Manchester City banned from the Champions League for 2 seasons.

WelshAddick said:

I’m with Rothko 100% on this. A club should spend what it wants. Otherwise it’s the same old teams every season qualifying for the champions league. The only other way forward is a salary cap in which every team can’t exceed the set agreed team wages. 

golfaddick said:

Couldn't give  a shit really. Prefer Man City to be in the Champions League than Sheff U though.

I wonder whether the EFL were waiting on this decision before announcing their decision on Sheff Wed.

StigThundercock said:

StigThundercock said:

There is buckley's chance this is going to stick.
In which universe will the corrupt lunatics at UEFA cobble together a legal case that, on the balance of probability, satisfies an independent arbiter (in this case the Court Of Arbitration For Sport) a rule or rules on funding were breached?
It is just about conceivable that somebody within ManCity was complacent enough to funnel money directly in from the owners and just label it as sponsorship/commercial/whatever for the purposes of paying lipservice to UEFA's regulations.  Likely? No.
Even if there were significant transgressions, UEFA vs the national financial might of Abu Dhabi & China is not a contest.  

Just for once let me be the first to blow my own trumpet.

Ner, ner, ne ner, ner - told you so 😛

CAS said: "...most of the alleged breaches reported by the adjudicatory chamber of the CFCB were either not established or time-barred".
UEFA acknowledged "...insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold all of the CFCB's conclusions...many of the alleged breaches were time-barred"

In plain English "we proved nothing and took far too long trying to anyway."  Making no reference to having obtained some of their 'evidence' by dodgy if not outright illegal methods.

UEFA v Man City has many parallels with EFL v Sheff Weds.
There could have been some interpretative bookkeeping but the arbiter is even less clever or well prepared than the alleged transgressor - outcome: nuthin.

"The panel is of the view that Uefa by no means filed frivolous charges against City but based on the evidence the panel cannot reach the conclusion that disguised funding was paid to City."

It added: "City's failure to co-operate with the investigation is a severe breach and City are to be seriously reproached."

In its report, Cas said Uefa maintained the club "on countless occasions refused to answer questions, refused to provide documents, refused to arrange for the attendance of requested persons and - ultimately - it even instructed its own expert witness not to answer specific questions".

However, Cas said it only found two specific requests in which City failed to comply with its duty of co-operation.

Cas concludes that "no adverse inferences can be drawn from City's failure to produce evidence" and crucially, finds "no evidence that agreements were backdated, or that City tried to cover up any alleged violations" with regards to their Etihad sponsorship.