Cas releases its reasons for overturning Manchester City's Europe ban
The findings that led to Uefa’s club financial control body (CFCB) deciding that Manchester City were guilty of a “serious breach” of financial fair play regulations and imposing a two year Champions League ban have finally been revealed in the judgment of the court of arbitration for sport, which overturned the CFCB’s decisions.
The CFCB found after its investigations and hearings that the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the company through which Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family owns City, had funded payments in 2012 and 2013, understood to be £15m each year, that were reported to the Football Association and to Uefa as independent sponsorships from the telecoms company Etisalat.
The Cas panel of three European lawyers decided by a majority 2-1, however, that it would not consider the legitimacy of those Etisalat payments, because they were made more than five years before the CFCB charges were brought in May 2019, so were “timebarred”.
Uefa’s rules for the CFCB, whose members are appointed to oversee compliance with FFP, state that “prosecution is barred after five years” for all breaches of FFP regulations.
The senior European lawyers in the CFCB’s adjudicatory chamber (AC), and experienced academics, former politicians and executives in the investigative chamber (IC), considered May 2014 as the date of City’s breach. That was when City agreed an FFP settlement with Uefa, based on the club’s reporting of its finances, which included that Etisalat, a Middle East telecoms giant headquartered in Abu Dhabi, had paid the sponsorship itself.
In fact, the judgment recites, the AC found that ADUG had funded the payments, and that: “The management of [MCFC] was well aware that the payments … made by [a third party on behalf of ADUG] were made as equity funding, not as payments for the sponsor on account of genuine sponsorship liabilities.” The judgment notes that although City and Etisalat had agreed a sponsorship deal in principle in 2012, the actual contract was concluded only in January 2015, and was stated to be retrospectively effective, from 1 February 2012.
In public statements throughout the process, City had accused the members of the IC, AC and Uefa itself of bias against the club, claiming they ignored “irrefutable evidence”. The Cas judgment makes no suggestion of bias, and states that “Uefa by no means filed frivolous charges against MCFC. As also acknowledged by MCFC, there was a legitimate basis to prosecute MCFC.”
The Cas judgment also contains the extraordinary revelation that the panel’s chairman, Rui Botica Santos, a Portuguese lawyer, was recommended by City. Cas rules for appeals state that each party chooses one arbitrator, then the chairman is selected by the chairman of Cas’s own appeals arbitration division. No explanation has yet been given for why City suggested the chairman for this case, although the judgment notes that Uefa did not object.
Some European sports lawyers, speaking to the Guardian, have questioned the independence of the panel member nominated by City, Andrew McDougall QC, a partner in the international law firm White and Case. McDougall was chair of his firm’s operations council for Europe, the Middle
East and Africa, from 2016-2018, which includes an office in Abu Dhabi. That office lists Etisalat as a client, and the Abu Dhabi airline Etihad, whose sponsorships were also central to the case, as well as several Abu Dhabi state enterprises.
The Cas rules state that “arbitrators must be independent, [having] no particular connection with any of the parties”. There is no suggestion of actual bias on the part of either of City’s nominated arbitrators.
City’s position is understood to be that McDougall himself has not acted for those Abu Dhabi companies although his firm has, and that the club’s hierarchy recommended him because of his strong reputation as a lawyer. Uefa did not respond to a question about whether it raised any objection to McDougall’s appointment. McDougall declined to respond to questions from the Guardian about whether he had an apparent conflict of interest in sitting on the case.
Uefa’s nominee was Ulrich Haas, a German law professor based in Zurich, a long-term arbitrator on Cas panels.
The Etisalat evidence, as well as the more widely reported allegations relating to City’s Etihad sponsorship, was a principal reason underpinning the AC’s findings that City were guilty of a breach serious enough to warrant a two-year ban and €30m fine. The FFP rules, introduced by Uefa in 2010-11 to encourage responsible financial management by clubs, limits the cash owners can pour in, which makes independent sponsorships more important for boosting revenues. Like all relationships between clubs and sports governing bodies, the system relies on trust and honest reporting.
The allegations relating to Etihad’s sponsorship were based on City’s own internal emails, published as “leaks” by the German magazine Der Spiegel in November 2018, prompting the IC to ask City for an explanation. The emails included three from City’s then chief financial officer, Jorge Chumillas, to Simon Pearce, a senior City executive, setting out that in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2015-16, direct funding from Etihad was only £8m, with ADUG funding the rest, which was £59.5m in 2015-16. One email to Pearce enclosed invoices for the sponsorships, with only £8m charged to Etihad.
Citywere found to have obstructed and failed to cooperate with the CFCB’s investigations, but they gave the Cas panel more cooperation, with executives including Pearce providing evidence and appearing as witnesses, insisting that Etihad funded the whole sponsorship. Sheikh Mansour himself also provided a letter, stating: “I have not authorised ADUG to make any payments to Etihad, Etisalat or any of
their affiliates in relation to their sponsorship of MCFC.” On the basis of the further evidence it considered, the Cas panel found the Etihad charge to be “not established”.
The judgment reveals that on 9
March this year, nine other Premier League clubs wrote to Cas opposing any attempt by City to seek a “stay of execution” allowing them to play in Europe next season if the appeal hearing was delayed. The clubs were Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, Tottenham and Wolves. But three weeks later City told Cas it had not requested a stay of execution. Cas agreed with City that the clubs’ claim was therefore “moot”.
guire-Nemanja Matic-Mason Greenwood-Fernandes-Goal’ went a sweeping move from the Manchester United area to Brighton’s.
JL: In a disappointing season for great goals, Son against Burnley. The only one of the main contenders to combine technical excellence, physical excellence and positional intelligence.
PM: Son against Burnley. It was like a scene from a Fellini movie, Tottenham’s No 7 pursued by an ever increasing phalanx of Burnley players as he runs the length of the pitch to score. Usually I require a dribbled goal to include a complicated piece of skill to beat a man, but not on this occasion. Son’s goal is pure acceleration, but he does it again, and again, through a team that would happily have brought him down if they could.
SM:Alireza Jahanbakhsh’s bicycle kick, steered in for Brighton against Chelsea on New Year’s Day. An intricately engineered finish, the sort that’s gone a bit out of fashion, with blooters and curlers all the rage right now. Don’t let the fact that Kepa Arrizabalaga was rooted to the spot, as per usual, take anything away from it.
SN: Son v Burnley. I was fortunate enough to be there in December when Son went on a run that started just outside Spurs’ area and saw him surge past seven players before putting the ball into the back of the net with a finish that was as composed as the buildup had been thrilling.
JS: Son showed dazzling quick feet, skill and pace when he scored a brilliant solo goal against Burnley. He started deep in his own half and had the ball seemingly glued to his feet as he went past half the Burnley defence before finishing confidently.
LT: Matty Longstaff v Manchester United. It was early October when Newcastle beat Manchester United 1-0 at St James’ Park courtesy of a fabulous goal from the debut-making 19-year-old central midfielder from nearby North Shields. Struck low, imperiously and unerringly from 25 yards, Longstaff ’s winner was stunning in all sorts of senses. An afternoon to remind everyone that sometimes, just sometimes, dreams really do come true.
JW: Longstaff v Manchester United. Goals aren’t just about the technical quality or about the aesthetic but also about the occasion. It wasn’t just that it was Longstaff’s debut or that it was the winner against Manchester United (the first scored by a Steve Bruce side), it was the buildup as Jethro Willems, having jinked into the left side of the box, rolled the ball back into space for the midfielder. On a sodden afternoon, there was one of those moments of delicious anticipation as everybody could see that a hard low shot would fly in, if only he could keep it down. He did.
Best match
EA: Other than Southampton’s revenge mission victory over Leicester a few months after being walloped 9-0 at home it’s quite hard to recall anything from the pre-lockdown world. So I’ll go for Chelsea’s victory over Manchester City at the end of June that meant Liverpool were crowned champions. End-to-end stuff on a dramatic night.
NA: Strictly chosen from those I covered live, plenty of see-sawing affairs played havoc with deadlines at the Emirates. But they were bettered by one further east, at the London Stadium, where West Ham and Brighton fought an error-strewn 3-3 draw that, if lacking in quality, offered full-throttle entertainment for the entire 90 minutes.
PD:Aston Villa 0-0 Sheffield United. In much the same way as rain feels glorious on your first day out of the nick, the return of football after a three-month pox-enforced shutdown felt sweet. And VAR didn’t even muck it up. Oh wait, it did.
BF: Southampton 0-9 Leicester. An ‘I was there’ moment. Horizontal rain, a red card, two hat-tricks and an exhibition in cold finishing.
BG: It wasn’t the most competitive of affairs, but Southampton 0-9 Leicester played in sideways rain on a miserable Friday night at St Mary’s was enjoyably bonkers.
AH: Everton 3-1 Chelsea, 7 December 2019. Everton were in the relegation zone following a 5-2 drubbing at Anfield that signalled the end for Marco Silva and the appointment of a highly emotional Duncan Ferguson for his first game in temporary charge. It could have gone either way against a team of Chelsea’s quality but, with the home side impassioned and Ferguson throwing ballboys in the air, Goodison Park was treated to an all-too-rare demonstration of what could happen if Everton ever assemble a team their fans can identify with.
DH: Chelsea 2-1 Man City. A contest of quality and intensity that transcended the absence of fans and had a pretty major consequence elsewhere.
JJ: Manchester United 1-3 Manchester City, Carabao Cup semi-final. This might have been 7-0 to City by the interval (it was 3-0) before, football being a funny game, United somehow reasserted themselves.
PM: Norwich 3–2 Manchester City. In such an otherwise forgettable season, typical that Norwich should pull off the shock of the year. Late summer, early evening, the sun shone on Carrow Road as Daniel Farke’s side played their way through the back-to-back champions. Some of their football was gorgeous and they were brave off the ball and on it. City were insipid, their performance a harbinger of disappointment to come.
SM: A toss-up between Norwich City 3-2 Manchester City and Watford 3-0 Liverpool, both occasions on which the natural order was given an entertainingly good rattle.
SN:Liverpool 5-3 Chelsea. Lots of goals, lots of great attacking play, swings in momentum, an amusing touchline ruck and the strangest trophy presentation in English football history. The only thing missing from this game was supporters.
JS: Wolves 3-2 Manchester City had it all: VAR controversy, a defiant Raheem Sterling putting 10-man City 2-0 up and Adama Traoré using his outrageous talent to inspire a stunning comeback from Wolves, who showed just how good they are by doing the double over City.
LT: Sheffield United 3-3 Manchester United. Back in that now seemingly far distant old world of late November, the Premier League’s enduring, and enrapturing, dramatic power was encapsulated on a Sunday afternoon in south Yorkshire as Sheffield United cantered into a two-goal lead. Manchester United rallied ferociously with Marcus Rashford putting them 3-2 in front before Oli McBurnie 90th-minute volleyed equaliser very nearly lifted off Bramall Lane’s roof.
JW: West Ham 3-2 Chelsea. Amid some deeply unmemorable games after the restart, the game that effectively secured West Ham’s Premier League future stands out. Chelsea had levelled at 2-2 and as West Ham got deeper and deeper an away winner seemed inevitable, but instead, in the final minute, a perfect break was ended with a glorious finish from Andriy Yarmolenko.
Best signing
EA: It’s all about Bruno Fernandes. The Portugal midfielder has finally provided the spark that has been missing at Old Trafford for so long. An honourable mention for Allan Saint-Maximin as well.
NA: You could barely move in January for seeing Fernandes’s name and it was hard not to wonder, when he finally arrived at Old Trafford for £68m, whether he would be worthy of the hype. Big mistake. Fernandes is patently the kind of winning, inspirational force of nature United have missed and he has energised others while settling games himself. Without him, they would have been bobbing along outside the top four.
SB: Everyone will say Fernandes, but only because Fernandes is obviously the right answer. Honourable mentions for Danny Ings, who made his switch to Southampton permanent last summer, and Tomas Soucek, who has made a huge contribution since his arrival at West Ham in January.
PD: Saint-Maximin. If you don’t cheer when watching this guy, you don’t know how to live. Or you’re a defender trying to figure out how to subdue him.
BF: Can we count Ings? A £20m buy for Southampton last summer after spending the previous season on loan there, Ings returned in style, scoring 22 goals – only Vardy scored more – to spearhead the attack with a muchneeded swagger. He is lethal in front of goal but his infectious work ethic has proved useful in both boxes. For pure excitement, Saint-Maximin, while Gary Cahill, a free transfer, has been a revelation.
BG: Having failed in their efforts to sign Fernandes last summer, Manchester United finally brought him to Old Trafford in January. His immediate impact has been little short of sensational.
AH: Fernandes. Not exactly cheap or under the radar but a class act who raised the games of those around him and elevated United from mediocrity into Champions League qualifiers.
DH: Fernandes. From the moment he arrived, United have been transformed. Great numbers, great mentality. Can I also give honourable mentions to Gabriel Martinelli and SaintMaximin?
JJ: Fernandes. What a footballer, what a catalyst. The best post-Alex Ferguson acquisition.
JL: Fernandes. Transformed not just Manchester United’s anaemic midfield, but the whole feel of the club. Arrived shortly after the season’s nadir, a 2-0 defeat to Burnley, and gave them a purpose and a blueprint.
PM: Ings. He drove Southampton’s escape from the drop. A push for the golden boot ultimately fell short but Ings scored all types of goals in all types of matches under all kinds of pressure. It’s likely Saints would have been sunk without him.
SM: Fernandes, who follows Billy Meredith, Denis Law and Eric Cantona in transforming Manchester United in a flash. He single-handedly saved Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s job, though whether that’s a good or bad thing for United in the long run is a debate for another day.
SN: Fernandes. Not cheap but transformative signings rarely are and that is what Fernandes has been for United. The midfielder has injected creativity and character into the team and with better players around him next season, namely in defence, could be the spearhead for a full-on United revival.
JS: Fernandes has given United hope.
LT: Saint-Maximin. Newcastle have not always been too easy on the eye this season – with one notable exception. The wonderfully skilful Saint-Maximin has brought a touch of Côte d’Azur sunshine to Tyneside, invariably proving gloriously entertaining with his chicane dribbles a consistent highlight. The excitement is only exacerbated by the winger’s sheer unpredictability. An unorthodox talent turned poster boy for the advantages of not coaching young boys too early, he played street football before joining the formal academy system later than most.
JW: Fernandes. An obvious answer, but it’s hard to remember any other signing who has so transformed a side.
Worst flop
EA: João Cancelo was signed to give Manchester City more depth at fullback but has failed to live up to his £60m price tag. All the training in the park didn’t do Tanguy Ndombele much good either.
NA: Alex Iwobi has never quite shown top-bracket potential so it was some feat for Arsenal to persuade Everton to part with £35m for the winger last August. One league goal later, the deal seems even more staggering. For their part Arsenal can be charged with “biggest over-the-odds payment” in spending £72m on Nicolas Pépé, although the Ivorian has recently showed signs of settling in and at least provided some spectacular flourishes.
SB: It’s hard to judge between Ndombele’s £55m disappearing act at Tottenham and Arsenal’s entire league season, but either way this prize is heading to north London.
PD: Pep Guardiola. You don’t have to be Danny Drinkwater to know Premier League winners should have done much better. Manchester City lost their title in record time because they were defensively and mentally weak.
BF: The £34m Everton splashed out on Iwobi looked steep at the time but, almost a year on, it looks an extremely poor piece of business. Arsenal must have been pinching themselves.
BG: VAR. It was brought in to eliminate, or at least minimise, contentious decisions and has succeeded only in creating more. Time to put it back in its box and hide it under the bed.
AH: VAR. An unmitigated disaster that has stripped authority from referees and the pure joy of celebrating a goal from those who pay good money to be inside a stadium.
DH: I’m sorry to say that David Luiz has come to seem like a liability when he is one-on-one with attacking players. He doesn’t just make mistakes, he has catastrophes.
JJ: City’s title defence. Claiming three in a row is a mammoth ask. But going from champions to an 18-point deficit is odd.
JL: Arnaut Danjuma. There were more expensive flops, more spectacular flops, more inept flops. But as Bournemouth drop out of the league, somehow the £14m Dutch winger is emblematic of a club and a transfer strategy that badly lost its way. Only six starts, no goals and no assists in a miserable injury-plagued campaign.
PM: Ndombele. No doubt a technically proficient player with an eye for goal, his progress was hampered by a change of management. But Ndombele has failed to grasp the nettle of playing in the Premier League under José Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino and that’s not something that can be entirely blamed on others. A £55m club-record fee currently looks far from being justified.
SM: Brendan Rodgers. Finishing fifth with Leicester hardly counts as failure, except in the context of all that preening over release clauses amid vague interest from Arsenal. After securing a five-year big-bucks extension, his team were immediately schooled by Manchester City and Liverpool, triggering a dismal decline in confidence and form. If Leicester fail to start 2020-21 on the front foot, Leicester could be double-checking the fine print on that contract fairly quickly.
SN: VAR. There have been the clangers resulting from incompetence and officials being scared to overrule their mates and there have been the calls that have been technically correct but undeniably awful in how they have changed the flow and feeling of games. I was open to the introduction of VAR but, like many, would bin it after this most miserable of debut seasons.
JS: Roberto gave West Ham’s opponents hope. One of the worst goalkeepers to play in the Premier League. What on earth was Manuel Pellegrini thinking when he signed him? The deal cost him his job.
LT: Joelinton. It seems a bit cruel to single out Newcastle’s Brazilian, particularly as he seems nice, clearly tries his utmost and evidently cares. He’s also being played out of position at centre-forward – he shone in a left-sided attacking role at Hoffenheim. But, and it’s a big but, two Premier League goals when you cost £40m is simply not good enough.
JW: David de Gea. Yo hope there’s still a great goalkeeper in there but De Gea’s decline over the past two years has been profound. The howlers have become more common and he’s stopped making the saves he used to. And all on £350,000 a week.
Biggest gripe
EA: VAR and referees with personalised boots. But seriously: more common sense is needed next season please – Sheffield United’s goal against Aston Villa could easily have been given once the mistake over the ball crossing the line had been identified.
NA: Why was VAR railroaded upon us when officials were clearly not up to speed on its use? It has facilitated some important decisions but overall its impact on the division has been toxic. When it is combined with an absurd handball law, one would be forgiven for fearing outcomes are being dictated by people who actively dislike the sport. If the process can be improved – VAR worked seamlessly at the World Cup until the final, for example – then fantastic. But why inflict havoc on the world’s most popular league in the meantime?
SB: VARs taking 20 minutes to disallow goals because someone had an offside earlobe.
PD: One of Frank Lampard’s probably.
BF: The ingrained relationship between gambling and football. Half of the league’s teams wore shirts sponsored by betting firms.
BG: The woeful shortcomings of the handball law are a source of constant frustration and irritation.
AH: Footballers being singled out over pay cuts by the health secretary Matt Hancock while some of them took on what should be the government’s responsibility of funding the NHS and ensuring kids receive free school meals.
DH: I cannot stand it when goals are ruled out after lengthy VAR reviews for hairline offside decisions the naked eye cannot see.
JJ: Griping. It is football, it is a glorious pageant. Unadulterated entertainment. Enjoy.
JL: When people feel sufficiently secure in their racism to blazon it from a plane, as Burnley fans did in June, we can safely say that football’s culture has been too permissive of deplorable views. For all the laudable gestures football has made in recent months, there are not enough signs that the game’s authorities – governing bodies, clubs, platforms and the traditional media – are prepared to do the real hard work. That means educating fans, diversifying their own organisations and more actively policing the toxic tribal discourse masquerading as “debate”.
PM: That global pandemic which nearly crippled the sport then forced it to return without spectators as a new and sanitised phenomenon. Certainly puts VAR into perspective.
SN: Football’s return in June brought with it a host of innovations, among them the allowance of five substitutes. The reasoning behind it was sound but the effect was what many feared – an advantage for the bigger, richer clubs. So that should be the end of it, but, alas, no because the Premier League has been given permission to continue with it next season. It is a grim prospect and the hope must be that top-flight clubs say thanks but no thanks.
SM: Checking ... checking ... [completely unnecessary 120-second pause] ... ah yes, it’s VAR, which has completely banjaxed the natural rhythms of the game for no visible benefit. Pop it back in the box, will you? It’s fine to admit a mistake, we know you meant well.
JS: The law stating any goal featuring the use of an arm must be disallowed is infuriating. Nobody wants to see players punching the ball into the net but surely a middle ground can be found, especially now VAR is picking up the most minimal of accidental handballs. How is it fair to give a free-kick against a player who only handled the ball after being fouled by a defender first? Or against a player who has the ball kicked at his hand by an opponent?
LT: That Newcastle’s interminable Saudi takeover saga has been running for more than four months. The time for Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, to make a decision is long overdue. Masters is being desperately unfair on Newcastle, their fans and everyone connected with the club; if he wants to be a proper leader he needs to have the nerve to make contentious calls within acceptable timeframes. Meanwhile, Newcastle are left in paralysing limbo.
JW: People talking about VAR and referencing “umpire’s call”, as though the use of technology in cricket and football were directly comparable. Although the wider point about a margin of error with the technology and the difficulty of what happens between frames is valid, umpire’s call works in cricket because it’s a sport of a series of discrete actions; decisions can be corrected once the ball is dead. In football, an incorrect offside call stops an attack which cannot then be restarted. It is not the same as a batsman being given out or not out.