Yep. I understand its hard for City fans to look past self interest as a motivation.
Manchester City banned from CL for 2 seasons and fined 30 million euros | CAS - Ban lifted, fined 10 million
- Thread starter roonster09
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Nope, and if you had actually read it, you’d see the value of the sponsorship is (a) judged to be immaterial to the case (b) deemed at fair value by both UEFA and CAS.
Your second point just describes pretty much every single legal case ever. There’s a burden of proof. Court decides if it is met. UEFA did not come anywhere close to it. At no point do you see CAS wrangling with a deliberation and the theme throughout is there is very little evidence on which UEFA base their claims. It was evidently a simple decision to make for CAS. Of course City may have been guilty, but CAS basically UEFA’s case was weak, and City’s evidence submitted against it made it especially untenable.
Read it yourself. Might take you longer than it took me but you’ll learn a few things that might ameliorate your bitterness somewhat.
Wait, I'm confused. Twitter told me that City had been exonerated, sorry, EXONERATED, and never did anything wrong.
Surely it's not more nuanced than that? It's just 170 pages of exonerated in various languages and fonts?
Surely it's not more nuanced than that? It's just 170 pages of exonerated in various languages and fonts?
Exactly, and as such, it’s an unsatisfying conclusion. UEFA presented a weak case, with poor evidence and CAS have given a ruling on the information presented and what they were allowed to judge on.
It doesn’t mean City didn’t cheat. We are arguing the same thing here. It’s just you seem to think it’s a lot more positive than it is.
There is no “nope” about it. It’s an opinion based on what we see and an interpretation of that. To me, it’s just as relevant to City’s insane rise as anything else. I don’t really care what CAS think about it.
UEFA not being able to prove anything and/or presenting a poor case is just that. It’s a proclamation based on nothing, and it proves nothing.
UEFA got played and City were able to win a lot of trophies and build insanely quickly. The relief is that you played the system and got off with it.
Again though, I feel like I need to stress that I have no objection to the owners investing private money and nothing against City fans and the love they have for their club. I am not being abusive or bitter at all.
I just think that City have clearly cheated and gamed the system and this report only confirms what we already knew ie. It’s almost impossible to prove and the case against them was mismanaged and weak.
I just think that City have clearly cheated and gamed the system and this report only confirms what we already knew ie. It’s almost impossible to prove and the case against them was mismanaged and weak.
There's no way Uefa went all this way on a whim. Theres more to this than we are being told.
Also of it was complete BS City would have welcomed Uefa to look closer at their books as there was nothing to hide right? You don't half look guilty when you act the way they did.
Also of it was complete BS City would have welcomed Uefa to look closer at their books as there was nothing to hide right? You don't half look guilty when you act the way they did.
Agreed.
What innocent party obstructs an investigation so badly that they are fined £10m!
We're not arguing the same thing, you made a point about inflated sponsorships and suggested CAS did not look at that or did not have all the information at hand. They did. UEFA always have done too. That was not what was at hand here, but CAS did make a ruling that it was fair value in relation to a point City made that, namely that the fact it was fair value meant UEFA's claims were incoherent (the inference is why would Etihad/Etisalat break the rules to pay sponsorships that were fair value to all involved). CAS agreed with the former point but not that such an inference should be drawn.
You say UEFA could not prove anything and presented a poor case, but are not making the obvious conclusion from that: that the case was weak and poorly presented because the claims they are making are not factual (and actually it was very well presented for such a weak case, as you'd expect with the resources UEFA have). Read the case as well please, you'll see that CAS did not just say "UEFA have next to no evidence", they explicitly talk about the evidence and audited accounts City submitted which made many of the claims unlikely and improbable too.
UEFA had 6 leaked emails out of context, out of 5.5m hacked, and one of them was doctored by combining two emails, and another was found that even if what was inferred from the email transpired it would not have contravened any rules as it was two years before their prohibition. UEFA's case was that therefore this practice, which they could not establish ever even happened in the first place, must have continued after the two years, with literally no evidence. Put bias aside, and consider how ridiculous that is, and that may help you to realise how silly many of UEFA's claims are.
Someone hacked 5.5m emails from City, and out of all that they found 6 which potentially contained underhand information. I guarantee if every big club had 5.5m emails hacked we could also find at least 6 which, out of context, suggest something dubious is going on. CAS heard the case based on those 6 emails and comfortably ruled in City's favour.
That's a great way of admitting you haven't read the case. If you care so much about what we are, or are not, being told, read the case.
Ok, lets come at this another way.
1) Why would UEFA have an agenda against Man City to the point of going after them in this way?
2) Why would Man City obstruct an investigation into their finances?
3) Why would the only sponsors offering that kind of money be so explicitly linked to Man City’s owners?
4) Why would Mancini talk about a second salary?
5) Why would certain players have no links to foreign sides over their entire City careers? (Like Aguero, an Argentine and elite striker, never having a credible link to Barca or Real?)
6) Why would CAS suggest that City should be used as an example for a “severe breach” after showing “blatant disregard“ for the rules of FFP?
7) What benefit do UEFA have from potentially excluding one of the bigger teams from their prestige competition for two years?
I mean, you can keep saying that sponsorships were deemed to have been fair (why they would be at that stage I have no idea), that time barred information wouldn’t have mattered and that the evidence and “audited accounts” were sufficient to make a decisive and irrefutable conclusion, but there are too many questions and it’s too far sizeable a stretch to believe that this was all a petty squabble.
What CAS have done is made a ruling on what they have been presented, nothing more, nothing less.
Just be happy that City have escaped punishment. I think that’s the only decisive and clear victory here.
How can anyone come up with that they were found not guilty?
OJ was guilty but you know how that went..
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...city-over-sponsor-money-time-barred-cas-rules
OJ was guilty but you know how that went..
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...city-over-sponsor-money-time-barred-cas-rules
Isn't it mad how the Guardian article can portray the ruling in such a different light to our esteemed Man City supporting Abu Dhabi bootlickers on here?
I especially like this bit:
"The Cas panel of three European lawyers decided by a majority 2-1, however, that it would not consider the legitimacy of those Etisalat payments, because they were made more than five years before the CFCB charges were brought in May 2019, so were “time-barred”"
Time-barred. So not considered. The lads on here would have you believe that the whole thing was thrown out as CAS sang songs of great victory about City's innocence.
Can't believe City fans think they have been exonerated. You got away with it, nothing more.
I'm afraid you've fallen into David Conn's trap here. David has more or less ignored the Etihad findings (which constituted 90+% of the alleged disguised equity, i.e. almost the entire case), because CAS' verdict on this is clear, see para. 289 "there is no doubt that Etihad fully complied with its payment obligations towards MCFC." So instead David has focused on the Etisalat findings because here he's able to inject more doubt purely due to the fact that CAS returned no judgment due to time bar.
On Etisalat, what David has done is to recite the verdict on the Etisalat payments from UEFA's AC verbatim to try to make readers think that these findings are irrefutable and that CAS agreed with the AC's findings but was only prevented from confirming City's guilt due to time bar. Unfortunately for David, and maybe for some readers, that's not true on many levels. If David had been genuinely interested in writing a balanced article he would've included the following:
1) City's rebuttal of the AC's findings on the Etisalat payments that are included in the CAS verdict;
2) CAS made absolutely no judgment or comment on the Etisalat payment verdict because it was time barred. It did not say "guilty but time barred". It didn't pass any judgment because it deemed, due to time bar, that there was no case to answer.
However, if you want to play the "what if?" game, if you remove the time bar, UEFA would've been left trying to prove a charge on the Etisalat payments based on the same 6 emails they used, unsuccessfully, to try to prove the charge on the Etihad payments. Of those 6 emails, one was from 2 years before FFP existed and one was doctored. City were able to prove innocence on the Etihad payments due to accounting evidence presented at CAS. UEFA could not refute that. Let's be honest, the same would've happened for the Etisalat charges.
Ultimately this case boils down to the fact that UEFA have effectively accused City, and by extension multiple other international companies and accounting firms, of accounting fraud. They made those accusations based on, quite literally, 6 emails. That's it. The problem for David and several other journalists is that there's almost 2 years of articles and tweets out there written by them that have been demonstrated to be laughably untrue. This makes them look rather silly. They have two options: 1) put their hands up and admit they pre-judged a case based on incomplete or inaccurate information; 2) burrow deeper into the hole they've created for the past two years and gaslight readers with nonsense about technicalities. Unfortunately it seems that most are choosing the latter.
I would genuinely implore you to read the CAS verdict. This is a primary source document. If this case has taught anyone anything, it's not to rely on out of context snippets of information. It's 93 pages and it'll take you a couple of hours, but it's worth it.
My understanding is that a vast swath of evidence was time barred because UEFA failed to submit an application in time for the evidence to be admissible.
How this happened is the question I want answered.
Shame on UEFA.
How this happened is the question I want answered.
Shame on UEFA.
No you’re correct, City should have been punished in the face of such overwhelming evidence as ‘why hasn’t Aguero been linked to Real Madrid or Barcelona?’. If only UEFA had raised such points. Although given the amount of times ‘no evidence’ appears in the verdict, they might have done and I just missed that bit as another point where CAS basically said ‘they’ve made this claim, but there’s very little to back it up’
I see Abu Dhabi has paid off not only people in the media but hired people to impersonate City fans on here as well. There is absolutely no way any sane person spends time on a rival club's forum to explain City's obviously bogus sponsorships. They were making money similar to Barcelona and Real Madrid even 10 years back. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how corrupt this is.
The FT article sums it up nicely:
https://www.ft.com/content/1223e3d0-3f15-41b4-9722-2d452e57fd34
I mean, why would they lie?!
https://www.ft.com/content/1223e3d0-3f15-41b4-9722-2d452e57fd34
I mean, why would they lie?!
Rather annoyingly it appears Jose was right.
haha, got away with it?
direct from the CAS ruling :
"in the absence of particulars as argued by MCFC, UEFA's case with respect to funding being channeled through 3rd parties is based on innuendo. And does not meet the requisite standard of proof"
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They also mention how the accusation "came from a poisonous tree"
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One of the charges of siphooning (Etisalat) was dropped due to a questionable definition of time-barring. Man City more or less admitted that one. Man City registered false information about payments after the time bar, but two of the three arbitrators chose to count only the time of payment, which was before the time bar.
In the second and larger case (Etihad, where everyone knows what really happened), there was basically word against word of Citys own people writing emails and witnessing before Cas. The same two arbitrators chose to believe the latter. I think most people can see which ‘tree’ was the most ‘poisonous’ in reality.
A strange thing that two of the three arbitrators where suggested by City, including the chairman.
One thing we know for certain is that there is no corruption involved, because that could never happen with UEFA, nor with the Mansour famiglia.
That is normal process. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It I is the way it is always done.
Anyway, nice to see not all journos are towing the clickbait lines
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ration-18688496.amp?__twitter_impression=true
The City fans in here are like Russians praising a Putin election victory.
The alternative is rival fans upset that UEFA cannot make severe allegations against a club and punish them on the basis of claims which, if you read the CAS judgement, are often literally lacking any evidence whatsoever. It’s basically out of context emails, and they’ve made huge inferences from them. I don’t know why rival fans are so upset by the concept that courts require proof, it’s hardly a novel development.
I suppose there is some article 847, paragraph number #getfecked that makes them immune to any new evidence that could appear ?
Are all city fans this deluded? I don't think its possible. I mean, I understand football is tribal. But the level of denial getting silly now.
If I was a city fan my response at this stage would be "feck it, we got away with it". Not "we are completely innocent". It is beyond ridiculous.
Ah the old bait and switch
Some of them have decided to go full OJ Simpson, it seems.
Everyone knows they cook the books, everyone knows their "legitimate" sponsorship deals are fishy as feck, everyone knows they pay their employers more than it says on the slip - and so forth.
In fact, everyone now has access to certain communications that you have to be either genuinely idiotic or plainly dishonest to interpret as anything but what they plainly are - and, yes, there you have it.
Play up the "the system is fecked" angle, by all means. Claim FFP is a joke - sure, go right ahead. Even try to portray your filthy little club's shenanigans as some kind of "stance" against the supposed fecked-up nature of UEFA and/or the "aristocracy" (a "stance" bankrolled for reasons that have nothing to do with football by extremely dubious people - but yeah, why not).
But claim that this laughable verdict actually proves your "innocence" - no, that's a bit too much, sorry.
Best part about the new leaks is the one where they try and claim Simon Pearce has ‘control’ over some sovereign wealth funds but the email actually just shows he’s referring to a corporate box.
The City fans in this thread are a bunch of irritating cnuts. The long and short of it is that they were irrelevant and are now at the top thanks to winning the lottery. Congratulations.
Do you understand what the fruits of a poisonous tree term means in a legal sense? I'd guess not.
This one just keeps on walking like a duck, and quacking like a duck….
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...chester-city-emails-cast-doubt-on-cas-verdict
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...chester-city-emails-cast-doubt-on-cas-verdict
One of the new emails was sent by Pearce in December 2013, from his Executive Affairs Authority address to Peter Baumgartner, then Etihad’s chief commercial officer, with the subject “payments”. Pearce set out that under its sponsorship agreement Etihad had owed City £31.5m for the 2012-13 season, and £67.5m for the £2013-14 season, a total of £99m.
“So we should be receiving a total of £99m – of which you will provide £8m,” he wrote to Baumgartner. ”I therefore should have forwarded £91m and instead have sent you only £88.5m. I effectively owe you £2.5m."
Pretty Damning considering the following:
Pearce’s evidence to Cas about the City’s finance officers writing in their emails that only £8m was coming from Etihad, was that the arrangements had caused “some confusion among individuals at the club” and “a misunderstanding that ADUG was making funds available to Etihad”.
This is well worth a read.
No journalistic spin, just a level-headed unbiased legal opinion. Like I said, anyone who actually reads the details of the final award would find it impossible to say City should have been punished. As a layman, it was clear, to the CAS panel it was clear and to this legal expert it was clear. To Klopp, Mourinho, journalists and rival fans, apparently less so.
Apart from one of the people on the CAS panel who thought they were guilty.
This is well worth a read.
You seriously read that summary and think that nothing in it arouses suspicion? Quack, quack, quack……I'll accept that a combination of time-barring, poorly presented evidence and an assumption that no witnesses could possibly be lying were enough for a 2-1 verdict in City's favour. But it still waddles.
You seriously read that summary and think that nothing in it arouses suspicion? Quack, quack, quack……I'll accept that a combination of time-barring, poorly presented evidence and an assumption that no witnesses could possibly be lying were enough for a 2-1 verdict in City's favour. But it still waddles.