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

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

That stuff from 'Phil in Gibraltar' is almost certainly bullshit but it's very convincing bullshit.

We're pretty sure that despite Tony Evans' nonsense, UEFA's case rested almost exclusively on the hacked emails. They may have relied on some of the stuff that PWC went through in 2014 (hence Evans' reference to evidence we had provided to them) as well but the emails were key.

We've always said as well that the emails were taken out of context. One or two looked very incriminating on the surface but we never saw the full chain. So there was an email that talked about ADUG being part of the money chain but we never saw any response to that, which could have said "None of this money is coming through ADUG" or "Yes but the ADUG contribution will be funded wholly from the Executive Council or the Crown Prince Court". We know that at least for the early part of the Etihad sponsorship, it was certainly funded by the Executive Council so that's entirely possible. UEFA may not like that but basically it's none of their business and there's nothing they can do.

So I could well imagine a scenario at CAS where UEFA claim that the Etihad ownership was disguised owner investment, on the basis of the emails. CAS then ask our legal team about that and we produce solid evidence of transactions from the Crown Prince Court or Executive Council regarding the Etihad Sponsorship that completely exonerate ADUG/Sheikh Mansour. So CAS turn to UEFA's legal team and ask them to comment and they say "But we've these hacked emails...".

It's an arbitration hearing, not a trial, so maybe even UEFA's legal team had to eventually accept, in front of the panel, that there was no disguised owner investment. Whether that's how it works I don't know but it's possible that we came out of that hearing 99% certain we'd won.

The 99% certain outcome, following the case, I can well believe but I have still to see anything which suggests that City or EUFA actually KNOW the outcome. People talk of ‘signing non-disclosure agreements’ but why would you and what would be the consequences of breaking them? Bad faith maybe but nothing legal and nothing which would overturn the decision. I keep going back to that section on the CAS website that says, more or less, when a decision is transmitted to the parties, electronically or by other means (it doesn’t mention verbally), it is binding from that point. So, if CAS have said City are banned or exonerated, in an email, that decision is true once that email is sent. That being the case, I struggle to understand why either party are obligated to wait until tomorrow and, consequently, I still think there’s a very good chance that, as of this morning, it is still unknown to anyone, save for the 3 CAS judges.
I also don’t think we got wind of the first appeal defeat and were informed at the same time as everyone else.

 

[slbsn]

Principles wrong and the fact that any Arbiter would be furious is also total bullshit. Binding Arbitration is essentially a contractual agreement between the parties to have someone impartial decide the issue.
On another note I cannot believe that UEFA would have spent £100000’s on legal advice and not listened to any of them if they only had the emails and nothing else. Those lawyers must have been asked to advise before UEFA handed down the ban. The only possibility that I can think of is that they thought City would take a deal again.

It’s all bullshit. Silver Lakes DD reports a) won’t be in City’s possession b) wouldn’t be in any way relevant what SLs lawyers thought c) wouldn’t be free for City to use anyway.

As for the chance that Phil has a contact at CAS who is happy to breach confidence [eye roll].

 

[KS55]

couple of edits to your post here

A friend of a friend told me that Phil in Gibraltar is in fact a macaque who he taught to type.

 

[jitsubluedan]

5's the new magic number..

Fcuk UEFA off, Pep to sign a 5 year extension and spend 500 million in the transfer market..!

Not forgetting the rags are about the same amount in debt..!

There's your connection , City have been sending us subliminal messages all along and it's been staring us right in the face, just like the 'Big W' in the film, 'It's A Mad, Mad World'!

Exciting times ahead..!

One of the funniest films I’ve ever seen!

 

[DrBlueBob]

NO AND I DIDNT GO FOR MY MEAL,THE MRS TOOK ILL YESTERDAY(oooops) so my birthday weekend has been curtailed, hence the bad mood post ;)

I remember you saying that your wife had vertigo after going to the hairdressers so no meal but now this! Intolerable, hope you cheer up considerably in a little under 24 hours.
Try and have as good a birthday Sunday as you can.

 

[oakiecokie]

Cash is king, and Napoli and de Laurentis are skint, payback time for Jorghinio

Seeing that he`s struggling to get into Chelseas starting eleven maybe we dodged a bullet.

 

[jimharri]

one with a brain on the caf

Even as a Manchester United fan, the moral aspect of this case and Financial Fair Play trumps all else, that being that the advent of Financial Fair Play in the first place is a complete abhorrence.

It's the footballing equivalent of an upcoming legal battle between a rich man and a poor man. The rich man can afford one of the top lawyers in the land, whilst the poor man can only have a fair chance of competing with the rich man in the upcoming legal battle if he secures outside financial investment to hire a lawyer of equal standing to the rich man's. The rich man however, given his significant influence with the lawmakers of the land, colludes with them to create a new rule that prohibits the poor man from using his outside financial investment towards his lawyer's fees. The rich man can then trounce the poor man on a legal battlefield totally tilted against the poor man from the start.

Owners should be allowed to invest in the playing staff of their football clubs. One can talk about an annual transfer net spend limit of maybe around £80m for ALL CLUBS in order to stop the market becoming unsustainably inflated through state-level investment, but the current FFP mantra of "big clubs can spend lots, small clubs can stay in their box" is bull.

and one so desperate it's funny as fuck.
enjoy .


While this is a well thought out argument, I don’t think the solution is as simple as you say. FFP should be more nuanced, but something like it needs to stay to protect clubs from the very owners that are being defended here.

What would happen to City if their owners dropped them tomorrow? Let’s be honest, they have players and staff on very expensive contracts and, allegedly, receiving extra wages under the table.

Do we really think these magical sponsors are going to stay for a few years while they sell off players on impossible contracts? Or are they going to stay and pay well over the odds for inflated sponsorships at a club that doesn’t even fill their own ground on match day, nevermind have a truly global presence?

They are not, and it could destroy the club in very quick fashion.

If City and PSG want to spend the GDP of a small country on players, then they should have challenged FFP as it is written in courts of law and used that investment to get lawyers on the case and reap the rewards from their blossoming academies in the meantime. As well as buying players with genuine revenue. (Which Premier League clubs have a lot of)

Man City didn’t do that, they agreed to the laws, broke them, then tried to cheat to cover it up. The other teams in the competitions that agreed to the same terms were all playing by the rules and lost out on revenue and European competitions because one team decided they were above it.

FFP should absolutely be adapted, and Man City should be allowed to invest and grow within more nuanced parameters. They should be allowed to invest in players and staff from private funds that are considered as such, but they haven’t done that. They overspent widely, were deceitful about where the money was coming from and they continue to pay transfers and inflated salaries that contravene the rules of the competitions they play in.

By all means, let’s challenge FFP and help teams to use private investment to their advantage. Lets not reward cheating and deceitful practices as a means of moving forward.

That's him on the naughty step!

 

[Cookieproof]

Oi, less of the old if you don't mind, ive still got all my hair and teeth..! Ha!!


Anyway, I'm that confident on the outcome, I've had a fiver on us..!

Last of the big spenders eh?

 

[xgorton]

Paddy power article saying we are 8/1 to win the case,not good.But if you go on the Paddy power web site to put a bet on can't find any information,who knows what's going on.

 

[Nicholas van Whatsisface]

I get that we want a positive relationship with UEFA in the future but it still makes zero sense to accommodate their wishes when we have nothing to gain from it and even more to lose.

If there’s a chance we have lost then the club would have wanted this released on the Friday. That gives us two games before the big semi-final. No chance we’d risk a full week of negative headlines just to satisfy UEFA.

Of course, if the club are happy with the CAS outcome, it makes perfect sense to offer that olive branch.

It’s more than likely the agreement to delay the announcement was made before we had confirmation of the result, so we wouldn’t have known at that point.

But we know the Club are very confident following the hearing, so you’re absolutely right that we would have made that decision from a position of confidence - and may not have done if we felt differently.

Doesn’t mean that confidence was rightly placed though, so really all we can read from the delay is the Club’s feeling following the hearing - which we already knew.