UEFA
In a 92-page document detailing how the Manchester club won its appeal against the UEFA ban, and the extent it went in a bid to clear its name from the charges has been revealed.
The Court of Arbitration CAS, on Tuesday, published a 92-page report on how the two years ban against the English club by UEFA was lifted.
The club was handed a two years ban and a £26.9 million fine when UEFA discovered they had seriously breached the Financial Fair Play FFP regulation by allegedly declaring wrong figures in their sponsorship deal.
In contrast, the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS panel had overturned the ban but found city guilty for breach of rule for not co-operating while being investigated and were fined £9 million in a controversial judgment announced earlier this month. City was criticized in the 92-page revelation for its failure to aid the governing body during its investigation.
The arbitrators discovered that the Manchester club, in one of its sponsorship deal with Etihad, had done nothing wrong has there was no tangible proof to back the accusations, that money from the club owners was passed on to Etihad directly, or that a third party was used.
Reports from different sources revealed that UEFA had based its allegation on “insufficient evidence” also that the club had hired 12 of Europe’s best lawyers to fight their case. In contrast, they had paid some of the witnesses involved in the case.
According to Sportmail, on March 9 nine Premier League clubs namely, Burnley, Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, United, Newcastle, Wolves, and Tottenham had written to CAS to prevent Manchester City from playing in UEFA competition during the course of their appeal, but city never applied for their suspension to be removed as they were confident they would win the appeal
CAS documents also revealed that most of the charges brought were time-constrained, as they had taken place long before the charges were brought.
Documents leaked to UEFA by German newspaper Der Spiegel had shown that sponsorship monies were funded by the club owner rather than the company. But the document revealed that that UEFA had been provided false information. At the same time, city-backed this up by providing witness one of which was Simon Pearce, an advisor, and non-executive director who denied that he arranged any payment to any of sponsoring company in proxy of Manchester city during their appeal at the CAS.
Manchester city prepares for the second-leg tie of their round of 16 encounters against Real Madrid with a 2-1 aggregate lead.
