Opinion: Despite CAS ruling, Manchester City are still guilty
The CAS ruling did not overturn the verdict; it reversed the punishment.
In CAS’s press release on Monday, the panel stated that Manchester City had “contravened Article 56 of the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations,” which refers to the club’s requirement to cooperate fully with UEFA regulators.
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The release stated that there was not enough evidence to support the finding that MCFC had disguised the sources of their money. CAS further advised that much of the evidence had been time-barred, which means that the statute of limitations had expired.
These findings do not completely clear City of wrongdoing for two reasons.
One, just because there is not enough evidence, does not mean a violation was not committed. It just means that there was not enough of it, in the CAS panel’s opinion, to meet the legal standard of guilt or liability.
More importantly, there is absolutely no moral or ethical statute of limitations on fraud. The fact that the evidence dates to 2012 through 2016 does not eliminate the reality that City did not correctly report where their revenues were indeed coming from. A is A. Fraud is fraud.
Following Manchester City’s money is a swampy marsh as layered as the plotline of The Wire.
MCFC, City Football Group and Etihad Airlines are owned all by the same people: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan and other members of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates. It’s not the money that is the main issue; it is the club’s lack of transparency.
It is the lack of transparency and the swamp of state-sponsored football ownership that is the issue.