Thread by @SwedishRumble

(1/22) The below thread includes a summary of Premier League’s accusations against #MCFC. In this thread, we look at the substance of the accusations to the extent they are known and speculate on what they could mean.

https://twitter.com/SwedishRumble/status/1622566952341307392?s=20&t=mn4RQ0R-Mq0u6wgjJKo-Ag

(2/22) In short, #MCFC is alleged to have breached the rules in 5 different ways. The details of the accusations and evidence of them has not been announced. But we can still speculate on what is behind them.

(3/22) In the first (1) instance, #MCFC is accused of not providing “accurate financial information” to the Premier League – “in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue)” between 2009 and 2018. Much of #MCFC’s revenue stems from sponsorships.

(4/22) First, lets look at the parties. MCFC’s majority owner is Abu Dhabi United Group (“ADUG”), a investment vehicle of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed (HHSM). HHSM is the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (of which Abu Dhabi is a constituent emirate).

(5/22) Emirates Telecommunications (“Etisalat”) and Etihad Airways (“Etihad”) are each multinational corporations headquartered in Abu Dhabi. Etisalat and Etihad are large sponsors of MCFC. Under the PL Rules a club may only report …

(6/22) …income from Associated Party Transactions (“APT”) at a Fair Market Value (“FMV”). MCFC has towards UEFA argued that ADUG, Etisalat and Etihad are – not – Related Parties. Even if they are not ATPs, a transaction structure could be created to…

(7/22) …to circumvent the PL rules, which also would be a breach. The UEFA Panel touch upon this in its review of MCFC (see below). So what evidence might exist of this breach?

(8/22) It can be assumed that most evidence would stem from the excellent “Football Leaks” movement. In the view of UEFA, the emails made public by the leak provided “compelling evidence” that the sponsor payments received from Etisalat were…

(9/22)…“made or caused to be made by ADUG but attributed to…Etisalat”; and that the sponsorship payments received from Etihad were “funded or procured to be funded by or on behalf of ADUG, but paid through Etihad”.

(10/22) As summarized by the excellent @LegalManFC, this lead to the UEFA body coming to the below conclusions (later partly over-turned by CAS), i.e. that MCFC had:

(11/22) The UEFA rules do not include a ‘catch-all’ provision or expressly ban circumvention of the rules. The PL Rules does. Even if it cannot be proven that the sponsor payments exceeded market value, the construction could violate the below rule:

(12/22) Overall, it will be a very tough case for MCFC to clear itself from this allegation in view of the more broad PL rules. Over to the next allegation.

(13/22) During 2009 to 2016, MCFC is accused of not including “full details” of “remuneration” paid to players and/or their manager. What do we know about this? According to @DerSpiegel’s report on the leaked emails…

(14/22)…it appears that Roberto Mancini (manager between 2009-2013), received secret payments through a shadow contract via a consultancy arrangement with the Abu Dhabi-based club Al Jazira. It is damning when your manager is paid £1.45m by the club…

(15/22)…and then gets paid £1.75m by a 3rd party, which it its turn is paid the same amount by the owner of the club. In addition, Der Spiegel alleged that ADUG also paid at least £3.5 million to Yaya Touré’s agent between 2010 and 2015…

(16/22)…with the payments apparently cleared by the club (see thetimes.co.uk/article/28a327…).

(17/22) The 3rd breach accuses #MCFC to have breached the PL rules for not complying with UEFA regulation. The CAS found MCFC to breach the UEFA rules by withholding inter alia the following evidence:

(18/22) The 4th point accuses #MCFC to not have complied with – the PL, i.e. not UEFA’s – Financial Sustainability rules during 2015-2018. UEFA initially imposed a ban on City from European competitions for two seasons for “overstating its sponsorship revenue…

(19/22)…in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016”. The PL accusation covers a shorter period, but surely overlaps some with the basis for the UEFA decision (later overturned by CAS).

(20/22) Again, much of the accusation against MCFC regards giving misleading information. It is important to note that the fourth accusation against MCFC regards an actual breach of the FFP rules, i.e. for example on the basis of…

(21/22)…sponsorships being contributions or recorded at a value exceeding the market value if made by an associated party. This will of course be harder to prove, than proving that information was just “misleading” or meant to circumvent rules.

(22/22) On the 5th point, I have nothing to add since it is a new accusation and covers a period up until today. Lets revert to that when we get more information.

BTW, I do not have the biggest twitter following, if you like this thread, please smash a like and retweet it! 😃