- Who might Arsenal play next season: 3 – Ipswich Town
- What difference will the new Football Regulator make?
By Tony Attwood
At the heart of the battle between the Premier League and Manchester City over the finances of the club, and whether it has repeatedly broken the rules, is one issue: secrecy. We really are not getting any solid news about what is happening and how it is going. Even estimations of how much longer the long-running dispute will take, have varied enormously.
However one curious story has recently emerged from Spiegel International (part of Der Spiegel), the essence of which is summed up in the sentence “the club’s newfound glory is rooted in lies.”
The report says that emails seen by Der Spiegel show that although we all perceive Etihad, the Abu Dhabi airline, as the sponsor that is not actually the case. In fact between 2012/13 and 2015/16 under 12% of the funding of Manchester City that was supposedly coming from Etihad (in return for shirt and stadium sponsorship and the like) The other 88+% was coming from the Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, – which would be against the rules.
As we all know Manchester City have denied that there has been any hokey-pokey, and done so with some robust language saying at one stage, “The club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position. As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.”
Although of course we can’t be sure, it would seem likely that if there was a body of irrefutable evidence supporting the club’s position, that would have been presented at the start and that would be that. It would be a bit like me being accused of murdering someone in New Zealand (I pick the country and crime at random) on a specific date when Arsenal were playing at home and me providing witnesses who were with me in London that day, plus my phone records, traffic photographs from the M1 showing my car with me at the wheel driving through the roadworks, and so on. It doesn’t take long to interview people, review the pictures and draw a conclusion.
Now maybe Manchster City have that sort of evidence and of course as an outsider, I don’t know. But if they do, one might have thought they would have presented it all by now and that would be that. I mean if it were me in the situation above I’d have my lawyers giving every detail to the investigators within days to prove where I was.
But supposing in my case I was lying. Then the job of creating evidence would take a lot, lot longer (if it were possible – I really don’t know if it is).
Now of course no one gets found guilty just on the amount of time it has taken to provide all the evidence (the Man C case began in 2018), but of course if Manchester City has done this it means the club has not only broken FFP regulations but that the club and its sponsor have been lying to their auditors.
But we know that a previous case was thrown out by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, on the technicality that the evidence was presented too late and the case was “out of time,” for which Untold has often blamed those presenting the case for being too slow.
Yet supposing this wasn’t Uefa being slow but rather Manchester City misleading Uefa as to who owned what and who did what. That is pure supposition, but is brought to the fore by the suggestion that Silverlake who now own 18% of Manchester City were given false information when they bought the club.
And this explains why the “Premier League’s allegations go way beyond accusing City of failing to meet Profit and Sustainability Rules,” as Spiegel is now suggesting.
One small point that emerged during that set of hearings which got very little publicity in the UK was that Manchester City were actually fined – for not co-operating with the investigation.
A question that arose from that was why on earth would Manchester City not cooperate if they were fully innocent? Of course, we don’t know, but it remains an interesting detail.
But the main point is that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, the case against Manchester City will end and at that point we should discover not just if the League has found them guilty of at least some of the 100+ breaches of the rules of which they have been charged, but also, why this case has taken so long.
Maybe it has just been the amount of detail that has caused the hearings to drag on. But also, maybe something else has turned up.
Or maybe the hearings are finding Manchester City guilty – and the question arises is not only what sort of punishment the club should get, but also what compensation can be made to all those clubs that have suffered as a result of Manchester City’s actions.
I mean, if they were guilty, a ten-point deduction next season would hardly seem enough.
This is a lovely article based on a load of nonsense.
Only the Etislat sponsorship deal was time barred by CAS. For all other deals… including the Etihad deal this article is about… City were found innocent of disguising equity funding as sponsorship income and not only that the sponsorship income was also found to be fair value for money not inflated.
With regard to the cooperation fine part. You are correct City were fined for not cooperating. They stopped cooperating when the punishment they were going to receive was leaked before they had even submitted the evidence. Can’t really blame them.
We won’t mention Usmanov and where his money may have come from, will we….
He has a VERY dirty past.
@Jeremy,
you are comparing oranges and apples.
Ousmanov never put up money for the club to use.
He bought shares, like you’d buy IBM, Apple or Microsoft shares.
Arsenal did not take any profit from it.
Arsenal respected the FFP rules all these year back then.
And the actual owners bought him out to his shares as well.
That being said, at the time, any russian oligarch could come into the UK and live the high life undeterred. Times have changed.
City on the other hand were financed in their daily budget via some other entity then the one that has been pretended, and as far as sponsoring deals, they came from companies within the owner’s conglomerates – at least tis is as far as I understand some of the issues….Tony may correct me
Not the same thing,
Lot of inaccurate information in this report such as suggesting Man City are guilty of the 115 charges coz they got fined for not co-operating with UEFA (incidentally, why would you when it was supposed to be a confidential case and they were leaking details to the press), Simon Jordon mentions the fine at every opportunity on TS and insinuates we are guilty because of this. The PL have got all the evidence that City provided to CAS and were found not to have broken any rules. And if they had of looked into he time barred material they would have found the same. Instead the PL are looking at hacked emails which have been cut and pasted to form damning evidence, NOT. Do me a favour and read the CAS Report!
So yesterday a story broke which is largely being ignored by the press that Etihad Airways are looking to go public on the Stock Exchange which means all their accounting periods will be made public, now do you really think they would do this and expose the large scale fraud you are talking about? Consider this, could it be that the case is taking that long because the PL can’t find any evidence to back the charges up, Personally I think they’ve created a perfect s**t storm for themselves and it’s not going to end well and there are going to be a lot of disappointed people who support American owned clubs. BUT WE WILL STILL BE GUILTY!
Mancher City was a mid table team when Sheikh Mansour brought them in 2008. Two years after he brought them and invested hundreds of millions in players from his own money, man city started to become the team they are today. There was no big sponsors for the mid table team in 2008, because the team being mid table could not attract big sponsors, it is no coincidence that all these high wages players came to the mid table club and they started winning trophies two years after the Sheikhs acquisition, it was not sponsorship money, because there was no real big sponsors interested. The money has always come from the Sheikhs own pocket. He gives the new sponsor £400 million from his own pocket and tells them to sponsor Man city for £380 million in their name, and secretly behind closed doors he tells them to keep the 5% (£20 million) for their trouble and false paperwork. The sponsor company, who is not obliged to follow the same strict set of rules, pretends to borrow the money from a private made up name invested called ” Harry bloggs” let’s say, and pretends to pay him back the money over 20 years.
I think what is taking so long in Man City’s investigation is that the premier league has no jurisdiction over the sponsor companies accounts and no jurisdiction over the unknown private investor “Harry Bloggs”!
The problem the Premier League has with Man City is not that they did not provide evidence, the problem is that they cannot judge this evidence to be true or not because they do not have the jurisdiction over third parties involved in the alleged investment or sponsorship. They do not have the legal remit to demand that the 3rd party investors or sponsors provided all their financial information to where the “initial” money came from. All they can do is to ask the 3rd party company nicely to show them their finances.
to those defending Cirty
Then why didnt City counter sue for the information leak as the case will not be impartial?
Rather than with hold information like some spoilt toddler?
And her comes the Chelsea story again…. yep they cheated all the time, top management knew about it, etc etc..
Bet the current owners will plead : wasn’t us, so you can’t punish us.
IMHO, why in the world are they not stripped of all their titles, national and international during the period ? After all, in the Olympics, and other competitions this is what happens with athletes who doped, even a few years down the road. The trophies should be taken away from their club museum and they ought to disapear from the tables of the year in question. As for the agents were paid illegally, they ought to be banned for a few years. As for the current Chelsea owners….well though luck. Full disclosure was their responsibility, their problem. Can’t blame anyone but themselves.
I’m a bit late commenting on this article.
I see some, presumably MCFC supporters, have already highlighted some inaccuracies in this article so I won’t go down that path, but instead I’d like to look at Tony’s speculation that maybe MCFC might be manufacturing evidence.
Tony wrote, “Now maybe Manchster City have that sort of evidence and of course as an outsider, I don’t know. But if they do, one might have thought they would have presented it all by now and that would be that. ” Tony then opined “But supposing in my case I was lying. Then the job of creating evidence would take a lot, lot longer (if it were possible – I really don’t know if it is).”
Bear with me regarding the point about creating evidence and let me highlight a couple of articles. Firstly, the following link is from Bloomberg and is dated 01 March 2024,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-01/adq-said-to-explore-etihad-listing-in-first-for-gulf-hub-carrier?embedded-checkout=true
It is a story about Eithad Airlines possibly seeking an IPO.
The second article is from the Mirror – https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mancity-premier-league-charges-etihad-32425097 – and is written by Simon Mullock. In the article Simon states: “Reports in the Middle East have now revealed that the airline is being prepared for an Initial Public Offering. And that process would involve Etihad allowing full disclosure of their accounts.”
“Stock market insiders believe it’s unlikely that Etihad would be willing to grant unfettered access into their financial affairs and corporate practices if it would uncover a smoking gun to prove fraud had been committed.”
So what’s happening? Is the media making it all up? Have MCFC finally had enough time to ‘manufacture’ the evidence? Or maybe, just maybe MCFC is correct in its assertion that it has the evidence, and has always had it. So if MCFC had the evidence all along why not just disclose it? Maybe MCFC simply aren’t interested in clearing their name but are seeking some advantage from the Premier League’s actions. Like Tony oftens says, “I don’t know.”
Daveg
‘Manchester City was a mid table team when Sheikh Mansour brought them in 2008’
Indeed they were, but in reality you give them too much credit.
Prior to the financial doping they hadn’t won a single trophy since the League Cup in season ’75 /’76,. To say it was all down hill from there is un understatement.
Over the next 26 seasons prior to Keegan getting their last promotion back to the premier League in ’01/’02 they suffered 5 relegations including one visit to the 3rd tier of English football.
They had a total of 21 mangers over those 26 seasons, each lasting an average of 1 year 2 months. None of them won a single trophy, unless you count promotion.
Given this was a club that could rightfully claim to of been more successful than their ‘nosey neighbours’ in the late 60’s, this is a spectacular fall from grace.
The sad thing is, being a ‘mid table team’ was actually the best they had been for over a quarter of a century.
Man City really were a terribly run club going nowhere.
Without the financial doping they would most likely still be bouncing up and down between divisions, as had become their modus operadi.
Whether they’ve doped their way to the top legally or illegally is neither here nor there. The trophies they have won mean nothing.
Man City. A rag and bone club that got lucky. I really hope they get their cum uppence but a doubt it.
Innocence will be just something else they’ll buy.
I know Man City fans wont like this, that’s often the way with the truth, but they cant deny a single word of it. Not one.
Thank you Tim
Tony, you are welcome.
Any chance of a speculative article about what possible repercussions there might be if the Premier League can only prove non-cooperation against MCFC? You could tie it in with the recent rulings against Everton and Nottingham Forest, and how those clubs’ owners seem to have lost confidence in the Premier Leagues implementation of the rules. You might even go so far as to suggest MCFC were right to be cautious about the PL”s competence – I know there have been multiple articles on Untold questioning the PL’s abilities.
Nitram, to suggest that the trophies that MCFC have won mean nothing is, of course, absurd; they mean a lot to their fans. So, I guess, any MCFC fan can easily deny the veracity of your comment, “I know Man City fans wont like this, that’s often the way with the truth, but they cant deny a single word of it. Not one.”
“Man City. A rag and bone club that got lucky. I really hope they get their cum uppence but a doubt it. Innocence will be just something else they’ll buy.” Nitram, what evidence have you seen to convince you that MCFC are guilty of the charges of misrepresenting their funding (fraud)?
Tim
“To suggest that the trophies that MCFC have won mean nothing is, of course, absurd; they mean a lot to their fans”.
Speak for yourself. I don’t think it’s absurd at all. And in any case, where did I say they mean nothing to Man City fans? They mean nothing to me. And not only me, a lot of other fans I speak to are also of the opinion that any team could, and indeed should, win what they have given their net spend on players.
“So, I guess, any MCFC fan can easily deny the veracity of your comment, “I know Man City fans wont like this, that’s often the way with the truth, but they cant deny a single word of it. Not one.”
Please point to one thing they can deny the veracity of. Almost the entire post is facts, plain and simple. No trophies. 5 Relegations. And based on those facts I have come to the conclusion, quite understandably I believe, that the club has been run terribly. You may disagree, but I’d be interested to know why? My use of the term ‘Rag and Bone Cub’ was just my rather lame attempt at humour, but ‘Terribly’ or ‘Hopelessly’ or ‘Diabolically’ will all do just as well, if you prefer plain English.
“What evidence have you seen to convince you that MCFC are guilty of the charges of misrepresenting their funding (fraud)”?
What evidence have you seen to convince you they are not?
You sum it up in your final paragraph when you say:
“So what’s happening? Is the media making it all up? Have MCFC finally had enough time to ‘manufacture’ the evidence? Or maybe, just maybe MCFC is correct in its assertion that it has the evidence, and has always had it. So if MCFC had the evidence all along why not just disclose it? Maybe MCFC simply aren’t interested in clearing their name but are seeking some advantage from the Premier League’s actions. Like Tony often says, “I don’t know.”
And neither do I, but like you I can only form an opinion from all the bits and pieces we read in the news, which is not much in this country, or on here. And from that my feeling is they are guilty. You seem to think they are not. That’s up to you, but you have no more idea than I do.
One thing I do know for a fact is that all of a sudden after the arrival of the Mansours, a team that had won NOTHING for 25 years. Had been relegated 5 times. Had dropped as far as the third tier of English football. Had an average gate of 34,000 over the preceding 20 years (Highbury had a 38,000 capacity full most weeks and Arsenal had to leave because it wasn’t enough to compete at the top), could suddenly find £500 Million net to spend on players alone, over the next 10 years. And then the same again over the net 10 years.
Excuse me for finding that just a little hard to believe.
Nitram,
I took your comment, “Whether they’ve doped their way to the top legally or illegally is neither here nor there. The trophies they have won mean nothing.”, as you stating this to be an expression of known facts, which would, in turn, suggest that everyone, including MCFC fans, knew this to be true; that you’re now stating it’s only your opinion makes it a completely different matter. Of course, some of the PL charges against MCFC are absolutely all about whether MCFC were “doped” legally or illegally.
On the topic of ‘financial doping’ I see Kronke’s efforts continue to bear fruit. I hope, for your sake, it doesn’t sour any trophies AFC might win. I’m pretty sure AFC’s spending over the last five years isn’t covered by player sales, sponsorship and prize money.
You asked, “What evidence have you seen to convince you they are not?” Let me answer that by stating, unlike you, I’m not really expressing an opinion about MCFC’s guilt or innocence, rather I’ll wait for due process to take place – something lacking in the media and non-MCFC forums. Also, unlike you, I choose to operate on the basis that guilt, and not innocence, has to be proven.
Are MCFC guilty? I’ve no idea. Do I care? No, not really. Why? Ever since I’ve watched football (WC 1974) it’s always struck me that players of all clubs and national teams were cheating, and generally the players cheating from the bigger teams got away with it more often. Whether the media and the authorities refer to it as ‘the dark arts’, ‘gaining a competitive advantage’ or some other palatable phrase it still boils down to the same thing – cheating.
What I find most amusing is that the most egregious form of cheating, from reading the media and comments from non-MCFC fans over the last few years, comes not from bending and breaking the rules of the game itself, but bending and breaking the rules of FFP, a construct, I believe, peverted by the then most successful football clubs to cement their positions at the top of the footballing pyramid, to the detrement of the game at large. You may wish to refresh your memory about what Martin Samuel’s wrote in 2013, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2261817/Arsenal-Manchester-United-financial-fair-play-plot-ruin-Premier-League–Martin-Samuel.html
I’d love to see a satirical movie, or better still series, about the mess football has got itself in over the last twenty to thirty years.
Also, unlike you, I choose to operate on the basis that guilt, and not innocence has to be proven.”
So do I, and all I have done is express an opinion, based on the facts I have presented. Facts that neither you or any Man City fans have contradicted despite your assertion they might. In this last paragraph I clearly laid out what lies behind my assertion of guilt:
“One thing I do know for a fact is that all of a sudden after the arrival of the Mansours, a team that had won NOTHING for 25 years. Had been relegated 5 times. Had dropped as far as the third tier of English football. Had an average gate of 34,000 over the preceding 20 years (Highbury had a 38,000 capacity full most weeks and Arsenal had to move to a bigger stadium because it wasn’t enough to compete at the top), could suddenly find £500 Million net to spend on players alone, over the next 10 years. And then the same again over the net 10 years”.
And as a caveat to that, Arsenal had just come through a period of extraordinary success, winning 3 titles, 4 FA Cups and constant Champions league football, yet were restricted to a ZERO net spend over that same period because of a relatively small £390 Million Stadium.
So a mega successful, rich club, who were/are by all accounts in some kind of club ‘Cartel’ were restricted to a ZERO net spend on players in order to service a £390 Million debt, whilst an absolute shambles of a club that won nothing for 25 years could suddenly find £500 Million net laying about the place to spend on players alone.
Sorry, but I’m not having it.
Nitram,
“So a mega successful, rich club, who were/are by all accounts in some kind of club ‘Cartel’ were restricted to a ZERO net spend on players in order to service a £390 Million debt ..”.
Was that net spend the result of the regulatory authorities stamping down on Arsenal or was it a decision by Arsenal’s then owners, and was the subsequent lack of spending exacerbated by the Kroenke / Usmanov battle for control of AFC?