Man City CAS

[AndyK]

1 hour ago, sacreblueits442 said:

..do you really believe that was the reasoning behind FFP or that the eventual ring fencing of the elite clubs have now become the consequence!!!

FFP seems a great idea in respect of teams attempting to adhere to a system which down the line would not lead to their demise. We are aware that a team folding is not just a squad of players losing their jobs but also impacts a community.

  There is a need for the FA, UEFA to seek a way of mitigating this, and the use of a system which basically said you can only spend a certain percentage of your football income seemed to be a fair and long overdue method of ensuring the longevity of the clubs.

  As usual most new laws are scrutinised and someone attempts to get around it in some fashion.Without going into the Manchester City case (I do not know the exact details) any attempt to circumnavigate the ethos or the literal meaning of the law should be classed as an offence and punishment meted out as laid down by the institutions.

 

The initial FFP proposal was largely aimed at trying to do away with debt.

It got recast in that the way to do that was to prevent spending more than your income, essentially outlawing owner investment in their new club. As e.g. Liverpool have turnover of 500M+ last year, they can always spend more than e.g. Norwich. If the Norwich owner wants to give (not loan) the club 200M, they aren't allowed to.

That protects the big income boys from smaller income clubs, until someone like Ranieri pulls off a miracle.

 

I agree with the basis of the last bit though - there just has to be some basic understanding of what can and can't be proved, as it will inevitably go to court given the sums involved. I have no idea how that can be done without unimpeachably independent investigators.

[TheUltimateWinner]

 

[Sly]

How long will it take for a club like Newcastle to challenge FFP for restriction on trade!? 
 

If the new owners want to pour money into the game, let them get on with it. 
 

It happens in every business, in every walk of life. 
 

I’m personally glad it was overturned and I hope this puts a nail in the coffin of this stupid, unlawful, closed shop for the elite concept. 

[Plastik Man]

7 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

The incompetence was UEFA trying to impose punishments on events which were five years old and therefore 'time-locked'. 

 

Similarly that it took an internet hacker to gain the origin of the information rather than UEFA themselves speaks volumes

The fact that Man City were found to "fail to cooperate with Uefa authorities" may have something to do with that? 

[fuchsntf]

I Don t understand...Why are you asked to Pay a find if you are innocent...

I would at least like to look at a list of 

Complaints then Next to it the descision....

[Clever Fox]

The accusation against Man City was that they spent more than there Trading figures allowed for. They knew what they were doing and used spurious Sponsorship deals to cover the overspending. Uefa said as much in their investigation.

Cas as I understand it, didn't carry out a new investigation, they only reviewed the evidence presented by Uefa and Man City. 

However it seems Uefa didn't present supporting evidence requested by Cas to back up their claim. which seems very strange indeed.

At the end of the day this is big business. Football is merely the vehicle.  As much as it grates me to say this, It's Uefa who needs to be fully investigated and proper rules implemented.

These big Overseeing institutions like Fifa, Uefa, Pfa, and others are awash with slush money. simply because of the huge amount of funds in Sport. And these should be monitored by Governments. As there's also huge public investment in them all.

[Guest SO1]

9 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

The accusation against Man City was that they spent more than there Trading figures allowed for. They knew what they were doing and used spurious Sponsorship deals to cover the overspending. Uefa said as much in their investigation.

Cas as I understand it, didn't carry out a new investigation, they only reviewed the evidence presented by Uefa and Man City. 

However it seems Uefa didn't present supporting evidence requested by Cas to back up their claim. which seems very strange indeed.

At the end of the day this is big business. Football is merely the vehicle.  As much as it grates me to say this, It's Uefa who needs to be fully investigated and proper rules implemented.

These big Overseeing institutions like Fifa, Uefa, Pfa, and others are awash with slush money. simply because of the huge amount of funds in Sport. And these should be monitored by Governments. As there's also huge public investment in them all.

Sadly our governments are just as corrupt as the institutions you speak of. Wherever there's money there is corruption.

Don't see any answer then to let them destroy themselves with their greed. Let them have their Superleague and enjoy the game we can afford.

I could think of worse things than having a team in the Championship that was playing football like Brentford. Certainly beautiful to my eye.

[Spudulike]

I'm not sure that Wolves will be the next club to join the UEFA 'elite' given how Chinese business might not see the UK as a good place to invest following the Huawei decision. 

[urban fox]

So if uefa knew their evidence was a bit thin they hand out punishment they know will be contested. That way when their case gets kicked out and Man City get let back in they can claim that it was not their decision. Status quo maintained, and they can hide behind the “we tried to do the right thing” stance. If they had given a transfer ban, or a huge fine it probably would not have been appealed. This way they ensure Man City get away with a fine that will be recovered simply by being in the CL in appearance money. Everyone happy. Corruption or incompetence? 

[Clever Fox]

1 hour ago, SO1 said:

Sadly our governments are just as corrupt as the institutions you speak of. Wherever there's money there is corruption.

Don't see any answer then to let them destroy themselves with their greed. Let them have their Superleague and enjoy the game we can afford.

I could think of worse things than having a team in the Championship that was playing football like Brentford. Certainly beautiful to my eye.

While you are correct about Money and corruption I still believe the Government should be monitoring these organisations,

The amounts of money involved is enough to overthrow Governments. They're the ones with the forensic experts and authority to speedily get results.

FFP is a fair way to protect smaller clubs from over committing. But the rules and boundaries need to be clearly spelled out along with the consequences. Man city got away with it by refusing to co operate with uefa. This can't have been right and should have lead to removal from the league, regardless of who the Club is.

Then and only then will Clubs take UEFA seriously.

[Guest SO1]

37 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

While you are correct about Money and corruption I still believe the Government should be monitoring these organisations,

The amounts of money involved is enough to overthrow Governments. They're the ones with the forensic experts and authority to speedily get results.

FFP is a fair way to protect smaller clubs from over committing. But the rules and boundaries need to be clearly spelled out along with the consequences. Man city got away with it by refusing to co operate with uefa. This can't have been right and should have lead to removal from the league, regardless of who the Club is.

Then and only then will Clubs take UEFA seriously.

I agree in principle but am much less optimistic about government and those in positions of power doing the right thing. The "brown envelopes" always seem to win. 

So many parties with different interests and as usual he who has the most money rules. Hard to solve problems with that kind of bias in play.

Guys at the bottom of the pyramid always lose.

[Monsell1976]

Who did the review sepp blatter or plattini

[Yes N'Didi]

Cas have basically said on the evidence provided, we cant find anything which suggests you broke FFP rules that is within UEFAs time restrictions (less than 5 years old). We can find that you were deliberately unhelpful, so we will fine you 10 million euros, but you can’t be banned from CL for being unhelpful.

 

This means that Man City have been found completely innocent of breaking any FFP rules in the last five years. This absolutely does not mean that Manchester City are completely innocent of breaking FFP rules, it simply means the evidence provided was either insufficient or out of date by UEFAs own standards.

 

I don’t think for a second any fan is duped in by Pep asking for an apology - their financial doping has been ongoing for years, but to suggest CAS has been brown enveloped seems rather childish.

[AndyK]

@urban fox that's certainly a widely held opinion about why UEFA pursued this, and went with such a high penalty. "Hey G14, we tried, look!". There was never going to be a transfer ban though - that's in FIFA's power, but not UEFA's.

@Leicester_Loyal that seems to sum up FFP pretty well. A large number of Liverpool/MU fans have been conned into believing it's something it's not. (I don't deny that I may also have been on some matters, but on FFP, it's protectionist primarily). I have sympathy with the non "big 6" (horrible term) clubs on this, as FFP screws them over owner investment. MY club are unimaginably lucky that we got in just early enough, and Kenwright tried to be clever when they looked at Everton. The G14 (and sadly now my club) pressed to stop others benefitting.

@Clever Fox I agree that the problem is that UEFA have no power to compel cooperation. I don't see how this can be fixed, as the big 5 countries would surely lobby to not accept any such change. UEFA's main problem appears to be that they wanted City to help incriminate themselves, and to do so UEFA had to show their very weak hand of cards.

 

Guardiola's apology comment - no idea what he's talking about really. There are certainly some journalists who've gone off the deep end, but it seems to be meaningless, and pointless. Certainly UEFA shouldn't be apologising if that's who he meant.

 

Thank you for letting me in - visitors to my club forums get treated a lot worse. Good luck with making the top 4.

[sishades]

16 hours ago, enmac said:

Court probably scared of being sued by Man City for 100s of millions plus costly court fees. 

If you read the ruling one paragraph did mention the MCFC resources. So there might be some credence for this statement.

 

"However, considering i) the financial resources of MCFC; ii) the importance of the cooperation of clubs in investigations conducted by the CFCB, because of its limited investigative means; and iii) MCFC’s disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations, the CAS Panel found that a significant fine should be imposed on MCFC and considered it appropriate"

 

 

[CosbehFox]

7 hours ago, AndyK said:

 

Thank you for letting me in - visitors to my club forums get treated a lot worse. Good luck with making the top 4.

Your club tried hard - you know claiming zero points from Chelsea and Man U. 

[Blue Collar]

 

[urban.spaceman]

We're among the 9 clubs who wrote to CAS to get their ban upheld:

 

 

 

[AndyK]

10 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

We're among the 9 clubs who wrote to CAS to get their ban upheld:

 

 

 

 

Not quite. Nine clubs wrote to ask CAS not to suspend the ban if Manchester City requested it. i.e. to stop the appeal process being used to compete next season under appeal. Manchester City didn't request a suspension, but instead wanted the appeal dealt with.

 

A lot of Manchester City fans have taken offence at the list, and hadn't realised that Newcastle were involved until today. I personally don't see a problem in anyone in with a sniff of a CL or EL place several months ago doing what they thought was best.

 

Oddly, Wolves were involved initially, but seem to have withdrawn at some point. Wolves fans seem quite annoyed with their own club for getting roped into it.

 

And that BBC article is ever so slightly one-eyed. Impartial it ain't.

[Plastik Man]

9 minutes ago, AndyK said:

 

Not quite. Nine clubs wrote to ask CAS not to suspend the ban if Manchester City requested it. i.e. to stop the appeal process being used to compete next season under appeal. Manchester City didn't request a suspension, but instead wanted the appeal dealt with.

 

A lot of Manchester City fans have taken offence at the list, and hadn't realised that Newcastle were involved until today. I personally don't see a problem in anyone in with a sniff of a CL or EL place several months ago doing what they thought was best.

 

Oddly, Wolves were involved initially, but seem to have withdrawn at some point. Wolves fans seem quite annoyed with their own club for getting roped into it.

 

And that BBC article is ever so slightly one-eyed. Impartial it ain't.

I think the language used by CAS is interesting. Some very strong words, quite damning of MCFC. It's a legal body. They wouldn't use that language without consideration.

 

It seems quite clear they took the piss, and got away with it on a technicality, whatever your take on the rights and wrongs of FFP.

 

 

[AndyK]

13 minutes ago, Plastik Man said:

I think the language used by CAS is interesting. Some very strong words, quite damning of MCFC. It's a legal body. They wouldn't use that language without consideration.

 

It seems quite clear they took the piss, and got away with it on a technicality, whatever your take on the rights and wrongs of FFP.

 

 

It's my team. FFP is a protectionist scheme, and sadly my lot are firmly behind the idea, now they've got past the implementation of it. Whichever PL club exec said "we don't want another Leicester" should be strung up.

 

MCFC certainly didn't co-operate, but that seems to have been based on an utter distrust of the leaky UEFA bunch (the ex-Liverpool Chief Exec Rick Parry who was on the investigatory committee being a prime example). It's a bit odd (and not great) seeing the suggestion in the CAS report made that it might all have gone away if they had co-operated, but I think relations had deteriorated by that point. It doesn't help when some excerpts quoted by professional journalists are actually from one side's arguments and not the CAS opinion (as far as I can tell, if it's in italics it's definitely an argument put forward by one side or the other).

 

As it's clear that MCFC did not cooperate, a fine in line with income doesn't seem unreasonable, albeit fairly meaningless.

 

I can see that it can be painted as a 'technicality', but I think that does ignore the lack of evidence provided - there was no evidence apart from some mostly internal emails, one of which was doctored by combining two into a single one of different meaning - 6 emails/documents from an apparent 5,500,000 hacked files (quite boggling that a football club would have that many stealable things, but if this was the best they had, it was a poor hand). Some payment numbers matched, and that was good enough for UEFA.

Put against auditors and audited accounts, statements from significant people, that was deemed insufficient for a 2 year ban.

Some of UEFA's allegations were thrown out because CAS disagreed with the UEFA timebar argument, viewing that it would stay open-ended permanently - UEFA clearly overreached with that. Having said that, CAS didn't agree with either side's timebar claims.

 

That dumb hacks have lied and misrepresented things has muddied things. As an example, many have repeated that "His Highness" in an email was the owner Sheikh Mansour - it wasn't, and apparently UEFA accepted that.

 

Overall, we'll always be tarred with this, despite an independent hearing finding the evidence unsupported or timebarred by UEFA's own rules. It's been appallingly reported by and large, and the guilty as sin image is what was desired by the G14.

[st albans fox]

40 minutes ago, Plastik Man said:

I think the language used by CAS is interesting. Some very strong words, quite damning of MCFC. It's a legal body. They wouldn't use that language without consideration.

 

It seems quite clear they took the piss, and got away with it on a technicality, whatever your take on the rights and wrongs of FFP.

 

This is the point - because the charges were ‘out of time’ there was no evidence against them.  It’s such a nonsense. There was nothing for CAS to look into re the charges as they weren’t relevant. the only thing which was relevant was Man City not co operating with UEFA. And they were banged to rights on that.  UEFA have let european football down and conspiracy theorists might argue that the whole thing was a charade and the charges were deliberately brought out of time to make it look like UEFA cared without Man City actually being banned ....

 

 

[AndyK]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

This is the point - because the charges were ‘out of time’ there was no evidence against them.  It’s such a nonsense. There was nothing for CAS to look into re the charges as they weren’t relevant. the only thing which was relevant was Man City not co operating with UEFA. And they were banged to rights on that.  UEFA have let european football down and conspiracy theorists might argue that the whole thing was a charade and the charges were deliberately brought out of time to make it look like UEFA cared without Man City actually being banned ....

 

 

Wouldn't that theory require MCFC to have gone along with it, knowing that it blackens the club name? I don't see that happening.

 

The other side is that UEFA is in a mess, and constantly under siege from the G14 sabre-rattling, to stop more people upsetting their applecart. It certainly looks like UEFA went for broke - 2 years or nothing, and can turn and shrug at the G14 - "we tried".

 

It certainly looks inept from UEFA to have gone with essentially some emails with no context, and I expect the CFCB (financial investigator) part to be re-built as a result.

[st albans fox]

3 minutes ago, AndyK said:

Wouldn't that theory require MCFC to have gone along with it, knowing that it blackens the club name? I don't see that happening.

 

The other side is that UEFA is in a mess, and constantly under siege from the G14 sabre-rattling, to stop more people upsetting their applecart. It certainly looks like UEFA went for broke - 2 years or nothing, and can turn and shrug at the G14 - "we tried".

 

It certainly looks inept from UEFA to have gone with essentially some emails with no context, and I expect the CFCB (financial investigator) part to be re-built as a result.

I don’t agree with the theory I posted but it’s not so far fetched ......... not UEFA as a whole but elements within it - i suspect it’s a very ‘political’ establishment 

[Clever Fox]

Surely UEFA have the right to Ban clubs from competitions . So the minute they refused to cooperate they should have been banned from competition. That would have brought them into line quickly.