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

Basically in the grand scheme of things all it really means for City is the PL can't outright reject the value of sponsorships without proving why its not worth the amount. The PL rejected two City deals and gave no explanation as to why, thats what started this whole thing. The PL will now have to prove why deals aren't worth it. City can now sue the PL for lost income on those 2 deals.

Zero bearing on the charges and this is pretty much the result Stefan Borson said City were hoping for ages ago. They knew they weren't gonna get the rules completely dismissed.

In the grand scheme of things all it means is PL have to justify nerfing sponsorship deals and change some wording as everyone expected. The interesting thing ihere now is if City will sue for loss of earnings given Everton, Chelsea, Newcastle had their back (and apparently Villa who stayed out of the hearing) and suing the PL would cost all of those 3 clubs.
 
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AngeloHenriquez said:
I don't believe the majority of journalists even understand FFP or basic finances but they saw "City won certain sections of their case" so they run off and try to whip up a frenzy
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Not to mention it's been stated numerous times throughout the big places (BBC, NYT etc...) that we won't get an official verdict of the 115 charges until spring next year.

Like you said, this is just to get people all worked up without actually giving any real information regarding the real case.
 
Having read a bit more, it actually looks bad for city, they lost most of the motions. The ones they won won't impact the 130 charges, and will probably only result in a re wording of some rules.

You can spot the journos on the city payroll pretty easily.
 
My understanding is City won on a couple of procedural points but lost the main argument which they originally agreed with in 2021.

Basically, a huge waste of everyone's time.
 
‘linked-in template man three’ + ‘headshot’ worked long and hard to negotiate those sponsorship deals with city and the pl just coming in and shitting on that isn’t right.
 
SuperiorXI said:
Having read a bit more, it actually looks bad for city, they lost most of the motions. The ones they won won't impact the 130 charges, and will probably only result in a re wording of some rules.

You can spot the journos on the city payroll pretty easily.
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Mike Keegan’s clearly getting a fat wedge.
 
baskinginthesun said:
Not to mention it's been stated numerous times throughout the big places (BBC, NYT etc...) that we won't get an official verdict of the 115 charges until spring next year.

Like you said, this is just to get people all worked up without actually giving any real information regarding the real case.
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This case has nothing to do with thr 115 charges...
 
Fts 74 said:
My understanding is City won on a couple of procedural points but lost the main argument which they originally agreed with in 2021.

Basically, a huge waste of everyone's time.
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Its funny how they present it as a win. A tiny proportion of their charges go through at huge financial cost. The end result of which is they could sue the 19 other teams in the league, which obviously wont help them in the slightest when every rule is being decided by a majority vote.
I even believe it is a genuine win for them. They're a hostile entity and dragging the competition through courts and legal battles for years is just part of their MO.
 
Reading the actual findings, it really boils my piss to see how much time, effort and most importantly money that should be being spent on the game, is being pissed down the drain fighting this.

Every club in the country should simply resign from the league and create a new organisation. Make one of the founding principles 'no state owned clubs' and outlaw completely anything even approaching an APT. Get each team to review and sign the rules at the beginning of each season.
Let City, Newcastle, Villa and Sheffield United play each other 10 times a season and see how valuable their brands are then.
 
diarm said:
Reading the actual findings, it really boils my piss to see how much time, effort and most importantly money that should be being spent on the game, is being pissed down the drain fighting this.

Every club in the country should simply resign from the league and create a new organisation. Make one of the founding principles 'no state owned clubs' and outlaw completely anything even approaching an APT. Get each team to review and sign the rules at the beginning of each season.
Let City, Newcastle, Villa and Sheffield United play each other 10 times a season and see how valuable their brands are then.
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The Premier League has completely cocked up it's own rules and proved themselves completely incapable of handling situations like this. With the importance of the Premier League product, which must be protected at all costs, this isn't going to end well for anyone hoping for a bit of justice.
 
NotChatGPT said:
The Premier League has completely cocked up it's own rules and proved themselves completely incapable of handling situations like this. With the importance of the Premier League product, which must be protected at all costs, this isn't going to end well for anyone hoping for a bit of justice.
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I just think a body like the Premier League, whose purpose should be administrating football for the good of all it's clubs, is wholly unequipped to take on a wealthy nation state in court - nor should it be expected to. This should've been nipped in the bud at the first sniff of a rumour that a country was interested in buying a club, but they didn't do that and now they're trying to apply rules designed for football clubs to bodies beyond their ability to govern. I don't see a way for the clubs to extract themselves from this now, other than scrapping what's in place and starting again.
 
AngeloHenriquez said:
Essentially it won't affect the 115 (Above 130 now) as they failed in their main argument that FMV was illegal.

They won over a few minor points associated with interest over loans (Coming from SH loans) not included in P&L and this essentially isn't that big as majority of the SH loans are converted to equity so interest is irrelevant.

They managed to argue the burden of proof as essentially a club can put forward a sponsorship for consideration to PL for it to be refused with little recourse but now the burden is on the PL to explain why it's rejecting it if it is to make it a bit clearer which is a good idea.
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Thanks so fuxking Sky are hysterical again with yellow ticker headlines on their website.

I hate Sky so much
 
Somehow I fear it won't stop here. Regardless of what happens with the 115 charges, City will carry on dragging the PL and anyone else they feel like taking aim at through lengthy and costly legal arguments.

I don't think they'll ever accept they should be bound by rules that doesn't allow them to do what they want.The PL opened Pandoras box the moment they allowed states to own football clubs.
 
I’m NOT presenting this guy as the absolute gods truth but from what I’ve read elsewhere (from accounts who make it simple for me… pictures and crayons), the gist seems about right.

The big win (per City) is that the PL can’t leave onus on clubs to make sure deals are at fair market value, they can’t then turn round and say “we disagree” without showing their reasons, and they need to be more timely in that. That doesn’t mean City can say “we got a sock sponsor… £1Bn/year”.

And some minor stuff. That doesn’t impact the 115 (separate issue)?

Feels like City were either hoping for a judgement more in their favour or (more likely) being bully w@nkers and smacking the PL for even daring to charge them.

 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
I’m NOT presenting this guy as the absolute gods truth but from what I’ve read elsewhere (from accounts who make it simple for me… pictures and crayons), the gist seems about right.

The big win (per City) is that the PL can’t leave onus on clubs to make sure deals are at fair market value, they can’t then turn round and say “we disagree” without showing their reasons, and they need to be more timely in that. That doesn’t mean City can say “we got a sock sponsor… £1Bn/year”.

And some minor stuff. That doesn’t impact the 115 (separate issue)?

Feels like City were either hoping for a judgement more in their favour or (more likely) being bully w@nkers and smacking the PL for even daring to charge them.

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This guy (US lawyer) tends to write simply… which is good for me.

Seems like two wins for City, one of some note and one less so. But doesn’t affect the principle of FMV.

 
diarm said:
I just think a body like the Premier League, whose purpose should be administrating football for the good of all it's clubs, is wholly unequipped to take on a wealthy nation state in court - nor should it be expected to. This should've been nipped in the bud at the first sniff of a rumour that a country was interested in buying a club, but they didn't do that and now they're trying to apply rules designed for football clubs to bodies beyond their ability to govern. I don't see a way for the clubs to extract themselves from this now, other than scrapping what's in place and starting again.
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People say stuff like this but there's only a certain extent to how much "the best" lawyers cost.

This isn't penniless Joe Sixpack taking on an a millionaire company, this is the extremely wealthy premier league.
 
diarm said:
I just think a body like the Premier League, whose purpose should be administrating football for the good of all it's clubs, is wholly unequipped to take on a wealthy nation state in court - nor should it be expected to. This should've been nipped in the bud at the first sniff of a rumour that a country was interested in buying a club, but they didn't do that and now they're trying to apply rules designed for football clubs to bodies beyond their ability to govern. I don't see a way for the clubs to extract themselves from this now, other than scrapping what's in place and starting again.
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They should’ve stopped it under the fair and proper test yes, but I don’t think the legal clout was an issue. I thought I’d read they used same firm (different partners)?
 
Sandikan said:
People say stuff like this but there's only a certain extent to how much "the best" lawyers cost.

This isn't penniless Joe Sixpack taking on an a millionaire company, this is the extremely wealthy premier league.
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Extremely wealthy compared to Abu Dhabi?

When you read the report and see the requests for more information resulting in City swamping the league and the independent assessor with huge volumes of data to wade through, and you see the requests for greater resources for both the League and Nielsen (who won't be coming cheap in the first place) to deal with the minutia. Then you see that by winning a couple of challenges on technicalities, City will now have avenue to claim damages in the 10s of millions against the Premier League for knocking back sponsorships which were clearly and obviously bogus.

I think it's fair to worry about how much money this is costing the game and clubs. Especially knowing there is a bigger, and even more costly fight coming up - to which Abu Dhabi will presumably throwing the kitchen sink at in terms of delaying and cost mounting tactics in their attempts to get away with cheating.

Spend the money on building a new football structure with them on the outside. Not on lawyers and teams full of accountants attempting to make a case off the details nation states choose to make available.
 
Fts 74 said:
Somehow I fear it won't stop here. Regardless of what happens with the 115 charges, City will carry on dragging the PL and anyone else they feel like taking aim at through lengthy and costly legal arguments.

I don't think they'll ever accept they should be bound by rules that doesn't allow them to do what they want.The PL opened Pandoras box the moment they allowed states to own football clubs.
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Super League it is then. That's the only real option, especially if Lord Guardiola doesn't finally feck off at the end of this season.
 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
They should’ve stopped it under the fair and proper test yes, but I don’t think the legal clout was an issue. I thought I’d read they used same firm (different partners)?
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Abu Dhabi have said previously that would rather spend what it takes to hire 50 of the best lawyers in the world to spend the next 10 years sueing UEFA, rather than accept punishments for rule breaking. I see no reason to presume they won't and aren't doing the same to the PL. The leagues own assessor and the independent assessor have both asked for more resources to try and manage the work load. It's a tried and tested tactic the world over by crooks with more means than their opponents - you don't to have a better case than your opponent, just the money to stay in the fight longer than them.
 
diarm said:
Extremely wealthy compared to Abu Dhabi?

When you read the report and see the requests for more information resulting in City swamping the league and the independent assessor with huge volumes of data to wade through, and you see the requests for greater resources for both the League and Nielsen (who won't be coming cheap in the first place) to deal with the minutia. Then you see that by winning a couple of challenges on technicalities, City will now have avenue to claim damages in the 10s of millions against the Premier League for knocking back sponsorships which were clearly and obviously bogus.

I think it's fair to worry about how much money this is costing the game and clubs. Especially knowing there is a bigger, and even more costly fight coming up - to which Abu Dhabi will presumably throwing the kitchen sink at in terms of delaying and cost mounting tactics in their attempts to get away with cheating.

Spend the money on building a new football structure with them on the outside. Not on lawyers and teams full of accountants attempting to make a case off the details nation states choose to make available.
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They'll do what they can to delay and impede yes, but it's still not stopped the charges being brought, and the charges currently being judged on.
There's only so many millions you can pay to a lawyer and the league will have some powerful ones themselves.

Yes it's all a waste, but the alternative is just allowing it all. Maybe they should just do that. Let every club spend whatever they like and if a few go bust just let it happen. Let Chelsea, Newcastle and City compete for the league every year and us all squabble for 4th every few years.
 
diarm said:
Abu Dhabi have said previously that would rather spend what it takes to hire 50 of the best lawyers in the world to spend the next 10 years sueing UEFA, rather than accept punishments for rule breaking. I see no reason to presume they won't and aren't doing the same to the PL. The leagues own assessor and the independent assessor have both asked for more resources to try and manage the work load. It's a tried and tested tactic the world over by crooks with more means than their opponents - you don't to have a better case than your opponent, just the money to stay in the fight longer than them.
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To some extent yes, with little individuals. Not with fairly big rich organisations like the league.

There's only so many delays and technicalities even the best lawyers can put in place. They've failed to get the charges set aside, and they'll fail to wade off the 115 odd charges.
What punishment they'll actually get we all have no idea on, but even the richest won't evade everything.
 
Sandikan said:
To some extent yes, with little individuals. Not with fairly big rich organisations like the league.

There's only so many delays and technicalities even the best lawyers can put in place. They've failed to get the charges set aside, and they'll fail to wade off the 115 odd charges.
What punishment they'll actually get we all have no idea on, but even the richest won't evade everything.
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They've managed to have two rulings go in their favour, largely on technicalities, which will now allow them to make claims against the Premier League (and it's clubs) for stopping business they own, from paying inflated sponsorship deals. These rulings will mean the league will have to spend more money rewriting rules to iron out such technicalities and until those new rules are in place and agreed upon, clubs like City and Newcastle will likely look to take on huge and bogus sponsorship deals safe in the knowledge that they can easily have objections to them struck out down the line. City could put in place a deal that will tide them over through whatever punishment is awarded for the 115 charges and Newcastle can use this time to establish themselves as another City.

I don't think there are owners of any clubs, other than state owners, who would've spent the money to even bring the charges City brought against the league, let alone win two of them. Nobody else would be swamping the assessors in enough legal minutia to force the delays that they could then use in court to challenge rulings. They are a stain on the game and I can't understand why so much time is being spent trying to engage with them in good faith. Just pack up and restart without them.
 
diarm said:
They've managed to have two rulings go in their favour, largely on technicalities, which will now allow them to make claims against the Premier League (and it's clubs) for stopping business they own, from paying inflated sponsorship deals. These rulings will mean the league will have to spend more money rewriting rules to iron out such technicalities and until those new rules are in place and agreed upon, clubs like City and Newcastle will likely look to take on huge and bogus sponsorship deals safe in the knowledge that they can easily have objections to them struck out down the line. City could put in place a deal that will tide them over through whatever punishment is awarded for the 115 charges and Newcastle can use this time to establish themselves as another City.

I don't think there are owners of any clubs, other than state owners, who would've spent the money to even bring the charges City brought against the league, let alone win two of them. Nobody else would be swamping the assessors in enough legal minutia to force the delays that they could then use in court to challenge rulings. They are a stain on the game and I can't understand why so much time is being spent trying to engage with them in good faith. Just pack up and restart without them.
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The last line is very important.

If the punishment City get is exceptionally flimsy it'll surely just lead to some sort of Super league / breakaway, possibly excluding them.
Not sure how that'd all sit legally though! But would be hilarious if they were just left to play in a league with all the other chump clubs like Chelsea, Villa and Newcastle who have backed them and want to have a "money off".
 
They should have been suspended from the league pending resolution of the charges; it’s a joke how 6 years on from the first Football Leaks revelations they’ve still managed to evade justice and absorb inevitable ‘success’.

Everybody knows they’ve cheated, included doper Pep. Boycotting and ambushing them is the next logical step for football collectively in this country.
 
A collective football fan march on their rented stadium will make a statement.
 
Orion. said:
A collective football fan march on their rented stadium will make a statement.
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I'd do the opposite. Boycott them. Don't attend matches they're playing in, don't watch them on tv, don't engage with them on social media or read articles about them in the press. Create a website with a table without their games included have fans from proper clubs treat that like the real table.

Sky and the rest of the press won't be long changing their tune when they're being ignored.

It will never happen of course, but if the owners of our clubs aren't going to take them and their threat to sport and competition seriously, that's what fans should do.
 
diarm said:
Abu Dhabi have said previously that would rather spend what it takes to hire 50 of the best lawyers in the world to spend the next 10 years sueing UEFA, rather than accept punishments for rule breaking. I see no reason to presume they won't and aren't doing the same to the PL. The leagues own assessor and the independent assessor have both asked for more resources to try and manage the work load. It's a tried and tested tactic the world over by crooks with more means than their opponents - you don't to have a better case than your opponent, just the money to stay in the fight longer than them.
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They can… and probably have. The PL lawyers are fine, hence why key aspects of todays ruling didn’t go how City wanted.

And the worlds best lawyers won’t stop the 115 charges hearing. Or the independent panel. Or allow them to go to CAS (and choose two of the three man panel).

And the PL had c 1 billion of cash in their 23 accounts… the legal fees will sting but not going to bankrupt them.

FMV will be tweaked. APTs won’t.

City (or rather their spoiled children owners) will scream and shout and sue… but they DO need a better case. They haven’t.
 
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