I’ve been seeing a lot of rival fans and teams chatting a lot about the fine being proof that City violated FFP and should still be banned. That’s utter bollocks and here’s why: /1

The fine is for violating Article 57 of Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations. While Klopp and Mourinho (well maybe not Mourinho) might be football visionaries, they’re not legal scholars. Article 57 relates to cooperating during FFP investigations. /2

While we don’t have the opinion yet, the decision is clear that any charges against City are either time barred or did not have sufficient evidence to back them up. We know that City planned to put the “leaked” (really stolen) emails into their proper context at CAS. /3

It is highly unlikely that CAS would have ruled for City on the grounds of “lack of evidence” without City showing that any evidence UEFA had was wrong/out of context. In order to ensure their success at CAS they would have fully cooperated at that stage. /4

We know from the CAS decision in November 2019, that City had serious concerns about the fairness and independence of the process that UEFA was following. Because of that, they likely pushed back/did not comply in the way UEFA wanted to. That’s why UEFA fined City. /5

CAS unequivocally found that any of the allegations that led to City’s ban could not stand up in court. However, City’s cooperation with UEFA did not fall under the same time/evidence requirements. So that portion of the punishment was reduced (25m to 10m) but stood. /6

In terms a normal human would understand, imagine cops come running up to you accusing you of murder with guns drawn. In the process of arresting you, you punch one in the face. Now you’re on trial for murder and resisting arrest/assaulting a cop. /7

Even if you were wrongly accused of murder, you still punched the cop. So you probably will have to take a light punishment for that. And as Pep, Khaldoon, and Soriano have shown throughout this process, they were willing to punch some cops. /8

So for anyone hanging their hat on the idea that the fine means City violated the financial rules of FFP, you’re either uninformed, or you’re lying. So in the words of Pep, we’ll see you on the pitch. Where most of you lot aren’t fit to lace our boots. /end