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

[Dirty Harry]

The very next email could have been 'Apologies, I meant to type ADEC, not ADUG'

Exactly, it’s easy to take a snap shot of a conversation and use it out of context as evidence, the whole chain of mails need to be read together to form a true representation.

 

[havefaith]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...aks-is-exposing-corruption-in-european-soccer

According to the above Der Spiegel got an initial 2 hard drives (800 GB of data) and 'in the following three years, Pinto supplied Der Spiegel with four terabytes of confidential information, more than eighty-eight million documents.'

When the police raided his place they took away 14 hard drives (29 TB of data). He had access to much more than 70 million documents and that's just what they (or we anyway) know about.

Have I missed something along the way as I dont recall seeing any other club being mentioned in said documents, or are the 70+ million documents purely city related :-) and how the hell did they find less than a handful of supposedly incriminating emails.

 

[kaz7]

Who's this Shirley you're talking to?

Don't call me shirley,it's dave

 

[Newman Noggs]

Do we have it here, an admission from the Der Spiegel journalist to The Guardian...Uefa only have the Der Spiegel articles and only opened an investigation on the email excerpts they published?

There’s a clear correlation between the publication of our article and the investigation,” adds Winterbach. “Three weeks later, they wrote the first letter to City asking about our revelations and they started the formal investigation when we published another piece online which showed excerpts from the emails. I don’t think that would have happened without Rui’s evidence.”

Doesn't that suggest that the investigation was initiated as a result of the leaks, not that those emails are all they have now ?

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

Can I ask how you know this Colin ? I find it utterly unbelievable and, consequently, much as I want to, I don't believe it.

Only someone privy to the details of the case would know this detail for certain and, given the club's
comments about leaks, I can't understand why that person would tell you so that you can post it on Bluemoon.

My thoughts match yours. Much as I’d love it to be true.....

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

There has got to be more to it than that,they aren't trying to take us down with flimsy evidence,they must have something else shirley?

Like I said, there are supposedly 5 charges. My guess would be that the inflated sponsorships are at least 3 of those charges, one each for Etihad and the other two (Etisalat & Aabar we think). Then there's the failure to co-operate.

But if you think about it, the G-14 probably don't care. This is just one shot in their bombardment. They won't even care if it brings UEFA down, as UEFA just get in the way of the G-14 earning more money from a Super League of some sort.

 

[blue oli]

That's always been my reading of this. It's on a number of levels and the lowest level is to get the case thrown out at CAS. Then there's the battle to prove we didn't cheat, which is important to the club. Then we have to take on the G-14 or at least neutralise them.

I think there is a bigger game here, the end goals desired might actually be mutually beneficial between CFG and the governing bodies.....

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Have I missed something along the way as I dont recall seeing any other club being mentioned in said documents, or are the 70+ million documents purely city related :-) and how the hell did they find less than a handful of supposedly incriminating emails.

There's been lots published abroad about clubs and dealings with agents, especially Sporting Lisbon and Benfica. There were the Ronaldo rape allegations and stories about Pogba and his agent. The City story has been pushed aggressively by the UK media and our commercial rivals here and abroad. As far as I know none of the 90 charges against Rui Pinto relate directly to City. The extortion allegations involved Portugese clubs who Pinto was apparently trying to blackmail in return for not releasing their data to the media.

 

[Mikeegrini]

Do we have it here, an admission from the Der Spiegel journalist to The Guardian...Uefa only have the Der Spiegel articles and only opened an investigation on the email excerpts they published?

There’s a clear correlation between the publication of our article and the investigation,” adds Winterbach. “Three weeks later, they wrote the first letter to City asking about our revelations and they started the formal investigation when we published another piece online which showed excerpts from the emails. I don’t think that would have happened without Rui’s evidence.”

And yet....

“It’s crazy – in the football industry, every week you have some more news about authorities investigations that are based on Football Leaks but Rui is the only one in front of a judge,” says Buschmann. “When I met him for the first time at the start of 2016 he told me that he wanted to work as a whistleblower for Uefa and show them documents which would show the accounts clubs are hiding from FFP. It’s a shame that they never made contact with him, even after his public unveiling.”

 

[2sheikhs]

Sounds very much like a protection racket.

It's not so much a protection racket as much as it's appeasement. Appeasement to the G14. It's a dangerous game to play though because if City call their bluff,(which it looks like they're doing), then punishing us on the evidence of a few emails out of 88 million means that they are all open to scrutiny.
The likelihood is that because our owner is financially solvent (understatement alert) it's improbable that laundering or similar offences have occurred in order to break or circumvent the rules. Who has though? Don't tell me that there's 88 million documents about City.
If this whole thing starts heading for a proper court of law, it's squeaky bum time for, I suspect, a lot of clubs.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Maybe Uefa are not as incompetent as it seems. Maybe they are fed up with dancing to the G14's tune, and are quite happy to take a wafer thin charge to CAS. Knowing City will be out for revenge against Gill etc. for reputational damages, they could spill the beans on who is the real driving force behind it and sit back and watch the fireworks. City could ruin a few individuals, watering down their influence on Uefa. Win win all round. Or have I been watching too much Miss Marple?

You mean they'd take a pinch now, for the betterment of the organisation in the future?

 

[lancs blue]

Maybe Uefa are not as incompetent as it seems. Maybe they are fed up with dancing to the G14's tune, and are quite happy to take a wafer thin charge to CAS. Knowing City will be out for revenge against Gill etc. for reputational damages, they could spill the beans on who is the real driving force behind it and sit back and watch the fireworks. City could ruin a few individuals, watering down their influence on Uefa. Win win all round. Or have I been watching too much Miss Marple?

No, I'd agree that if PB's assertions are correct it's quite possible there's a faction within UEFA who are effectively hoping this does get thrown out and that subsequent revelations humiliate the G14. Ceferin's repeated efforts to get us to agree to a fine suggest he was "fire-fighting" to avoid a bigger conflict.

 

[kaz7]

Like I said, there are supposedly 5 charges. My guess would be that the inflated sponsorships are at least 3 of those charges, one each for Etihad and the other two (Etisalat & Aabar we think). Then there's the failure to co-operate.

But if you think about it, the G-14 probably don't care. This is just one shot in their bombardment. They won't even care if it brings UEFA down, as UEFA just get in the way of the G-14 earning more money from a Super League of some sort.

Do you reckon as a result of our evidence we can expose the other clubs?

 

[Gaz in Zurich]

I reckon someone was on a mission,we need to find out who payed for it,allegedly

Well the only paper that would publish them is Der Spiegal because of them being illegally obtained. Who owns Der Spiegel, the New york times.. last time I checked they are the 2nd largest shareholder of the LFC. Who has most to gain from us losing points in the 2014 season? and who has been caught hacking us already. Strange that he only hacks us, and why would he in the first place, hacking football clubs is hardly lucrative, unless he has been hired to do so.

 

[franksinatra]

You're way wide of the mark here. City have made it quite clear that they have never accepted FFP. They have actually said that the club intends to operate as a profitable club BUT only after a period of heavy investment. What is impossible is to fight "inequality in football for the greater good" so that you can win some "moral argument" because laws are made to apply to specific cases and a court would not entertain some airy fairy challenge to FFP. Litigation is, anyway, long, always costly and the outcome uncertain. In 2014 the club took a commercial decision that "taking the pinch" WHILE NOT ACCEPTING THAT IT HAD DONE ANYTHING WRONG avoided a long and costly distraction from the commercial development of the club, which was proving brilliantly successful. Now, our case is that we still do not accept the validity of FFP (and, I suspect, are quite prepared to test this before the ECJ if necessary) but that we have not infringed these regulations anyway and have only been found to have done by the IC which has accepted evidence obtained illegally and which is inadmissible because of this and its inherent unreliability, and because the procedure followed in the two UEFA chambers is not impartial objective or consistent to the point where it is reliable.

This seems a strong case, if this is indeed the club's case (I certainly don't think our legal team need any help from us) and don't worry it seems to be near the summit of the moral high ground. And TV splits are totally irrelevant to this case. Our rivals in the elite tell us we can only use sources of revenue they have been able to develop but you are not allowed to use your advantage - very moral.

All valid points. It was probably not clear in my post but I was not referring to the actual court case, and the appeal to CAS, but the direction of travel of the club going forward.

It is a completely naive view I know but many people are sympathetic of the protectionism of the cartel clubs and winning hearts and minds going forward if we showed by our actions like fighting/voting for more equal tv rights for clubs it would put us on the right side of the moral argument.

 

[Young Blue]

I've never seen this bit before:-



I wonder if that's why Sane changed his agent?

The firm Leroy has recently moved to "LIAN Sports" are the ones that actually got raided

 

[Shaelumstash]

I can tell you that UEFA don't have the emails. Their sole evidence, the thing they've based their case on, is the Der Spiegel stories. That is it. They can't prove that these emails ever existed or are genuine.

No wonder we wre so confident. CAS will laugh them out of court.

If this is true, I'm sure CAS will throw it straight out. I remember in the case where Galatasaray challenged the legality of FFP, CAS slaughtered Galatasaray for using newspaper articles as evidence, basically saying they were not admissible.

 

[domalino]

Well the only paper that would publish them is Der Spiegal because of them being illegally obtained. Who owns Der Spiegel, the New york times.. last time I checked they are the 2nd largest shareholder of the LFC. Who has most to gain from us losing points in the 2014 season? and who has been caught hacking us already. Strange that he only hacks us, and why would he in the first place, hacking football clubs is hardly lucrative, unless he has been hired to do so.

Most of this comment is wrong.

Der Spiegel were definitely not the only paper that would publish them, about a dozen papers did that make up the collective the hacker sent the emails to.

It's not owned by the NYT

The hacker didn't just hack us, he hacked half dozen clubs and player agencies.

NYT isn't owned by Liverpools owners either.

And hacking football clubs can be lucrative if you don't get caught, he was attempting to extort clubs for millions of €€€ when he got arrested.

 

[kaz7]

Well the only paper that would publish them is Der Spiegal because of them being illegally obtained. Who owns Der Spiegel, the New york times.. last time I checked they are the 2nd largest shareholder of the LFC. Who has most to gain from us losing points in the 2014 season? and who has been caught hacking us already. Strange that he only hacks us, and why would he in the first place, hacking football clubs is hardly lucrative, unless he has been hired to do so.

Yeah the american owners of those in red are throwing everything at this,hope we expose them during this

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

You honestly think anything negative about that shit stain of a club would be headlines? Will all be swept under the big old rug.

There is that of course, but hey.....No crazier than some of the theories being bounced around in here.