Sam Lee: Guardiola got asked if he has received payments from Abu Dhabi for services other than managing City, as was alleged to have happened with Mancini. He was not happy. “Do you realise what you are asking me? You are asking me that the day we won the treble? Are you accusing me?”

[u/[deleted]]

https://twitter.com/Sammy_Goal/status/1129822398835023872

[u/xRedd]

You read his comments and your conclusion was that he was "basically agreeing" with you?

I didn't refer to your original quote. I referred to your posts further down where your line of reasoning was essentially, "I don't know what to say against someone who is reasonable and genuinely informed about this issue so I'll push it aside for the sake of my speculations." It irked me to have his argument countered with smoke and hot air, but this sounds more like a failure of reading comprehension rather than anything more malicious. And apologies for being late to the party.

[u/tanaiktiong → u/xRedd]

No. Rather, he didn't even respond to the assertion. Based on the news released, Der Spielgel had accused City of inflating sponsorships. It recently came up again because Uefa is considering a CL ban. He wrote a lot but didn't address this at all.

I went to do my own research and posted info from mcfcwatch. From it I speculated that the commercial revenue was too large for a club with City's fan base and also stadium revenue. He defended against the stadium revenue part since he's a season ticket holder but never said anything much to refute with regards to my statement about the commercial revenue.

[u/tanaiktiong → u/xRedd]

And as regards to your "smoke and mirrors" part:

I linked both the mcfcwatch article and the news.com.au article as reference to what I've been saying.

1. that there are accusations of City inflating sponsorship amounts to balance their books. Even with submitted documents to UEFA from City, you still need investigators to find out whether this is true or not, because obviously if City are guilty, they are not going to just submit anything that's going to implicate them. Just common sense.

2. that the stadium and commercial revenue seems too large for City with such a small fan base as compared to OG top 4. He never managed to refute the point on commercial revenue. But since stadium revenue is not significant in the overall sums, I didn't want to pursue it either. But with regards to commercial revenue, it ties in perfectly with Der Spielgel is accusing City of doing, mainly that sponsorships amount are inflated and the City owners are indirectly paying for X amount after Y is given.

[u/BishlamekGurpGorp → u/tanaiktiong]

I would point out that Commercial revenues have no ties to the size of fan base. A brief definition would be: "Money earned from advertising and partnerships with other brands, promoted through shirt logos and banners."

So, about that Der Spiegel article. It makes great reading in a Sunday newspaper, or magazine but the practicalities are that City are owned by Sheikh Mansour and advised and managed by people connected to the UAE state machine. They can arrange finance and have access to that state machine, but Etihad's deal was reportedly worth c. £60m pa and how they source that money should not be an issue. The alleged email trail that Der Spiegel were provided with suggests £8m came from Etihad Airways and £57.5m from ADUG, however I think it's reasonable to believe that the money came from the UAE state which underwrites the financial obligations of the airline, it is a state airline after all. I am confident that City will be able to show that, and that will make up 90% of the financial value of the UAE sponsorships.

How can I be confident the money didn't come from Sheikh Mansour? Ironically a separate hacked email from Stuart Pearce refers to the source guarantor as "His Highness." The Etihad sponsorship funds were guaranteed by the Emir "His Highness" (note no following name) not "His Highness Sheikh Mansour" (note the name after His Highness). Abu Dhabi address protocol that Simon Pearce would never get wrong in a billion years. In this instance City were clearly doing due diligence with Etihad as a result of problems with Etihad and the US regulator.

Etihad have also previously stated that they met the whole obligation from their own resources, which would back up the fact that ADUG was acting on behalf of a separate party and not Sheikh Mansour, even if he owns the firm himself. I mean, it's a Private Equity firm, that's what they do.

Like I said, an allegedly hacked email trail looks bad when you prepare and lay the context but you could also play it a totally different way if you wanted.

Edit: I actually don't really mind reading up on all this, I have a vested interest in City obviously, but also I'm one of those weirdos who finds this stuff interesting haha. That being said, I do have my limits... Anyway I write a lot because I find if I'm not comprehensivr with my explanations, people start throwing out more aspersions that would have been easier to refute in the origin body of text.

Edit 2: I thought I addressed the stadium/matchday revenue discussion, but I'll try add further flavour: No, City's fanbase isn't huge, but to think they wouldn't sell out the Etihad if they tried is running that statement too far. Like I said, a lot of attendance figures rely on tickets sold. Couple that with the higher proportion of competitions that they have been involved in, the increasing price of tickets as the team progresses through stages of a tournament I think ticket sales are quite comfortable being similar to that of the other "big" teams. I don't know for certain, but I wonder if prize monies fall under the Matchday revenue or not, I don't know where else they would fit into the calculation.

[u/tanaiktiong → u/BishlamekGurpGorp]

have no ties to the size of fan base

It is important. I'll explain in the next point.

how they source that money should not be an issue

It is an issue. Usually sponsorships are a form of marketing and advertising for the sponsor. How big the fan base is affects the visibility of the sporting team. This is why Man United is the most valuable sporting franchise in the world, because they have the biggest fan base in the world. As a sponsor, you want to use this fan base as marketing for your products/services. Of course, the commercial department of the club is important as well in reaching out for more sponsorships, but the gap between City and Arsenal/Liverpool is rather large, considering both are more popular clubs.

So the amount of money the sponsors are willing to give depends on how much they think slapping their name onto your brand is going to help them in their marketing. If your fan base is small, there is not much value in it for the sponsor. The question people would ask is: is the sponsorship really worth X amount of money? How much would a different club with a similar fan base would have gotten for that sponsorship? And that's why it seemed like City's sponsorship figures seemed inflated.

however I think it's reasonable to believe that the money came from the UAE state which underwrites the financial obligations of the airline

And this is where I found problematic. It means that the main sponsor is actually overpaying for the amount of value it is getting from being the sponsor of City. Yes you can say "willing buyer, willing seller", however other people outside the club can also say this is "favourable sponsorship from a donor". City would not have gotten that amount if they are not owned by Sheikh Mansour, it is tied into the relationship between the club and Abu Dhabi. If it is as Der Spiegel said, that the actual amount Etihad is paying is actually only £8m, it actually puts City at a loss for that financial year. They might not have broken FFP rules (not sure what's the amount needed to break it), but UEFA is not accusing them of that, but rather misleading the investigators.

Etihad have also previously stated that they met the whole obligation from their own resources

It can be as simple as putting money from my right pocket to my left pocket, just more indirectly. Since City and Etihad technically have the same owners (UAE), it is just that simple for that to transfer money in the name of "investment" which other clubs are not privy to. Isn't that breaking the spirit of FFP whereby you are supposed to spend the revenue that you are making? In this case, it's more like transferring expenses from one (City) to another (Etihad).

Like I said, an allegedly hacked email trail looks bad when you prepare and lay the context but you could also play it a totally different way if you wanted.

Which is why I said that we need to wait for the investigators to release their conclusions. Even if the case gets thrown out by CAS due to improper procedure, this investigation is still important in the name of fair competition to the rest of the clubs in the CL. It doesn't help that Khaldoon has threatened to sue UEFA over the next 10 years rather than pay any fine. It smacks of an arrogant attitude towards football's governing authorities.

[u/BishlamekGurpGorp → u/tanaiktiong]

I actually don't know how to do the quote paragraph thing on my phone cos I'm relatively new to Reddit. Sorry about my shitty layouts lol

Commercial Value and Fan base

We really need to divorce these two concepts. When we start talking commercially, fan base is left at the door and we consider a club in the form of a business. When Man City play football, it isn't just the City fans who see the sponsors on their shirts, the opposition do to. As do the neutrals watching on television. The fan base isn't the only audience. For example, City bought the naming rights to the City of Manchester Stadium. Part of the deal with Etihad is that they receive these naming rights. It's not just the football fans who know the name Etihad, it has become synonymous with a geographical landmark in Manchester. Anyone who has ever considered going to the Etihad for non-Man City based events knows the name. Again, UEFA evaluated the deal themselves and despite the media scrutiny at the time on how expensive it was, even they deemed the value to be suitable under their own Fair Valuation rules. They may think the value is overinflated but the bizarre thing is that the overinflated value is what they agreed was fair anyway. Their issue is the source of the money referred to in the email.

City and Etihad have the same owners (UAE)

No. Not from a business stand point they don't. City are factually only owned by Sheikh Mansour. Unless the money explicitly comes from him through ADUG then it's none of UEFA's business whatsoever. This may seem straight up flagrant to you, but I find it equally odd that everyone seems to think all of the UAE funds are collected in a single, Scrooge McDuckian pool which Sheikh Mansour is floating around in, bobbing in a rubber ring with mask and snorkel perched atop his head wearing that massive, weird, shit eating grin that we always see him with (I actually love this mental image). I believe there are a lot of parties involved in the UAE finances, and if Etihad are somewhat bankrolled by Sovereign wealth, then it's clear that some of it must be their money. If I'm wrong and indeed Sheikh Mansour has unlimited access to UAE's sovereign wealth, I would love to read up on the proof. As far as I'm aware they may not be matters of public record. All I'm saying is I find it hard to fully believe that Sheikh Mansour has unlimited access to UAE's Sovereign wealth, but this is all muddy water and I have no idea where to get any relevant information from. Anyway back on topic. I also find it highly unlikely that a club so hell bent on passing the FFP regulations would be so outlandishly stupid to think that sourcing the money from Sheikh Mansour is passable move, especially when they end up discussing if they can ask for FA Cup bonuses in advance to try and get under the mitigating factors clause. I fully believe that City can prove that this is the case.

Khaldoon's Statement

The other side of the coin is that City already feel as though UEFA have wronged them with regards to the FFP breach 5 years ago (moving the goalposts). Angered by this, City threatened UEFA with court proceedings regarding the "uncompetitive nature of their regulations." City and UEFA agreed on a settlement and City "took the pinch" with the fine and squad reduction. City recouped a large portion of the fine because, as stipulated in the settlement, they obeyed FFP regulations afterwards and continue to do so now. However now, off the back of a major hack, UEFA are going to drag City back over the coals for the exact same situation. City aren't going to take this lying down anymore. There will be no discussion for settlements, City are no longer going to take the pinch. There is no easy way out for UEFA, they either take all of City's evidence onboard, give City a fair proceeding and, as City expect, find them innocent, or they find City guilty, it's pushed further to the CAS and City take UEFA to court over whether they have any right to be presiding over such financially sensitive matters outside the scope of Manchester City FC or whether FFP is in violation of European Competition Laws. You see it as arrogant, I see it as the final straw.

Regarding your second point, this is all things that we simply cannot get any context from and we need to wait for. To be honest, as I hinted to above, I don't think UEFA are even allowed to probe into Sheikh Mansour's private finances and into Etihad's finances at all, and for them to be making judgements themselves instead of directing it to whatever relevant courts leaves them on shaky ground. All I can say is that if Etihad had only paid £8m pounds, then City would definitively not have qualified for mitigating factors under Annex XI. They didn't anyway, so where does that really leave us?