admin UEFA’s investigation into Manchester City concluded that two £15m payments from a broker was funding from the club’s owners disguised as sponsorship revenue.
The report by the adjudicatory committee of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) is effectively the written reasons behind the decision announced in February 2020 to suspend City from European competition for two years.
The report was never published because the club appealed against the decision and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) later overturned the CFCB verdict, but it has been obtained by the makers of a YouTube film released on Thursday, and has also been seen by The Times.
UEFA did not comment on the report when contacted by the PA news agency on Friday.
According to reports, City lawyers told a UEFA disciplinary hearing that two £15 million sponsorship payments from telecom company Etisalat in 2012 and 2013 had been made. by a man named Jaber Mohammed, described as a broker, and Etisalat was refunded to City Owners in 2015.
The Times reported that the ICFC Arbitration Panel concluded: “Agreements were made whereby payments were made or were made by ADUG (Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment fund) privately controlled by city owner Sheikh Mansour) but attributed the financing of Etisalat bonds to conceal the true purpose of the equity financing, and these arrangements were made by means of the payment made by Jaber Mohamed totaling £30 million paid by Jaber Mohamed was paid as equity, not a donor payment due to actual sponsorship liability. “
CAS overturned the two-year suspension in July 2020 and in its ruling it said UEFA should not have handled the Etisalat-related charges because they had exceeded the five-year deadline.
It is unclear whether Etisalat’s payments are part of the Premier League’s ongoing lawsuit against Man City, where they face 115 charges of breaching financial rules. league and refused to cooperate with the investigation, but if they did, they wouldn’t be in time-banned.
In the same ruling, the CAS panel also said it was ‘comfortably displeased’ that the City falsified equity funding from Sheikh Mansour or ADUG in the form of a funding contribution to Etihad airline.
He said of Etihad’s sponsorship: “There is not enough evidence in the record to prove that any agreement was actually made between MCFC and HHSM (Sheikh Mansour) and/or ADUG, or between HHSM and HHSM and HHSM. /or ADUG and Etihad, or that HHSM and/or ADUG directly sponsor part of Etihad ‘s sponsorship obligations “No relationship proven…the majority of the panel believes that UEFA’s theory of disguised equity funding remains unfounded. film, and the motives of those providing this funding.
Little is known about the company behind this film, Sunrise Media, which was filmed in the British Virgin Islands on 9 June.
