A number of interesting points arising over the last 24 hours.
Sam Lee's tweet informing us that the PL can sanction a club which makes misleading statements to get a UEFA licence puzzles me and I need someone to tell me which statement City have made which is misleading because I do not know of one. I know that City's accounts, duly audited and accepted by UEFA, give a figure for sponsorship deals which UEFA now claim to be "inflated" though what the evidential basis for this claim is we don't really know. We presume it is reports in Der Spiegel or emails stolen by a common criminal masquerading under the name of John who is facing 90 odd charges under his real name. But of misleading statements by the club I can find no trace. I find it hard to believe that City can be innocent and guilty at the same time!
But then there is the mood of triumphalism among some on here which contrasts again with the abject defeatism of others. To be clear, on June 10 there will be no line of black Marias outside CAS waiting to take away, chained hand and foot, every official who works for, or has ever worked for, UEFA and then come back for every journalist the length and breadth of Europe and all the officials of every "cartel" club. Our hearing will not be about corruption or dishonesty or even the enforceability of FFP. Our hearing is simply an appeal to a court of arbitration, and my only concern is that we do not want arbitration, we want exoneration. I am confident, very confident indeed, and my confidence rests not on my belief that FFP is contrary to law (which I believe it to be) but on our CEO's assertions that the accusations are completely false and our chairman's assertions that we have evidence that proves conclusively that we have not breached the regulations at all. Evidence to prove us guilty does not exist. Only a process which was a travesty of justice could have found the club guilty. I have not seen the evidence, but I trust my club's CEO and chairman. I do not trust UEFA and I certainly have no faith in its IC and AC.
FFP itself, corruption and dishonesty may well be issues raised if City choose to go beyond CAS and Tolmie seems to suggest they will. I hope they do and I suspect it is a certainty if CAS do not exonerate us completely. This makes Ceferin's recent comments on FFP very intriguing: "...we are thinking of improving [FFP]; modernising it and doing something more about the competitive balance. We are also considering some sort of luxury tax if it is possible." It is interesting that he thinks FFP is in need of improvement but that he is prepared to see a club face such swingeing punishment under regulations he considers so imperfect. Then he proceeds to express perfectly the muddle at the heart of the regulations and shows that there is no clear thinking about what the regulations are meant to do. What does he mean by 'modernising'? The regulations are only 11 years old at most and they have been reformed once and are about to be suspended. And they wish to punish City for the second time! And for regulations which have done absolutely nothing for 'the competitive balance' apart from making it harder to compete with a group of clubs, none of which are City. He doesn't even mention protecting the financial stability of clubs, which was supposed to be the grand, original aim of FFP. And what does HE mean by a luxury tax? And what are the obstacles to it - or rather who does he think might oppose it? There is at the very least a prima facie case that FFP violates competition law and UEFA woud have to show that there is an overriding and overwhelming 'sporting exception' which justifies such draconian measures. And the starting point would have to be proving that City had done anything at all to damage the LEGITIMATE interests of any club or the game as a whole. This does NOT mean City are a threat to clubs or the game because they have a richer owner, spend more and buy a better team.
