the process itself being actually correct the make up of the "independent" panel, (making assertions the people on it have agendas) due process not being followed whether the punishment can be applied at all due to length of time that's passed. take your pick. if anyone puts a foot wrong city will unleash the dogs.
But could the prem not just exclude them and basically follow city's lead and forever kick the can down the rd. It's the governing bodies rules, I don't see what it's got to do with any sort of law. My apologies if I'm being simple
Say you were a farmer and agreed to sell lamb exclusively to Tesco. Private contract. Tesco receives your shipment and says "this isn't lamb, it's mutton, I'm not giving you lamb prices for this, either I pay you for Mutton, or the deal is off, I don't want to deal with you". The media picks up on this story, and now no one else wants to buy your meat either because they heard Tesco backed out of an agreement with you for selling shady meat. If farmers had sponsors on the side of their tractors, you can bet you'd not be worth as much to sponsors either... but farmers don't have sponsors so that's a bit silly... Regardless, as a farmer, your good name is sullied and people don't trust you. You're forced to accept Tesco's mutton pricing rather than get the good big-league Lamb pricing. You won't be able to sell you meat as a premium meat to anyone any more- and, from your point of view, it's all Tesco's fault. It's their ill-actions that caused you to have lower earning potential. No actual crime has been committed, but Tesco's incompetence at telling the difference between lamb and mutton has hurt your livelihood. If Premier League is corrupt and unfairly treats Manchester City, they've hurt the owners financially- and just like Tesco hurting the farmer's earning potential, Premier League is hurting the poor impoverished Sheikh's earning potential. Sponsors will pay less to sponsor City because they have a bad name, players won't want to play for them, they'll have to pay more to get the same quality. IF the Premier League were corruptly unfair to City, they would be responsible for City losing hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenue... and they can sue for that.
the only cases we have any form of precedent in would be juventus and rangers. juventus were relegated to serie b and given a points deduction on top. they were involved in match fixing/fixing favourable refs etc. they sued having watched the goings on of other club executives going to court and not getting done. they tried for 500milmin damages. rangers are the other example who went bust basically. they were done for tax. hmrc refused to allow rangers come out of administration so the club was liquidated. After that it was a lot of horse trading and some dodginess went on to save ibrox for them. votes were had and the clubbwent into the Scottish 3rd division. After that who knows, the europen courts have ruled uefa and fifa acted unlawfully in blocking that bitty super league. the point is that on a matter of law city can claim to have always paid their taxes (so whats the beef)and the premier league are overstepping their powers even if its written down by excluding them. you never know what point of law might be pulled out that will send the premier league side into a panic. After all, if this were a simple case of an independent panel calling evidence and getting down to work they'd have started it's now a full year since city were charged and there is still no time frame known to the public. a full year. if you dealt with these charges in blocks a they are quite clearly related them then you'd easily be done by now.
But if tesco set the standard for mutton or lamb I the contract how can they be wrong. It may well hurt the farmer but its what he agreed to? Just like it nay well hurt city, but its what they agreed to?
If Tesco set the standard and communicated that standard and then got it wrong and told a farmer his lamb was mutton and if in doing so ruined the farmer in most courts of law Tesco would be penalized and the farmer would win some money. In this case though it would be hard to make a case against the Premier League though because the premier League handed the punishment to a third party.
so if Im Understanding this correctly, as long as the prem follows its own rules, city can't do anything. See, I think this is where I'm getting confused. The assumption that city will just take the prem to court come what may.
As I stated earlier I'm no legal expert - I'm just expressing what I think about the situation, if they are found guilty of serious breaches. Money is power and City's owners are used to getting whatever they want - they won't accept anyone has authority over them so they will try every avenue possible to impose their will. Yes, a private organisation can make its own rules, but if those rules contravene the law of the land the latter takes precedence. To use your pub analogy - yes, a landlord can chuck you out, but if he uses excessive force, causes you gbh and keeps your coat you'll have a case against him. Perhaps City can't challenge the decision itself, but the legality of its consequences may be called into question, claiming (as others have mentioned) damage to reputation or restriction of trade or some such. I honestly don't know how they would go about it but I'm sure they'll try everything possible. No doubt there are minutiae of the law you or I haven't even dreamt of, but if this goes ahead I bet we'll be learning some of them. In the meantime, they'll keep collecting trophies that should rightfully go elsewhere.
I think I'm going to have to put this down as I don't understand and leave it there. I just don't see how they can claim damages, because they broke the rules.
In all honesty, I doubt we'll ever get to this stage. I'm still expecting some pathetic punishment that will pay lip service to the principles but have little serious impact on City steamrollering their way through almost all competitions. If it does come down to something serious, then I suppose we'll all see what they can come up with. Until then we're all just guessing.
I always believed that would be the case, but I'd assume the Everton case has set a bar. If they get a fine and a stern talking to, you'd assume Everton would then have grounds to kick right off, especially if they end up relegated. Anyway, it befuddles me. Its obvious city and Chelsea have massively overspent, I just don't see how it's gone on so long. I suppose the Gravy train is more important than integrity of the competition.
As long as the prem follows their own rules they SHOULD win any legal challenge City make. That doesn't mean City won't try every dirty trick they can find.
