City and Financial Doping | Charged by PL with numerous FFP breaches | Hearing begins 16th September 2024

NotThatSoph said:
There are a lot of rules about what you can and cannot agree to. When we're dealing with a de facto monopoly, those rules are stricter. If a contract, or parts of a contract, breaks those rules, then it's not legally binding.
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However, as another poster has already pointed out this issue has been considered in the UK with Harlequins and the rules simply won’t be deemed unlawful. City are welcome to join the SPL if they don’t want to play in the Prem with the Prem’s rules…
 
duffer said:
Depends on how many points are deducted. Make it 70 and it becomes very interesting.
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Hopefully they are deducted just enough points so that we have a reverse Aguero moment, one that relegates them this time on the final day.
 
NotThatSoph said:
There are a lot of rules about what you can and cannot agree to. When we're dealing with a de facto monopoly, those rules are stricter. If a contract, or parts of a contract, breaks those rules, then it's not legally binding.
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But the premier league is a private company wholly owned by the 20 members of the league. The rules of memebership of the league are created by and voted on by the members of the league as per their voting procedures.

They were happy enough to sign up to the rules to reap the financial benefits and rewards of playing in the PL. But now they've been caught, don't want the rules that every other club abides by to apply to them.

Sounds a lot like the logic applied by those sovereign citizen idiots.
 
Oranges038 said:
But the premier league is a private company wholly owned by the 20 members of the league. The rules of memebership of the league are created by and voted on by the members of the league as per their voting procedures.

They were happy enough to sign up to the rules to reap the financial benefits and rewards of playing in the PL. But now they've been caught, don't want the rules that every other club abides by to apply to them.

Sounds a lot like the logic applied by those sovereign citizen idiots.
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you can work for a company abiding by their term and conditions, but if you discovered that by complying you are breaking the law, you have a duty to stop complying .
That’s the most simplistic way I can put it.
 
NotThatSoph said:
There are a lot of rules about what you can and cannot agree to. When we're dealing with a de facto monopoly, those rules are stricter. If a contract, or parts of a contract, breaks those rules, then it's not legally binding.
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Rules promoting fair competition is literally the opposite of a monopoly. City circumvented the fair competition rules. I doubt they are going to win an argument that the rules were unlawful on the basis of them creating a monopoly, when circumventing those rules has created a Man City monopoly over the EPL.

City's case isn't to challenge the lawfulness of the rules, but rather to deny contravening them. Challenging the rules would require admitting the breaches.
 
Iffin said:
you can work for a company abiding by their term and conditions, but if you discovered that by complying you are breaking the law, you have a duty to stop complying .
That’s the most simplistic way I can put it.
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Do you not think that both the Premier League's and its member clubs expensive legal teams look over all the paperwork before any of it is signed to ensure everything is fully legal and above board.
 
I see that we're at the point where City are actually the heroes in this story, standing against the oppression and illegal activity of the Premier League monopoly. They obviously discovered that the rules were wrong so they refused to comply with them. I guess they forgot to inform the other clubs in the league about what they discovered, but I'm sure it's cool.
 
If they get away with it, I can see it being the biggest challenge to the PL as a commodity. If you accept cheats and fraudsters, you lose your validity as a credible competition.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Do you not think that both the Premier League's and its member clubs expensive legal teams look over all the paperwork before any of it is signed to ensure everything is fully legal and above board.
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Totally agree, but mistakes can still be made, also there are rules worldwide that you think are solid but loopholes are always found.
 
McTerminator said:
However, as another poster has already pointed out this issue has been considered in the UK with Harlequins and the rules simply won’t be deemed unlawful. City are welcome to join the SPL if they don’t want to play in the Prem with the Prem’s rules…
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What do you think the similarities between the two cases are? I assume the SPL thing is meant as a joke, because if not that's really dumb.

Oranges038 said:
But the premier league is a private company wholly owned by the 20 members of the league. The rules of memebership of the league are created by and voted on by the members of the league as per their voting procedures.

They were happy enough to sign up to the rules to reap the financial benefits and rewards of playing in the PL. But now they've been caught, don't want the rules that every other club abides by to apply to them.

Sounds a lot like the logic applied by those sovereign citizen idiots.
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Contract law and competition rules is not sovereign citizen stuff, no.

Garnacho's Shoelaces said:
Rules promoting fair competition is literally the opposite of a monopoly. City circumvented the fair competition rules. I doubt they are going to win an argument that the rules were unlawful on the basis of them creating a monopoly, when circumventing those rules has created a Man City monopoly over the EPL.

City's case isn't to challenge the lawfulness of the rules, but rather to deny contravening them. Challenging the rules would require admitting the breaches.
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...

That's not how it works. At all.
 
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Iffin said:
you can work for a company abiding by their term and conditions, but if you discovered that by complying you are breaking the law, you have a duty to stop complying .
That’s the most simplistic way I can put it.
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They aren't just working for the company though. The club as members are part owners of the company, like the other 19 clubs. So, if the rules are illegal then every other member of the company since the rules were introduced could challenge the legality of those rules and subsequently seek compensation.


NotThatSoph said:
What do you think the similarities between the two cases are? I assume the SPL thing is meant as a joke, because if not that's really dumb.



Contract law and competition rules is not sovereign citizen stuff, no.



...

That's not how it works. At all.
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Saracens challenged this in rugby, it was rejected. Several football clubs have also challenged the FFP/PSR rules across England and Europe and they were all rejected.


Mr Pigeon said:
I see that we're at the point where City are actually the heroes in this story, standing against the oppression and illegal activity of the Premier League monopoly. They obviously discovered that the rules were wrong so they refused to comply with them. I guess they forgot to inform the other clubs in the league about what they discovered, but I'm sure it's cool.
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Standard story arc in there from a City fan perspective about how they were challenged and ultimately come out as the smug victor.
 
At least this thread helps identify the people supporting City not formally marked as such on their profile.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
I see that we're at the point where City are actually the heroes in this story, standing against the oppression and illegal activity of the Premier League monopoly. They obviously discovered that the rules were wrong so they refused to comply with them. I guess they forgot to inform the other clubs in the league about what they discovered, but I'm sure it's cool.
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Hope they discover relegation next. The narrative of City being the unfairly treated good guys is always amusing.
 
Mb194dc said:
The PL are clowns and the rules were and still are ridiculous.

As evidenced by our owners selling assets to themselves and most of our home developed players to get around all of it.

City spending their own money and better than other clubs should never have been gone after. Just damaging the image of the game and wasting tens of millions more on lawyers.

Going forward just put in flat caps on wages and transfer spending that apply equally to all clubs. Nice and clear with equally clear sanctions for breaking them.
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City are literally charged with making under the table payments, i.e. a way to avoid a salary cap.

You either refuse to sign up to the rules if you think they're shit, or you sign up and stick to them.

You can't agree to them, then subvert them, then when you get caught challenge the rules themselves. The time for that was when FFP came in.
 
Oranges038 said:
Saracens challenged this in rugby, it was rejected. Several football clubs have also challenged the FFP/PSR rules across England and Europe and they were all rejected.

.
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No, they challenged something else, and City isn't challenging FFP or PSR.
 
Iffin said:
you can work for a company abiding by their term and conditions, but if you discovered that by complying you are breaking the law, you have a duty to stop complying .
That’s the most simplistic way I can put it.
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But even if that were City's argument, they then hid their "non-compliance" as compliance with complex fraudulent payment flows obfuscated as legitimate business income, all in the name of protesting what they perceived to be unlawful rules, then obstructed an investigation into their white knight non-compliance for 6 years?

It won't wash I'm afraid. Goodbye Premier League football, Hello North West Counties Football League.
 
Xeno said:
City are literally charged with making under the table payments, i.e. a way to avoid a salary cap.

You either refuse to sign up to the rules if you think they're shit, or you sign up and stick to them.

You can't agree to them, then subvert them, then when you get caught challenge the rules themselves. The time for that was when FFP came in.
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Exactly this. It's the equivalent of breaking a criminal law, then saying "Well I don't agree with the law anyway".
 
NotThatSoph said:
No, they challenged something else, and City isn't challenging FFP or PSR.
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From my knowledge of it.

Saracens challenged the legality of the salary cap rules under competition law. Because they were caught hiding payments.

City are challenging the rules related to the fair market value of sponsorship contracts. Because they have been caught out inflating their sponsorship income.
 
Oranges038 said:
From my knowledge of it.

Saracens challenged the legality of the salary cap rules under competition law. Because they were caught hiding payments.

City are challenging the rules related to the fair market value of sponsorship contracts. Because they have been caught out inflating their sponsorship income.
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That's incorrect.
 
Oranges038 said:
From my knowledge of it.

Saracens challenged the legality of the salary cap rules under competition law. Because they were caught hiding payments.

City are challenging the rules related to the fair market value of sponsorship contracts. Because they have been caught out inflating their sponsorship income.
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It's a private hearing so nobody can conclusively say what defence they are running but they have denied the allegations on the basis of having this holy "irrefutable body of evidence". None of their public facing statements have been in relation to challenging the rules.
 
NotThatSoph said:
That's incorrect.
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Which part?

"Saracens argued that the concept of a salary cap violates competition law rules (and is therefore illegal, void and unenforceable) because it prevented the club from being able to complete freely to attract the best players."

https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com...lay-in-sport-the-failed-challenge-by-saracens

Saracens did this after they were caught hiding payments.

Man City are arguing that the APT rules governing the market value of sponsorship deals are not legally enforceable. Fairly obvious this is because the PL have gone after them over the 115 charges, amongst those are the allegations they artificially created sponsorship deals and hid costs to get around ffp & psr rules.
 
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Oranges038 said:
Which part?

"Saracens argued that the concept of a salary cap violates competition law rules (and is therefore illegal, void and unenforceable) because it prevented the club from being able to complete freely to attract the best players."

https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com...lay-in-sport-the-failed-challenge-by-saracens

Saracens did this after they were caught hiding payments.

Man City are arguing that the APT rules governing the market value of sponsorship deals are not legally enforceable. This is because the PL have gone after them over the 115 charges, amongst those are the allegations they artificially created sponsorship deals and hid costs to get around ffp & psr rules.
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You're wrong about the City part, the case is about changing the current rules. Depending on what the decision is, and depending on what exactly the PL's FFP case against them is, it could theoretically be relevant, but as of now they're not connected.

You also haven't explained why you think that a salary cap being upheld means that the current sponsorship rules will be. They don't seem very similar.
 
NotThatSoph said:
You're wrong about the City part, the case is about changing the current rules. Depending on what the decision is, and depending on what exactly the PL's FFP case against them is, it could theoretically be relevant, but as of now they're not connected.

You also haven't explained why you think that a salary cap being upheld means that the current sponsorship rules will be. They don't seem very similar.
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You didn't ask that question.

You just said I was wrong, I also never said that their challenges to the current rules were part of their case under the 115, but it's fairly obvious they are bringing it forward because the PL were launching proceedings about their PSR/FFP breaches.
 
Oranges038 said:
You didn't ask that question.

You just said I was wrong, I also never said that their challenges to the current rules were part of their case under the 115, but it's fairly obvious they are bringing it forward because the PL were launching proceedings about their PSR/FFP breaches.
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I thought that was a pretty obvious implication when I asked you why you thought the two cases were similar, because you mentioned the Saracens case as a reason for why City will lose.

I don't think that's obvious at all. City have a clear incentive for getting the rules changed going forward. I'm also not aware of any examples of City sponsorship deals being adjusted because of these current rules.
 
Just the charge or related charges about Mancini and his extra payments is enough to make City guilty.
This is already proven and on record.
Add any other charges being proven, which isn’t much of a stretch and City are surely out of the premier league at the least
 
SER19 said:
Pep absolutely cannot stand that his most successful spells across two clubs are tarnished by cheating.
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He could have done the honorable thing, and chosen to walk away.

Instead he chose to remain, and benefit from the cheating. He's just as corrupt as City's ownership.
 
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