Yes, there's an odd contradiction at the heart of the matter. UEFA sources seem to be briefing their friendly journalists (Panja and the like) that they're confident of CAS upholding their position. Yet MCFC continue to maintain that the club has "irrefutable evidence" to back up its claims that there are no grounds for punishment. Logic dictates that one of these propositions must be wrong.
Now, I can't stress strongly enough that what follows in this post is absolute speculation. It's just my best guess at the kind of scenario which might give rise to the oddity described in the preceding paragraph.
If there's an element of subjectivity, then in the absence of further information I can only think that it must be around the definition of a "related party". Of course I could be completely wrong here and this is purely speculation on my part, but maybe City are continuing to maintain that the Abu Dhabi sponsors aren't related parties, while UEFA are claiming that they entered into a settlement agreement in which that proposition wasn't challenged in the absence of the newly information about Abu Dhabi state funding of our sponsorships that would have altered their view on that topic. It may (or may not) be that the settlement agreement contains provisions that allow UEFA to reopen matters if they consider themselves not to have been provided with all relevant information at the time, and they regard the information about AD state subsidy of the sponsorships as meeting that criterion.
Interestingly, Panja and his boss at the NYT were tweeting yesterday about the possibility of some kind of settlement, while Tony Evans tweeted an article he'd written (which I confess to not having read) that seemed to purport to urge the parties to get together and sort things out. These journalists have in the past relayed material ostensibly sourced by people who are connected with the case and certainly aren't in the MCFC camp. I wonder whether this might point towards UEFA hoping for a settlement before matters reach CAS.
In this hypothetical event, I'd actually be tempted as long as they'd agree to a suspended ban and reduced fine, together with a statement that any breaches were technical and entailed no intention to deceive UEFA. Even if our case is relatively strong, litigation and arbitration can always be a lottery to some extent and it's invariably better to avoid it if you can.
The prospect of the club's majority shareholder and our Abu Dhabi stakeholders accepting a settlement on the terms that I would is, in my uninformed view, negligible. Remember that UEFA have found us guilty of inflating sponsorships and, if that's true, it means the club's audited accounts are inaccurate. That's a big accusation to throw at a business, because it brings into question the honesty and good faith of those running it as well as of the auditors. For that reason, in my opinion only total exoneration is likely to be seen as acceptable in the UAE.
