Hope that doesn’t change this year
Poll City at CAS
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Hope that doesn’t change this year
It won’t. Every on the pitch decision will go against them.
Rumours that the full CAS ruling may never be published, which would be a shame for Man City as no-one will ever get the full detail on how totally innocent they were and how those nasty UEFA types bullied them when they did nothing wrong.
Publication will be withheld if either party objects, unless CAS consider it's in the public interest to publish. Was due last Friday and then delayed until "this week" but no news as yet.
Publication will be withheld if either party objects, unless CAS consider it's in the public interest to publish. Was due last Friday and then delayed until "this week" but no news as yet.
I suppose “we have given great thought surrounding the evidence contained in these brown envelopes, I’m off to make a deposit” may not sit well with the public.
Blimey, can we get under this idiot's skin any better? He'll end up in an asylum at this rate, twitching and giggling like Inspector Clouseau's boss:
Pep Guardiola looked ahead to the PFA Player of the Year award, and insisted “it will be won by a Liverpool player.”
“When we won the Premier League, it was won by a Liverpool player,” he told BBC Radio Manchester.
“When they win the Premier League, I’m pretty sure they are going to win the Player of the Season.
“These awards are always for Liverpool.”
Pep Guardiola looked ahead to the PFA Player of the Year award, and insisted “it will be won by a Liverpool player.”
“When we won the Premier League, it was won by a Liverpool player,” he told BBC Radio Manchester.
“When they win the Premier League, I’m pretty sure they are going to win the Player of the Season.
“These awards are always for Liverpool.”
Didn't Sterling win it last year?
Don’t let facts get in the way of paranoia
How has there been no updates on this since the release of the whole ruling yesterday?!
Anyway, it's cute how it's been revealed that out of the top Prem clubs, only Everton didn't write to CAS about suspending City's sentence should the appeal judgement be delayed. Couldn't imagine a more ugly couple come to think of it, Everton and City.
I also don't get all the legal jargon but it seems that City just out-lawyered UEFA on this. Plenty of their sponsorship details still look shady, but they've been let off based on a slew of half-arsed technicalities.
Anyway, it's cute how it's been revealed that out of the top Prem clubs, only Everton didn't write to CAS about suspending City's sentence should the appeal judgement be delayed. Couldn't imagine a more ugly couple come to think of it, Everton and City.
I also don't get all the legal jargon but it seems that City just out-lawyered UEFA on this. Plenty of their sponsorship details still look shady, but they've been let off based on a slew of half-arsed technicalities.
UEFA conducted an undergraduate varsity-grade investigation of unbelievable incompetence.
They didn't even do that. They basically just got woken up one day by German journalists who'd actually done some research, and they probably quite reluctantly concluded that they'd better be seen to 'act'. It was like some sleepy backbench MP trying to take on Jeff Bezos.
From Tony Evans's article in the Independent today.
"Each party is allowed to select a member of the three-man panel but City also suggested the chairman as well as their nominee. Uefa waved through this idea in the interests of speedy procedure."
City "won" on a 2-1 decision.
UEFA fucked it, simple as.
"Each party is allowed to select a member of the three-man panel but City also suggested the chairman as well as their nominee. Uefa waved through this idea in the interests of speedy procedure."
City "won" on a 2-1 decision.
UEFA fucked it, simple as.
Now there is one for the conspiracy theorists.
Haha fucking wow. Nice little backhander there for UEFA.
The whole thing stinks. Just fuck around with your finances and tell UEFA to fuck off when they ask questions.
[article]
So Manchester City’s hierarchy won the war they waged furiously against European football’s governing body Uefa, but the reality of the victory does not quite match the claims they made during their long campaign.
The panel at the court of arbitration for sport decided 2-1 in City’s favour to overturn the comprehensive guilty finding and two-year Champions League ban imposed by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) in February, but the published judgment nevertheless exposes a core of contradictions in the club’s case. In May 2019, after the CFCB’s “investigatory chamber” (IC) referred charges to the “adjudicatory chamber” (AC) that City – owned by Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family – overstated sponsorships by the state airline Etihad and telecoms giant Etisalat, the club publicly accused the IC’s chairman, Yves Leterme, of bad faith and “a basic lack of due process”.
City have never explained what evidence supported this serious public criticism, or the allegations of bias made against Leterme and all members of the IC, AC and Uefa itself after the AC’s guilty decision in February. But the club’s statement said: “The accusation of financial irregularities remains entirely false and the CFCB IC referral ignores a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence provided by Manchester City.”
The Cas panel’s full 93-page judgment does not quite support that: City’s hierarchy did not provide “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence”; they refused requests for evidence and witnesses and obstructed the investigation. Criticising City for that, the judgment even states that the club itself accepted there were legitimate grounds for the charges: “The panel is of the view that Uefa by no means filed frivolous charges against MCFC. As also acknowledged by MCFC, there was a legitimate basis to prosecute MCFC.”
While they did overturn the AC’s decision by a majority, the panel did not actually find that City’s alleged financial irregularities were “entirely false”. They found one of the AC’s key findings “time-barred”: that in 2012 and 2013 Etisalat had not paid £15m in sponsorships, which in 2014 City declared to the CFCB when making a settlement under the financial fair play rules. The judgment recites the finding that Mansour’s company vehicle for owning City, the Abu Dhabi United Group, had made or “caused to be made” those payments instead. It also notes that the CFCB did not have a fully “complete and accurate picture of two payments to MCFC in 2012 and 2013” when the settlement was agreed.
The panel overturned the guilty finding relating to Etisalat because two of their members decided that any breach of rules had not happened in 2014 when, the AC and IC found, City’s financial information provided for the settlement was false. Instead, presumably to the bemusement of the IC, AC and Uefa’s lawyers, the Cas majority decided any breach happened in 2012 and 2013, when the payments were made. CFCB rules require breaches to be prosecuted within five years – even if the evidence only emerged in November 2018 when the German magazine Der Spiegel published “leaks” of City’s emails. So, the Cas panel decided the Etisalat charges were “time-barred” when the IC prosecuted them in May 2019.
City’s complaint that they presented the IC with “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” stood for longer than a year before the details now revealed that they obstructed the investigation. The Cas panel found that City’s hierarchy declined to provide emails and other documents when asked by the IC and AC, and refused requests for executives to appear as witnesses.
internal emails exposed – the club saying they must have been hacked; Der Spiegel’s source, Rui Pinto, denying it, as he now denies criminal charges against him in Portugal for hacking in relation to other leaks. Nevertheless, it was shocking to see the email from the club’s lawyer, Simon Cliff, who wrote that City’s chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, had told Uefa’s then general secretary Gianni Infantino, that he would not accept a financial sanction for exceeding the FFP permitted €45m loss when assessed in 2014. Cliff said: “[Mubarak] would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years.”
Ultimately, based on the information City provided – apparently including the stated £15m sponsorships from Etisalat – Uefa and City then agreed a settlement.
Cliff also sent a tasteless email reacting to the death of Jean-Luc Dehaene, the then IC chair, and like Leterme a former prime minister of Belgium, writing with reference to the seven-person IC: “1 down, 6 to go.” Mortifying as it must have been for him to see that private bad joke held up to the light of day, and insistent as City were not to dignify an alleged hack with any response, they might just have dealt with that by apologising.
The hierarchy’s scornful statement after the AC’s guilty decision was in effect contradicted within days in an in-house video interview with their own chief executive, Ferran Soriano. City had again claimed the process was biased, naming and blaming Leterme, and refusing to recognise any CFCB independence from Uefa. “Simply put, this is a case initiated by Uefa, prosecuted by Uefa and judged by Uefa,” the club said.
Giving an expanded reaction, Soriano explicitly did recognise a distinction between Uefa and the CFCB. “We are not talking about the whole of Uefa, which is an association of [Europe’s national football] associations,” he said. He explained that he knows many people working at Uefa, “for the benefit of the clubs of Uefa like ours, but also for the benefit of football … Uefa is much bigger than this FFP chamber.”
Loyalists to Uefa’s FFP system, which has deterred European clubs from spending beyond their means on wages and hugely improved the game’s overall financial stability, reject that anyway. The CFCB process is integral to Uefa, and is set up to be as independent as possible so that the FFP compliance processes are credible. Whatever, Soriano’s acknowledgment of Uefa as a decent governing body never punched through the months of denunciation. Some fans arrived at City’s next Champions League match – privileged heights to which the Abu Dhabi mega-money has taken the club – with banners including “Uefa Scum” and “Uefa Mafia”.
Since Mansour took over City in 2008, Mubarak’s regime has been exceptionally skilled at balancing their unchallengeable spending – £1.3bn from the ownership – with good public relations: celebrating the club’s heritage and supporter loyalty, embracing good causes, investing in the community. In their war with Uefa, that slipped. City’s ownership was revealed as a group prepared to wave millions at lawyers to hammer European football’s governing body for trying to uphold its rules. City’s hierarchy have won that war, but apart from their own supporters, whom they encouraged to join in, their approach has not done much to win friends or influence people.[/article]
[article]
So Manchester City’s hierarchy won the war they waged furiously against European football’s governing body Uefa, but the reality of the victory does not quite match the claims they made during their long campaign.
The panel at the court of arbitration for sport decided 2-1 in City’s favour to overturn the comprehensive guilty finding and two-year Champions League ban imposed by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) in February, but the published judgment nevertheless exposes a core of contradictions in the club’s case. In May 2019, after the CFCB’s “investigatory chamber” (IC) referred charges to the “adjudicatory chamber” (AC) that City – owned by Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family – overstated sponsorships by the state airline Etihad and telecoms giant Etisalat, the club publicly accused the IC’s chairman, Yves Leterme, of bad faith and “a basic lack of due process”.
City have never explained what evidence supported this serious public criticism, or the allegations of bias made against Leterme and all members of the IC, AC and Uefa itself after the AC’s guilty decision in February. But the club’s statement said: “The accusation of financial irregularities remains entirely false and the CFCB IC referral ignores a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence provided by Manchester City.”
The Cas panel’s full 93-page judgment does not quite support that: City’s hierarchy did not provide “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence”; they refused requests for evidence and witnesses and obstructed the investigation. Criticising City for that, the judgment even states that the club itself accepted there were legitimate grounds for the charges: “The panel is of the view that Uefa by no means filed frivolous charges against MCFC. As also acknowledged by MCFC, there was a legitimate basis to prosecute MCFC.”
While they did overturn the AC’s decision by a majority, the panel did not actually find that City’s alleged financial irregularities were “entirely false”. They found one of the AC’s key findings “time-barred”: that in 2012 and 2013 Etisalat had not paid £15m in sponsorships, which in 2014 City declared to the CFCB when making a settlement under the financial fair play rules. The judgment recites the finding that Mansour’s company vehicle for owning City, the Abu Dhabi United Group, had made or “caused to be made” those payments instead. It also notes that the CFCB did not have a fully “complete and accurate picture of two payments to MCFC in 2012 and 2013” when the settlement was agreed.
The panel overturned the guilty finding relating to Etisalat because two of their members decided that any breach of rules had not happened in 2014 when, the AC and IC found, City’s financial information provided for the settlement was false. Instead, presumably to the bemusement of the IC, AC and Uefa’s lawyers, the Cas majority decided any breach happened in 2012 and 2013, when the payments were made. CFCB rules require breaches to be prosecuted within five years – even if the evidence only emerged in November 2018 when the German magazine Der Spiegel published “leaks” of City’s emails. So, the Cas panel decided the Etisalat charges were “time-barred” when the IC prosecuted them in May 2019.
City’s complaint that they presented the IC with “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” stood for longer than a year before the details now revealed that they obstructed the investigation. The Cas panel found that City’s hierarchy declined to provide emails and other documents when asked by the IC and AC, and refused requests for executives to appear as witnesses.
internal emails exposed – the club saying they must have been hacked; Der Spiegel’s source, Rui Pinto, denying it, as he now denies criminal charges against him in Portugal for hacking in relation to other leaks. Nevertheless, it was shocking to see the email from the club’s lawyer, Simon Cliff, who wrote that City’s chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, had told Uefa’s then general secretary Gianni Infantino, that he would not accept a financial sanction for exceeding the FFP permitted €45m loss when assessed in 2014. Cliff said: “[Mubarak] would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years.”
Ultimately, based on the information City provided – apparently including the stated £15m sponsorships from Etisalat – Uefa and City then agreed a settlement.
Cliff also sent a tasteless email reacting to the death of Jean-Luc Dehaene, the then IC chair, and like Leterme a former prime minister of Belgium, writing with reference to the seven-person IC: “1 down, 6 to go.” Mortifying as it must have been for him to see that private bad joke held up to the light of day, and insistent as City were not to dignify an alleged hack with any response, they might just have dealt with that by apologising.
The hierarchy’s scornful statement after the AC’s guilty decision was in effect contradicted within days in an in-house video interview with their own chief executive, Ferran Soriano. City had again claimed the process was biased, naming and blaming Leterme, and refusing to recognise any CFCB independence from Uefa. “Simply put, this is a case initiated by Uefa, prosecuted by Uefa and judged by Uefa,” the club said.
Giving an expanded reaction, Soriano explicitly did recognise a distinction between Uefa and the CFCB. “We are not talking about the whole of Uefa, which is an association of [Europe’s national football] associations,” he said. He explained that he knows many people working at Uefa, “for the benefit of the clubs of Uefa like ours, but also for the benefit of football … Uefa is much bigger than this FFP chamber.”
Loyalists to Uefa’s FFP system, which has deterred European clubs from spending beyond their means on wages and hugely improved the game’s overall financial stability, reject that anyway. The CFCB process is integral to Uefa, and is set up to be as independent as possible so that the FFP compliance processes are credible. Whatever, Soriano’s acknowledgment of Uefa as a decent governing body never punched through the months of denunciation. Some fans arrived at City’s next Champions League match – privileged heights to which the Abu Dhabi mega-money has taken the club – with banners including “Uefa Scum” and “Uefa Mafia”.
Since Mansour took over City in 2008, Mubarak’s regime has been exceptionally skilled at balancing their unchallengeable spending – £1.3bn from the ownership – with good public relations: celebrating the club’s heritage and supporter loyalty, embracing good causes, investing in the community. In their war with Uefa, that slipped. City’s ownership was revealed as a group prepared to wave millions at lawyers to hammer European football’s governing body for trying to uphold its rules. City’s hierarchy have won that war, but apart from their own supporters, whom they encouraged to join in, their approach has not done much to win friends or influence people.[/article]
Hahahahaha that would be boss. 23 league relegation. £60 billion fine and 1,000 year transfer ban please.
It will go nowhere. Again.
Man City champions of the North West Counties Football League
Fuck letting them that high. They can only compete in the moss side Sunday league. Promotion barred for 10 seasons.
If only this was like negative Hal football comments! Unfortunately you’re spot on. I refuse to get excited by this now.
I am not so sure.
I reckon UEFA could get some more money out of this.
Surely City have paid off everyone by now - there can’t be anyone that hasn’t made money out of it.
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