Manchester City banned from CL for 2 seasons and fined 30 million euros | CAS - Ban lifted, fined 10 million

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.
 
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Adisa said:
It is ridiculous but it is a legitimate defence.
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I don’t think it is, everything I’ve read says the fact the documents are hacked is tough luck for City. If City are successful it will most likely be because UEFA are time-barred and/or the truth of the sponsorships is not as UEFA claimed.
 
Escobar said:
I can see them getting a hefty fine and that‘s it.
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If they are getting a fine they may as well get no punishment.

How they can agree to Uefas rules, blatantly cheat to avoid th and then get off on the technicality that the proof was leaked illegally is absolute nonsense.

Scrap FFP and any financial rules uefa want to bring in as well this proves any team with deep enough pockets will win in court. No benefit in following the rules.
 
BobbyManc said:
Yes UEFA that immensely powerful institution in football has no sycophantic sports journalists to call upon.



Cheeseman? Tick. Sinclair? Tick. Now we just await Keith Curle’s confirmation and it’s happy days!
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Why are you actually going to win the thing at some point?
 
ZolaWasMagic said:
Cheeseman may turn out to be right come Monday, but for the avoidance of any doubt, he DOES NOT know anything, and CAS have NOT leaked a thing. Man City also, DO NOT have a clue what the outcome is. Its quite simple, really

If he turns out to be right, it was a total guess/prediction which came up trumps. Another journo, although a bit meh, Miguel Delaney is of the opinion itll be upheld, but theyre only hunches. They do not know a thing.
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How on earth can you be so sure? You have no more surety on this statement than anyone does on the opposite.

Very few organisations are leak proof.
 
The ban has to be upheld honestly, I can't see how City get around it.

But I think the ban will be overturned, City will be left without a fine and they'll be in Europe next year.
 
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SuperiorXI said:
How can they be exonerated when the evidence is there in black and white?
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Sandikan said:
How on earth can you be so sure? You have no more surety on this statement than anyone does on the opposite.

Very few organisations are leak proof.
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Because this is a court case that possesses a lot more confidentiality than your usual transfer story. I also read today that affected parties are only told of the verdict a few hours in advance(at most a day) to give them time to make a statement which makes sense no way the CAS leak anything 3 days before the verdict is publicized. Any "leak" between now and Sunday evening/Monday morning is BS.
 
I'd say writing is on the wall with this one now, Cheeseman is putting his reputation on the line to bring this 'news' and if he turns out to be wrong...
 
BobbyManc said:
I don’t think it is, everything I’ve read says the fact the documents are hacked is tough luck for City. If City are successful it will most likely be because UEFA are time-barred and/or the truth of the sponsorships is not as UEFA claimed.
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I don't understand how they would be time barred. Aren't the disputed sponsorships continuing to this day?
 
The market is going to change over night if City are completely cleared. Expect the likes of City, PSG and anyone who can be bankrolled by willing individual owners to completely disregard any attempts to uphold FFP.

Wouldn't be surprised if Dortmund manage to whip up the bidding war for Sancho they wanted this summer.
 
Pep has gone from confident to now convinced Manchester City will escape Champions League ban. I presume he knows the owners have paid their way out of a deserved ban?
 
groovyalbert said:
The market is going to change over night if City are completely cleared. Expect the likes of City, PSG and anyone who can be bankrolled by willing individual owners to completely disregard any attempts to uphold FFP.

Wouldn't be surprised if Dortmund manage to whip up the bidding war for Sancho they wanted this summer.
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I dont understand this. If City is cleared it just mean that CAS doesnt think City lied or failed to cooperate with Uefa. Or, that Uefa didnt use admissable evidence.

City already had their FFP punishment.
 
Black Rick said:
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.
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Very good post. Completely agree.

For me, City have two points that mean they may get away with this:

1) The evidence/smoking gun was a hacked email. Usually if someone has been hacked then the evidence is inadmissible since it is like the Police kicking down your door and just searching your house when they feel like it. If UEFA built the entire case around the email and/or the email is central to the case then I can see it being thrown out for being based on inadmissible evidence.

2) FFP breaks EU competition laws. At best FFP is a grey area since it is essentially a cartel system.
 
Gee Male said:
I don't understand how they would be time barred. Aren't the disputed sponsorships continuing to this day?
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No the disputed sponsorships related to an earlier period, there’s no allegations of anything after 2014 I believe. City have already settled with UEFA for this time period and the earlier breaches in 2012 may be out of UEFA’s reach entirely. If you read the first CAS case City put this case forward (but CAS refused to adjudicate basically as UEFA had not officially made any decision for them to rule on by then) so it’s clearly going to have been part of the second appeal.
 
I would not read much into these journo leaks.

Quite a few of them have been in City's pockets over the last decade. Have we all forgotten about all these puff pieces about City's great academy and the great charity they have been doing from the usual suspects.
 
Black Rick said:
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.
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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.
 
If some of the journos who don't literally worship at the feet of City say they've escaped the ban then I'll start believing it. Not that it would surprise anyone if they get away with it, because its all crooked.
 
Irrational. said:
If City get away with this, UEFA and FFP will crumble and be seen to have no backbone. It is in UEFA's best interest for the full extent of the punishment to be upheld, otherwise they will be seen as a complete laughing stock.
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UEFA have a history of banning clubs and having to backdown. They won’t crumble, just carry on at the toothless corrupt organisation we all know they are. Literally no change.
 
TheNewEra said:
The ban has to be upheld honestly, I can't see how City get around it.

But I think the ban will be overturned, City will be left without a fine and they'll be in Europe next year.
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they will still get the big fine, which means that in the eyes of UEFA and City it’s a win win.UEFA can say they were guilty - just look at the big fine. City will play in the CL and of course the fine doesn’t matter at all to them.

everyone’s happy.

apart from the rest of the football world of course.
 
Sean from Enderby...the guy who always calls Leicester team news seems to think Cheeseman is wrong.
Posting the below. So we'll see


Man City briefing that they have beaten the ban. My extremely credible source says that's FAKE NEWS!
 
Judas said:
If some of the journos who don't literally worship at the feet of City say they've escaped the ban then I'll start believing it. Not that it would surprise anyone if they get away with it, because its all crooked.
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The thing is though, while Cheesy might be a Man City voicepiece, what would he have to gain from falsely saying they've got away with it, 2 days before it's announced?

Just making it up wouldn't influence anything, and he's look an absolute dolt if he's wrong. So why risk it?
 
Sandikan said:
Sean from Enderby...the guy who always calls Leicester team news seems to think Cheeseman is wrong.
Posting the below. So we'll see


Man City briefing that they have beaten the ban. My extremely credible source says that's FAKE NEWS!
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Jeez, is his source Donald Trump??
 
ZolaWasMagic said:
Cheeseman may turn out to be right come Monday, but for the avoidance of any doubt, he DOES NOT know anything, and CAS have NOT leaked a thing. Man City also, DO NOT have a clue what the outcome is. Its quite simple, really

If he turns out to be right, it was a total guess/prediction which came up trumps. Another journo, although a bit meh, Miguel Delaney is of the opinion itll be upheld, but theyre only hunches. They do not know a thing.
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That’s now how I understand it. CAS come to a decision, and inform both parties of it some days before they officially settle upon a verdict in order to allow either side a chance to raise anything they believe to be especially egregious or erroneous in its judgement. That’s standard practice. Then, they’ll inform them of the final decision a couple of hours before it’s made public. Even before that, I think it’s a safe bet City’s lawyers and UEFA’s lawyers would have had a good idea of how things went.
 
Sandikan said:
Sean from Enderby...the guy who always calls Leicester team news seems to think Cheeseman is wrong.
Posting the below. So we'll see


Man City briefing that they have beaten the ban. My extremely credible source says that's FAKE NEWS!
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your credible sources that tell some bloke, who then posts on a forum. OK.:lol:
 
The spokesperson for CAS on Monday....

'Well from what we can see from the case is that the evidence is just not clear. Now excuse me why I drive my new Ferrari to the airport. I have a plane to catch to my new luxury apartment in Abu Dhabi'

:)

Money got them in to this mess and it can get them out of it. Anyone can be bribed. We've seen that with Blatter and co.
 
Does anyone really expect this to be upheld? Covid has created an atmosphere in which general justice does not thrive. They'll get a suspended sentence.
 
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