On 26th February 2015, Dutch club, Feyenoord Rotterdam were playing the home leg of their last 32 Europa League fixture against AS Roma with the score at 1-1 at the end of the first leg. Roma eventually went on to progress through to the next round winning the tie 3-2 on aggregate, but the high tension home fixture was not without its controversy.
Around the 30th minute mark, an inflatable banana, about 115 cm in length was thrown onto the pitch during the match. It landed between the stands and the perimeter boards close to AS Roma player Gervinho who was lining up for a throw-in.
The whistle blew and play was suspended by Clement Turpin, the match referee.
The incident was widely covered across several media channels resulting in the commencement of a UEFA disciplinary procedure which ended with a decision given by the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body.
On 21st May 2015, the Disciplinary Body held Feyenoord Rotterdam liable for the racist acts of their supporters.
Feyenoord appealed the decision before the UEFA Appeals Body, who confirmed the verdict of the Disciplinary Body and dismissed the club’s appeal. Dissatisfied, Feyenoord brought the case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on appeal which would give a final verdict on the dispute.
It’s Not What It Looks Like…
Feyenoord argued that the use of inflatable bananas was misrepresented as a racist act, which was used by fans to create a “positive and supporting atmosphere”.
According to Feyenoord, the nature of the inflatable banana was such that it could not have been directed at any particular player but was rather thrown in a general direction out of sheer frustration, for a wrongly awarded throw-in.
Feyenoord contended that Mr. Turpin’s determination of the act amounting to a racist one was based on a subjective assessment since there was nothing in the broadcasted images to imply that the inflatable banana was thrown in the direction of Gervinho.
It was Feyenoord’s plea that due to the seriousness of the alleged offense, the referee ought to have a “high degree of confidence” to impose any liability on the club. Feyenoord argued that the context in which the alleged act was said to be racist was important to ascertain whether the act indeed amounted to a racist one. The club pleaded that the inflatable banana was a “harmless toy” which had been thrown by a seventeen-year-old “colored boy” at the home ground of the club, which had previously never experienced any act of racism.
According to Feyenoord, the situation had been overreacted upon due to “over-regulation and over-instruction of the issue” caused by the political nature of the problem. A seemingly harmless act by a young boy, was, according to Feyenoord, blown out of proportion.
In any case, it was the contention of Feyenoord that even if they were found guilty, the sanctions imposed upon them by the Disciplinary Body were disproportionate in light of several mitigating factors.
It's Going Down
Andrew Mercer, the counsel representing UEFA, submitted that the facts posited a simple conclusion that an inflatable banana was thrown at a “black player” of AS Roma.
He supported his argument by citing numerous media sources who had covered the event independently and further corroborated by official UEFA reports.
Regarding the argument of Feyenoord that the subjective assessment of the referee ought to be based on a high degree of confidence, UEFA argued that the presence or absence of racial intent was immaterial and that under Article 38 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations(UEFA DR), the referee’s report is presumed to be accurate.
In any case, it was UEFA’s contention that the referee’s report was based on the visual assessment of Mr. Rainville, the assistant referee, who was best placed to observe the unfolding of the incident before his own eyes.
Therefore, Feyenoord had the burden to prove that the inflatable banana was thrown out of general frustration and not towards Gervinho.
UEFA argued that the inflatable banana was not thrown out of general frustration as the throwing of the banana directly followed an action on the pitch performed by Gervinho.
UEFA took recourse to the video footage to show that the crowd was behaving aggressively towards Gervinho, who almost got hit in the head by a paper roll, immediately preceding the banana incident.
The fact that the thrower himself was “colored”, according to UEFA, did not rule out the possibility that his actions could be of a racist nature.
The fact that it was concluded independently by the referees, media reports, as well as by the athlete himself was enough proof to reach at the particular determination that the throwing of the banana amounted to a racist act under the Disciplinary Regulations.
Say No To Racism
The CAS did not agree with Feyenoord’s argument that the determination of the throwing of the inflatable banana was based on an erroneous subjective assessment.
The Court held that the law is clear in the matter that the referee’s report is presumed to be valid unless otherwise disproved. The party questioning the veracity of the report (in this case Feyenoord) has the burden to prove that the report should not be taken into consideration.
According to the Court, this was not the case here. Despite the lack of clear audible communication available between Mr.Turpin and Mr. Rainville, the latter was still best placed to see the exact incident and report it to Mr. Turpin.
This was also further corroborated by the UEFA Europa League Delegate’s report which stated that “an inflatable banana was thrown” onto the pitch, which he believed to be a “racist act”.
The Court did not take into consideration media reports as independent sources but instead based its judgment on the referee’s report. Additionally, the Panel held that the determination of whether the act was racist would ultimately be based on a conclusion reached by an “objective onlooker”.
This objective onlooker could be someone situated in the stands, on the pitch, behind the screen, or anywhere else. If a reasonable onlooker believes that the act was done with intent so as to insult the human dignity, as provided for under Article 14(1) of the UEFA DR, then it can be reasonably concluded that the act must surely be a racist one.
The Court concluded that to do otherwise would mean that some acts which are considered to be reprehensible are somehow permissible just because another group of people thinks that such acts are fine.
The Court therefore partially upheld the decision of the UEFA Appeals Body and directed Feyenoord to pay a 50,000 Euro fine.
The Panel, by reversing the Appeals body decision, allowed Feyenoord to play its next UEFA competition in front of its home crowd for a probationary period of three years. If any further violation of Article 14(1) were to take place during this period, then Feyenoord would have to play behind closed doors.
PS: If you're reading this far, please consider subscribing to Your Weekend Beer - a weekend newsletter on the business of football.
PPS: You can view the full essay + other cool elements of Issue #9 here
For reference, you can read the original CAS verdict here

City v. UEFA| Summarizing the Findings from CAS' Arbitration Award

On July 28, 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport issued its full Award in the City v. UEFA appeal. The award can be found here. ^{^[1]} What follows is an attempt to summarize the proceedings and findings into a more digestible format.
Proceedings Timeline

2014: City and UEFA reach a settlement agreement following a separate charge, from UEFA, that City breached FFP.
2017: The Settlement Agreement, which called for subsequent reporting and overview of financial dealings, expires.
2018: Der Spiegel publishes leaked emails regarding City's sponsorship dealings
2019: After seeking clarification from City regarding the substance of the leaked emails, UEFA begins a formal investigation. City did not cooperate with the investigation. ^{^[1]}
January 22, 2020: UEFA conduct a formal investigation. They request 7 witnesses from City. Only one, Mr. Soriano, participates. City do not produce the emails and documents requested by UEFA.
March 28, 2019: UEFA undertakes a formal hearing on the charges.
February 14, 2020: UEFA find City in breach.

UEFA's charges against City
UEFA found City in violation of FFP in two regards:

First, UEFA found that City had "incorrect[ly] treat[ed] sponsorship revenue on in the financial statements for the years ending May 31 2012 - 2016." ^{^[1]} Specifically, UEFA found that City had overstated its revenue and income by improperly designating payments, purportedly from Etisalat and Etihad Airways, as sponsorship income - when they were in reality equity payments from City's ownership group.
Second, UEFA found that City had improperly failed to cooperate with the investigation, in breach of FFP, by (a) misreporting its income/revenue; and (b) failing to comply with UEFA's investigation into that charge. ^{^[1]}

Procedural Quirks to Start the Appeal
Document Production
City refused to produce documents and witnesses requested by UEFA during its initial investigation. On appeal, City then sought to introduce considerable evidence and arguments relating to those same issues, including testimony by some of the same witnesses UEFA had asked to appear at the initial investigation. ^{^[1]} As a result of the additional evidence City sought to present, UEFA renewed four detailed document requests. ^{^[1]}
City agreed to produce some - but not all - of the information. This resulted in UEFA being unable to acquire certain information relating to the sources of City's funding, and substantial email documents surrounding the same.
Although UEFA could have filed a motion with CAS to demand the production, doing so would have prevented CAS from reaching a decision prior to the start of the 2020-21 UEFA club competitions season. ^{^[1]} From a strategic standpoint --- by refusing to participate fully in the initial investigation, and due to the timing of the appeal, City were able to prevent UEFA from conducting a full investigation.
Time Barred Claims
The concerns regarding City's funding related to sponsorship deals and payments purportedly made by two entities: (1) Etihad Airways; and (2) Etisalat. The concerns related to payments as far back as 2012. In considering how far back UEFA could look, CAS concluded that the "look-back" date was 5 years from the date UEFA filed charges against City --- May 15, 2019. Accordingly, anything reported prior to May 15, 2014, was time barred. As a result, All of the claims regarding Etisalat's payments were deemed time-barred and not reviewed. And the claims regarding Etihad were thus limited. ^{^[1]}
Arguments on Appeal

City

Inaccurate Reporting
City denied that its reports were inaccurate, that its revenue sources were improper, that CAS had jurisdiction, that the claims were not time barred, or that UEFA had proven its case.
Failure to Cooperate
City alleged that it did not need to cooperate because the duty to comply "is only extended to 'proper' and 'reasonable' requests that are 'relevant' to the CFCB's decision making and this cannot include requests for illegally obtained documents before the admissibility of those documents has been determined by the proper body." ^{^[1]}

UEFA

Improper Payments
UEFA alleged that two separate entities had improperly funneled money to City. First, it alleged that in 2012 and 2013, Etisalat (a telecom company), was supposed to make sponsorship payments to MCFC, but that those payments ultimately came from ADUG (the controlling entity of MCFC). Second, it alleged that a separate entity, Etihad Airways, only contributed 8m over several years --- and that the remaining 174m in payments were procured or funded by or on behalf of ADUG, but credited to Etihad on MCFC's records.
In all, UEFA alleged that City disguised at least 204m as sponsorship income, when in reality it consisted of equity. ^{^[1]}
Failure to Cooperate
UEFA alleged that it repeatedly requested info from MCFC, and that MCFC repeatedly refused to answer its questions or provide information related to UEFAs concerns. ^{^[1]}
UEFA believed MCFC's false reporting scheme arose from an interest in raising the awareness of Abu Dhabi's business standings to develop the economy of Abu Dhabi. ^{^[1]}

Summary of Findings

Evidence Presented
UEFA
At the hearing, the primary crux of UEFA's case turned upon the Leaked Emails from der Spiegel. It presented one witness.
City
City presented seven witnesses and accounting evidence. Specifically, City presented a partial accounting audit prepared by Ernst & Young. Although CAS admitted that E&Y's report supported City's argument, it illustrated concern with whether the report showed the true story. Specifically, CAS noted that "the relevance [of the report] is somewhat limited because it is premised solely on accounting data of MCFC, while the arrangements of disguising equity funding as sponsorship contributions would not logically have been reflected in such accounting data." City's evidence "did not test the consistency of the accounting evidence against the proposition that Etihad's sponsorship agreements ... would be made available by other means." CAS also noted that this omission was not by chance --- it is exactly what MCFC's attorneys asked the accounting expert to do. ^{^[1]}
CAS went so far as to state that City's "expert report is not decisive in excluding UEFA's proposition that equity funding was disguised as sponsorship contributions, as this would not logically have shown in the accounting data" City provided its accounting experts to analyze. ^{^[1]}
Improper Reporting of Equity Funding as Sponsorship Deals

The leaked emails were authentic. Although the leaked emails "were mainly selected parts of emails," this "did not affect the veracity of the Leaked E Mails on which UEFA primarily based its case." ^{^[1]}

The leaked emails can be reviewed in their entirety at pages 59-64 of CAS' Award.

The Leaked Emails "provided prima facie evidence of potential rule breaches by MCFC." "Based on the leaked emails, MCFC clearly had a case to answer, as the emails exchanged at executive and board level of MCFC describe an arrangement by means of which equity funding ... would be disguised as sponsorship contributions." ^{^[1]}
However, the leaked emails, by themselves, were insufficient to satisfy UEFA's burden to prove wrongdoing --- because they fail "to show a completed act." ^{^[1]}

CAS found that there was insufficient evidence to conclude whether City did, or did not, disguise equity funding as sponsorship deals. Although the Leaked Emails "discuss an arrangement whereby Etihad's sponsorship contributions would be funded, or procured to be funded, by HHSM and/or ADUG," "the participation of HHSM and/or ADUG and Etihad is a prerequisite for the arrangement to be executed, but such participation has not been established. Mr. Pearce may have tried to implement the arrangement discussed in the Leaked Emails, but... there is no evidence on file that he actually went ahead with or succeeded in such attempt." ^{^[1]}

The result is, according to the majority of the Panel, that neither hypothesis [that they did or did not disguise funding] is established.... Given that UEFA carries the burden of proof ... UEFA's allegations must be dismissed. ^{^[1]}

The sanction for violating FFP for improper funding was therefore overturned.
Failure to Cooperate
CAS determined that City had failed to fulfill its FFP requirements by providing information in response to reasonable requests by UEFA during its investigation. ^{^[1]} CAS described City as "very reluctant" to provide information, noting that "substantial evidence" was submitted by MCFC for the very first time to CAS, and that City was "rightfully sanctioned" for failing to cooperate. ^{^[1]} The sanction for violating FFP by failing to cooperate was therefore upheld.

TL;DR

UEFA "by no means filed frivolous charges against MCFC." ^{^[1]} City were alleged to have received improper equity funding disguised as sponsorship funding from two sources: (1) Etisalat; and (2) Etihad Airways. The leaked emails published by der Spiegel established "a prima facie" case against City, and UEFA was right to investigate. ^{^[1]}
City was "very reluctant" to participate in UEFA's investigation, and UEFA rightfully sanctioned them for this. "The entire FFP system depends for its effectiveness on complete and accurate reporting by clubs of their football income and expenses. MCFC's failure to produce some documents was deemed "particularly serious." ^{^[1]} Its "fail[ure] to comply with reasonable evidentiary requests in several respects" "obstructed the investigations of the CFCB." ^{^[1]}
Ultimately, the claims regarding Etisalat's funding was time barred, and therefore not reviewed on appeal, and the concerns regarding Etihad's funding was limited to a two-year time period for the same reason. Although the leaked emails, issued by Etihad executives, discuss improper funding arrangements, UEFA did not have sufficient evidence on file to establish that the arrangements were actually made.
The punishment for breaching FFP by failing to cooperate was therefore upheld.
The punishment for improper funding was therefore overruled.

Megathread: The Salt Mine of CAS' Exoneration

(OC) OPERATION MESSI, PART ONE: THE LEGAL AND FINANCIAL REALITIES

Please feel free to read more of City coverage here.
Section One: The Legal Battle
Before there was the Isco Disco™, the seemingly perennial (and at times bi-annual) links to Real Madrid’s talented attacking midfielder – before there were transfer sagas that eventually resulted in the sale of high profile stars like Leroy Sané, or being spurned by the likes Dani Alves, Alexis Sánchez, or Jorginho – there were the links to Lionel Messi.
Dating back to 2011 when it was reported that City’s bosses had met with Lionel Messi’s entourage to ascertain the diminutive superstar’s intentions in light of news that Barcelona were trying to sign then-emerging Brazilian talent Neymar, rumors linking the Barcelona star to City have been injected into the news cycle like a steady drip from an IV. The links would continue over the decade, with City officials taking each chance they were given to impress the Argentinian, both on the pitch and off it.
Speculation that Messi could actually join City reached it’s zenith during the first half of 2016 when it was announced that his former Manager, Pep Guardiola, would be joining the Manchester club. That his arrival happened to coincide with Messi entering the final 12 months of his contract at the Camp Nou, speculation reached new levels. Though there were many who wondered aloud if circumstances may be ripe for a move, in the end no formal approach was made. City embarked on an expensive and extensive rebuilding project for their new star manager, one that was largely built on the backs of precocious young talents like Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, and Gabriel Jesus, along with a cohort of tenured City stalwarts like Sergio Aguero, Fernandinho, Vincent Kompany, and David Silva.
With the 2016 summer window coming having come to a close with no formal approach having been made, Messi put pen to paper on a new four year extension with the only club he’s ever known. In doing so he set a new standard for himself financially, earning a compensation package that’s worth anywhere between €45m and €100m a year depending on which source you choose to trust. In turn the club gained the safety of an untouchable €700m release clause. Also inserted into that contract was a little thought of termination clause that would allow Messi to void the final year of his contract should he choose to do so. But it would be that clause, one few expected he would ever trigger after a lifetime at the club, in combination with the emergence of global health pandemic that would set the stage for one of the most stunning transfer sagas of the century.
If the journey to reach this day has been long, and the path winding, the process of actually signing Messi is likely to be even more complex. So while this will be a meandering article that will cover many topics – from contract law, to FIFA rules, to finance, it’s perhaps best to start at the beginning.
What About His Release Clause?
On August 25th a Burofax arrived at the offices of Barcelona Football Club containing official, legal notice of Messi’s intent to activate the termination clause in his contract and become a free agent. It’s this clause, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic upon that clause, that lie at the heart of all the difficulties that have followed.
Only a few people are privy to the exact terms of Messi’s contract, but it has been widely reported that his contract contained a termination clause that would allow him to void the final season of his deal as long as he provided notice of his intention to do so prior to June 10th. Under normal circumstances that date would’ve allowed him somewhere between two and four weeks from the completion of the season to serve notice that he would be leaving. However, due to league shut-downs brought about by the pandemic, Messi’s season didn’t end until August 14th, by which point his termination clause had long since expired. As a result Messi’s future has been left in limbo, with the outcome hinging upon complex and sometimes competing legalities, financial difficulties, and a healthy dose of hubris.
While the player’s camp will continue to try and make the argument that his clause should be honored due to extenuating circumstances, Barcelona is certainly under no obligation to do so and Joesp Bartomeu, President of Barcelona, is plainly in no mood to to do. He is in fact in no mood to allow Messi to leave under any circumstances other than the complete fulfillment of his €700m release clause.
Could City Trigger His Release Clause?
Though there were reports circulating that the €700m release clause built into Messi’s contract had somehow expired at the end of this season, those reports have been shown to be false. On it’s face, the reports made little sense, as all players in Spain are required to have a release clause, so the idea that he suddenly did not never didn’t add up.
The reports led to La Liga taking the highly unusual step of publicly and officially declaring that Messi is still very much bound to Barcelona, and that his release clause is still very much in force. Again, operating under the assumption that Messi does indeed have a release clause (as he is legally obligated to) and that La Liga hasn’t foolishly exposed themselves to a lawsuit for falsely disseminating details of his contract in an official and public capacity, that would mean that the one guaranteed way for City to move the transfer forward would be to pay his release clause.
For obvious reasons paying €700m for a transfer fee alone would be extremely challenging under the existing Financial Fair Play frameworks. While clubs have the ability to amortize the costs of a transfer fee over the duration of a player’s contract, that would still leave City on the hook for €140m a year in expenses over the next five years (should they sign Messi to a five year contract) for the fee alone, before accounting for any potential salary. The numbers only get more challenging if the contract is for the two years that’re being reported. In that case City would have an FFP hit of €350m per year for the next two years just for the transfer fee.
Assuming a salary in in the range of €60m per year, that would leave City shouldering a FFP hit of somewhere between €200m and €410m per year. The first number would be extraordinarily challenging, the latter, likely impossible.
Given the financial difficulties associated with triggering his release clause, and Barcelona’s – or at least Bartomeu’s – stance that they will not agree to sell Messi for a lesser fee, that leaves all parties looking at what would likely be a protracted legal battle.
Could Messi Secure His Exit Through The Courts?
That, in many ways, is the million dollar question. While Messi and his attorneys will argue that extenuating circumstances should allow him to have the June 10th deadline in his contract extended to reflect the date when the season actually ended, it’s hardly a certainty that the Spanish legal system will allow this.
Thanks to excellent reporting work done by a team of writers at The Athletic, including City correspondent Sam Lee amongst many others, we know that under Spanish law deference is always given to the specific date when a question of interpretation arises in contracts. Plainly, that means that Messi and his team would have an uphill battle on their hands to show that his option to terminate his contract should be honored more than two months after it actually expired.
The one saving grace they may have is if there was what is known as a ‘force-majeure’ subclause attached to his void-option. Force-majeure is a fairly common clause to see written into contracts that protects one or both parties from harm due to unforeseeable, and catastrophic events (the term literally means, ‘force of nature.)’ In the event that there is such a clause, it would give Messi’s legal team a fighting chance. They’d still need to successfully argue that the Coronavirus pandemic qualifies as such an unforeseeable and devastating act, and they may very well do so successfully, but it’s far from a sure thing. If there is no such clause, the odds of success are likely stacked firmly in Barcelona’s favor.
There is, of course, another problem with needing to go to the court: legal proceedings take time. Sometimes a lot of time. Even under a best-case scenario (from Messi’s perspective) it’s likely that any legal battle would last months, taking both the player and any interested parties well beyond the transfer deadline of October 5th.
If Messi Believes His Contract Is Void, Could He Just Sign For Whomever He Wants?
Let’s call this the, “going rogue” option. As I’ve discussed above, Messi is in a sub-optimal position from a legal perspective, but if he’s really of the opinion that his contract is indeed void, could he just sign for City – or whomever else he wanted to – anyway?
In short: yes, he could… But both Messi and the acquiring club would be subject to an Article 17 Breach, and Barcelona would then be in an extremely strong position to bring a lawsuit for breach of contract, holding Messi liable for (at least) the full amount of his €700m release clause, plus whatever material damages that Barcelona feels it might incur as a loss of his services. That amount could, at least theoretically, be even greater than the €700m from his release clause, depending on what types of de-escalation clauses are (or are not) tied to Barcelona’s various marketing contracts.
Unfortunately, In order to understand the second part of those potential liabilities we have to delve into the realm of hypotheticals.
For example: Barcelona is reported to receive somewhere between €140m and €155m a year from Nike as their primary kit sponsor. If there is a clause in that contact that would trigger a decrease in that payment should Messi leave (as is likely to be the case) to, say, €100m a year, Messi could be held legally liable for the €40m-€55m loss Barcelona were to incur.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, that’s a hypothetical scenario, but it’s likely that Nike would demand language to that effect before signing the biggest kit contact in history. There may be no such clause, or it may be for a smaller – or larger – number. No one besides the interested parties knows.
Furthermore, should the loss of Messi lead to a devaluation of the club by the lenders currently financing the club’s debt of approximately €1.3b, that could trigger escalator clauses that could increase their interests rates on those loans. Again, the club would have a strong legal position to argue that Messi is liable for those increased expenses.
These may all be hypotheticals – we don’t know what clauses (if any) are attached to Barcelona’s sponsorship agreements, and if so, how much they would cost Barcelona should Messi leave during this window. But there are almost certainly a bevy of material damages Messi could be held liable for, and those – along with the €700m release clause – would constitute the better part of a billion Euros.
The odds that Messi is bold enough to throw caution to the wind to simply sign with whomever he wants without being absolutely certain that his contract with Barcelona either is, or will be voided would be suicidally foolish, and as such it’s highly unlikely to happen.
Additionally – as if there weren’t enough reasons to avoid going rouge – if Messi were to sign for another club without being absolutely certain his contract was indeed voided and FIFA were to review the case and side with Barcelona – which seems unlikely given their stated guidelines on contracts as it pertains to contracts and Covid-19 (more on this in a moment) – Barcelona or FIFA could file an Article 17 complaint.
Article 17 of FIFA’s Transfer Regulations states that in the event that a player unilaterally terminates his contract without just cause, the player is liable for all potential damages.
“In all cases, the party in breach shall pay compensation. Subject to the provisions of article 20 and Annexe 4 in relation to training compensation, and unless otherwise provided for in the contract, compensation for the breach shall be calculated with due consideration for the law of the country concerned, the specificity of sport, and any other objective criteria. These criteria shall include, in particular, the remuneration and other benefits due to the player under the existing contract and/or the new contract, the time remaining on the existing contract up to a maximum of five years, the fees and expenses paid or incurred by the former club (amortised over the term of the contract) and whether the contractual breach falls within a protected period.”
Additionally and specifically to address potential meddling by the acquiring club, it goes on to state in section two that no third party can pay the resulting damages (IE: a club can’t pay those damages for the player).
Additionally under section three the player would be subject to a ban from all competitions for a period of 4-6 months depending on the severity of the breach.
And of last, but of course not least, the acquiring club would be subject two a minimum two window transfer ban.
What About FIFA, Could They Intervene On Messi’s Behalf?
There is, at least in theory, some ground for thinking this may be a possible avenue for Messi to escape his contract, and it would involve invoking Article 14 of FIFA’s Transfer Regulations, which states,
“A contract may be terminated by either party without consequences of any kind (either payment of compensation or imposition of sporting sanctions) where there is just cause.“
Exactly what FIFA would accept as a just cause remains to be seen, as the wording of the clause is incredibly vague when compared to, say Article 15, which governs contract termination for sporting cause, and to my knowledge, there have been no attempt at invoking Article 14.
In Messi’s favor would be FIFA’s own declared stance that contracts should handled with the spirit of the contract in mind as they declared in their April 7th release to address the legal consequences of Covid-19. Of relevant note:
“If parties cannot agree and, as a consequence, cases come to FIFA, the factors to be examined will include the following:

whether there was a genuine attempt by the club to reach agreement with the players;
what the economic situation of the club is;
the proportionality of any adjustment to player contracts;
the net income position of players after any contract adjustment; and
whether players have been treated equally or not.”

Invoking Article 14 or appealing directly to FIFA are of course hardly grantees of success. In the case of Article 14 it will be difficult to define precisely what qualifies as ‘just cause.’ Messi clearly wants the spirit of his contract to be honored, but he has not been materially harmed in any way by the club, and as such, that argument may not be enough.
And though the FIFA guidelines with regards to player contracts exist, they are guidelines, not official policy, and have never been subject to any kind of legal test like the ones they would surely face at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who are the designated arbitrators for FIFA. Should FIFA agree with Messi that his contract is voided, Barcelona’s next step would be to file an immediate appeal to CAS and hope for an injunction.
As if all of that weren’t muddy enough, this is where things get really murky. Let’s say FIFA declares Messi’s contract void and he immediately signs with a new club, but upon review, the Court of Arbitration for Sport were to rule in favor of Barcelona – what then? Is Messi’s new contract voided? Are the new club and/or Messi liable for damages? Worse still – what if a Spanish civil court ruled Messi is in breach of contract regardless of what FIFA or CAS say?
This is, to say the least, extremely shaky legal ground that has no precedent to guide it, and both Messi and his new club would be taking an enormous financial risk even if FIFA were to back the player’s desired move.
Given the enormous financial risks involved, it’s unlikely that either the player or the acquiring club would have much of a stomach for this fight, even if the odds of success were somewhat better, especially if such resolution were to take another five to six months to achieve, during which time the player would be in limbo, and the club be deep into the most meaningful matches of their season.
What else is possible?
With Barcelona’s stance appearing to be fixed – no negotiations will be had – and all legal avenues either against the player or on unsteady legal footing, and with both sure to take many months to finalize, what other options does Messi have?
So far Messi and his camp are taking an approach that would be familiar to fans of the American NFL – he has refused to show up to mandatory team actives in violation of his contract – a holdout. In doing so he’s made himself subject to fines that could cost him his paychecks, but he’s also ratcheted up the pressure on Barcelona to find a solution.
If Messi’s stance is indeed to hold out – to refuse to play for the club without signing for someone else – he’s showing that he’s willing to stay at home for an entire year and in the process forfeit his pay. That, at least in theory, leaves the club in a bit of a bind. Assuming they don’t care about the optics of playing hardball with a club legend – and it certainly doesn’t appear Bartomeu cares much for what those around the club think of him – then the holdout does very little from a financial perspective. In fact, they can maintain all of their sponsorship agreements as they are, and the club won’t have to pay Messi a single Euro (at least in base salary, he’d still be due his image rights and other provisions). In doing so the club would likely save somewhere in the neighborhood of €45m/€60m – Messi’s exact salary is unknown.
Although we don’t know what stipulations are attached to Barcelona’s many sponsorship agreements as it pertains to Messi, it’s fair to say the club stands to lose a lot of money if Messi is sold or released before the start of the season. As a result it could be that Bartomeu’s refusal to sell Messi is borne less of any malignance toward the club legend than it is pure economics. In short, he may believe that between the money the club save in salary they aren’t paying Messi, in addition to the sponsorship revenue that they would be able to maintain – there is no financial agreement that could be made that would be of greater value than meeting his €700m release clause.
Or it could simply be that Joesp Bartomeu is an egomaniacal ass. There’s certainly some precedence for the belief, as the long – and ongoing – legal battles between Barcelona and former star Neymar clearly illustrate. The two parties have been engaged in near perpetuity from the moment the player left for PSG in a string of lawsuits, countersuits, and countersuits to countersuits; with the club accusing the player of being in breach of contract, while the player accuses the club of refusing to pay him wages he is owed for his time with the club. All of which was preceded by attempts by La Liga to intervene on the club’s behalf by initially refusing to accept his buyout clause, while lodging appeals with UEFA surrounding PSG’s adherence to Financial Fair Play.
The lesson: Barcelona under Bartomeu is not averse to engaging in long, protracted legal engagements against star players even when there is precious little to be gained by doing so.
So What’s Most Likely To Happen?
Regardless of whether Barcelona’s stance under Bartomeu is the result of financial imperative, ego, or a combination of both, it’s left no one with a clear path forward, and it may be that in the end the best option for everyone is for Messi to simply see out the final year of his contract, and sign a pre-contract with the club of his choice, free of any legal ramifications Barcelona could bring to bear, on January 1st.
As it stands today, September 2nd, Messi is less than four months away from such a situation. With nothing but a contentious legal minefield awaiting him – a field where there are no real winners, only those who lose less – perhaps it’s an opportunity for Messi to prove to the Barcelona faithful one last time that even in the face of the absurd stance of the club’s President, one man, despite being short of stature, can find yet another way to rise above the rest.
Section Two: The Finances
Determining what type of financial package an acquiring club would have to put together to make a Messi transfer a reality is a multi-part problem. The first requires determining what type of fee would be required to secure the players release from his current club, the second would be determining how large his wage packet would be.
In most cases these matters are relatively straight forward, but due to the legal uncertainty surrounding Messi’s contact status with Barcelona, and the enormity of his existing wages, the task of signing Messi is anything but routine.
In order to paint as thorough a picture as possible we’ll first explore the three primary scenarios in which Messi could sign for another club: by payment of his release clause; through a negotiated fee; or on a free transfer after securing his release, or in the winter window.
We’ll then look at ways that City may try to finance such a move.
Paying The Release Clause
The easiest way, and indeed perhaps the only way that Lionel Messi will be leaving Camp Nou during the summer window, will be for an interested club to take the audacious step of meeting his daunting €700m release clause. Doing so would require that club to find a way to finance a fee most triple that of any that’s ever been paid. To say the least, there are very few clubs in the world who could dream of financing such an outlay, but Manchester City may be one of the few who could.
In City’s favor will be the fact that they have a large amount of liquid assets at their disposal after the sale of 10% of the Club to Silver Lake Capital for $500m (£389m/€423m) in November of 2019. It is possible that the club could utilize the capital raised in that sale to fund – at least in part – his release clause. What would be more difficult, would be funding the remaining €275m. Seeking to sell more shares of the club is likely out of the question – such ventures take at a minimum many months to complete, and City have just over a month to raise the necessary capital. That would likely mean taking out a loan.
If we assume that City can raise the funds, and/or have the willingness to do so, the next question is how can they account for that expense under the constraints of Financial Fair Play?
Working in that club’s favor will be what’s called amortization. Though we briefly touched on the concept earlier, let’s do it slightly more justice now. Amortization at it’s most basic is the process of spreading a payment out of a longer period of time.
What may be confusing to some in this instance is that the actual payment itself would not be able to be spread out – if someone want’s to trigger Messi’s release clause they will need to find a way to furnish the entire €700m in one go. Instead what this is referring to, as we touched on earlier in the article, is how the payment is accounted for.
As a result of this allowance, a player’s transfer fee, at least for the purposes of compliance with Financial Fair Play, is usually not accounted for as a single lump sum, but rather is apportioned out across the length of the players contract. Still, no matter the accounting methods used, the acquiring club would be looking at a substantial FFP hit.
Reportedly Messi is only interested in a two-year contract, if so, that would leave the acquiring club in a highly untenable position, as that would mean taking an FFP hit of €350m per year on the transfer fee alone before accounting for any salary he would be owed. If we assumed a fairly conservative wage packet of €50m/yr for the Argentinian superstar that would mean the acquiring club would be taking on an eye-watering €400m FFP hit for each of the next two seasons. To give that number some context, Manchester City’s entire player expense sheet for the 2019/2020 season was roughly €450m. Even if Messi were to accept a longer five year contract, the Financial Fair Play hit would be €190m per season.
However, as a result of the Silver Lake sale, and the capital it raised, City aren’t necessarily priced out of this move. If the contract is only for two years, they can use that cash influx in any three-year Financial Fair Play accounting period. Th Silver Lake capital alone wouldn’t cover the expense of Messi, but it would take them more than half way home, and that combined with the sale of someone like Riyad Mahrez or Gabriel Jesus – two players who’s minutes would be directly impacted by Messi’s arrival – would get them closer.
The club could then do what Juventus did in renegotiating their sponsorship with Jeep after their acquisition of Christiano Ronaldo. Though City have only recently locked in their new apparel deal with Puma, their long standing – and much maligned – sponsorship with agreement with Etihad is due to expire at the end of the 2021 season. City could, at least in theory, use the acquisition of Messi as justification for renegotiating that contract at a significantly higher value – just as Juventus has.
Further, they could get creative with their wage packet. The could offer Messi a token salary, along with full image rights, and competition bonuses – all things we would normally receive – but make the bold move of offering him an ownership stake in City Financial Group. Given the firm valuation £3.89b that was imparted upon them with the Silver Lake acquisition, a 4% share of CFG would be worth roughly £155m. That would be strong compensation for two years service.
In that scenario, City may, just barely, be able to ride a combination of a fortuitously timed capital injection, player sales, a cleverly designed wage packet and renegotiated contracts, over the FFP finish line. Still, it would take every resource at City’s disposal to cover that release clause and even then, it may not be enough without the sale of another significant player or two.
Let’s call this scenario highly unlikely.
Paying A Negotiated Fee
In most cases, including that of Christian Ronaldo at rival Real Madrid, losing a long-tenured star player is a painful process, but one that both club and player work to make as amicable as possible. Doing so protects both the players image amongst supporters, and the clubs image to those who may with to join in the future. It’s never been a necessity, clubs have always been free to refuse to sell, and players have alway been free to hold out to try and force a move away – but football has an unspoken gentleman’s agreement that when a painful situation arises, it will be handled with class and dignity.
Josep Bartomeu does not appear to be a man who cares for the rules of convention. Whether it was with his aforementioned treatment of Neymar, or as it would appear to be in this instance – when Bartomeu has decided a player will not be allowed to leave, he would appear to mean that quite literally.
Though many may view that behavior as petulant or egotistical (and it may well be), there is a another far more likely culprit driving his decision making: financial imperative.
Though Barcelona are an incredibly wealthy and successful club, they are also a club carrying a significant debt load (almost €1.3b), and one that would appear to have been particularly hard-hit by the impacts of Covid-19, with the President himself taking the unusual step of declaring, “since March 14, we have barely receieved nearly €1. We have lost €200 million in revenues. 200! We have recovered some money by reducing wages and with the ERTE. We had to close the shops and the museum and there were no ticket sales. We also gave money back to season ticket holders for the games that were not played.”
While the motivations of that kind of statement should be questioned – heads of major companies are loathe to publicly declare loses as it negatively impacts their leverage at the negotiating table – there’s no doubt that the pandemic will have hurt the club.
On it’s face then it would appear that agreeing a fee for Messi would be a logical move to counteract that financial pain. After all, they could secure a significant fee, whilst ridding themselves of his onerous wage bill.
There are, however, hidden landmines that may be lurking in the field should the club allow Messi his leave. The first and most obvious is that there are likely de-escalator clauses in many of Barcelona’s sponsorship agreements. Just as Juventus was able to renegotiate their primary kit sponsorship with Jeep, it’s likely that there are clauses which would see Barcelona’s major sponsorships cut dramatically in the event Messi leaves.
Perhaps worse still a decline in the valuation of the club – such as the one Real Madrid saw when Ronaldo left – would have more than a paper impact on Barcelona. That’s because when a club takes out a significant loan, such as the €800m loan it’s said to have taken out this past year for renovations of Camp Nou – they’re using the value of the club as collateral against that loan. A significant change in valuation, such as the one that would happen as a result of the loss of Messi, would likely impact the interest rates Goldman Sachs charges.
At the end of that Bartomeu is a businessman. Though he may not be the most pleasant man when he doesn’t get his way, it’s more likely that he has simply looked at the bigger financial picture and come to the conclusion that there genuinely is no fee of less than €700m that would offset the loses he feels the club would incur should Messi be sold this summer.
Logically speaking, if that weren’t the case, there’d be no obvious reason for his refusal to even accept the possibility of negotiating his stars release. He surely understands that Messi could leave the club on a free in ten months time – and sign a pre-contract in less than four – and has decided that despite this, it still makes more sense to refuse to allow the player to leave.
Perhaps it’s merely hubris, or arrogance, or petulance that’s led him to this position, but it’s unlikely that he’s reached this point in his career – as the head of the highest grossing sports franchise on Earth – by being that emotional. Whatever personality traits Bartomeu may possess, he’s a prudent man, and his stance is likely borne of that same view.
Waiting Till The Winter Window
If we operate under the assumption that financing the acquisition of Messi by triggering his release clause is either impossible, or implausible enough to treat as such; and that Barcelona will remain steadfast in their refusal to sell – as they very much appear to be – then that leaves Messi but one way out: on a free at the expiry of his contract.
If Messi is forced to stay at Barcelona, he can use it as one last opportunity to further cement his already indelible legacy with the Barcelona fanbase: a player who acted with class and dignity in the face of an ignominious club President. In the process he can use that time to solicit the very best offers from clubs around the world, maximizing the value of whatever contract he signs next.
Messi’s decision to leave the only club he’s every know has always appeared to be a hasty one; driven as much by a realization that Barcelona would be unlikely to deliver his dream of one last Champions League win given their current aging roster, as it was the sting of their humbling at the hands of an ascendant Bayern Munich side.
However, if Messi’s desire to leave had been driven in part by those factors leading up to his announcement, he now likely has a greater one: a disdain for Bartomeu. Though the President’s tenure is up for vote in March, he’s likely to retain his position, and it’s hard to envisage a scenario where Messi agrees to sign a new contract under his tenure, as all faith in his, or the Club’s willingness to honor the spirit of those contracts is now likely decimated.
It will also give Manchester City, and any other clubs that care to make a run at his signature, time to formulate concrete plans for how they’ll fund such an acquisition.
In the meantime, all anyone can do is wait. Perhaps Bartomeu will have a change of heart, or perhaps the approach of the deadline and the threat of losing Messi on a free will compel him into last minute negotiations. Perhaps the player will initiate a lengthy, costly, and uncertain legal battle either though the Spanish courts or through UEFA to try and secure his release during the winter window. But as of this moment, all signs point to Messi playing out the final season of his contract with Barcelona, perhaps reluctantly, before making a decision that will inexorably alter not only his life, but a significant portion of the European football landscape.

But why Leipzig? A not so short analysis on why Red Bull chose the city as their hub.

Every other month or so, a new discussion on this sub arises about RB Leipzig, their business model, and whether Red Bull-boss Dietrich Mateschitz is a saint-like philantropist who finally brought high class football to the poor citizens of Leipzig or satan himself whose sole goal is to destroy football as a whole and eat fans alive. This post isn’t about that. While I personally have strong opinions about whether RB Leipzig and their business model are good or bad (hint: It’s bad), I try to keep this post as unbiased as possible. Instead, this is about the circumstances that lead to Red Bull choosing Leipzig as their hub for their big Bundesliga team. When Red Bull tried to set foot into German football for the first time, they initially tried to use the same method they had success with elsewhere: Take over an existing, possibly struggling team and transform them to their desires, like they had done with Austria Salzburg or the New York MetroStars. Even back then, the first door to knock on was FC Sachsen Leipzig. After fans protested and negotiations with 1860 Munich, FC St. Pauli and Fortuna Düsseldorf were equally unsucessful, they turned back to their initial pick Leipzig and started their own club. So- why exactly Leipzig?
To understand this, we have to look at Leipzigs football clubs and the city itself. Leipzig is the eighth-largest city in Germany, and (excluding Berlin) the largest one in the former GDR. Their population is bigger than Liverpool, Lyon, Genoa or Malaga. All those cities have established clubs, sometimes even multiple within the top division. At the time of RBLs conception, the top club of the city of Leipzig meanwhile was just relegated to the fifth division. The only city with a similar size and situation was Essen, with Rot-Weiss sitting in the fourth division. Still, right in the center of the picturesque Rhein-Ruhr area, Essen was surrounded by successful clubs who could fill any desires for top-class football. Leipzig wasn’t. The closest city of similar size is Dresden, but their top club Dynamo also only played in the third division. The same was true for other clubs nearby like Jena, Erfurt or Aue. Cottbus, already quite a bit away from Leipzig just got relegated to the 2. Bundesliga, and while the drive to Berlin to watch a Hertha match only takes around two hours thanks to those lovely post-reunification East German Autobahn, it’s still quite a bit away for european standards. Other cities like Nuremberg or Wolfsburg weren’t closer either.
Given these circumstances, it’s no surprise that Red Bull saw Leipzig as their prime location to start a new, fresh club in Germany. Although this begs the question: Why not Dresden? Both cities have almost equal population numbers, sit in a similar geographic location not too far away from each other and have virtually no access to professional top class football. ~~While the old Zentralstadion in Leipzig was bigger in theory, it was also fairly run-down and not suitable for Bundesliga football back in 2009,~~^* while the Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion in Dresden just got refurbished to house 32,000 spectators. Sure, Leipzig was a bit closer to other major cities, but gaining followers from outside the city and its surrounding areas wasn’t really the plan to begin with, at least for now. A major reason for Red Bull’s decision to pursue Leipzig from the beginning and not even really think about Dresden was the lack of competition. Even though Dynamo Dresden spent their time in lower leagues, the city and its fans still stood fairly unified behind the club. Establishing a competitor and convincing fans to join their new product would be hard. In Leipzig however, there was no other club with a unified fan base. All that was left of the long gone glory days were two clubs, shadows of their former selves, who hated each other. This leads to the final why: Why was there such a power vacuum for Red Bull to push into? To understand this, we have to take a very long look back, all the way back to the end of WWII, and work through the history of post-war football within the city. Here’s a simple, easy to understand diagram to help you tag along.
^* Mistake here, the new Zentralstadion was already finished for the world cup in 2006. Still, at a capacity of just below 43,000, both Leipzig and Dresden would've been suitable for Bundesliga use.
Pre-1949 – Under soviet occupation, all pre-war clubs were outlawed. To replace them, new sport groups were formed all around the country. In the early years, those were often short-lived and merged, split up and disbanded frequently, sometimes even within weeks. Up until 1949, there was no nationwide football league, either. Combined with the fact that those clubs often had very similar names, usually SG City-District, everything earlier becomes increasingly hard to research. For the history of Leipzig football, we’ll focus on two of these SG’s: SG Leipzig-Leutzsch played at the Georg-Schwarz-Sportpark in the district of Leutzsch, former home of pre-war TuRa Leipzig. TuRa was founded in 1932 as a workers team for a slot machine factory. SG Leipzig-Probstheida meanwhile was based in Leipzig-Probstheida (who’da thunk it) at the Bruno-Plache-Stadion. They could trace back their roots to VfB Leipzig, first german champions and most successful club in the pre-WWI era. Even back then, tradition was already an important part of fan culture. When TuRa and VfB faced each other in 1935, a newspaper wrote: “The game wasn’t on for long until you could sense the frantic, provoked emotions in both rivals stands, which was better described as hostility rather than competitive spirit”. As you can see, even back then no one liked the corporate shills.
1949/50 – The foundation of the first nationwide league brought more major changes with it. SG Leipzig-Leutzsch finished third in the Saxonian championship the year prior and therefore qualified for the new nationwide Oberliga. Before the season started however, SG Leipzig-Leutzsch merged with more than a dozen other clubs to form ZSG Industrie Leipzig. This is where the left branch of the diagram starts. Not even two weeks after its foundation, on the 1st April, 1949, ZSG Industrie already split up again into three distinct divisions. ZSG Industrie Leutzsch was renamed again shortly after to BSG Stahl Nordwest Leipzig and today exists as SV Leipzig-Nordwest in 10th tier. ZSG Industrie Hafen split up again in 1951, creating the new teams BSG Fortschritt West and BSG Motor Lindenau. Those two clubs merged back together after reunification and now operate as SpVgg 1899 Leipzig in the 9th division. The spot in the top division meanwhile stayed with ZSG Industrie Leipzig, where they finished in 8th. Over in Probstheida, SG Leipzig-Probstheida was meanwhile renamed to BSG Erich Zeigner Leipzig, after some communist, as it was en vouge at the time. They missed qualification for the initial season of the Oberliga and thus played another year in the Saxonian league for the 1949/50-season, before qualifying for the newly founded second division, the DDR-Liga. This is the beginning of the right branch on the diagram.
1950/51 – Only a year later, the East German sports landscape was heavily reformed, as if all the changes prior hadn’t been confusing enough. To conform to socialist ideology, clubs were urged to turn into so called Betriebssportgemeinschaften (workers sport groups), BSGs for short. Every club was to be linked to a specific factory or organization, where players were employed as workers and excused for training or matches. Clubs who didn’t comply were seen as bourgeois and faced various kinds of repercussions, so by the mid-50s, virtually all clubs in the GDR were those worker clubs. The club name of those BSGs was determined by the branch of industry they were associated to. Police clubs were named Dynamo, workers clubs in the construction industry were called Aufbau, and so on. This is the reason why there are still loads of Dynamo or Dinamo clubs around, as they all were former police teams. Dresden, Zagreb, Kiev, Bucharest, Moscow, Houston (I’m not absolutely sure about them), and so on. ZSG Industrie Leipzig meanwhile was assigned to the local chemical plants and thus renamed to BSG Chemie Leipzig, which translates to BSG Chemistry Leipzig (They weren’t always too creative). BSG Erich Zeigner was meanwhile turned into BSG Einheit Ost Leipzig, associated to insurances and administrative institutions. In the 1950/51-season, Chemie won their first championship. After finishing equal on points with BSG Turbine Erfurt, Leipzig won the final play-off match 2:0 in front of 60,000 spectators in Chemnitz. Einheit Ost meanwhile finished third in the southern division of the DDR-Liga.
1954 – While Einheit Ost finally got promoted to the top-tier Oberliga in 1953, Chemie came close to more silverware when they finished third in 1952 and second in 1954, before the East German sports landscape was again subjected to major changes. Unlike before, where bigger clubs of the same associated industry were spread all across the country, the new model provided for only a few major clubs per branch of trade, with all others only focusing on amateur sports. Leipzig got two of those so called Sportclubs, SCs for short, which translates to sport clubs, no need to thank me. Einheit Ost got transformed into SC Rotation Leipzig, one of two SCs for the national print and publishing industry. The players of Chemie meanwhile were presented with two options: Either stay within the city and join SC Lokomotive Leipzig, the new club for the national railway services; or move to nearby Halle, where the SC for the chemical industry was located. Almost all players chose the first option (No, I don’t know what a chemistry worker would do on a train yard, they probably were just some office clerks or some shit), and while the remnants of Chemie Leipzig were downgraded to an amateur team in the fifth division, Lok took over their spot in the Oberliga and moved to the Stadion des Friedens in Leipzig-Gohlis. The following years were marked by fights about the top spot in the city. While Lok initially struggled to reproduce Chemie’s results, fan interest was enormous. Derbys were moved to the much bigger Zentralstadion, where in 1956, 100,000 people saw the 2:1 victory of Lok over Rotation. To this day, this is a record for most spectators at a national league match in Germany. In 1957, Lok also won the East German cup, the FDGB-Pokal for the first time, and reached the final a year later. Rotation wasn’t as successful, usually finishing in the lower half of the table and never reaching the quarter finals in the cup.
1963 – As decision makers in GDR liked restructuring things almost as much as building walls, the colour red and naming things after dead communists, more restructuring followed in the mid-60s. Officials now decided that one SC per district should be enough, regardless of the branch of industry currently associated with them. Therefore, in 1963, Rotation and Lok joined forces and merged into SC Leipzig. While the top players of both teams were signed by the new club, there was still a whole team worth of players and, more importantly, another spot in the league up for grabs. The solution was to resurrect BSG Chemie Leipzig and transfer all the leftover players, staff and the remaining Oberliga-spot to them. The amateur team, which had kept the name alive for the past years, was meanwhile integrated into the club as the new third team. While SC Leipzig was seen as a prime contender for the championship, Chemie on the other hand was everyones first choice as a relegation candidate. After all, they were basically made up of the shit players of a partially successful team and one that had been mediocre at best. Nevertheless, in one of the biggest upsets in the history of GDR football, Chemie and the so called “rest of Leipzeig” immediately won the league, three points ahead of SC Leipzig, who finished third. This was the last time a BSG won the title against the better funded SC-clubs. This was also the start of many animosities between the two clubs and their successors.
1966 – Not even three and a half years after conception, SC Leipzig was history again. (Did I mention that people liked to change stuff every few years?) The football sections of the SCs were separated from the main clubs and now formed independent football clubs. In Leipzig, this club was again assigned to the national railway services, and thus got the new name 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig. Unlike SC Lokomotive of the 50s, this club was however based at the Bruno-Plache-Stadion in Probstheida, former home of SC Rotation. The club also made its first international headlines, beating Benfica with star player Eusebio in the third round of the 1966–67 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. While they were one of the top teams in the country for most of the 60s, Lok failed to win any titles before a surprise relegation in 1969. Meanwhile, Chemie won the FDGB-Cup in 1966, but started to struggle in the league. At this point, I’d like to take a moment to remember the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Conceptualized as a tournament to promote trade fairs, only the cities with the biggest and most important ones competed in the early years. Over time, this definition slowly changed to “If you have a large parking lot in your town to hold a flea market, you’re in”, leading to clubs like ÍA Akranes and US Rumelange competing for the win (and subsequently losing by double digits in the first round).
70s – After Lok bounced back to the Oberliga immediately, they initially failed to gain traction, with their best results of the decade being fourth places in 1973, 1976 and 1978. Their cup campaign was more successful, however. After reaching the final in 1970 and 1973, they finally won the trophy in 1976 after a decisive 3:0 victory over FC Vorwärts Frankfurt/Oder. They also had an admirable run in the 1974 UEFA Cup, reaching the semi finals before being eliminated by Tottenham. Chemie on the other hand couldn’t keep up with the better funded competition and thus became a yo-yo club, being relegated to the DDR-Liga thrice within just ten years.
80s – While Chemie continued their life yo-yoing between the leagues and yoing more and more time in the second division, Lok now attacked in the Oberliga as well. GDR football in the 80s was dominated by Dynamo Berlin, a team with links to the Stasi, the national secret police. Said subtle links included the honorary president of the Club, a guy called Erich Mielke, being also the president of the Stasi. As I said, very subtle links. Dynamo Berlin was also often accused of receiving preferred treatment from referees and officials alike. They were pretty much the Bayern Munich of 80s East German football, with the important difference that the board of Dynamo supported the GDR being an unjust regime that killed people, while the board of Bayern supports Qatar being an unjust regime that kills people. On matchday 18 of the 1985/86 season, the club from the capital played in Probstheida. While Berlin lead the table, Leipzig, sitting in fourth place, needed a win to keep up any realistic chances of winning the league. Lok scored early and held on to the lead until the fourth minute of stoppage time, when referee Bernd Stumpf awarded a penalty to Berlin after a seemingly harmless foul. The decision was questionable and even TV images couldn’t resolve the situation. This lead to a massive outcry never seen before in East German football, with players and even party officials from Leipzig accusing Dynamo of match fixing. To ease the pressure, Stumpf was banned for life from refereeing, and the fact that Lok finished the season only two points behind Dynamo fanned the flames even more. Only years later, in 2000, new footage of the incident was found, proving Stumpf’s decision to be indeed correct. In 1988, they again came second, this time only losing out because of goal difference. Just as in the 70s, their various cup engagements were more successful. They won the FDGB-Pokal three more times in 1981, 1986 and 1987, and also proved their worth on the international stage. In the 1981/82 Cup Winner’s Cup, they reached the quarter finals after being beaten by Barcelona, who would go on and win the tournament. They also beat Girondins Bordeaux and Werder Bremen in the 1983/84 UEFA Cup. This was back in the days when a victory against Bremen still was considered an accomplishment. Their biggest run however followed in the 1986/87 Cup Winner’s Cup. After victories over Glentoran Belfast, Rapid Vienna and FC Sion, they again faced Bordeaux in the semi final. After a 0:1 victory in France, 73,000 fans came to watch the second leg at the Zentralstadion. That’s the official number anyway, other sources estimate up to 120,000 spectators that day. Bordeaux scored early, but Leipzig withstood the pressure for the rest of the match. In the end, Lok won 6:5 on penalties, with goalkeeper René Müller scoring the decisive last goal. They lost the subsequent final 1:0 against Ajax, but received praise from opponents and press alike.
1989/90 – 9th November, 1989, would forever be ingrained in German and world history, as on this day, VfB Stuttgart won 3:0 against Bayern in the RO16 in the DFB-Pokal. Also at the same day, some kind of wall fell in Berlin, which apparently made it to local news or something. German reunification brought even more major changes to East German football, which had been unusually stable for the last 25 years. Clubs all over the country couldn’t compete with western wages, and thus lost key players left, right and center. Lok was no exception, with players like Olaf Marschall or Uwe Zötsche leaving for western clubs after the season. Moreover, those teams now had to operate in a completely unfamiliar capitalist system. To combat those problems, Lok proposed an idea to their rivals Chemie: Under the traditional name VfB, a new and competitive team, representing the whole city was to be formed by merging both clubs together. Chemie, however, had other plans than to unite with their hated neighbor and ditch their heritage as a workers club for a new identity. BSG Chemie Leipzig finished the 1989/90 season in second place of the DDR-Liga behind BSG Chemie Böhlen, thus missing out on promotion back to the top flight. It was already clear that the 1990/91-season would be the last of independent East German football, and while clubs from the Oberliga had good chances of at least qualifying for the 2. Bundesliga the season after, they would’ve had to win the DDR-Liga to even participate in the qualification tournament for the all-german second division. Meanwhile, Böhlen had just changed their name from BSG Chemie to SV Chemie to signify their changed identity and rid themselves of the now unpopular East German baggage. They also were in financial troubles, so Leipzig made them an offer: A merger of SV Chemie Böhlen and BSG Chemie Leipzig, who had also just changed their name to FC Grün-Weiß Leipzig after the season. They also got themselves logo with a frog that’s also a football, which isn’t really important to the story, but just look at it. It’s a football frog. Whoever came up with this is a pure genius. Back to the story. Böhlen accepted the offer for a merger, which in reality was more of a takeover to get Chemie, sorry, FC Grün-Weiß Leipzig their Oberliga-license. Sadly, this also meant that the frog was gone already after just two months, with the new club now called FC Sachsen Leipzig.
1990/91 – The final season of GDR football was all about qualification for the new unified german leagues. Like many things, stuff that was abundant in the west was very scarce and contested in the east, so only two spots for the Bundesliga were available. Those were claimed by Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden. Meanwhile, Lok only finished seventh, while Sachsen barely clinched the final twelveth spot that guaranteed participation in the qualification tournament for the 2. Bundesliga. While Lok cruised through their group and won one of the last two spots in the second division, Sachsen finished dead last and was seeded in the new third division, the Oberliga Nordost.
1991/92 – For their first season in unified Germany, 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig also tried to reform their identity, because you know, they hadn’t done so since the sixities. They took up the idea from 1990 and named themselves VfB Leipzig, after the first german champions that had played in Probstheida. This was somewhat ironic, since their home ground there wasn’t deemed suitable for playing, so the club had to leave Probstheida for the Zentralstadion during the season. After injuries to key players like Damian Halata and Ronald Kreer, VfB Leipzig only barely avoided relegation. They also signed expensive players like former French national Didier Six, which put further strain on their already tight budget. Sachsen meanwhile finished fifth in the Oberliga Nordost, a full 19 points behind winners Zwickau (and remember, this was back in the days where a win only got you two points).
1992/93 – While the 1991/92 season of the 2. Bundesliga was played in a northern and southern division, this following year was planned as a single goliath-league with 24 teams. Still, VfB Leipzig almost didn’t participate after being short on 1 Mio. D-Mark in order to get their license. After a successful appeal, they surprised many by becoming one of the leagues best teams, even after backsets like losing top scorer Bernd Hobsch to Werder Bremen in the winter break. More controversial was the announcement by coach Jürgen Sundermann to leave the club at the end of the season and join Waldhof Mannheim. Still, Leipzig kept up with the other clubs in the top group. While the Freiburger SC won the championship by a clear margin, a three-way battle developed behind them for the remaining two promotion spots between Leipzig, MSV Duisburg, and, of all teams, Waldhof Mannheim. With a win in Jena and a scoreless tie between Mannheim and Eintracht Braunschweig, Leipzig inherited third place before the final two matchdays. In the penultimate game of the season the opponents met each other face-to-face. After another scoreless tie and two red cards for Leipzig, the decision only fell on the final matchday, when Leipzig won 2:0 against FSV Mainz 05 and Mannheim lost 4:3 in Wuppertal, thus promoting VfB Leipzig to the Bundesliga. In the meantime, Sachsen Leipzig won the southern division of the Oberliga Nordost, but still wasn’t allowed to participate in the deciding qualification round for the 2. Bundesliga for financial reasons. They also won their first Sachsenpokal, the regional cup tournament for Saxony. Furthermore, their stadium in Leutzsch was renamed to Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark, to honor the coach who brought them the surprise championship in 1964. After all, they hadn’t renamed anything for almost two years now.
1993/94 – VfB Leipzig was faced with more troubles for their initial Bundesliga season. While key players leaving for richer clubs was a common occurrence by now, the Zentralstadion showed to be deeply unsuitable for them. With a maximum capacity of 50,000 spectators, only 8000 people per game were expected, not least because the surrounding area was traditionally Chemie/Sachsen territory. Nominally spectacular transfers like Darko Pančev, who came from Internazionale, could not prevent immediate relegation back to the second division. With three wins, eleven draws and twenty losses in their only Bundesliga season, they currently sit in second-to-last position in the all-time Bundesliga table. Sachsen Leipzig meanwhile finished fourth and qualified for the new Regionalliga Nordost, while winning another Sachsenpokal.
Late 90s – VfB Leipzig made numerous expensive transfers over the next years in order to achieve a rapid return to the top flight, all with questionable returns. Speaking of returns, they also returned to the Bruno-Plache-Stadion in Probstheida in 1996, when the safety issues there were finally properly fixed. After a draw on the final matchday against their direct relegation opponents from Wattenscheid, VfB Leipzig dropped to the third division in 1998, where they met up again with their city rivals FC Sachsen, who had won their third Sachsenpokal in the meantime. Following a second place finish in 1999, the financial problems for VfB Leipzig became so daring that insolvency was the only option. To make matters worse, they also failed to qualify for the next season in the Regionalliga, which was to be slimmed down from four divisions to just two. Sachsen Leipzig initially made the cut for the 2000/01 Regionalliga-season, but likewise had to file for bankruptcy the year after. Both clubs therefore found themselves down in the fourth division.
2000s – The struggles for both clubs didn’t end there (What a surprise!). While Sachsen initially had another quick stint in the Regionalliga for the 2003/04 season, VfB Leipzig was dissolved after their second insolvency in 2004. As a response, fans founded 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, the name and logo being identical to the old GDR team from 1966. While the new club absorbed the old VfB youth teams, there senior team started all the way back in the lowest division. After securing promotion every time in their first four seasons, they quickly found themselves to be back in the fifth division. Over in Leutzsch, other issues surfaced. A supporters group, founded all the way back in 1997 under the name of Ballsportfördergemeinschaft Chemie Leipzig (a.k.a. BSG Chemie, see what they did there?) began to grow increasingly unsatisfied with the club. The board moved their matches to the unpopular Zentralstadion, while supportes also protested heavily when Red Bull tried to set foot in the city for the first time and overtake the club in 2006. The straw that broke the camels neck were increasing political disputes within the club and it’s fan scene that culminated in physical assaults in November 2007 during an away game in Sangershausen. As a response, the supporters group decided to part ways with FC Sachsen Leipzig and instead found their own club, much like fans had done over in Probstheida a few years earlier. This lead to disputes about who the real successor of old GDR-Chemie was. While FC Sachsen possesed all claims to the legal line of succession, the new BSG Chemie Leipzig had the name, stadium and almost the same badge of the old club from the fifties. Still, FC Sachsen Leipzig had bigger problems, as another insolvency relegated them to the fifth division, meeting up again with Lok. Enter Red Bull. After neither FC Sachsen Leipzig nor any other german clubs were willing to entertain their ideas of a Red Bull takeover, they turned to SSV Markranstädt, a club from a suburb of Leipzig with a fifth division team. They made a deal: For the 2009/10-season, all teams of Markranstädt would run as RB Leipzig. Afterwards, Markranstädt would get back all teams bar the top one, plus some extra money as a bonus. At the request of the Saxonian Football Association, they also took over some youth teams from the bankrupt FC Sachsen Leipzig. Therefore, three clubs from the city participated in the 2009/10 Oberliga Sachen. RB dominated the league, finishing 22 points ahead of second place, while FC Sachsen, now back again at the Adolf Kunze Sportpark in Leutzsch, finished 6th and Lok 12th. Even then, the old clubs still pulled impressive crowds, with almost 15,000 spectators for the derby between Sachsen and Lok.
2010s –In the following season, RB Leipzig made a similar deal with ESV Delitzsch like they had with Markranstädt in order to also have a second team. Meanwhile, FC Sachsen entered a controversial partnership for youth development with RB. Combined with terrible performances in the second half of the season, specator numbers collapsed, leading to yet another insolvency in 2011 (see a pattern here?). This time, FC Sachsen didn’t survive and was disbanded, with youth and amateur teams taken over by a new club called SG Leipzig-Leutzsch. Two years later, they changed their name to SG Sachsen Leipzig (what is it with those name changes all the time?), and another year after that, the whole club was disbanded again after the fourth insolvency since 2001. I hope you are as unsurprised as I am. Another new club called LFV Sachsen Leipzig was founded shortly afterwards. They currently play in the 9th division and share a ground with SV Nordwest Leipzig, one of the decendants of the old ZSG Industrie from all the way back in the 50s. But hey, at least they aren’t bankrupt yet. Fan-founded BSG Chemie meanwhile rose through the ranks. After starting all the way down in the 12th division in 2008, they partnered up with VfK Blau-Weiß Leipzig for a season and today are back in the fourth division, still playing in the Alfred-Kunze Sportpark in Leutzsch. Their biggest success was their victory in the Sachsenpokal in 2018, which also was their ticket for next years DFB-Pokal, where they beat second division team Jahn Regensburg in the first round before being eliminated by SC Paderborn. It was pretty much the first time this club had done anything impressive since their cup win in 1966. 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig also currently play in fourth tier at the Bruno-Plache-Stadion. Even though they’re by all measures the legitimate successor of VfB Leipzig, Lok are currently making efforts to officially merge with the technically still existing VfB. This would not only grant them some tax benefits I don’t really understand, but also possibly allow them to wear a star on their jersey, signifying the titles of the old pre-war VfB Leipzig back in the early 1900s. Another thing that shouldn’t go unmentioned is the fact that both Chemie and Lok have a clear political image at least since the early 2000s. It’s almost a bit disingenious to fit all of this into a single paragraph, when it’s in fact one of the biggest reasons why RBL succeded, but this text is long enough already. While both clubs try to distance themselves from any political extremism, their influence on individual supporters is limited. Diablos Leutzsch, the biggest ultra group of Chemie is often linked with the local antifa, while the club often plays friendlies against local clubs like the antifascist Roter Stern Leipzig, and thus is fairly popular with the political left. Lok meanwhile often made the news with racist and neo-nazi fans, with tifos like “Rudolf Heß – our Right Winger” and scarves that read “Juden Chemie” presented at derbies. Although the board and some supporter groups try to take a stand against racism, this is pretty much an uphill struggle and thus, Lok is seen as the right wing club of the city. Especially derbys between the two aren’t exactly the games where you’d bring your family to the stadium. The story of RB Leipzig is well known. They rose through the leagues and currently are one of the top Bundesliga teams. Since I want to keep this text as unbiased as possible, I’m gonna leave it at that, otherwise I’ll just start ranting. One thing is undeniable though: As a club without any political positioning and no appeal to any ultra groups of any kind, they are the preferable choice for the family of four who just want to spend a nice evening, eat overpriced sausages and watch some of those footballers play they only saw on TV before.
So there you have it. A historical analysis on why there was such a power vacuum for Red Bull to slip into and base their team in Leipzig. To explain the cities footballing history, you need to talk about 25 different clubs. The problem becomes especially noticeable when we compare Leipzig with Dresden for the last time. If we draw a similar diagram for Dynamo Dresden like we did for Leipzig before, we can see that, bar some changes to name and logo, the clubs history has been pretty straightforward since the mid-50s, and most noteably, without any bankruptcies (Not to say they didn’t come close sometimes). When Chemie/Sachsen and Lok/VfB struggled both sporting-wise and financially and competed for fans at the same time, Red Bull was there to pick up the pieces and rise to the top, while the old clubs were often more invested in fighting with each other rather than building professional structures.
TL;DR: It took me weeks to work on this shit, if you’re interested in the topic, you can take fifteen minutes to read it.
TL;DR2: Before the Red Bull Nation attacked, Leipzig had two clubs, whose history is so complicated that you need another twenty or so clubs to describe it. Both clubs were pretty shit and hated each other. As it turns out, this doesn't make a good opposition to a billion dollar company. Nowadays, Leipzig has a Bundesliga team and two clubs that are still pretty shit and still hate each other, but now, they're at least united in their hate about the Bundesliga team.

[OC] 2011 to 2020 - Manchester City's Final Vindication from FFP

Note: Some of this is my opinion and most of it is from others. If you have feedback or something I should edit let me know and ill credit in the post and edit the area. I may be wrong on a few points so happy to change!

Brief overview of history prior to the introduction of FFP

1st of September 2008 – Manchester City were bought by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan's Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) agreed a £210m deal to take over City. At the time of the sale there were no Financial Fair Play Rules imposed by UEFA nor in the FA.The City ownership wanted their team to be a quick splash and immediately challenge for titles.
At the time Sheik Mansour was quoted “"We are building a structure for the future not just a team of all stars" From 2008 to 2011 Summer window prior to the introduction of FFP. Manchester City invested a net spend of £327m into the playing squad and countless millions into infrastructure (Stadium, Training facilities etc) to improve the club.
In the next 2 windows directly after FFP introduction you can see the huge reduction in spending from £327 in 3 years (£109m per year) down to a mere £66m over the following 2 years (£33m per year).
They had the top in 2011 and were slowed down by the introduction of FFP. Chelsea is an example of where City wanted to be. Massive spending for a few years and then sustainability thereafter. Chelsea spent around £250m in 1 window in 2004. Which is the equivalent of spending around £700m in 1 window in todays market and inflation. By 2010 Chelsea was quite setup and sustainable. City had to take a slower route. After FFP was introduced they probably did not properly recover from their plans till about 2016 or 2017. 9 years into the takeover.

Introduction of FFP – 2010-11 and UEFA/City 2014 Settlement agreement

FFP was introduced in 2011 as a means to control financial spending in football to ensure the sustainability of clubs
Expenditures that are covered by FFP

Wages
Transfers

Expenditures exempt from FFP:

Stadium plans
Training facilities
Youth development
Community projects

Revenue allowed under FFP

Ticket income
TV revenue
Commercial income
Competition revenue

With the first monitoring period to come in 2014. The idea was for it to be a continuing rolling 3 year cycle where a club could not have losses over £35m. In 2014 it would only cover 2 years.
So the accounts for City in question for the first FFP monitoring period would be the financial statements in 2012 and 2013 UEFA knowingly introducing new rules so quickly put in regulations at the time to ensure clubs would not fail FFP based on passed expenditure, so they put in breaks that you could write off
Linking in Preswitch Blues article right here: on the break down of this which is a great read if you want to get in the nitty gritty details on the accounting side. So ill try summarise as quick as possible what he found. UEFA sent out a toolkit to essentially for clubs to fill out to help with their FFP balancing. City completed it and done it correctly with guidance from UEFA but then this happened:
“But almost as soon as the ink was dry on the 2012 accounts and they’d been filed at Companies House, UEFA released a new version of their toolkit and those calculations relating to the pre-June 2010 wages had changed. This was enough to render City’s careful planning, and any assurances UEFA had given them, null and void Thus City had breached FFP based on the losses, in this case now City had 2 options take a huge hit and take a risk of going to CAS or simply try enter a settlement agreement with UEFA with lower losses, a slap on the wrist and try come into the fold with UEFA to maintain the relationship"
Here is a conversation between Marcotti and Colin (Preswitch) on that toolkit and City failing FFP at the time was probably better off for the club
The Guardian quotes in 2014 that “The club risked severe sanctions for the scale of its deficit including possible exclusion from the Champions League, yet a controversial settlement was agreed in May 2014. City vehemently objected to the process and the conclusions, and were seriously threatening legal action against FFP, arguing that the break-even principle could be considered unlawful.”
On sponsorships: “In 2011 City’s sponsorship by the Abu Dhabi state airline Etihad was converted into a 10-year deal, to include the stadium, and by 2013, after City had won the Premier League for the first time, it is understood to have gone up to £67.5m a year. The deals with three other entities from Abu Dhabi are understood to have been £15m a year from the investment firm Aabar, £16.5m from the telecommunications giant Etisalat, and £19.75m from the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority.”
UEFA consultants (including PwC) made this as related parties and deemed them as fair market value
My opinion: Essentially at the time FFP was still new and UEFA did not want City to challenge at CAS or European court where it would most likely have lost in court and failed in its tracks before it started. Did City fail FFP in 2014? 100% YES. Could they have won at court? Probably. Instead the 2 parties entered a settlement agreement most likely because City threatened UEFA with lawsuits via CAS/Swiss court. City agreed to take a “pinch” as Khaldoon said in one of his interviews to maintain the relationship and keep FFP unchallenged. A win for UEFA and a smaller yet acceptable loss for City in the grand scheme of things. Lot of people use these examples as a means of “city are cheats” but let’s be honest here. City were only 5 years into the new ownership group. The ownership group bought and promised wages to players prior to the introduction of FFP. The only cheating done here is they had an ambitious rich ass owner and won the lottery essentially. The club needed time to adjust to the new rules and with all said the 2014 agreement is that compromise. UEFA settlement agreement 2014 https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/OfficialDocument/uefaorg/ClubFinancialControl/02/10/69/00/2106900_DOWNLOAD.pdf Here is document detailing the settlement agreement. Essentially Citys punishment was a:

£49m fine (60m Euros) of that 60m 40m would be returned if City are compliant with the agreed measures at the end of the monitoring period. Which they eventually where.
Closely monitored accounts for the next 3 years – including maximum deficit of 20m and 10m in the next years
CL squad limit reduction from 25 to 21
City will not try improve 2 unnamed sponsors (classified most likely as related parties)

If City failed this settlement it would have gone back to the AC with a most likely CL ban imposed on Manchester City. In 2017 city passed their monitoring period And had their fine partially refunded from the settlement agreement in 2014
A statement from UEFA read: “Manchester City FC and Paris Saint-Germain, whose settlement agreements were signed back in May 2014, have fully complied with all the requirements and overall objective of their agreements. “Consequently, they have exited the settlement regime.” Essentially UEFA agreed that the settlement and all past misses of FFP are in the clear now and that City “exited the settlement regime”.

The Der Spiegel leaks and the following UEFA investigation

5th of November 2018 – Der Speigel (I dropped in the soccer thread so you can read the drivel) drops a huge article relating to hacked emails with Manchester City and their supposed FFP breaches. Most of it was old news and already known at the time of settlement. Except one email implicating City in the below “Der Spiegel claims that Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the holding company which also owns Man City, paid £59.5m of Etihad’s annual £67.5m sponsorship fee in 2015, with only £8m coming from the airline."
P.S Fuck Der Spiegel: "Since its purchase by the sheikh of Abu Dhabi, Manchester City has managed to cheat its way into the top echelon of European football and create a global, immensely profitable football empire, ignoring rules along the way. The club's newfound glory is rooted in lies." - really hope some defamation charges go against them
Following this information in 2018 a bunch of things follow and transpire over the next 15 months:

7th of March 2019 – UEFA begin their formal investigation into Manchester City
City released a statement Stating “ Manchester City welcomes the opening of a formal UEFA investigation as an opportunity to bring to an end the speculation resulting from the illegal hacking and out of context publication of City email”
6th of June 2019 – Man City Appeal to CAS to try get case thrown out early and fail it due to CAS saying the appeal needs to happen after the investigation by UEFA has concluded
14th February 2020 – The Nuclear bomb shell – UEFA announce City are banned from all European Competition for the following 2 seasons and a €30m fine
Manchester City answered back with a pretty blunt statement “The Club has always anticipated the ultimate need to seek out an independent body and process to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence in support of its position. In December 2018, the UEFA Chief Investigator publicly previewed the outcome and sanction he intended to be delivered to Manchester City, before any investigation had even begun. The subsequent flawed and consistently leaked UEFA process he oversaw has meant that there was little doubt in the result that he would deliver. The Club has formally complained to the UEFA Disciplinary body, a complaint which was validated by a CAS ruling. Simply put, this is a case initiated by UEFA, prosecuted by UEFA and judged by UEFA. With this prejudicial process now over, the Club will pursue an impartial judgment as quickly as possible and will therefore, in the first instance, commence proceedings with the Court of Arbitration for Sport at the earliest opportunity. “ Including interview with Ferran Soriano Man Citys Chief executive
2 Fantastic blogs by Stefan Borson a Legal Expert who happens to be a Man City fan breaking down the UEFA charge at the time Part 1 & Part 2 . From a lawful point. Stefan brilliant brings up the statue of limitations and wonders how UEFA could even charge city for anything prior to the settlement to begin with.

Opinion: Based on the outcome of what transpires in the next few months can anyone deny that this was simply just a witch hunt by UEFA? And that City were rightfully correct in suggesting that UEFA were out of line in how they conducted their investigation. There is also all that crap with Leterme leaking to NY Times that they wanted to ban city really early on in the “investigation”. Which showed that the AC had it in for Manchester City. Stefan in his blogs clearly pointed out how City could argue so many points.

Exoneration or Still guilty anyway?

July 13th – CAS clears City of the ban and only fines them 10m for not cooperating. They also clear them for any wrongdoing in “inflating sponsorship” or “financial doping “ with this direct quote from the initial CAS media release: "𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐅𝐂 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐋 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐄𝐅𝐀 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒."
July 29th –Full CAS award released
Full CAS award summarised quite well by Mml-Bsr-W97 To which ill put the TL:DR point here: UEFA simply did not produce the evidence necessary to prove these statements. Their entire case rested on the Leaked Emails, and CAS could not determine that the crimes mentioned were in fact executed. A small part of the offenses were time-barred (those made prior to May 15, 2014). Basically, CAS recognized that UEFA felt pressured to start the investigation (as the leaks published in multiple news agencies were compelling enough to start an investigation, but not sufficient to prove the end result) and to finish it before the start of the next season.

Essentially this is as close to a full exoneration City will ever get. A court or an arbitration will always have to rule on the evidence available. Everything else is hearsay. There are some people that will continue to believe "City are cheating financial doping oil sheiks" and you just cant stop that as part of the football rivalry.
There is also a hidden media agenda that become quite clear during this whole ordeal which makes the typical casual fan think we are guilty anyways. You could see the need to sell clicks over facts is strongly present OR the need to paint city in a bad light no matter. Examples (please provide more)

The original title chosen by the BBC, included for transparency (thanks aguer0
Miguel Delaney
Rob Harris
Mark Ogden
Nick Harris
Tariq Panja
Duncan Castles
David Conn

The journalistic integrity of so many has come into question the last few months which doesn't help actually explain to the casual fan what actually did in fact happen. So its already a huge uphill battle trying to fight so much misinformation. If anyone expected CAS to literally say "City are exonerated of all charges and claims" then they just dont understand how court of arbitrations work. They have to look at everything holistically and every point brought up by UEFA/City and go through them 1 by 1. But what youll see from certain users on this website and journalists is the literally cherry picking of certain arguments to suit their agenda even though overall the evidence is clearly in Citys favour by quite some distance. So good luck in future trying to go through the BS I am hoping a thread like this that I can keep updating will be an area where City fans can come to and just copy paste info out if needed to which ill add a section at the end

DEATH OF FFP?

Short answer is no... In fact Manchester City Football Club want FFP to survive, because it in fact protects us a club from anyone else catching up on us example Newcastle being taken over by Saudis and injecting in 1bn...So was FFP really introduced to stop football clubs going bust? Many argue it’s an elite protection ring or the “pulling up the ladder” on the poorer clubs and ensuring the elite stay elite. Football investment has been in football for years, examples Jack Walker with Blackburn or Abramovich with Chelsea. However with Football now bringing in enough money without owner investment these clubs at the top wanted to ensure they could stay there alone. Personally I think FFP is a good idea in principle just really poorly executed. Anything that deters investment into your own game is backwards. Football as a body should WANT people to invest into their game to keep it growing. Its like someone saying no don’t invest into my shares we don’t want to grow. Personally controlling debt on football clubs relative to revenue would be more ideal. If an owner back his own teams with non-returnable loans or direct investment then at the end of the day the game is growing. Does this affect other teams? Yes it would but the game at the end of the day and the players especially benefit from it. Id also put in place more measures of how much investment an owner is allowed to put relevant to profits or revenues so that way a club can still grow over time but not so exponentially and quickly that may be deemed unsustainable. But lets be honest here UEFAs implementation of FFP was never about that it was ensuring the elite stayed elite. The more I research on it and the more I read on it the more I am convinced of it. Even City now are protected by these FFP rules their only challengers will always be the SAME challengers year on and year out for a very long time.
So bollocks to the death of FFP. I think it needs a huge revamp of its implementation. But again UEFA is petrified of the big clubs going off and creating their own league. That would be the death of FFP and UEFA. Not Manchester City or PSG or any big investor.

Conclusion and Citys outlook 2020 onwards

Did City fail FFP in 2014. Yes. They took a fairly big punishment via the settlement to try end it and move on. Instead the whole fiasco reared its ugly head back from 2014 all the way into 2020 with a huge ban and fine relating to hacked emails that City maintained were out of context which was beat by actual 3 independent judges at CAS. Most people do not understand that City were NOT guilty of anything 2014 onwards. So when someone tells you City are financial doping today. Kindly tell them to fuck off in a nice way.
Mansours words rang true “"We are building a structure for the future not just a team of all stars" by 2018 their turnover was £500m. £210m of that was from TV money & £58m from matchday (tickets etc). The other £230m came from commercial income. Of that, around £80m came from Abu Dhabi companies, the majority from Etihad. In 2020 their revenue stream is close to £600m with major deals with Puma, SAP, Henneiken, Nexen tires, etc. Their Etihad deal expires in 2021 and they are expected to get a huge deal from another company you can also look into their financials here were Swiss Ramble breaks it down quite well. Citys financial outlook looks pretty great from here on and out. We crossed the drawbridge of FFP with 1 arm hanging on while the other fought FFP and still managed to climb in.
Q/A
I think itll be good to create factual counter arguments to future stupid points brought up so people can quickly copy paste arguments so if you have any good questions youve seen with great answers or rebuttals then please post below and ill add! Ive already seen a few good ones by domalino GJXN1990 Mml-Bsr-W97 so please if you have any youd like to add please give them to me to place in
P.S I am on like 3 hours sleep so if you notice anything please tell me...

Greek Football 2019-20 Part 4/5 : Panathinaikos, Aris, OFI

Panathinaikos
After two years in which Panathinaikos finished in their worst position ever (11th and 8th), the Greens finished the season in 4th place. Knowing a priori that they could not qualify for Europe, their goal for the year was team-building and a finish in a decent position. One could say that both were achieved given the low budget of the team. Coach Giorgos Donis remained in the bench for a 2nd year, in a team based mostly on young Greek players.
In the goalposts, Sokratis Dioudis showed that he remains an excellent goalkeeper and showed his skills many times throughout the year. Emiliano Insua and Matthias Johanson were the standard starting wing backs, with Dimitris Kolovetsios, Achilleas Poungouras and Mattias Schenkeveld sharing the CB spots - with an unlucky experiment of Donis with Nunes in the 1st round as well. Overall Panathinaikos defense was quite good, on par with AEK and PAOK.
In the midfield, Kourbelis (the captain) was again there, with Donis, Anuar and Zahid comleting the axis of the Greens. Anuar came in January and was quite a successful loan. The talented Bouzoukis and Chatzigiovannis were again one of the main creative threads of Panathinaikos, with Federico Macheda spearheading the attack line and scoring 14 goals. Young Colombian Juan Jose Perea was the usual rotation option for the forward positions. Panathinaikos lacked creativity, especially in the first round, and in a league in which most of the teams park the bus, this costs points. The 13 draws in 28 matches show exactly this point.
As usually the last years, Panathinaikos was highly competitive in big matches, remaining undefeated against PAOK (1-3-0) in the league, having an 1-1-2 record against AEK, 0-2-2 against Olympiacos (better than everyone else except for PAOK), and 2-1-1 against Aris to make it 4-7-5 overall. Their record against the rest of the club though was bad, especially in the very problematic 1st round, in which they dropped many points and play-offs were not a given, until the very good January-February stint, in which the Greens played their best football in the year. PAOK eliminated them in the Cup QFs.
What lies ahead for Panathinaikos? Uncertainty. Owner Alafouzos decided to completely change the model, did not renew coach Donis and many of the players are leaving too (Insua, Johansson, Donis, Zahid, Anuar and maybe more to come). The new coach is ex-Real Madrid Youth coach Poyatos, and already the transfers have a Spanish-Latin direction. If this will work, noone knows, it is a risky decision taken, I believe it can either prove to be really good and Panathinaikos can fight for 3rd or even 2nd place next year or it can prove to be similarly destructive to Stramazzoni's hiring. When will Panathinaikos be able to be a title contender again? My opinion is, when they start having the budget needed to compete for the top. Coaching and the heavy name can do only so much. Their UEFA ban has expired, so next year they are playing for a European spot.
Aris
Aris finishes in 5th place and qualifies for the Europa League for a 2nd year in a row after their return to the Super League. In a rollercoaster season for Aris, that started with a European qualification against AEL Limassol, continued with a tough elimination from Molde (3-0 loss away, 3-0 win at home only to concede in extra time in a match that Aris could have easily scored 6), a problematic start of the season, Michael Oenning hired as coach and Aris improving drastically, breaking rival PAOK's undefeated streak, and a 2nd half of the season in which a transfer ban because of debts of the old "tax number" of the club (in Greece if you get relegated to an amateur league you erase your debt, but FIFA recently changed that so that players can still get paid when the team returns to a professional league, Aris and the Federation did not know (?), there was a huge mess that resulted in a transfer and contract renewal ban) that left Aris with 12 players in the last matches of the season after the end of June.
Key players for the yellows of Thessaloniki : GK Julian Cuesta, who has high highs and low lows, defenders Fran Velez, Michael Korhut and Danny Rose - but overall Aris's defense was bad and was its weakest spot - midfieders Lukas Sasha, Matilla, Martinez and Fetfatzidis (the Greek international) with the star power being in the front, with Bruno Gama, by far Aris' best player and Nigerian Brown Ideye, returning to Greece after his year with Olympiacos.
Oenning's team tried to play attractive attacking football against anyone, even Olympiacos (which most clubs face with parking the bus), was highly competitve in every derby (with the exception of the last matches in which they were literally out of players) but were dropping too many points left and right because of their defensive bloopers : they conceded 51 goals in 36 matches. Their Cup campaign stopped in the Semis in the ET against AEK.
The transfer ban situation is for the time being resolved for Aris (although it will come back after a CAS appeal, but they have bought time), so they can prepare for the European qualifying with hopes for making the play-offs this year. The owner is implying that he will bring some quite expensive players (Matteo Garcia, ex-Aris player), fixing the defense is Aris' biggest bet for the time being.
OFI
OFI is back in Europe after 20 years, cherry on top of a very very good season, in which rookie coach Simos presented a team that surprised everyone by playing good football and not "defend and hoof and delay the game by playing dead" which is the standard system for Greek minnows. Being quite consistent the whole year, and winning the fight against Atromitos and Asteras Tripoli in the end, they took 6th place which led (due to Panathinaikos being banned) to their return to the international games. Their play-offs were (expectedly) bad since they had nothing to play for and players of such clubs are not used to such an intense schedule.
OFI's best players were all creative : Juan Neira, Adil Nabi, Joao Figueiredo, Lisandro Semedo and Kosmas Tsilianidis. They had an (expected) weakness at the back, given that they only have Greek bery mediocre defenders.
OFI's season is a huge success and they go in the Europa League hoping for the best, even advancing one round will be a success (they are unseeded in the draw). For me, they are a model that more Greek clubs should follow in order to improve the level of our league. Financial security is always a question with these clubs, but so far so good with the new owner of OFI (since last year). The Iraklion club is hoping to repeat their season next-year, and fight to become a regular in the top half of the standings.
Note : Some Panathinaikos fans had commented that they should be a separate post. I agree but I simply have not watched enough games of their team, and that is why my review of the players (as well as with Aris and OFI) is much shorter. Anyone having a more detailed insight (same goes for fans of Aris and OFI) is welcome to comment.
Next part will be about :
(5/5) rest of the clubs

Manchester City overturn two-year ban from European competition on appeal to Cas

Anti-Corruption & News Summary from Armenia - Oct/4/2019 :: California restricts investments in Turkey -- Genocide :: Garbage reforms :: High ranking official busts :: Parliament vs CC chief :: Foreign policy :: Sports :: Parliament to examine mining deals :: Emergency Ministry :: Airlines :: Prices

Ind. MP Babajanyan earlier sent an letter to Parliament asking it to investigate a possible illegal procedure while Hrayr Tovmasyan (HT) was appointed as Constitutional Court (CC) chief by HHK in 2018. (HT was still a HHK MP at the time of appointment)
Today, Babajanyan sent a petition to prosecutors to intervene.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170871
HT earlier accused Parliament's legal affairs department of not properly notifying him about the upcoming hearing ahead of time.
The agency's chief admitted to making a mistake in the paperwork, but said they made a phone call and notified CC before the paperwork was sent, informing HT ahead of time. The Parliament is not obligated to invite a court member to testify; this was done as a "courtesy".
Parliament's legal affair chief accused HT of sensationalizing a non-issue to use it as a political tool.
HT gave other reasons for not going to Parliament yesterday.
https://youtu.be/uK3D-XL1h4g
Today Parliament passed a resolution with a 98-1 vote to ask CC members to vote their chief HT out. QP and LHK voted yes. BHK didn't vote.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170888
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170894
Speaker QP Mirzoyan:
Parliament had properly notified HT ahead of time to appear and answer questions, but he refused. The fact that HT only apologized to BHK for not appearing and answering their questions, while ignoring the other parties, shows that HT is politically motivated.
It doesn't matter that a judge used to be a member of a political party. What matters is whether they are currently unbiased or not. HT has failed to address the bias concerns in the past several months, and has a motivation to support HHK agenda.
We will accept any decision made by CC members. Hopefully they'll be unbiased.
(for HT to be removed from chief's position, 2/3rd of CC members have to vote in favor)
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170894
QP joined a BHK proposal to create an 11-member Parliamentary group that will help the govt by auditing mining industry's investment offers, their feasibility and legality. 111-0-1 vote.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990474.html
Police says they busted the (former) Nor Norq district administrator and his colleagues with corruption between 2012-2018.
Police says:
Nor Norq administrators threatened to evict businesses from a govt-run building unless they paid a combined 11.3mln bribe to "Nor Norq development fund" in 2012-2018. The foundation was closed in Dec-2016 but district admins didn't notify the businesses about it, and instead demanded 900k bribe to be given in cash directly to them. This lasted until May-2018 (nice date).
Between 2014-2016, Nor Norq admins chose the aforementioned foundation to help organize Genocide memorial events. The foundation then gave 7mln cash to several employees in the department, as atkat. Docs were falsified to claim this money was spent on memorial events.
Felony case is launched.
https://youtu.be/pjmevXxSJGs
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170862
At least a $1mln worth Ayvazovsky painting is among the many art pieces that a famous Russian-Armenian comedian Eugene Petrosyan is trying to share with his wife as part of the divorce process. He can't get in his house to collect the belongings because the court gave the wife the right to guard the belongings.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170916
4th incident in 2 weeks: someone burned down a new garbage bin purchased by Yerevan municipality.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170911

Emergency Minister Tsolakyan:
We plan to purchase 4 rescue helicopters soon. Up until recently, the firefighters didn't have basic portable tools that is used inside forests where trucks can't go.
Japan recently gave 18 trucks. 22 on the way. Soon we'll buy 26 from Russia. This will help to fill void in provinces.
In Jan-Oct period we had 3,000 more fire incidents this year than last year (total 8.5k).
Residents called 911 emergency line 1.4mln times this year so far. (wth?)
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170903
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170885
3rd party Georgian opposition figure Mamuka Khazaradze, the owner of largest bank and a one-time ally of the ruling party, is complaining about the state of the Georgian economy. He says Armenia is doing better now with a significantly more stable currency.
(what about Moldova?)
https://factor.am/189256.html
January- August air traffic stats between Georgia and Armenia:
2018v2017 up 100%.
2019vs2018 up 161%.

Civil Aviation chiefs met and signed an agreement to cooperate with standardization and monitoring of certain things.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170905
Russian Pegas Fly airline will operate regular flights between Yerevan and Nizni Novgorod.
http://arka.am/en/news/tourism/pegas_fly_airline_to_operate_regular_flights_between_russian_nizhniy_novgorod_and_yerevan/
South-Caucasus railways director says cargo transport rose 7.7% YoY. Passenger traffic rose 13%. Wagon renovations rose 24%.
https://factor.am/189371.html
Prosecutors say:
Between 2009-2019, Gyumri's state-funded Athletics Sports-center director registered family members and others as fake employees to deduct salaries for embezzlement. 30mln was stolen. Felony case is launched.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990475.html
Health Minister Torosyan earlier fired the director of National Oncology Center (the case in which foreign medical business spoke about Serj govt's shakedown practices). A new director was appointed. This director fired an employee who illegally took 400,000 AMD from a patient, says Torosyan.
The fired doctor's son got mad, came to hospital, attacked the new director. Police was called.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/170928
Update: Education Ministry will implement online classes in all schools by Sep-2020.
There are 500 schools that have a teacher shortage. Remote teaching will help to fill the void.
2 schools in Ararat and Gegharquniq have been selected for a pilot program. They're also helping schools to solve the problem with lack of computers.
Simultaneously, there is an established program that distributes teachers from Yerevan to provinces.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990404.html
The Appeals Court has upheld a 2-month arrest warrant for former IRS boss Gagik Khachatryan's nephew, who is accused of embezzlement during his work at the agency. He was arrested in August.
https://hetq.am/hy/article/108225
The police has busted in-home elderly care govt-funded agency's director with a 28mln embezzlement. 2012-2019. Felony case is launched.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990587.html
Yerevan's 2801 birthday will be celebrated in October 18. This year the city will spend "record low" 150mln, vs 1bln for last year. Festivities will be in 12 districts.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170735
Yerevan municipality councilman Manrikyan:
If we canceled the agreement with Sanitek garbage collector few months earlier, the garbage collection would be entirely paralyzed. Even with few trucks, Sanitek was still adding to the work done by the city.
We have some concerns about Sanitek taking us to the international court because of the way the former govt signed the contracts with Sanitek. It could play in Sanitek's hand.
(Context: some residents have been wondering why it took so long to get rid of Sanitek)
https://factor.am/189271.html

Mayor's spokesman Karapetyan:
We had to make sure we could handle the garbage ourselves before canceling the contract. In June-September 2019 we audited Sanitek's equipment inventory. It revealed contract violations, which helped the city to make the legal decision to terminate the contract.
City is spending the same 5.2bln that it was giving to Sanitek.
https://factor.am/189266.html

Garbage fee will remain 200 AMD for residents.
The city is working on a bill that could eliminate the garbage fee collection from residents, and instead charge a Garbage Tax from product importers, because the imported product would eventually generate garbage. Local product producers could be exempt from this tax. (still being discussed)
🚛 https://factor.am/189260.html

Municipality council's opposition members supported the decision to cancel the contract with Sanitek.
Consumer product prices Sep-2019 vs Sep-2018
Overall 0.5% up.
Food and non-alcohol down 1.4%,
communications down 0.1%,
leisure and arts down 1.2%,
clothing up 9%,
alcohol/tobacco up 4.7%.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990458.html
Pashinyan: 6 private firms are currently delivering higher quality food to 7,000 soldiers. The soldiers are satisfied. We need to do math to see if the new system met the initial expectations, and how to move forward.
(The govt earlier found embezzlement and other quality issues with the old food delivery system, and decided to gradually privatize it by the end of 2020.)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990493.html
President Sarkissian went to Serbia, met the president, thanked for 1988 help after earthquake, spoke about cooperation.
Serb president wants to cooperate in tech sector and education. Urged mutual investments, said Serbian young scientists should consider to visit Armenia for education.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990531.html
US Senator Frank Pallone went from Artsakh to Armenia, spoke with various officials. He said he'll talk to Google and PayPal administrators. Google Maps has inaccuracies in Armenia and Artsakh, which causes tourists and residents to take long routes. YouTube's certain functions aren't available in Armenia. PayPal has a limited functionality in Armenia.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/990574.html
tanks Frankie 👍
California governor Gavin Newsom has signed into a law Resolution AB 1320 prohibiting the state pension fund from making investments in organizations with ties to Turkish government, due to their lack of recognition of the 1915 Genocide. The resolution was authored by Adrin Nazaryan (district 46).
https://factor.am/189419.html
https://openstates.org/ca/bills/20192020/AB1320/
Tank you gavin. really cool. 👍
Armenia moved up 6 positions - to the 36th place - in UEFA country ranking because of the recent somewhat successful club matches by Ararat, Pyunik, Alashkert, Banants.
Most prestigious league belongs to Spain, followed by England and Germany.
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170896
Armenian soccer fan group FAF interrupted Dedelande vs Azeri Qarabag soccer match by using a drone to fly the Artsakh flag above the pitch. The video shows panicked Azeri players running around and trying to knock the drone down. The game was interrupted.
This isn't the first time the madlads troll a match. During an earlier Arsenal vs Qarabag match FAF's fan ran onto the pitch with the Artsakh flag.
FAF says they'll continue to troll. It's a way to raise awareness about Azerbaijan's propaganda machine around the Karabakh issue, says the group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWERc7OlkD4
https://www.facebook.com/FirstArmenianFront/videos/427550731227851/
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/170872
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/170922
Your Daily George Soros Briefing.
Disclaimer: All the accused are innocent until proven guilty by the court of law, even if they may sound as being guilty. Currency in Armenian Drams unless specified otherwise. Older posts can be found at: PART 1 ; PART 2 ; PART 3 ; PART 4 , credits to Idontknowmuch.

The importance of the UEFA and AC Milan meeting and how it could determine the future of the Financial Fair Play.

Manchester City's ban from the Champions League

Milan-UEFA: Working on an agreement and no signs of an appeal through the Court of Arbitration for Sport. [Arianna Ravelli]

can uefa appeal cas decision video

Everything Man City players have said about their futures as club await CAS verdict on UEFA ban; Read More Related Articles. Man City to learn CAS appeal on Champions League ban decision on Monday The Court of Arbitration for Sport has confirmed UEFA's decision to impose a life ban from football-related activity on Oleh Orekhov after dismissing an appeal by the match official. Man City and UEFA know CAS decision is likely to be final. Pep Guardiola drops hint about rival interest in Man City CAS appeal "From my experience before CAS, this is highly unlikely. CAS release statement. The case concerns an appeal filed by Manchester City FC (MCFC) against the decision of theAdjudicatory Chamber of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) dated 14 February 2020 in which it was deemed to have contravened UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations and sanctioned with exclusion from participation in UEFA club competitions in the next Can I appeal against an Appeals Body decision? Yes, you can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in accordance with the UEFA Statutes and the CAS’s Code of Sports-related Arbitration. Are disciplinary bodies’ decisions published anywhere? The UEFA administration publishes decisions taken by its disciplinary bodies on its website. Cas also ruled that City did fail to cooperate with Uefa in their investigation, and as a result imposed a fine on the Premier League club of €10m, reduced from the original €30m imposed by Uefa. - The CAS could decide to rule in Man City's favour and vacate Uefa's decision, allowing Pep Guardiola's side to compete in the Champions League. 1594592437 How it could affect the top four race They claim that CAS sources have informed them that a final decision on City's Champions League fate for next season could take up to two months to be delivered. It has long been reported that both UEFA and City want the appeal decision delivered before the draw is made for next season's Champions League group stage. What does Man City CAS ban decision mean for Uefa and severe punishment on appeal and are now free to wrote on Twitter after the decision was announced. "In fact, can Uefa survive MANCHESTER CITY. CAS deems Manchester City's UEFA appeal 'inadmissible' The Court of Arbitration for Sport has left UEFA to conclude its investigation into Manchester City's financial affairs.

can uefa appeal cas decision top

20 BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS OF RESPECT IN SPORTS - YouTube

What the Manchester City CAS Decision Actually Means For the Club and FFP? ... CAS APPEAL VERDICT 09:30GMT #mcfc #city - Duration: 1:04:37. Man City Fan TV Recommended for you. 1:04:37. So ... Here you can watch Snooker 19 Gameplay as we embark upon our FIRST try at Snooker 19 Career Mode on Maximum AI Difficulty, but with supported shot assists (FOR NOW). Subscribe, slapping that like Manchester City start their appeal to CAS to reverse their two-year Champions League ban in February. Man City will find out the verdict before the start of ... Know your rights in a Child Protective Services investigation “Will the Social Security disability judge approve my case?” I get this question daily on my YouTube channel and in emails or blog comments.There are some s... 20 BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS OF RESPECT IN SPORTSMusic: Mount Olympus - Approaching Nirvanahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe2s-7IYg-0Spotify: http://bit.ly/AN_Spoti... Kobe Bryant was the most fierce competitor of all time, he did not back down from anyone. When playing against other superstars he only upped his game. Wheth... I had my hearing this morning and it went well. I now have disability benefits!Myler Disability:Web Address: www.mylerdisability.comEmail: disabilityclaim@ss... Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. All strikes and terminations can be appealed if the Creator believes there was an error, and our teams will re-review the decision. Resources Learn more about Community Guidelines strikes

CAS upholds three-year rule decision on Timişoara - UEFA.com

can uefa appeal cas decision

can uefa appeal cas decision - win

CAS secretary general on why City's appeal against UEFA's handling of the investigation was inadmissible - "We can only hear appeals against final decisions. There was absolutely no examination of the merits. We can't say whether the decision of the alleged breach of FFP rules are real or not."

I spent 30+ hours reading up on Gervinho's racism case brought before the CAS against Feyenoord. What follows is a brief summary of the all-important CAS verdict.

City v. UEFA| Summarizing the Findings from CAS' Arbitration Award

Summary of Findings

TL;DR

Megathread: The Salt Mine of CAS' Exoneration

All salt accepted

What we dont want:

Reporters/Personalities etc

Rival Comments/threads/pages

NO $ALT Section

City personality/players/fan videos/ Journalist positive

Podcasts