Non Chelsea Champions League 2022/23

[Mark Kelly]

It's lovely that London's fifth tier side has won Europe's third tier competition  and it's great that a supporter base up in arms when we didn't let a supporter on a train whilst they were throwing one under the wheels of another one had their day in the sun which they spoiled by indulging in hooliganism  once more 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Mark Kelly

[Bob Singleton]

From today's Daily Telegraph (may be behind a pay wall for some)
 

The truth about Manchester City’s legal battles over FFP? Uefa blew it

By James Ducker

6–8 minutes

---

Should the Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin present Manchester City with Europe’s greatest club trophy before midnight in Istanbul on Saturday he will do so on the third anniversary of another seismic day in the history of both club and governing body.

It was on June 10, 2020, in Lausanne, that a three-day hearing concluded to define the future of City. The club’s team of 11 lawyers and one expert witness in the room that day had, as it would turn out, prevailed. A two year-ban from Uefa competition would be overturned. A €30 million (£25.6 million) fine cancelled and replaced with a €10 million (£8.5 million) fine for a separate single charge. The credibility of Uefa’s financial fair play rules would be in ruins.

Just 15 months earlier, Uefa had lost a case at the same Court of Arbitration for Sport [Cas] to Paris St-Germain. Defeat to City served notice that the nation-state clubs, with their unlimited wealth, and legal power it brought, were too powerful an adversary for Uefa and its lawmakers.

The infamous threat in one of the leaked emails that formed the centre of the City case felt prophetic. The club’s Abu Dhabi owners would, it was alleged, unleash 50 lawyers for 10 years at the cost of €30 million, rather than bow to Uefa’s rules. As it turned out, City had won in a much shorter timeframe. The Uefa process had banned and fined the club on February 14, 2020. By June 10 of that year, City had won the case on appeal at Cas, even if it was not until the following month that the result would be declared.

When it was there was disbelief at first, then recriminations. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, then chairman of Bayern Munich, said that Uefa had blown it. “The Uefa panel responsible for Champions League matters didn’t do a great job, it’s looking like,” he told AP. “What I heard from different sources is that it was not [well] organised in advance.”

Since winning that appeal, City have reached two Champions League finals, the first of which in 2021 was in the first season of their original two-season ban. In the interim, Uefa has faced the European Super League rebellion. It remains a governing body fighting for its very existence. Yet in the VIP hospitality areas of the Ataturk Stadium on Saturday there will be many in Uefa suits asking the same question. How did Uefa lose this case to City?

In the words of Uefa’s own counsel, the seven breaches of which City were originally found guilty were “the most serious” its independent process had considered, when it came to the “seriousness, repetition and intentional nature of the conduct”. City, Uefa said, had overstated sponsorship revenue by around £204 million between 2012 and 2016. The fine and ban were designed to reflect that and to “protect the integrity of Uefa club competition”. Yet those measures were defeated within four months by City’s lawyers, who won on a majority of 2-1 by the Cas panel.  

The Uefa process began with the investigatory chamber (IC) of Uefa’s club financial control body collecting evidence and then an adjudicatory chamber (AC) reached judgement. Both were independent of the governing body and for good reason. As with all football disciplinary matters, great and small, the establishing of independence from the executive and its politics is crucial. Yet when the case went to appeal at Cas, it reverted to Uefa’s in-house legal department to defend the work of the IC and the AC. It did not succeed in making the case.

Among other things, Uefa’s lawyers did not object to the nomination by City of the Portuguese lawyer Rui Botica Santos as chairman or indeed ask for that position to be chosen independently. Both sides were then permitted to select one panellist each. Cas three-person panels only require a majority verdict.

City would subsequently add witnesses, as well as evidence, not made available to the original AC hearing. “The theory is a nonsense,” City argued, that it had provided sponsorship rights to Abu Dhabi companies Etisalat and Etihad, for a cost that was then supplemented by its ownership, Abu Dhabi United Group. “It would,” City said, “amount to a pointless, self-defeating conspiracy.” In the end the question of whether City were guilty or not came down in no small part to an argument over whether certain breaches fell within the five-year timeframe Uefa rules stipulated.

Uefa’s legal team lost that argument at Cas. The alleged supplementing by City of payments through Etisalat, a telecommunications business, was judged time-barred. The corresponding charge regarding the Etihad payments was partially time-barred and not proven in the view of the majority of the panel. The Cas panel would decide that City had failed in their duty to cooperate, for which the club received that €10 million fine.

City’s lawyers fought every step of the way. Did the club benefit from the sense of urgency to get the case settled in those first six months of 2020? City’s ban from the Champions League was looming the following season as European football bodies tried to complete – or resolve – the Covid-wrecked 2019-2020 campaign. In early March, nine Premier League clubs including the rest of the big six, applied to Cas to block any possible delay to City’s ban. But City never applied for a stay of execution. The club, by that point, appeared to want the case heard quickly.

Uefa’s lawyers also seemed fixated on a swift resolution, at the same time calling new evidence from City “implausible, misleading and lacking credibility”. Was this the time for Uefa’s lawyers figuratively to put their foot on the ball and slow the process down? The case headed inexorably for that June hearing and a Cas panel of three, of which two had been selected by Uefa’s opposition.

At the hearing there were 12 present on City’s side. From Uefa just four in the room, and two British counsel attending by video-conference call. It would be a most damaging defeat for Uefa, and its failure to enforce its own rules would contribute in no small part to the disquiet that prompted the Super League breakaway. Now it is the Premier League’s legal team that faces City’s lawyers, who already have one notable scalp. City, needless to say, deny any wrongdoing.

[Mark Kelly]

Why we don't just point to this and tell them to stick FFP up their arse is beyond me. 

[Ham]

6 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Why we don't just point to this and tell them to stick FFP up their arse is beyond me. 

What they did wasn't a breach of FFP per se. It was fraud. Much more serious. 

[Mark Kelly]

40 minutes ago, Ham said:

What they did wasn't a breach of FFP per se. It was fraud. Much more serious. 

The point is why play to their arbitrary rules when they cannot even be bothered to enforce them? They managed OK banning us didn't they? 

[chara]

30 minutes ago, Ham said:

What they did wasn't a breach of FFP per se. It was fraud. Much more serious. 

Still bemused over all the issues.....HMG hammered Chelsea to it's knees with absolutely no mercy...the residue of that scorched earth policy we are still dealing with today.

Citeh choose their own "judges" get off on a technicality basically and there is silence from the EPL/FA while the likes of Derby  get punished and I mean punished not a small change slap on the wrist as meted out to Citeh.

Club protests were ignored and Citeh just roll on.

Tunnel Vision  Football  I have no problem with the on field performances as such...disregarding everything else some of the play is breathtaking both individually and teamwise but given the resources (of all kinds !) no less is expected (and demanded) but the baggage and criminal fraud surrounding a club I once felt was a true Football stalwart gives one "pause" of a hit a brick wall impact.

As ever the real Football Fans across the spectrum are the one's who pay a steep price.

[Bob Singleton]

5 minutes ago, chara said:

[SNIP]

Citeh choose their own "judges" get off on a technicality basically and there is silence from the EPL/FA while the likes of Derby  get punished and I mean punished not a small change slap on the wrist as meted out to Citeh.

[SNIP]

Actually the PL are attempting to do something... it's just that like anything else involving lawyers, it'll take time and money.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/man-city-ffp-fraud-news-premier-league-b2279693.html

[chara]

5 minutes ago, Bob Singleton said:

Actually the PL are attempting to do something... it's just that like anything else involving lawyers, it'll take time and money.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/man-city-ffp-fraud-news-premier-league-b2279693.html

Thanks Bob as ever..

Miss stuff over here plus time in the ether wilderness! and was trying to express my impressions in an overall picture...btw..tried to pm ☮️you before my "disconnect"  but seems your box is full?

[My Blood Is Blue]

4 hours ago, chara said:

Thanks Bob as ever..

Miss stuff over here plus time in the ether wilderness! and was trying to express my impressions in an overall picture...btw..tried to pm ☮️you before my "disconnect"  but seems your box is full?

Hmm… let me look into that, everyone should have plenty of space.

[asvaberg]

A few years back we beated ManC in the CL final.

Seems to me the media has already forgotten all about it in how they hype how great it is to have ManC in a CL final today.

[Mark Kelly]

44 minutes ago, asvaberg said:

A few years back we beated ManC in the CL final.

Seems to me the media has already forgotten all about it in how they hype how great it is to have ManC in a CL final today.

There was a headline in the Daily Mail the other day detailing how City lost the last final because he meddled with his side . No mention that 1-0 flattered them . We were not a footnote to that evening we comprehensively outplayed them and the UK media act like we're nothing .

[Backbiter]

If we end up with either Lukaku or Martinez up front next season we are doomed.

[Mark Kelly]

10 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

If we end up with either Lukaku or Martinez up front next season we are doomed.

Both dreadful , absolutely dreadful.

[Original 21]

5 minutes ago, Backbiter said:

If we end up with either Lukaku or Martinez up front next season we are doomed.

Too right. We’ll be lucky to offload Lukaku. That was a very poor effort at the end.

[Backbiter]

1 minute ago, Mark Kelly said:

Both dreadful , absolutely dreadful.

Lukaku was laughably bad, but still offered more than Martinez

[Mark Kelly]

BT commentary , a commentary team who always want whoever we're playing to beat us , They've done it ! City have done it!  That commentator on BT is an absolute dickhead.

[Ham]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

BT commentary , a commentary team who always want whoever we're playing to beat us , They've done it ! City have done it!  That commentator on BT is an absolute dickhead.

"We'd firstly like to thank our wonderful legal team without whom we wouldn't be here today".

 

[chara]

11 minutes ago, Ham said:

"We'd firstly like to thank our wonderful legal team without whom we wouldn't be here today".

 

Gold..pure Gold.

[chara]

44 minutes ago, chara said:

Gold..pure Gold.

,,,,, and a word from our sponsors.

[Ham]

23 minutes ago, chara said:

,,,,, and a word from our sponsors.

"Sponsors"

[Michael Tucker]

7 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

BT commentary , a commentary team who always want whoever we're playing to beat us , They've done it ! City have done it!  That commentator on BT is an absolute dickhead.

Pep says. It Was Written In The Stars! No wonder I detest him! No doubt that he can coach (and certainly spend lots of money!!), but I can't tolerate him. 

[My Blood Is Blue]

8 hours ago, Backbiter said:

If we end up with either Lukaku or Martinez up front next season we are doomed.

Yeah, they were awful. I really hope our scouting team were watching last night and quickly put a line through Martinez name.

I don’t think we’ll have a choice but to suffer through a season of Lukaku, Inter won’t pay the money and nobody else is going to want him, especially for the money we and he would want. Biggest problem about this is, if we sign another striker to play ahead of him, he’s going to be massively disruptive.

[Holymoly]

12 hours ago, asvaberg said:

A few years back we beated ManC in the CL final.

Seems to me the media has already forgotten all about it in how they hype how great it is to have ManC in a CL final today.

I seem to remember in that game it was all about City and there was palpable disappointment when we ended up winning. Brace yourself for at least a week of national celebrations in the press over City crawling over the line last night. We remain tarred by the brush of being the first club to be acquired by a sugar daddy. Remember our first win against Bayern was continually overshadowed by John Terry changing into his strip to accept the trophy.

If City were a foreign club I guarantee they would be targetted by the British media for their financial obfuscations. Even St Pep was not immune to criticism when he was managing Bayern. But now of course he'll be accorded British citizenship after last night. City of course have done it "the correct way" by keeping a manager in post for seven years and have thus "deserved" the trophy. The fact they were a League One club that bought their way into the Premier League in the first place is but a heavily redacted footnote.

Fair do's to the players last night. Of all the top 6 or 7 teams they are the ones I am prepared to accept mimic Manure's treble winners and thus piss them off big time, however as a club I sincerely hope they reap the whirlwind regarding the outstanding legal battle. I fear they have now become the media darlings and the Premier League is unlikely to arrive at any decision that tarnishes the "product" and the knock on popularity and/or integrity of the league abroad.

Anyway, enough said about Abu Dhabi United, move on.

[Mark Kelly]

God knows how Liverpool supporters are going to feel , first its Thursday night football and now City according to the papers are the greatest team the world has ever seen.

The Samaritans will be doing overtime.

[boratsbrother]

4 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

 

I don’t think we’ll have a choice but to suffer through a season of Lukaku

We do have a choice!

We play hardball with him and tell him thar he will never play for us again and that it's up to him and his agent  to find another club and take whatever wages they offer. If he refuses and wants to throw away the last year's of his career, then so be it, we stick him in the reserves and let him rot.

Having this sulky, useless lump of lard hanging around  impressionable young players would be far worse in the long-term than us taking the financial hit now.