Dear Colin, I wonder if you can help Tony Petrie with the following request that he's posted on the Our Boys in Blue Wordpress page? ...... Can I ask the group for some help. Wasn’t it in George Orwell’s 1984, that all history was re-written? Because I’m beginning to wonder if that has actually happened, or if I have entered a twilight zone, where events are not quite as they were on my home planet. I was having, shall we say a discussion, with an opposition fan on City’s 115 charges. He started going on about the time barred charges and his argument was one that UEFA found us guilty but that we were saved by the time bar. I argued that this wasn’t the case and that CAS found insufficient evidence and as the PLs case against us is using much the same evidence, the outcome will be the same. What about the time barred years, he came back with. I was going to hit back with the argument that the time barred years are irrelevant, as before FFP PL was introduced, owners could spend what they wanted, so why would City have needed to hide illegal sponsorship? And it’s here where history has either been wiped or I’m going mad. My recollection was that FFP CL was proposed from around 2009, but only came in to effect in the 2011/12 season. We were fined in 2013/14 for failing to meet FFP over three years, accepted a fine and squad reduction and it was later that UEFA had another go, thanks to the Der Spiegel leaks. I felt sure that FFP PL didn’t start until much later than FFP CL, around 2017, yet when I went online to check my facts before replying to this clown, all I can find are reports saying this or similar:
Approved by UEFA in the 2009 season after years of wondering how to drag European football from overspending on players’ wages, FFP has since transformed top division clubs’ finances overall, and was introduced by the Premier League in 2013.
I remember writing in KoK about five years ago, when it was first mooted that the PL were investigating us and I naturally went online and did some checking before I wrote. I am convinced that FFP PL started much later. I argued in my article that how can the PL fine us for failing to meet a system that wasn’t in place in the years in question?
So, which is it? Am I genuinely going nuts? Or maybe I’m sane for the first time in my life
Hi Glyn & Tony. I'll be publishing the third and final part of this series over the weekend and I've included a bit about potential potential time-barring in the PL's charges and (hopefully) answered the question about the same issue in UEFA/CAS case.
To answer your other point, the PL's Short-Term Cost Control rules, as they were first known, came into force in the 2013/14 season. Those, among other things, restricted wage increases from year to year to the increase in non-TV revenue (commercial & ticketing revenue therefore). When a certain club not too far from us looked like being in breach of those, that one quietly got dropped however. They were never as far-reaching or detailed on the financial side as UEFA's FFP regulations though. Most of the alleged breaches in the PL case are for more generic things like failure to provide accurate accounts, failure to fully report player and manager remuneration and failure to show utmost good faith (although they seemed reluctant to apply that last one to Liverpool's illegal access of our scouting database). These rules were in place before 2013.
So Rule B13 in the 2010/11 PL handbook talks about acting in utmost good faith towards the League and other clubs. However there's no specific mention of providing accurate accounts in that 2010/11 handbook, merely that they are prepared in accordance with accepted accounting principles (Rule C78). So it may be the case that our lawyers will argue that we've been alleged to have breached rules that didn't specifically exist at the time or where the actual wording was not consistent with the alleged breach.
What do you think of the idea that the PL have had to proceed with these allegations because the club hasn't provided any third party evidence to the investigation (for understandable reasons I may add)? That would explain everyone's surprise at the PL reopening Etihad and related parties (and many other things). Basically, they haven't seen any counter evidence to the leaked emails yet which would enable them to close the investigation, so they had no alternative but to proceed with the allegations in full at some point.
Dear Colin, I wonder if you can help Tony Petrie with the following request that he's posted on the Our Boys in Blue Wordpress page? ...... Can I ask the group for some help. Wasn’t it in George Orwell’s 1984, that all history was re-written? Because I’m beginning to wonder if that has actually happened, or if I have entered a twilight zone, where events are not quite as they were on my home planet. I was having, shall we say a discussion, with an opposition fan on City’s 115 charges. He started going on about the time barred charges and his argument was one that UEFA found us guilty but that we were saved by the time bar. I argued that this wasn’t the case and that CAS found insufficient evidence and as the PLs case against us is using much the same evidence, the outcome will be the same. What about the time barred years, he came back with. I was going to hit back with the argument that the time barred years are irrelevant, as before FFP PL was introduced, owners could spend what they wanted, so why would City have needed to hide illegal sponsorship? And it’s here where history has either been wiped or I’m going mad. My recollection was that FFP CL was proposed from around 2009, but only came in to effect in the 2011/12 season. We were fined in 2013/14 for failing to meet FFP over three years, accepted a fine and squad reduction and it was later that UEFA had another go, thanks to the Der Spiegel leaks. I felt sure that FFP PL didn’t start until much later than FFP CL, around 2017, yet when I went online to check my facts before replying to this clown, all I can find are reports saying this or similar:
Approved by UEFA in the 2009 season after years of wondering how to drag European football from overspending on players’ wages, FFP has since transformed top division clubs’ finances overall, and was introduced by the Premier League in 2013.
I remember writing in KoK about five years ago, when it was first mooted that the PL were investigating us and I naturally went online and did some checking before I wrote. I am convinced that FFP PL started much later. I argued in my article that how can the PL fine us for failing to meet a system that wasn’t in place in the years in question?
So, which is it? Am I genuinely going nuts? Or maybe I’m sane for the first time in my life
Hi Glyn & Tony. I'll be publishing the third and final part of this series over the weekend and I've included a bit about potential potential time-barring in the PL's charges and (hopefully) answered the question about the same issue in UEFA/CAS case.
To answer your other point, the PL's Short-Term Cost Control rules, as they were first known, came into force in the 2013/14 season. Those, among other things, restricted wage increases from year to year to the increase in non-TV revenue (commercial & ticketing revenue therefore). When a certain club not too far from us looked like being in breach of those, that one quietly got dropped however. They were never as far-reaching or detailed on the financial side as UEFA's FFP regulations though. Most of the alleged breaches in the PL case are for more generic things like failure to provide accurate accounts, failure to fully report player and manager remuneration and failure to show utmost good faith (although they seemed reluctant to apply that last one to Liverpool's illegal access of our scouting database). These rules were in place before 2013.
So Rule B13 in the 2010/11 PL handbook talks about acting in utmost good faith towards the League and other clubs. However there's no specific mention of providing accurate accounts in that 2010/11 handbook, merely that they are prepared in accordance with accepted accounting principles (Rule C78). So it may be the case that our lawyers will argue that we've been alleged to have breached rules that didn't specifically exist at the time or where the actual wording was not consistent with the alleged breach.
Here's the link to the 2010/11 version if you're interested: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/43751438/premier-league-handbook-2010-11-premierleaguecom
Well done Colin
This so professionally researched
And a pleasure to read
Good work.
What do you think of the idea that the PL have had to proceed with these allegations because the club hasn't provided any third party evidence to the investigation (for understandable reasons I may add)? That would explain everyone's surprise at the PL reopening Etihad and related parties (and many other things). Basically, they haven't seen any counter evidence to the leaked emails yet which would enable them to close the investigation, so they had no alternative but to proceed with the allegations in full at some point.
Thanks Colin
Most enlightening, Colin. Thanks again.