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

[Man_City_Loyal]

Trump and Boris ban reporters and they've not done too badly out of it.

Utd and Newcastle have done so, again they haven't had any extra nonsense.

They write crap about us anyway. Ban them and hurt their livelihoods.

agreed

 

[razman]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...anchester-citys-owner-empowered-recklessness/

he has tried to keep it balanced , saying City were so reckless with those emails , with FFP clearly designed to avoid there being another City.

A few paragraphs to avoid Copyright.

" Crowbarring their way into the super clubs was City’s monumental challenge and it feels now that they walked straight into the trap. They served themselves up to Uefa and the eager defenders of the status quo. The restrictions imposed upon City by FFP were designed to stop them growing at the speed which their Abu Dhabi funders insisted that they did and faced with those obstacles, the panel found that they sought to break the rules rather than fight the structure itself. There must have been a better way than this to approach the dismantling of European football’s cartel. "

" It remains an astonishing truth about football that one of the richest clubs outside the elite now see the only way to join it, and perhaps win a Champions League, is by building the kind of towering global infrastructure that CFG now have. That executives head-hunted and well-rewarded can see no way round the problem other than secretive commercial arrangements back-funded by their own paymasters. "

 

[blueinsa]

Wise words which are unlikely to be popular on here. My take is as follows:

FFP was set up to stop us and PSG.
Both clubs tried to circumvent FFP with a bit of fantasy accounting.
Lots of clubs and officials are out to get us.
We gave them an opportunity.
Somehow, PSG got away with it but we didn’t.
We are now in damage limitation mode.
Sometimes life is a bit shit.

Not a popular view I’m sure.

Nothing to stop someone setting up a rival to UEFA and its showpiece tournaments, nothing.

UEFA have picked their side and they can live with whatever consequences, if any of course, come from that.

 

[Cornish_Blue]

I hope Pep comes out and says fuck it I’m signing a new contract and we are gonna push through this shit and continue to dominate because that’s what has led us here. One or two trophies and they wouldn’t care so much but over the last 10 years we’ve been the team to emulate in terms of style and the team to beat. I’d love it if he was up for a proper challenge like the one in front of us.

That would be amazing!
Boiling pots of piss all over dippertown and Ragland, the media would be in meltdown and raging about why this is being allowed.
Sadly though, I think Pep will walk away if this is upheld. I seriously hope I’m wrong.

 

[Gordyola]

In this scenario you are describing money laundering. In essence we are using a bank transfer to a sponsor from us to falsely conceal the source of funds for a sponsorship deal. If that’s our defense we are truly buggered.

Nobody on here has a clue what our defense is. What is clear is that we are supremely confident of having this quashed. Our statement in response to the ban has basically accused UEFA of being totally corrupt. No legal team would dream of advising us putting this in writing unless they are 101% certain UEFA are wrong. An interesting time is ahead.

Money laundering is the process of turning illegitimate gained funds into legitimate ones
If the information is to be believed UEFA are unhappy that “His Highness” topped up the Etihad sponsorship deal to get around FFP They have assumed that the term title referred to Mansour when it was Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan UAE President. The funds were legitimate so, no money laundering involved

 

[Jesus2018]

That would be amazing!
Boiling pots of piss all over dippertown and Ragland, the media would be in meltdown and raging about why this is being allowed.
Sadly though, I think Pep will walk away if this is upheld. I seriously hope I’m wrong.

And wins the league anyway. That would be brilliant.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

This is politics and as such we've already lost, whether we're guilty or not is almost immaterial, in the court of public opinion we've been found out and regardless of what ensues that will always be the case. We have no allies whatsoever, no club in the Premier League will come to our defence and certainly no European club will. The dumb down media, almost without exception, happily declares us dirty cheats. The details of the case, the motivations behind it and the FFP cartel stitch up are never discussed or analysed.

It is testimony to what little soft power we have that we have legions of lawyers on this. Recourse to law is hard power, it's the option you choose only when all the other options are exhausted, not unlike a divorce case when mediation is no longer possible.

All the mood music surrounding this, our "non-engagement with UEFA", is really about City's refusal to kiss the ring, our unwillingness to bow before the cartel running UEFA and take another pinch, regardless of the merits of the case. We're the uppity Frankenstein club that doesn't know its place and has lost its patience.

It's clear the club realised long ago that it has no levers to pull within the football establishment, at least none that were connected to anything, and decided it had no other option than to get this case to some regulatory body or other where facts matter and impartiality is more than just a fig leaf for vested interest, all the clubs efforts are devoted to this, which leads me to believe they have a very strong case.

Returning to my divorce analogy, when a divorce hits the courts, you know that a kiss and a cuddle are out of the question, let alone a shag for old times sake, but one things for certain, someone's going to get fucked, hopefully it'll be UEFA, because to all extents and purposes we've been fucked already.

that divorce analogy is superb haha

 

[Marvin]

What a bloody drain this is. Been a grumpy sod all weekend. Got to say that this thread is keeping my sanity though, like a huge therapy session amongst like minded folk. Anyway a view random thoughts:
- there is a term in law called a smoking gun (in short whilst no one actually saw you shoot someone you happen to be holding a smoking gun). These emails do look like that and I’m concerned about that. Not easy to just dismiss as stolen. They are out there.
- so then the missing piece that frankly so many are guessing at is what is our defence and crucially how strong is it. I’ve not heard the legal opinion on that unless missed it. It’s usual for CEO types to bluff it out and sound bold and confident. I’d love to be. But we aren’t hearing anything other than a stance from the club. Clearly kaldoon etc are no fools. Fingers crossed.
- what is really pissing me off is the way fans of Leeds, Brighton , United etc are all piling in. Some do actually accept the fact that we had to do bold things to break the cartel, vested interests. But then give out all this cheats and trophies count for nothing now. I’m fearing that whatever plays out that stink is going to be hard to shake off. Rich coming from United who had the privileged position from years back, reminded my mate about them paying £35m or so for Rio F. An astronomic amount at the time. How? Because of the circular gravy train they and one or two other teams were able to run back then. When others can too now they just cannot hack it.
- I’m going to Real Madrid game and will scream the lads on. Could be one of the most electric toxic atmospheres in the history of the Etihad. Come on you blue boys.

The emails can be made to look very different subject to context. Etihad are a state airline. Their financial obligations are met by the UAE state so the funds can be routed through state functionaries who sit on City's board.

What matters is whether Etihad had a preexisting watertight financial agreement with Man City, and I rather think they did. The media certainly thought they did when they went on and on year earlier about City raising one of the biggest sponsorships in football. There are loads of reports in the media about a City and Etihad deal worth around £50m pa.

we should indeed be wary of opponents and self delusion. Football is dominated by power and these things are often decided by influence and not the validity of someones argument.

Ethics do not come into it. The likes of Tebas are out and out far right politicans who use prejudice to gain popularity and there people run leagues. We have rival CEO's sat on UEFA licencing committees. We have CEOs of major football clubs leaking news to their pet journalists. The process is bent. It's obvious. Are CAS part of it, or are they truly independent?

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

Nobody has explained how Gerrard’s slip was the result of FFP breach but now he’s entitled to a medal? Getting more ludicrous by the day

I believe in an audacious attempt to circumvent FFP sanctions, the sheikh hid some of his funds in the clouds to float them into the NW for us to be the grateful recipient.

The oversight in this particular master plan was that due to the additional weight in said clouds, it began to rain on that particular Sunday hense the Anfield turf being wet and 'Stevie G' slipping and allowing Demba Ba to run through and score.

I believe there will be an 8 page spread in tomorrows Times with the finer detail.........

 

[give it to gordon]

Did someone from UAE put money into some of our sponsors. So what that's not against the law. So as our owner loaded Barclay bank money to stop it from going broke , and we played in the Barclays premier league. I dont remember anyone accusing City using that to buy the premier league ?.
It seems it's ok for Sheikh Monsour to help out a british bank but not to help out a Arab Airline company...

It's not just hatred against City I would go as far as to say it's out and out racism.

 

[purplenose]

Not only is this correct, but we should make sure that clubs all around europe understand this.
Start with Red Bull and Newcastle.

Absolutely right. There will be an awful lot of pennies dropping after the initial sniggering has died down.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

I think what you are forgetting in your enthusiasm to hit back is that at some point we have to move on from this and continue to play football and compete for transfers and trophies including the Champions league. By all means do what is needed to overturn this verdict and maybe go as far as to change or scrap FFP, but to go for UEFA’s jugular would be an act to enjoy in haste and regret at leisure.

No mate, whenever and however we do this, it has to be an end game of 'Going for the jugular,' I certainly understand
your reasoning, and I'm not saying this just to stick one to UEFA, but going in as hard as possible is the only way now.
Their ultimate climbdown, if it happens, will only be facilitated by taking such a stance, no agreements on the side,
or acceptance of lesser 'Punishments,' we've done that and it's has come back to bite us, and we have no choice now but to bite back.

 

[Bluemanc100]

Wise words which are unlikely to be popular on here. My take is as follows:

FFP was set up to stop us and PSG.
Both clubs tried to circumvent FFP with a bit of fantasy accounting.
Lots of clubs and officials are out to get us.
We gave them an opportunity.
Somehow, PSG got away with it but we didn’t.
We are now in damage limitation mode.
Sometimes life is a bit shit.

Not a popular view I’m sure.

Having an influential person inside UEFA helped.. just like Agent Gill means that the rags are protected..

We’re don’t have that opportunity but I personally want the club and the owners to hit them like they’ve never been hit before.. fuck the consequences

 

[Mancity1980]

Oops, sorry. Here you go.



Nailed it, this is what fans of other clubs should be reading.

It should be cut and pasted onto every comments section of every online paper and forum. Stop bring baited into arguements just post the above and whenever someone else replies then post it again and just keep doing it.

Your mission (should you chose to accept it) is to cut and paste that statement into every newspaper comment section, social media chat room and email to every interested (and non-interested) parties.

This message will self destruct in 10 seconds...:)

 

[razman]

I hope Pep comes out and says fuck it I’m signing a new contract and we are gonna push through this shit and continue to dominate because that’s what has led us here. One or two trophies and they wouldn’t care so much but over the last 10 years we’ve been the team to emulate in terms of style and the team to beat. I’d love it if he was up for a proper challenge like the one in front of us.

we can all hope that's the case , but the reality is loss of 2 years of champs league would mean 150-200m pounds of revenue lost and would make us a loss making operation again which we have worked hard to overcome. The giddy media is already stating our finances would have to be restructured + players have to be sold etc , utter nonsense.

Trust City to come thru with this.

 

[Blueal73]

Since we refused to accept the deal offed by Ceferin they knew we were not going to play ball and bow to the UEFA cartel again. I think they probably know they don’t have a leg to stand on and CAS will throw it all out. This ban is all about damaging our brand/City as much as possible, they want to unsettle current players and especially unsettle the future players that we will no doubt be looking to sign in the summer as part of the squad rebuild, they want to put doubt in the minds of future sponsors and investment. This has been a massive smear campaign and is being lapped up by all the click bate journos and social media donkeys to tarnish our image.

It’s time for City to have their day in court and end FFP then go after all the journos who have been spouting all this bias nonsense.

CTID

 

[Cornish_Blue]

The worrying thing is that CAS can be ‘influenced’ like any arbitrary body. The only true sight that can be given if the point of law. Are UEFA protecting certain clubs and turning a blind eye to their financial dealings?
Abso-fücking-lutely. Just look at PSG, damn near the same ‘offences’ yet walk away admonished, who is on the UEFA board??? Check it !!!

 

[Rammy Blue]

The emails can be made to look very different subject to context. Etihad are a state airline. Their financial obligations are met by the UAE state so the funds can be routed through state functionaries who sit on City's board.

What matters is whether Etihad had a preexisting watertight financial agreement with Man City, and I rather think they did. The media certainly thought they did when they went on and on year earlier about City raising one of the biggest sponsorships in football. There are loads of reports in the media about a City and Etihad deal worth around £50m pa.

we should indeed be wary of opponents and self delusion. Football is dominated by power and these things are often decided by influence and not the validity of someones argument.

Ethics do not come into it. The likes of Tebas are out and out far right politicans who use prejudice to gain popularity and there people run leagues. We have rival CEO's sat on UEFA licencing committees. We have CEOs of major football clubs leaking news to their pet journalists. The process is bent. It's obvious. Are CAS part of it, or are they truly independent?

I’d like to think Marv that in relation to your last statement about “are CAS bent too”, that in reality UEFA will probably expect (and maybe want) us to win the appeal at CAS as if we don’t then we take the whole thing down by going after FFP in the law courts.

Obviously the cartel won’t want FFP destroying as that opens the gateway for other clubs to gate crash the party, hence my belief that UEFA went for the big ban so we get tarnished in the media knowing full well it’ll get overturned at CAS, as has been alluded to by a few with far more knowledge that me on the matters.

 

[give it to gordon]

Another point on the bbc one show when they covered the Emirates fa draw the City fan had to have gaffer tape across her Shirt to cover Etihad Airways.
Remember the semi final against arsenal in the Emirates fa cup semi final arsenal statium and shirt sponsor is the same as the fa cup and how we got screwed to lose.

Why weren't accusations made about how arsenal and the main sponsors help them get to the final that their main sponsors was also sponsor of the fa cup . A clear conflict of interest

It's a bent as a 9 bob note

 

[blueinsa]

I’d like to think Marv that in relation to your last statement about “are CAS bent too”, that in reality UEFA will probably expect (and maybe want) us to win the appeal at CAS as if we don’t then we take the whole thing down by going after FFP in the law courts.

Obviously the cartel won’t want FFP destroying as that opens the gateway for other clubs to gate crash the party, hence my belief that UEFA went for the big ban so we get tarnished in the media knowing full well it’ll get overturned at CAS, as has been alluded to by a few with far more knowledge that me on the matters.

FFP has to be taken through the courts mate. Anything less and we kick the can down the road only for someone to throw it back through our window in 5 years time as they try yet again to ruin us.

Anything less and for the first time i will think we have the wrong leadership at City regardless of what they have done, achieved and given us.