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Sorry – bit of a ramble incoming re. #mcfc, UEFA and CAS.
Forget – just for a minute - whether you think City are/aren’t squeaky clean, good/bad for the game etc. Park your predilections and just consider the case.
The time-barring and loopholes are largely a distraction. City lost on most points of procedure and the main accusation was considered and decided upon based on the actual evidence.
City’s own evidence – up-to-this point withheld from UEFA – offered context and alternative explanation for the stolen & doctored emails on which UEFA based its ENTIRE case. UEFA were right to expect better co-operation from City and the charges re. lack of co-operation stuck.
We’ll never know, as CAS says, whether presenting that evidence to UEFA would’ve prevented those charges being brought. But they were brought and City were punished in incredibly severe terms. Based solely, of course, on the evidence UEFA had.
That evidence was described by CAS as “innuendo”. CAS’ verdict is unequivocal on the absence of any corroborating evidence to support UEFA’s (not unreasonable but speculative) hypothesis against which it brought charges. This was not a marginal decision.
So, the real question here is simple. HOW WAS UEFA ABLE TO GET SUCH A FLIMSY CASE TO STICK THROUGH ITS OWN DISCIPLINARY PROCESSES? There must now be a burden on UEFA to understand & explain whether issue was one of rigour or partiality at heart of their disciplinary machine
THAT is the question our journalists should be posing right now. They’re not. Plenty focusing exclusively on the bits that make City look bad. Some object to City defending themselves at all, others blame bad UEFA tactics at CAS or even CAS bias.
There’s even a suggestion UEFA threw the case. But who is asking this fundamental question?
UEFA were right to investigate this, confirmed by CAS. They also had every right to bring charges if they had a case. What’s clear now is that they had no such case. Even with a lower standard of proof needed than that requested by City, this fell a mile short. Innuendo.
This wasn’t about fairness or otherwise of FFP. It wasn’t about which of PLs wealthy foreign owners are good or bad. It was about whether UEFA had an evidential basis for handing down enormous sanction to one of its clubs. It unequivocally didn’t. That’s the take away. <end>
