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

[YaYa's Left Peg]

This is well worth a read:
https://ninetythreetwenty.com/blog/seeing-the-wood-for-the-ffps-manchester-city-uefa-go-to-war/

Feel quite depressed after reading that.

 

[tonea2003]

Very interesting quote from Soriano to the players, if it's true:

City CEO Ferran Soriano told players: “Trust me like I trust you, this will be dropped.”

hope this is true

 

[George Hannah]

That corrupt and illiterate cretin doesn't even know the difference between 'furnish' and 'burnish' in spewing his puerile and actionable abuse about us. Roan's continued employment is a prime example of the terminal decline in BBC standards of broadcasting and probity.

 

[SilverFox2]

I am not 100% on how the procedure worked at UEFA.

All i do know is our Owners are alleging we have irrefutable proof of our innocence.That we have tried to give this additional information to UEFA,and they would not accept it.

That is highly likely why we are saying the whole process was a Witch hunt from the start

Also the reason we fully expect this to go all the way to the legal Courts.

Not only have UEFA prejudiced the case against us from the beginning.They have also prejudiced our appeal to CAS. Who will not get to see the additional information.

Hence the reason i am not personally holding out much hope for CAS,i expect them to push for compromise, rather than acquittal.

I see, thanks for explanation SJ I would think that deliberately not viewing evidence should be sufficient cause for any fair minded person or Organisation so if CAS is truely independent they may actually ask why that decision was made even though their authority does not allow it to rule.After all they did offer advice to UEFA after rejecting our premature appeal.

 

[MCFC1993]

Given the confidence from our board we must have a pretty solid case, they must be sure that UEFA have overlooked something.

 

[badaz52]

That can't be true, badaz52 says the best we can hope for is a one year ban.

In my opinion.

 

[Len Rum]

Came across a good blog on Howard Hockin's twitter account also referenced by Prestwich Blue, which is well worth a read and made me feel much better
The legal guy on there reckons that UEFA haven't got a leg to stand on and it's all to do with the statute of limitation regarding the original settlement ( which I thought was a simple five year rule, but apparently not if you read the blog).
However he freely admits that he doesn't know if the UEFA AC have anything else against us but on the face of it City's case looks strong.

 

[Father Paul]

So many people on here can't hold a sensible conversation on this, grown men too, instead you would rather look at my previous posts to see how active I am in the forum and hurl abuse, seriously grow up, I'm not sat in the away end, Jesus. I have an opinion you have an opinion it's a forum for discussion?? I never said I had seen all the evidence I said I've read and seen the evidence in support of UEFA's claims and that is pretty compelling. This is readily available on the web if you bother to go and look for it. I also questioned the club statement because it is interestingly worded again in my opinion.

I've been a City fan for a long time but seriously take a step back have a good think about the whole situation, it is a mess now and it could take a long time to fix. UEFA have succeeded in damaging the clubs reputation whether they are right or wrong only time will tell.

You say they have compelling evidence which may be so but I have yet to see it. Some well informed contributors on here don't appear to have seen it either. I don't deny your right to an opinion but please give a more comprehensive outline of this evidence.

 

[nmc]

sorry ive had to skip over 100pages,i just cant keep up.
where the fuck are we at the moment.
also an "army of lawyers" ,doesn't sound very hard ,it would look like a bucket of eels, squirmy fuckers

Believe me... an Army of Lawyers would invoice you into submission!

 

[waspish]

I don't want to link anything here but you can find the leaks online if you look for them including the Der spiegel article, some pretty compelling stuff. In a nutshell, most of City's sponsors are either Government owned or Government backed. SM is part of that government and chairs many of them himself. In short whenever City have had a shortfall they have been able to siphon money from other companies and inject it into the club, intentionally circumventing UEFA FFP rules and changing dates to suit to make it look like they didn't have a deficit. They are guilty on a technicality and if you look carefully the Club aren't even denying their guilt they are just not happy about the process.

What guilt?

 

[kaz7]

It's not an article mate - he was on Talkshite this morning talking......shite!

Just when we tjought he was onside,they all show their true colours when paid

 

[stan bowles]

These fears mirror my own. I can't reconcile myself to the belief that CAS will just say "dearie dear, how unfair FFP is, case dismissed", and if we go in there expecting to argue the rights and wrongs of that system and how erratically it has been administered in the past, then we're on to a sure-fire loser. By the same token then, I'm struggling to understand why, if we're prepared to gamble the club's entire future on the hope that CAS will find UEFA's processes sufficiently flawed to overturn their decision, we did not accept the relatively minor 'technical guilt' plea that was offered us by Ceferin (UEFA). This case is so huge, I can't see CAS exonerating us unless our evidence is utterly overwhelming, and I don't think it is. In fact, I think that as a de facto conciliation service, they're more likely to view our attempts to finesse our way around FFP unfavourably. Getting the ban reduced by a year looks the best we're going to get to me, and as a fanbase I think we have to stop looking at this through the prism of what is "fair" and focus more on what the remit is of the organisations we're appealing to. "You come at the king, you best not miss" GIFs, and gung ho attitudes, are blinding us. For 'smart' people, we (City) have come off 2nd best every time we've got involved with this crooked shower

This is the contradiction that puzzles me most too. Are we gambling massively or utterly certain of our legal position?

 

[George Hannah]

Feel quite depressed after reading that.

PB's best mate :)

 

[Marvin]

Fair enough. I do hope the ban is overturned just like everyone else but unless the leaked emails turn out to be fake I'm not convinced.

See PB's link to evidence that the UAE Executive Council paid the Etihad Airways sponssorship. The leaks were presented in such a way that Sheikh Mansour would pay the sponsorship when City fans pointed out for months that they referenced the president of the UAE.

The media recently said that City would not face a ban. I think UEFA were trying to negotiate a settlement with City and City would have none of it because it involved City accepting some blame and additional sanctions.

Perhaps these are City fans self-defence mechanisms and self-delusion or perhaps it is the most sensible reading of the dispute. City seem very confident and UEFA have not publically proven that the sposnsorship was inflated and sourced from our owners. If they have n osuch evidence, I think CAS will throw their case out.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

They write that like it’s a matter of fact that we are banned when we have appealing it at cas.

I don't think we've actually filled an appeal yet, I hate to be on the SKY side but until we do there's nothing wrong with the output on this particular matter.

****If we have put the appeal in I'm 100% with you.

 

[lancs blue]

Not only have UEFA prejudiced the case against us from the beginning.They have also prejudiced our appeal to CAS. Who will not get to see the additional information.

How do you know this? UEFA cannot arbitrarily refuse to see evidence in our defence and then also claim it can't be presented at a CAS hearing. That would surely contravene natural justice.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

This is the contradiction that puzzles me most too. Are we gambling massively or utterly certain of our legal position?

Because any kind of acceptance or admission to Ceferin's deal would still have led to Friday, just with UEFA bolstered by having us on record accepting some kind of culpability or concession. Ceferin is just a pawn in all this.

 

[Gordyola]

I am not 100% on how the procedure worked at UEFA.

All i do know is our Owners are alleging we have irrefutable proof of our innocence.That we have tried to give this additional information to UEFA,and they would not accept it.

That is highly likely why we are saying the whole process was a Witch hunt from the start

Also the reason we fully expect this to go all the way to the legal Courts.

Not only have UEFA prejudiced the case against us from the beginning.They have also prejudiced our appeal to CAS. Who will not get to see the additional information.

Hence the reason i am not personally holding out much hope for CAS,i expect them to push for compromise, rather than acquittal.

The Club Financial Control Board Investigative Chamber headed by Yves Leterme open up a case against City following the Der Spiegel hacked emails the club supplied what they describe as irrefutable evidence of their innocence a 200 page document the date was very close to the 5 year deadline of the original case so it was rushed to the next level At this point the club made the following statement
https://www.mancity.com/news/club-news/club-news/2019/may/man-city-club-statement-uefa-response

Manchester City Football Club is disappointed, but regrettably not surprised, by the sudden announcement of the referral to be made by the CFCB IC Chief Investigator Yves Leterme*
The leaks to media over the last week are indicative of the process that has been overseen by Mr. Leterme.

Manchester City is entirely confident of a positive outcome when the matter is considered by an independent judicial body.

The accusation of financial irregularities remains entirely false and the CFCB IC referral ignores a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence provided by Manchester City FC to the Chamber.

The decision contains mistakes, misinterpretations and confusions fundamentally borne out of a basic lack of due process and there remain significant unresolved matters raised by Manchester City FC as part of what the Club has found to be a wholly unsatisfactory, curtailed, and hostile process.

At this point the club appealed to CAS that the process followed by Leterme was against that laid out and as such they such throw it out

CAS made a ruling that as the complete appeals process withing UEFA was complete they dismissed the case but made a number of damming observations about the UEFA process

This then allowed UEFA to announce the finding of the The Club Financial Control Body Regulative Chamber being the 2 year ban

*Leterme during an investigation in to PSG sponsorship commissioned an independent body to value their Qatar sponsorship which came in at £5M He also advised PSG to commision their own independent study which came in close to the actual figure of £100M He decided to accept the PSG one and reject his own THe Regulative Chamber chairman was totally aghast at this and sent it back this resulted in the time limit being exceeded and thus PSG were not sanctioned around that time their chairman joined UEFA as a ECA club representative

CAS will look at at all the evidence submitted by both parties including the 220pg document they will not however permit anything that UEF didnt have during their alledged investigation

 

[SB Blue]

Feel quite depressed after reading that.

I‘m in 2 minds, it suggests that maybe CAS will rule in our favour due to timelines and limitations, although on that basis UEFA wouldn’t have to publish their evidence and we’ll still have the label of cheats who got away with it.

 

[Gordyola]

I was talking about the leaked emails that fit with the CFCB statement regarding their findings. That is the evidence I'm referring to as that is all we have to go on publicly at the moment. If they are fake then so be it.

So you haven't seen the evidence then