tone of the statement to me seems to be suggesting that City have done what is being reported - essentially sponsoring ourselves. But that from a legal stand point we are confident we have done nothing wrong.

I would assume UEFA are unlikely to challenge that in a court. But they will probably have their nose put out of joint that we have not followed the "spirit" of the rules.

My concern is they will not want to be made a fool of and will want to take some kind of action against City in order to save face. I wouldn't put it past them to invent yet more bullshit arbitrary rules like a "failure to uphold the spirit of FFP and fully respect the superiority of UEFA 'Legacy' Clubs" Annex.

Just to clarify, I think FFP is an absolute joke and is anti-competitive and should be thrown out.

But it does appear to me that City have walked a very precarious tightrope to try to get around them. My concern is that UEFA, the ECA, and seemingly 12 vested interest PL clubs will be baying for blood for some action to be taken.

City may well be in the clear from a legal standpoint. But if the last 10 years has taught us anything, it's that UEFA are not averse to making up their own rules as they go along.

Post of the thread.

It's inevitable that UEFA will find a way to charge us and try to ban us for 1 year.

 

[Brendan110_0]

Post of the thread, and the last sentence is the nub of the matter. A lot of people on here seem to be under the impression that because what City have done may not contravene the precise specifications of FFP as written, we are home and hosed. For me, they’re almost an irrelevance. This is the last and best chance our enemies have to get rid of us, not just for a season or two, but permanently. They will have already made their decision IMO and what they will be working at now is coming up with a semi-credible vehicle to justify it. If that means inventing new bullshit about “the spirit of FFP” then I don’t doubt they will. Like you, I’m struggle to envisage a scenario, other than the obvious, in which those emails could have been taken out of context. These are utter bastards we’re dealing with. It’s their competition and they can do pretty much what they like, with the full backing of every other major player. Court is where this ends, and that frankly is seldom more than a lottery

I would fight fire with fire, hire the best hacker known, get the e-mails from UEFA and the cartel clubs discussing how to nobble us and publish in every paper world wide. Sit back and watch the shit storm.

Or we may just take another pinch.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

By 12 they mean United, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal are confident of bullying the rest of the league to get the majority they need - as they did with their FFP proposal.

They certainly won't get Wolves, Leicester, Southampton, Bournemouth, Everton, Cardiff, Fulham and Newcastle.

Including us, that's nine. So half the league, in essence.

All who have benefactors or trying to find one.

 

[nmc]

Who’s to say these emails have not been tampered with ?, isn’t that part of the argument, in that these emails have been obtained illegally and any thing could have been done to them either altered or edited to suit a particular message ? As City are saying...illegally obtained and out of context

If this was a process of someone leaking - for the public interest the emails might gain some legitimacy- even though they are hacked, but the fact they were hacked primarily so that the hacker could profit financially means there is every chance they have been amended to make them more sensational and attractive to buyers. Little chance any decent lawyer would touch these as a basis for prosecution and I really don’t think the basic tenant of the argument is true - have City and Etihad falsified their accounts? The auditing profession must have employed Chris Grayling to miss that one.