Paul Towell

⚖️ 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗠𝗮𝗻 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆’𝘀 𝗛𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦… 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺’𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵. We know that at the 2024 Independent Commission for their “115 charges”, Man City presented their “irrefutable evidence” in support of their defence known as the “CPC Explanation”. In short, Man City acknowledged the leaked emails stated they were transferring funds from the corporate owner, ADUG, to sponsors but that all the authors of those emails were just “confused” and made “false assumptions” for 8 years. Man City’s defence was that the money flows being described in the emails and documents actually related to money flows from the central government of the UAE (a.k.a. the Crown Prince Court, a.k.a. CPC). The Commission decided this defence and “irrefutable evidence” in support of it was all fake - a “concoction” after the fact. This alone will backfire heavily. It creates serious aggravating factors for any sanction, which really should lead to a recommendation to permanently expel this ownership. But had it worked, they still had a challenge… Man City would have still breached all the same PL rules! You see, there’s no realistic possibility that Man City’s CPC Explanation could have succeeded AND at the same time, not led to Man City and its Abu Dhabi state-owned sponsors being determined Related Parties (something that the Commission found to be the case anyway). As Related Parties, the relationships needed to be reported (they weren’t) and Fair Market Value (FMV) be assessed for each RPT (they weren’t). RPT stands for Related Party Transaction. So, why do it? Why risk further sanctions and even criminal prosecutions for no real gain? Well, this was only part 1 of their defence strategy. The second part was happening concurrently in another, different proceeding between Man City and the PL. In 2021, the PL updated its rules regarding RPTs and changed them to Associated Party Transactions (APTs). This was because they had learned (from the evidence Man City was finally forced to hand over by the High Court in 2020) that autocratic nation states like the UAE could readily hide the true nature of Related Parties to by-pass the rules. Newcastle was about to be acquired by Saudi Arabia at this time too and the PL realised they had to act quickly before they risked the possibility of more nation-state cheating. The APT rules widened the definition and made it much harder for nation states to by-pass the rules and repeat Man City’s cheating. In early 2024, when Man City was preparing its defence for its “115 charges”, the PL clubs voted to tighten the APT rules even further, once again making it even harder to cheat them. In reality, they went too far on one modification that required the clubs (instead of the PL) to prove FMV whilst at the same time, not granting the clubs access to the database used to determine FMV. It was unfair and opened up the rules to challenge (whichever lawyer wrote the amendment was an idiot). The impact of the amendment was that it would make Man City’s excessive, non-commercial APTs (like their proposed Etihad deal) much harder to get approved. Man City launched a Section X challenge against the APT rules in early 2024 with a number of different aims…