Abu Dhabi Franchise May Do As It Wants

[Uilleam 5,443]

9 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

Yeah, I can't get excited about it. They received funding. Does it really matter whether it's sponsorship or funding from the owners?

Yes, it does matter.

Subsidies, disguised or not, distort competition, and, in a sports environment, well, what, ultimately, is the point? 

It used to be called financial doping, but that term seems to have lost currency (so to speak). 

[Bluedell 5,346]

28 minutes ago, Uilleam said:

Yes, it does matter.

Subsidies, disguised or not, distort competition, and, in a sports environment, well, what, ultimately, is the point? 

It used to be called financial doping, but that term seems to have lost currency (so to speak). 

Were you complaining during the late 90s and early 2000's when we were getting in much more funding than anyone else (from ENIC, King, NTL, MIH) which distorted the competition?

 

Look at the funding we've received over the past 4 years which is much more than any other club in Scotland. Are we also doing financial doping?

 

Where do you draw the line?

 

[Uilleam 5,443]

34 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

Were you complaining during the late 90s and early 2000's when we were getting in much more funding than anyone else (from ENIC, King, NTL, MIH) which distorted the competition?

 

Look at the funding we've received over the past 4 years which is much more than any other club in Scotland. Are we also doing financial doping?

 

Where do you draw the line?

 

That ended well, didn't it? 

And that is, at least partly, the point.

The rules, such as they were, were different then, of course. 

 

It does seem that Abu Dhabi has pumped money into its franchises hand over fist through inflated or non existent sponsorship deals. (I guess the same criticism could be levelled at "Paris" SG.)

I am sceptical of coincidences, and so raise an eyebrow -OK, two- when I read that the deals in question are from Arab countries, from enterprises which are affiliated with the Club's/Clubs' owners,  who are themselves, sovereign wealth funds or similar government backed/owned outfits. 

 

There is a difference between monies earned commercially through merchandising, and sponsorship, and non commercially derived income, ie subsidy, disguised as one or other. 

As I have said before, allowing unbridled hosing down with unearned income distorts competition, on and off the field, creating transfer and wage inflation, too. 

 

FFP for all its faults -policing of it being perhaps the most obvious- is an attempt to "draw the line". 

Of course, it does favour those Clubs with the biggest commercial incomes, and militates against an other buying a side and speculating to accumulate, as they say. Until, however, UEFA takes a leaf out of the NFL playbook, or some voluntary compact is instituted, that may continue.

 

 

[compo 6,151]

18 minutes ago, Uilleam said:

That ended well, didn't it? 

And that is, at least partly, the point.

The rules, such as they were, were different then, of course. 

 

It does seem that Abu Dhabi has pumped money into its franchises hand over fist through inflated or non existent sponsorship deals. (I guess the same criticism could be levelled at "Paris" SG.)

I am sceptical of coincidences, and so raise an eyebrow -OK, two- when I read that the deals in question are from Arab countries, from enterprises which are affiliated with the Club's/Clubs' owners,  who are themselves, sovereign wealth funds or similar government backed/owned outfits. 

 

There is a difference between monies earned commercially through merchandising, and sponsorship, and non commercially derived income, ie subsidy, disguised as one or other. 

As I have said before, allowing unbridled hosing down with unearned income distorts competition, on and off the field, creating transfer and wage inflation, too. 

 

FFP for all its faults -policing of it being perhaps the most obvious- is an attempt to "draw the line". 

Of course, it does favour those Clubs with the biggest commercial incomes, and militates against an other buying a side and speculating to accumulate, as they say. Until, however, UEFA takes a leaf out of the NFL playbook, or some voluntary compact is instituted, that may continue.

 

 

So that's Rangers knackered then if I were to win the euro millions I was going to give it to Rangers now the cat and dog home will get the lot 

[Uilleam 5,443]

Just now, compo said:

So that's Rangers knackered then if I were to win the euro millions I was going to give it to Rangers now the cat and dog home will get the lot 

Big share issue? 

[Bluedell 5,346]

1 hour ago, Uilleam said:

Big share issue? 

Is there a moral difference between "pumping money into a franchise" and pumping it in through a share issue?

[Uilleam 5,443]

1 hour ago, Bluedell said:

Is there a moral difference between "pumping money into a franchise" and pumping it in through a share issue?

Stock exchange rules?

[Uilleam 5,443]

Der Spiegel claims new Manchester City emails cast doubt on Cas verdict.

Der Spiegel means, if I recall correctly, The Mirror, appropriately enough for this looking glass world.

 

Manchester City said: ‘The questions and matters raised by Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical attempt to publicly re-litigate and undermine a case that has been fully adjudicated.’ 

Miss Mandy Rice-Davies responded..........

 

From today's Guardian

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jul/30/der-spiegel-claims-new-manchester-city-emails-cast-doubt-on-cas-verdict

 

Der Spiegel claims new Manchester City emails cast doubt on Cas verdict

New ‘leaked’ emails relate to City’s sponsorship by Etihad

Club refuse to comment on emails but have denied wrongdoing

David Conn

Thu 30 Jul 2020 20.02 BSTLast modified on Fri 31 Jul 2020 04.37 BST

 

Manchester City said: ‘The questions and matters raised by Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical attempt to publicly re-litigate and undermine a case that has been fully adjudicated.’ 

 

The German magazine Der Spiegel has published new “leaked” emails relating to Manchester City’s past sponsorships by Abu Dhabi state companies, which it claims cast doubt on the court of arbitration for sport judgment that overturned City’s ban by Uefa.

In one of the emails, a City director, Simon Pearce, who was also a senior executive in an Abu Dhabi government authority, set out that he was “forwarding” the airline £91m of £99m that Etihad owed to the club for its sponsorship, with Etihad providing only £8m.

 

City refused to comment on the substance of the new emails, maintaining as the club has since the first “leaks” in November 2018 that their emails were “criminally obtained”. Spiegel’s source, Rui Pinto, who is charged with computer hacking in his native Portugal, which he denies, has denied that he obtained the emails by criminal means.

City have vehemently denied that the Etihad sponsorship was subsidised by the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, or any other Abu Dhabi entity, since Spiegel first published the emails, and throughout the subsequent investigation and ultimate guilty finding by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) adjudicatory chamber (AC). Pearce and senior Etihad executives gave evidence at the Cas hearing, categorically denying the finding, largely based on the published emails, that the airline did not pay the sponsorships in full.

 

The emails considered by the CFCB and Cas included three from City’s then financial officers to Pearce, a City board member and senior adviser on the Executive Affairs Authority (EAA), a strategic Abu Dhabi government authority. The finance officers set out that in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2015-16 Etihad paid only £8m of sponsorship deals City stated to be £35m, £65m and £67.5m respectively. The rest, they wrote, was being paid by Mansour’s company ownership vehicle, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).

 

City had refused requests from the CFCB for Pearce and other senior people to give evidence, and Cas severely criticised the club and imposed a €10m (£9m) fine for their failure to cooperate and obstruction of the investigation. Pearce did appear before Cas, as did James Hogan, the former Etihad chief executive, and other senior figures, and based largely on their evidence, the Cas panel overturned by a 2-1 majority the CFCB conclusion that Mansour “disguised” his own funding as Etihad sponsorship.

 

Spiegel published the new emails two days after Cas released the full 93-page judgment that detailed its reasons.

 

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.”

Pearce offered Baumgartner two options to reconcile the missing £2.5m. The first was for Etihad to pay only £65m of the £67.5m sponsorship for 2013-14 and pay the £2.5m the following year. The second option, Pearce wrote, was: “You pay the £65m now and I will forward the £2.5m in a couple of months – at which point you can forward it on.”

Pearce apologised to Baumgartner for the missing £2.5m he had not sent, writing: “As I am sure you knew, embarrassingly it would seem that rather than overpaying you I have underpaid you!”

 

The figure of £88.5m Pearce apparently sent to Etihad for forwarding to City tallies with the same figure, £88.5m, set out to Pearce in one of the previously published emails. That was sent five days earlier by Jorge Chumillas, City’s then chief financial officer, who said the breakdown of Etihad’s sponsorship of City was £88.5m from ADUG, while Etihad was paying £8m.

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”.

 

City declined to provide a response to the contents of the new emails, as they did publicly in 2018, so they did not explain why or in what capacity Pearce was apparently sending £91m to the chief commercial officer of Etihad for its sponsorship of City.

The club said in a statement: “The questions and matters raised by Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical attempt to publicly re-litigate and undermine a case that has been fully adjudicated, after detailed proceedings and due process, by the court of arbitration for sport.

“Manchester City’s policy remains not to comment on out of context materials purported to have been criminally obtained from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel.”

Edited July 31, 2020 by Uilleam

[compo 6,151]

I wish some Abu Dhabi consortium would buy the Rangers. 

City should get their legal team to look at this newspapers fresh allegations and sue them in court for every penny they can get .

[Uilleam 5,443]

On 31/07/2020 at 09:01, compo said:

I wish some Abu Dhabi consortium would buy the Rangers. 

City should get their legal team to look at this newspapers fresh allegations and sue them in court for every penny they can get .

One of the newspaper reports quoted above  says

 

"...it was shocking to see the email from the club’s lawyer, Simon Cliff, who wrote that City’s chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, had told Uefa’s then general secretary Gianni Infantino, that he would not accept a financial sanction for exceeding the FFP permitted €45m loss when assessed in 2014. Cliff said: ' (Mubarak) would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years... "

 

So perhaps we can look forward to him pursuing Der Spiegel with similar zeal. If I was a betting man, however.....