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

[TheThirdDeano]

This is completely missing the point and is designed to detract from the issue.

In the article it states CLEARLY:- "According to the people with knowledge of the investigation, " - The question is who are these people, and why are they talking to the press?

 

[bobmcfc]

Don't often post on here but seeing the Fenway Sports and NYT links made me think about a few other bits and pieces regarding the Boston set

I was interested to find that there are accusations of Roma and Liverpool both having the same owner without declaring it (which has implications for European competition involvement). Napoli had a whinge about the Becker transfer and claimed that the Roma chairman, Thomas Di Benedetto is a partner of Fenway Sports Group, owners of Liverpool. (Which appears to be true). There were also some interesting conversations regarding the Salah transfer and links between the sides - one of the Roma owners actually said the semi final in 2018 was a "Boston Derby".

In 2011, the Guardian reported that there could be a conflict of interest should Di Benedetto take over Roma and the UEFA rules governing integrity of competition would come into play - ""No individual or legal entity may have control or influence over more than one club participating in a Uefa club competition". This is defined as "holding a majority of the shareholders' voting rights" or "being able to exercise by any means a decisive influence in the decision-making of the club", among other things."

Personally I think that apart from the obvious ties in club ownership and influence, the transfers of Becker and possibly Salah should also be looked into. In 2018, Roma were released from FFP sanctions from 2015 - they had to sell Salah to avoid a deficit and you could argue at the time that he was overpriced. Could the same be true for Becker last year? Certainly in October 2018 they had losses of $25million, compared with the $42 million the previous year and both of those sales would have contributed to reduced losses. If they had not sold then they would have likely failed FFP again.

Of course we all know that Liverpool only escaped sanction for FFP breaches because largely they were not in Europe at the time and UEFA allowed a certain amount of losses to be written off as stadium development

Interesting post

 

[doobyedoobye]

There were pages full of posts about them removing the line about UEFA sources and the ramifications of that, and it turns out it was never changed at all.

It escalated very quickly

 

[kev20971]

Believe Matt Scott just been hauled off Talkshit for ranting.

Legal team.

If that was that so called journalist that was on about 4:30pm , well what a wanker , "City over spent by £79M , no £149M because they can't sell tickets , they've haven't got the fans, haven't got a Worldwide fan base " . Wtf may as well have got a blinked braindead fucker rawk to talk about it .

 

[pudge]

Hopefully although a fair few did say we wouldn't fail FFP the first time around. What is obvious, if it wasn't already, is that they are all out to get us one way or another.

By all accounts, unless I'm mistaken, UEFA pulled a Columbo on us at the 11th hour that time

 

[Rolee]

Up for debate, however the current wording is :- "According to the people with knowledge of the investigation, " Which, in essence, is exactly that.

Thanks

 

[worsleyweb]

I couldn't give a fuck - shite competition. Lets just relax about it.

 

[BertTrautmann'sParachute]

We must know exactly what info UEFA has on us and we must also know whether we are guilty of any wrong doing. It would be pretty reckless to issue a statement saying we are not guilty and then be found guilty...??

We are obviously dealing in good faith with a corrupt organization. We can be perfectly innocent and get found guilty. But not if the lawyers get involved this time.

 

[domalino]

It escalated very quickly

Christ imagine how embarrassing that is for Stu Brennan. He wrote an article about the NYT editing their piece without even checking if it was edited or not.

 

[Otamendi's Beard]

I've heard that the people we hired to work on our accounts were the same people UEFA used to create the rules.

If true, surely we'll be fine and all this is a bluff by UEFA after the leaked emails show we weren't 100% honest, but didn't actually break any rules?

 

[Magicpole]

Thanks for the update mate. Where have you seen this?

I heard it on the news at 1

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

Having just read PBs piece and then comparing against the article in the NYT which says:

Many of the allegations of financial impropriety and rule-breaking lodged against Manchester City came to light after they were reported by news media outlets with access to the so-called Football Leaks files. The files are said to include emails and internal club documents showing efforts by City to circumvent UEFA’s financial fair-play regulations by masking cash infusions from a United Arab Emirates state-backed investment company through inflated sponsorship agreements with entities including the U.A.E.’s national airline, Etihad. Etihad is City’s principal sponsor, its name adorning the team’s stadium, its signage during matches and even the front of the players’ jerseys.

"Circumventing" as far as i'm aware isn't a breach of the rules more a "finding a way around them" which is surely common business practice.
From Colins' piece he makes clear that from the original judgement that the Etihad deal was accepted as "Fair Value" with a promise the Aabar and Etisalat deals remained at current levels (2014). So how can we now face allegations of inflating those deals? None of the NYT article makes any sense in this case or am I reading this wrong?

 

[eastmanc]

We have a settlement with UEFA on the fair value of the sponsorship from related parties, so that is categorically not the issue. They can't or wont pursue us retrospectively on that.

I'm waiting to see what information emerges as City have said the emails are out of context, but Sheikh Mansour providing funds directly to us and disguising it as sponsorship from another source is a big no no, not just in the football world.

If it transpires that we weren't receiving the values we stated from our sponsors, then I think we would be bang to rights. However, we have (and had) smart people working for us, so even if the money did ultimately come from Sheikh Mansour, I would expect a paper trail that evidences the money went through the sponsors legitimately first, rather than directly to us. We were audited at the time, so I would hope we have that bit covered as it is fucking basic, but that would be the only thing I would be concerned by.

If we were able to tick in the amounts coming into our account from an Etihad (or Aabar, Etisalat etc) bank account, then I don't see much happening from this investigation - but again, I'll wait and see what information emerges before jumping to conclusions that the world is out to get us.

The accusations levelled at us - albeit on the basis of the hacked emails, warranted an investigation, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I would want any other club investigated for the same thing. It is perfectly conceivable that the contents of the emails are legitimate, and yet there still have been no actual wrongdoing.

If we've done nothing wrong we have nothing to worry about, as our response today suggests.

FFP was brought in by uefa to fuck City over, pure and simple. As big Sam said this morning on Talk shite the FFP rule is ridiculous. In any other business you would be praised for investing in your own company. This rule wasn’t brought in when Jack Walker was pilling money into Blackburn or when Abramovich took over Chelsea, no just when City were taken over.

 

[Machiavelli]

FFP was brought in by uefa to fuck City over, pure and simple. As big Sam said this morning on Talk shite the FFP rule is ridiculous. In any other business you would be praised for investing in your own company. This rule wasn’t brought in when Jack Walker was pilling money into Blackburn or when Abramovich took over Chelsea, no just when City were taken over.

Blackburn and Chelsea weren’t/aren’t owned by Muslims from the Middle East.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

If it wasn’t edited why would City have quoted something that didn’t exist? Are they just hoping nobody has a copy of the original article?

 

[doobyedoobye]

Christ imagine how embarrassing that is for Stu Brennan. He wrote an article about the NYT editing their piece without even checking if it was edited or not.

I don't get how he made such a basic mistake

 

[domalino]

If it wasn’t edited why would City have quoted something that didn’t exist? Are they just hoping nobody has a copy of the original article?

I think you're confused. The bit city quoted is in the article and always has been, despite rumours of it being edited out.

 

[lonestay]

Let's just press the nuclear lawyer button and nuke eufa out of existence.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

I think you're confused. The bit city quoted is in the article and always has been, despite rumours of it being edited out.

Oh ok, yes I am confused then :)

 

[kaz7]

Probaly because he is a no mark that we haven't even heard of