UEFA

[The Blue Blooded Maniac]

Funny fuckers aren't they.

https://1.ftb.al/U5YQ4shW43

[The Blue Blooded Maniac]

Manchester City BANNED from the Champions League

UEFA have announced that Manchester City have been banned from the Champions League for the next two seasons.

They have also been fined â,¬30 million due to ‘committing serious breaches of UEFA Licensing and Financial Fair Play regulations by overstating their sponsorship revenue in their accounts’.

The decision was made by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the Club Financial Control Body, who have also accused the club of failing to co-operate with the investigation.

City have the right to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

[Hesperus]

Hopefully CAS rule in our favour. 2 seasons is very harsh.

Let’s hope our owners spend billions into setting up a rival to UEFA and end the corrupt bastards once and for all.

[KunDB]

This is a concerted attempt by UEFA to ruin City and protect their status quo.

City need to unload full blast and take them to the European Courts. This is a breach of competition rules.

[Hesperus]

If this is upheld it will have huge implications for the club. I’m pretty stunned by it.

[lee]

Take these bastards to the cleaners

Cant wait for our chumps league match now

[KunDB]

If this is upheld it will have huge implications for the club. I’m pretty stunned by it.

Thats what UEFA intend, huge damage to City.

2 years lost CL revenues. Top players spurning City as no CL. Current top players maybe leaving or not renewing contracts. Pep might leave at end of contract now. FFP restricting City from fighting back to CL standard due to lack of revenues to buy and pay top players. Reduced sponsorship revenues.

This is a massive financial attack on City by the corrupt football establishment, who will be celebrating it tonight.

[gavin]

There's a long way to go here. The most noticeable part of City's statement to me is that they will "in the first instance, commence proceedings with the Court of Arbitration for Sport at the earliest opportunity."

If CAS don't sort this then it looks like there will be real court action and rightly so.

[Stephen Paul]

We will end up stronger

Fuck Uefa

[Paddy]

If we lose the appeal we could face action by the premier league  resulting in a points deduction and relegation

[Rowley Birkin QC]

I really couldn't give a shit.

[goat]

so thats just two extra years we wont be winning champs league

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Okay... I'll expand on the above... 

It would seem, on the face of it, that we have been caught 'breaking' the (sponsorship) rules - as conjured up by those fine and honest fellows at UEFA.

Unless City have some hard evidence that contradicts the hacked emails (and if they have, why haven't they already presented it to the 'investigation'?) - then I can't see the Arbitration of Sport lot finding in our favour, aside from possibly reducing the severity of the penalty.

The FFP rules were deliberately set up to trap us, in my opinion - following the Arab take over, and once the old cartel of 'elite' European clubs realised they were under threat. Even though, of course the big Spanish and French clubs, and just about every Italian club had been finding back-door ways of funding themselves for decades. Well, it's worked. Sadly, thanks to some indiscrete emails and poor IT security at City, UEFA have succeeded in nobbling us. And worse still, a Premiership points reduction now looms...

With some critical players coming to the end of their careers (Aguero and Silva) this couldn't have happened at a worst time. We may well struggle to attract the top class players for a while now. Same scenario might apply to whoever comes after Pep. The next two to three years could be difficult. The club will have to be resourceful to minimise the damage and at least keep us competitive - ready for when we come out the other side.

The game is now quite bent in my opinion. But like I said, I genuinely don't give a shit. CTID. They will never take the Aguero moment from us - or the 6 - 1 at the Swamp. Fuck 'em.

[lee]

Fookin shite that champions league..Lets win the prem next season

[Hesperus]

https://apple.news/AQMyHPGQoRTqRayFrrHnZ3w

Not a good read in the independent on what we’ve allegedly been up to.

[KunDB]

https://apple.news/AQMyHPGQoRTqRayFrrHnZ3w

Not a good read in the independent on what we’ve allegedly been up to.

Yes but it reads in parts as a straight feed from UEFA*. As said in the article the battle may be lost but the war has begun hopefully.

1  The basic point is that FFP is unfair and a clear restriction of trade that would not be tolerated in any other business and I expect the courts would rule anticompetitive.

2  The current point of City circumventing FFP rules and withholding information from UEFA, I would like to see more constructive engagement from City to prove the CFO emails were not what has been cited and to disprove the substantive argument of UEFA i.e. Sheikh Mansour and ADUG sponsoring City directly rather than Etihad Airline. It is not enough to say the information was illegally obtained by a hacker, when UEFA has followed up and found that very same information and City provided insufficient evidence to disprove it and not been provided with it. Stop focussing the defence primarily on process breaches, support it with a defence of some substance. Apologise for the insult to a deceased person.

If the former is correct the latter is irrelevant naturally. However, they will be adjudicated the other way round i.e. if City fail at CAS on point 1 then they will refer it to the courts for adjudication on point 2.

The battle lines are drawn and UEFA may be confident of point one but they should be fearful of point 2 in my opinion.

*"No room for compromise there. There was worse to come. One of the focuses of City’s anger is the investigatory chamber (IC), the body that looks into breaches of the financial rules. When Cliff’s reaction to the death of Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former chair of the IC, was made public, shock waves went through Nyon: “1 down, 6 to go,” the lawyer wrote. It sent a chill down the spines of the members of the committee. No one likes to hear anyone is wishing them dead." and

*"Uefa became convinced that City were bent on destroying the organisation and that the resources and power of Abu Dhabi would be employed to that end. The war was on."

[Rowley Birkin QC]

I have to say, I think City have been naive about all this. Should have covered our backsides more.

[gavin]

Where is the architect of FFP now? Banned from football for corruption. Oh the irony.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Where is the architect of FFP now? Banned from football for corruption. Oh the irony.

Indeed. The whole thing has been a set up from start to finish.

[Hesperus]

FFP was a stitch up from the start, what’s wrong with investing your own money in your own business?

But it is what it is.... and if we have flouted the rules,, we’ll, we’re in trouble and there’s probably not a lot we can do about it.   I hope we haven’t, but I think it’s probably naive to think we’re entirely innocent, but then who is?

[Rowley Birkin QC]

FFP was a stitch up from the start, what’s wrong with investing your own money in your own business?

But it is what it is.... and if we have flouted the rules,, we’ll, we’re in trouble and there’s probably not a lot we can do about it.   I hope we haven’t, but I think it’s probably naive to think we’re entirely innocent, but then who is?

My thoughts exactly.

[lee]

Rumours that Pep wont leave the club on the BBC

[Hesperus]

https://ninetythreetwenty.com/blog/seeing-the-wood-for-the-ffps-manchester-city-uefa-go-to-war/

Interesting article on it albeit from a lawyer with City connections.

In summary from the available evidence, City's case rests on the fact that UEFA are seemly trying to re-open the original FFP case  that we settled with UEFA in April 2017. If this is the case, there is high optimism that CAS will also uphold our appeal. However, It’s such a clear point that there is some concern that there must be more to it, that we don’t know as yet.  On the flip side, if CAS uphold UEFAs case then we will take action in the Swiss courts and the lawyers confidence in our success there is not high at all (slim) and he concludes by saying if the penalty is upheld the ramifications for the club are indeed exponentially grave.

[lee]

Rags dont play in the champs league every season and Arsenal since 2016

Could not give a fook about it really

[Hesperus]

There’s potentially a bit more to it that just missing 2 years of CL. Apart from the loss of revenue, some of our best players may ask for a move KDB is 28 for example. Does he want to miss 2 years of CL at his peak? Then There is the real threat of PL sanctions. I’ve no idea if this threat of putting us In League 2 has any basis but Rangers had something similar and look how long it’s taken them to get back to the top tier. I’m just hoping CAS settle this is our favour.

[gavin]

Then there's the below about a bloke who complained of a biased hearing and won after ten years in the European Court of Human Rights. If it is true that UEFA refused to hear City's submissions after appointing all the staff then it could be a clear case.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51528427

[Stephen Paul]

The home game against Madrid

I hope the fans send a clear message to Uefa for the whole world to see

[lee]

Gary Neville on Sky

"I think Manchester City have a good chance of overturning the ban. They are going to CAS, and they said in their statement that they're going to CAS 'in the first instance', which would seem to suggest that even if they lose at CAS, they are going to carry on by going to other courts. They could go to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.

"What we've got to bear in mind is that City are richer than UEFA. They can afford to have better lawyers than UEFA. In the PSG case with CAS, where PSG turned up with eight lawyers and UEFA didn't send any lawyers at all, so I think there's still a good chance that City can get this overturned.

"UEFA have given them a two-year ban, so you would think that there's a good chance that it could be reduced to one. In the past, we've seen bans reduced by CAS, so if I was a Manchester City fan this morning, I wouldn't be getting too down and despondent."

[gavin]

We don't see much of Ferran Soriano but that seems a shame because he comes across as calm, professional and reasonable. The club have posted a video interview with him about the current situation.

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/club-ceo-discusses-uefa-ruling-63717712

[Stephen Paul]

is the women's team affected by this shite

[gavin]

No, the women can carry on as normal.

[Hesperus]

I believe we’ve retained the services of David Pannic. The lawyer who worked successfully with Gina Miller on Brexit. I was very impressed by him during the Brexit Supreme Court hearing. He’s a top QC so we should in good hands.

[gavin]

Yes, we're not fucking about with staff on this. It seems bloody obvious that we're going to appeal but I thought today was the deadline for that. Should hear some confirmation I'd have thought.

[Stephen Paul]

whatever happens City will be tarnished with this for years to come

[Stephen Paul]

Souness saying it as it is

[lee]

Got a lot of time for Souness.Quinn however is a bellend

[gavin]

Souness's wife is a City fan. I've been disappointed with Quinn since his awful, biased commentary for Arsenal in a game v City. It was almost as if Arsenal saved him from being sub at City not the other way round.

[Stephen Paul]

Quinn has always been critical of City , why

[Stephen Paul]

apparently 400 tickets have been returned from City fans refusing to travel to Europe now   

[The Blue Blooded Maniac]

The appeal to CAS has been officially submitted according to SSN.

[gavin]

Bit concerning that they took best part of two days just to announce that they'd received the appeal!

[Hesperus]

https://apple.news/Az5UPCAITQJ--OjPwwTJW0Q

WTF! They really are going full on to try and throw as much mud as the can at us.

What a pathetic organisation that they think us fans might actually physically hurt them! Bless them.

We we would never stoop so low. Regardless of what happens and we’ll still support City.

[gavin]

I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire.

[bry the guy]

So venomous is the backlash towards UEFA - including a banner that labelled the governing body a 'cartel.They say that as if they didnt know most clubs in europe call it a cartel the wankers.

[Stephen Paul]

17th March will be an interesting atmosphere at the Etihad