You have an inflated estimation of your own team's standing. The most impact you've ever had on the competition is reaching the last 16, once. Yes, you have some great players (as do PSG), but there are plenty of other great players playing outside of the Champions League. And it's not as if City's involvement in the Champions League has ever made these players big presences on that stage, is it? I don't think UEFA would weep if they weren't able to watch Aguero, Toure and Silva being beaten by Ajax and failing to progress from the group stages.
Manchester City facing Financial Fair Play sanctions
- Thread starter PlayerOne
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
You have an inflated estimation of your own team's standing. The most impact you've ever had on the competition is reaching the last 16, once. Yes, you have some great players (as do PSG), but there are plenty of other great players playing outside of the Champions League. And it's not as if City's involvement in the Champions League has ever made these players big presences on that stage, is it? I don't think UEFA would weep if they weren't able to watch Aguero, Toure and Silva being beaten by Ajax and failing to progress from the group stages.
If that argument somehow gets round FFP then FFP is a joke. Any club could use the same justification to spend ridiculous amounts on players.
Or indeed, any player sale in the history of football. 'We're paying this much because we think he's worth it'. Revolutionary.
I'm not claiming that would be a viable argument to FFP? I'm just using it to argue that paying £250m for Messi may not be as obscene as it sounds.
Somewhat seriously.
I think the Italian clubs can rightly say they've made a lot more sacrifices to comply than your reduced over-expenditure and opaque sponsorships.
But your 'serious' effort should keep you from getting kicked out of Europe at least...
The profile of Man City would certainly change. They would become the most controversial team in the world - a transfer like that would generate considerable debate and I would assume FIFA (corrupt as they are) or UEFA would act to stop it ever happening again. Transfer fees are already too high never mind 250 fcuking million.
UEFA's value as a tournament devalues if the best players are not getting represented there. UEFA will not ban a top team over FFP. They simply won't. That ruling is there to appease the clubs like Bayern and United, but it will never get implemented.
Man City singing Messi would gain the club support. I don't see any fans refusing to support Madrid because of the money they spent on Bale, Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo etc. It only increases their image.
You're talking about paying more for one player than all of those player's transfer fees combined!
Talking like a £250m transfer isn't ridiculous.
Modern day City fans everyone.
Modern day City fans everyone.
Only sensible thing you've said in the last 8 pages mate!
We should stop getting our knickers in a twist over City and ffp. They have enough dodgy deals in place to pass it. UEFA have neither the resources or political will to put up a fight for something that will eventually lose them money.
UEFA have nothing to gain from banning City/psg/chelsea, and well lose money in long term. UEFA are not some government department of the EU with accountabilities, it's a private company with only one goal, to sell football. Without these teams, their product is worth less.
Believing they have 'first refusal' on Messi was my favourite.
As I understand you, you're saying that the UCL is an invite-only competition and FIFA/UEFA have absolute discretion over who to invite, and hence they are completely immune to legal challenge should they exclude MCFC on the basis of FFP? That's not so. Any decision made by a quasi-judicial body (the disciplinary committee of a social club, the regulators of a stock exchange), even if it is a private body, is 100% open to judicial review where there has been a breach of the principles of natural justice. Judicial review is even more heightened where the subject matter of the challenge is one of economic or social significance, and the sums of money talked about here are more than enough to qualify. That's not a paper doctrine, time and time again it has been enforced by the courts in the form of private social clubs being forced to rescind suspensions of members and so on.
I'm not saying your bigger point is right or wrong, just that that bit in particular is just completely factually incorrect.
I thought private bodies were only open to judicial review if they met certain criteria. The biggest question the courts looked to was whether if the body didn't exist in a private form, would the government have to create it? If yes, then it's considered a public authority.
I can't really see the supreme court arriving at the logical conclusion that if UEFA didn't exist, it'd have to create it. The FA, yeah, maybe. UEFA, not so much.
Are UEFA even registered in the UK as a company in any capacity?
They may have grounds for challenge under EU competition laws.
This surprises a lot of people (it surprised me), but no. All private bodies are amenable to judicial review. My lecturer introduced this point to us by showing us a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Susie is trying to get into some treehouse club Calvin set up, and he's denying her access on completely ridiculous grounds. The point was, could she seek judicial review? Surprisingly enough, yes. I can't particularly be arsed to find a UK example, but here's a Singaporean court applying this doctrine of British common law - Kay Swee Pin v Singapore Island Country Club.
Obviously, if Susie went to your High Court and demanded that Calvin be forced to let her into that club, she'd be refused leave because the gravity of her claim was insignificant. If Manchester City were denied an opportunity to take part in a multi-million-pound competition organized by a private body, the gravity of their claim allows them to seek judicial review of that decision.
As for bolded, that's partially true, but you're conflating judicial review of the decision of a public authority with judicial review of the decision of a private body. Courts will be much more stringent on public authorities and bodies serving quasi-public functions (the famous example being the Board of Mergers and Amalgamations of the City of London, technically a private body but which regulates the stock exchange there) than private bodies, but both are very much susceptible to judicial review.
You clearly paid much more attention (and probably even attended more than half) of your constitutional and administrative law lectures than I did.
You clearly paid much more attention (and probably even attended more than half) of your constitutional and administrative law lectures than I did.
No mate it's just cause it's the subject of my finals in two weeks! Ask me this again next year and I'll have completely forgotten.To be clear, of course, there's a huge difference between being 1) granted leave to have a judge hear your case out and 2) actually having the judge overturn the decision of the private body. Private clubs are of course entitled to set whatever arbitrary rules they want their members to abide by - spending less than they earn is one. My point is solely that if a judge finds that the private body, having set this arbitrary rule, refused to treat its own members fairly according to that rule, in breach of the principles of natural justice, then that decision - despite being made by a completely private institution - can and will be overturned.
Messi wouldn't survive one season in the premiership.
Football clubs can only appeal sanctions against them from a governing body by going through the court of arbitration in sport.
UEFA / FIFA are immune to other legal challenges both domestic and European for sporting sanctions by the virtue of the fact that the clubs have to sign up to this in order to be granted licenses to compete.
The thing is, why would Messi want to go to City anyway?
La Liga is perfect for him. I'd like to see him in the prem. He wouldn't be anywhere near as effective here. He just isn't built for it.
La Liga is perfect for him. I'd like to see him in the prem. He wouldn't be anywhere near as effective here. He just isn't built for it.
That's... precisely what I'm saying is a misconception. A lot of people don't realize this (I sure as hell didn't), but any decision of a private body can be appealed.
If I opened the Naturalized Club for Naturalized People, and you were a member, and I required you to get a license from me in order to take part in Bingo Night, the decision not to grant you a license is completely amenable to judicial review if it's a decision of sufficient significance (e.g., if my decision not to allow you to compete cost you millions and millions of pounds). It's surprising, but it's true.
You can't take legal action over sporting sanctions through any other means than through the court of arbitration for sport.
Whoever or where ever gave you the information to think otherwise is wrong.
How do you explain athletes challenging rulings of CAS in-front of regular courts then? It happens all the time.
It's possible you need to go through the CAS first, but ultimately CAS decisions end up in the orthodox legal system.
In any case, let's agree to disagree.
ETA: appeals from CAS decisions end up in the orthodox legal system
In any case, let's agree to disagree.
ETA: appeals from CAS decisions end up in the orthodox legal system
UEFA can and will ban top teams if it deems it appropriate. Remember back in the 80s, every English team was banned from UEFA competitions after Heysel. Liverpool may have been at some fault, but to ban every other English team was extreme. Does anyone know which UEFA rule was used to justify the ban?
Examples?
There aren't any, appeals against the CAS can only be appealed through the Swiss federal tribunal.
The idea that some sponsors will be upset if a big team misses the CL for a season, or more, doesn't work. United may miss Europe altogether next season. Are all the sponsors going to want a special exemption for us to gain entry? Of course not. The CL will survive without us for a season. I would rather those sponsors gave more money to United to help us qualify in the normal way.
UEFA feared a Super League back in 2000, when the G14 was formed, with 14 of the top European clubs, including RM, MU, Barca, AC, Bayern. This became the European Club Association (ECA) in 2008, and now has over 100 members. New entrants then included clubs from Georgia, the Faroes and city.
That's way too many for a Super League unless you had 4 or 5 divisions.
That's way too many for a Super League unless you had 4 or 5 divisions.
I'll point out Gibraltar were rejected application to UEFA but took it to the CAS and UEFA were forced to hand them provisional membership. The notion that they can make whatever rules they want and invite teams accordingly is nonsense.
Well, people are entitled to their opinion of what the law is, I suppose. Much like Eastham v Newcastle United, the Bosman ruling, and the FIFPro legal challenge to transfer fees, it always for some reason seems to come as a shock to some when the law intervenes in football just like it would for any other industry - which football is. Fans and administrators of the sport always seem to think for some reason that just because football is a sport, it's somehow not a "serious" topic, or for some reason exists in its own separate legal reality, divorced from the rules that govern you and me.
It doesn't work that way. Sporting entities - almost all football clubs are actually corporate vehicles, like private limited companies, incidentally - are profit-driven businesses, no different from a family restaurant or an oil conglomerate. Entities like CAS are no different from the disciplinary committees of the Law Society or the regulatory tribunals of stock exchanges - they have jurisdiction over us only insofar as we agree to submit to them, but the civil courts are, as always, the final arbiters on such things.
It doesn't work that way. Sporting entities - almost all football clubs are actually corporate vehicles, like private limited companies, incidentally - are profit-driven businesses, no different from a family restaurant or an oil conglomerate. Entities like CAS are no different from the disciplinary committees of the Law Society or the regulatory tribunals of stock exchanges - they have jurisdiction over us only insofar as we agree to submit to them, but the civil courts are, as always, the final arbiters on such things.
It does not help a club's case if they are penalised in accordance with the rules that they agreed to (unanimously), and that they were advised on how to comply, and given (as they agreed) fair time to ensure compliance.
They only need to ban a relatively small team (such as Monaco) and then the bigger clubs will sit up and take notice.
City
Confirmed that PSG and City have breached FFP, and they've been offered settlements to agree to by Friday or it will go to the final panal.
Settlements on offer haven't been revealed yet but could be revealed this friday.
Settlements on offer haven't been revealed yet but could be revealed this friday.
Farcical and yet so predictable.
Wait these aren't financial settlements are they?
Probably have to pay a £10,000 fine or something silly like that.
And with one fell swoop, FFP is rendered utterly meaningless.
No need for mock outrage though, everyone could see this coming a mile away.
No need for mock outrage though, everyone could see this coming a mile away.
Highly likely to be you would think.
So essentially FFP is... a tax to line UEFA's coffers?
Imagine my surprise.
Imagine my surprise.