Happy, what City’s case is that:
1. they had a contract for say £10m a year with a sponsor. The sponsor paid that amount.
2. they then agreed a contract for, say £40m a year with the SAME sponsor and sometimes BACKDATED this. The sponsor only paid the previous amount £10m and asked the abu dhabi government to pay the uplift.
The PL case is that this is nonsense and city created the second contract themselves and their owners paid via ADUG.
City say they can prove ADUG did not pay the money but the government did via a different fund, set up in the crown princes name.
It is obviously very contentious that city are owned by people who are in and around the royal family and government, but City (and I think the PL agree) that if paid by ADUG is is a fail and if by the government then that is allowed. However they would still fail the rules as the contracts we not at fair market value.
How anyone can believe sponsors are so happy that they will pay a multiple of a contract fee for no benefit to themselves and often for backdated services is ridiculous to me.
But yes, it is the same evidence they provided first time round, they are appealing the grounds people didn’t understand it and therefore came to the wrong conclusion. The independent hearing did address that by saying they understood the argument, but found the witnesses to be not credible and also that City only very recently put this argument forward and didn’t advance that as a defence when the PL investigated.
Basically they have said, if this is true why have you only put it forward after hearing the case against you, why not from the start. Only Andy Burnham and City fans can answer that one.
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