Could ONE Piece of Evidence Save Man City's Appeal?

0:00Paul Gilroy KC: This is a case shrouded in secrecy. You may remember the Everson case, the fans at Goodison who were virtually writing down the street complaining in the banners about the Premier League they held up at the matches. Yet the panel's names in that case were published. Yeah. Not in this one. It's all been redacted. Manchester City is quite simply the biggest sports business story of recent times. But with everything taking place in private, what is going on behind closed doors? Yeah, we're going to attempt to move this story forward, tell you things you don't already know on a high performance business in proud partnership with IFS.

0:40And to help us do that, to lead the way is top sports lawyer, Paul Gilroy. Paul, thank you so much for joining us today. So, look, we know the charges. We know the verdict. We know City have appealed and obviously maintain their innocence. Let's start with what happened between the verdict and the appeal. What, in your professional opinion, was going on behind closed doors?

1:01Paul Gilroy KC: Well, it was such a staggering decision that everyone was really thinking, well, how do we deal with this? This has never happened before. It's so important, this decision. It's very difficult to be definitive about this because a lot of it is rumour mill and gossip. But if you want to have some rumours, the main rumour at the moment appears to be they've already had the sanctions hearing. They've actually heard the sanctions hearing in private, in secret. The original hearing in 2024 was, everyone was seeing them go in to do the hearing. They knew who the lawyers were. Apparently, one of the rumors is this has been already dealt with, not published, obviously, but dealt with.

1:42Paul Gilroy KC: Because there's no guarantee as to what goes first, whether you have the sanctions hearing or the appeal. You might think it's common sense. Well, let's have the appeal first because we might get to the appeal. We might win in respect of all the charges. What's the point of having a sanctions hearing? The other school of thought is no. Independent commission says we're in charge of this. We've made our decision. We're going to complete our job, which is to take it to the sanctions. You want to appeal this, you go somewhere else. But what's been going on? Who knows? There must have been discussions at a high level.

2:16Paul Gilroy KC: the big clubs, as you might call them, four in particular have got compensation claims pending, depending on the outcome of the appeals. They will have maybe had different views about what happens next to the smaller clubs. For example, the smaller clubs may be saying to themselves, we've been told this could take five years. It's going to go through all this process. It's going to go to the high court. And the Premier League might be saying to them privately, that's going to cost each of you 25 million pounds and a smaller club a club we sometimes uncharitably call a yo-yo club going championship premier league might say no thanks i don't really want that so i think there could be and there may have been your question is what's happened after the verdict there could have been some pressure already exerted from chief executives saying what on earth is going on here?

3:10Paul Gilroy KC: We need to solve this because the longer this goes on, our reputation is being trashed as a sport in global football. We've had this conversation and I know I'm in such a small minority on this, but I find it barmy, the idea that it's as straightforward as we find you guilty of this, well, we protest our innocence and we appeal. Surely any lawyer worth his salt is looking at the damage. They're looking at the end. and the idea of not knowing what they could stomach, what they could take, seems bizarre to me that that conversation would not have happened because the one thing that unites the Premier League and Man City in this and arguably the other 19 clubs in the Premier League is they want it done.

3:53They want to be out the other side of this because of the amount of collateral damage this is causing and will continue to cause. Is it naive to think the conversation that's happened behind closed doors between verdict and appeal is what we've consumed publicly. Surely there had to be manoeuvring around, like you've just said, what would the sanctions be? Let's talk about that, right? That has to have been, in particular Man City's lawyers must have had that conversation. Be a dereliction of duty if they didn't.

4:24Paul Gilroy KC: Lawyers have to look at litigation as a means to an end. They have to look in their client's best interest at what this is all about. What can I bring to the table? what can I do with my skill to achieve this objective? You don't look at a legal case as a lawyer from the point of view of academic interest. Plainly, if you get a case like that, you're going to be interested. That's why you went into law in the first place. But it's all about where does this take my client? Now, there is a provision or a set of rules within Section W, which we're in on this disciplinary matter, which allows a sanctions agreement.

5:02Paul Gilroy KC: So there can be discussions, You can negotiate like any business deal. And the Premier League would say, we will be satisfied with the following charges being admitted. This is in the handbook. It's in the handbook. It's in Section W, sanctions agreements. For example, I think the Chelsea case was an example of this in action. You negotiate like any deal. You come up with an understanding. there'll be a certain points deduction whatever the financial penalty transfer window bans signed off we move on now city haven't gone down that road as they are entitled to let's be clear if they say we are innocent and we would want this to be the case if someone protests and says i know you found me guilty and the findings are very strong but if i say i'm innocent i want to take this all the way.

5:59Paul Gilroy KC: So what the lawyers say in those circumstances, again, good lawyers in private will have conversations and say, well, okay, we can take that route. But the downside of that is A, B and C. And one of the downsides is the sanction. It's not going to be worse, but it's not going to be better. It's no mitigation. Because you've not actually come to a deal and said, look, we did something wrong. And I stress, I'm not saying they've done something wrong on the base of the present findings they very much have but there's an awful lot of way to go on appeals you're saying you know we could go all the way what does all the way in this case look like goodness and how long could all the way be all the way means uh we get an appeal on uh the findings so far goes to a sanctions hearing it goes to an appeal on the sanction you're allowed to have an appeal on the sanction that brings an end to the section w process you can then go to section x if you get the handbook out the next section is section x arbitration you can fashion out usually a reason why the original proceedings were void because they didn't have jurisdiction there was procedural irregularity or whatever now you'd hope that would come out in the section x appeal section w appeal sorry but not necessarily.

7:20Paul Gilroy KC: So either party, not just City. So by two weeks you're saying. The Premier League could say on a high court challenge if they didn't like the outcome, they could take that to the Court of Appeal. City could go to the Court of Appeal. Supreme Court is next. The Supreme Court only works, it only gets involved if there is a point of law of national importance. So I'm afraid the answer to your question is there's so many layers to this that if there is a will if there are the finances to do it and there clearly are in this case subject to the desire to continue the desire to step off at some point i mean the whole point as i understand it of abu dhabi getting involved in the first place was to establish reputation to get enjoyment out of the celebration of the wins and the sport the regeneration of a city, one side of the city, all of these great things, great things to aspire to, someone might sit back from it and say, all of those great things in the profit column, that loss column has just gone so sky high, what's the point?

8:33Paul Gilroy KC: And that's another thing, going back to what you were saying, Colin, about the other clubs. If you have a football club in administration, good luck with your compensation claim. Yeah. They're sitting, Chelsea are holding a voucher for possibly£100 million for a player. That's not worth the paper it's written on if the buying club has gone down the tubes. Yeah, you're a creditor.

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10:04it explains the route they it looks like they've chosen and and and legalese maybe not maybe with there's a there's a point of this ongoing appeal where they reach a settlement but it looks like the road they've taken is the one that you've just described yeah so my question is then what prevented them taking the other road because as you say their lawyers their their huge team of lawyers would have talked them through the alternative, which is there may be a road where you're not admitting any culpability, but you're accepting misappropriation, mismanagement. And this is what you would have to do.

10:43Say relegation.

10:44Paul Gilroy KC: Just picking up on what you said there, Colin, I think the problem, what you just said is the two words accepting culpability. Yes. And that could be a bridge too far. Yes. And they may say, no, we're not accepting that. We're not culpable. and you will have seen the statement that was put out fairly quickly about irrefutable evidence. Now, standing back from the case, just as an outside observer of these things, for a party who was lost in such terms to repeat the observation made when the charges were laid is a strange one. Irrefutable evidence. Well, if you look at the decision, irrefutable evidence, thousands and thousands of pages of documents, seven expert witnesses in disciplines I've never even heard of for a football arbitration.

11:40Paul Gilroy KC: They had experts in the fields of Abu Dhabi politics and governance, accountancy standards, financial information analysis, assessment of full market value, football sponsorship and Swiss law. Now, that covers a number of points, one of which is you can see why it took two years to decide this case. The stuff they had to wade through, they had four days, I think, of opening submissions, four days of closing submissions, several forests knocked down to produce the paper with the written submissions 7 000 pages of hearing transcripts and transcripts being over that now that is sitting in a case when you're actually adjudicating on a case um that is a real challenge because you're looking at several sources of material you've got the contemporaneous documents you've got the witness statements you've got what the witnesses said at the time that is a hell of a job to triangulate that and come to a conclusion and what this panel did and most courts and panels do, and they did exactly this, it's the contemporaneous evidence that counts.

12:54Paul Gilroy KC: So what I say to you in an email 10 years ago is much more persuasive than what I say in a witness statement. I could say what I like in a witness statement. How much of getting beyond this reach in some form of way, both for the Premier League and Manchester City, and I maintain that any of them off the record would say, we want to get through the other side of this. How much of that was hamstrung by Man City's liability to other clubs opening themselves up for liability to other clubs who would say, without these financial irregularities that you have been found guilty of and are appealing, we would have X, Y, Z.

13:33Paul Gilroy KC: Impossible to say for sure. But let's just look at that scenario. So we've got four clubs hovering waiting to put in compensation claims. And it's been said it could be 100 million each, it could be 200 million each. Now, if these findings against City were to stand so they survived an appeal and this is the decision that goes forward, those clubs can pretty much use this as a voucher. They can cash it in and say, don't worry about having an eight-week trial. I've got it. It's here. It's all been decided. now I want to move forward my compensation claim. If there was an accommodation that changed the position on culpability, liability, whatever, that would materially change the landscape from the point of view of the club seeking compensation.

14:28Paul Gilroy KC: Because they wouldn't be able to say, it's all been decided. And it would depend on what was admitted, decided, whatever was in the agreement. You've also got, there's a complication there of confidentiality. This thing is so clouded in confidentiality. You may remember the Everson case. Do you remember the fans at Goodison who were virtually writing down the street complaining about the Premier League and the banners about the Premier League they held up at the matches? And yet the panel's names in that case were published. Not on this one. It's all been redacted. Everything's been redacted. and I cannot actually believe it hasn't been leaked.

15:13Paul Gilroy KC: If you think about the importance of the case and the number of different sources that may have leaked that information, it's incredible. I'm glad it hasn't. Yeah. I think it's a rare example of where you can sort of, here's one for confidentiality and privacy. Yeah. And that process is so important and you're right. Yeah, but why is that the case? So, for example, the High Court today will be deciding a judgment in a multi-million pound case and it will deeply affect certain individuals. There's nothing to stop. Well, there are provisions to stop, but the default position is it is public. What is it about football that means that there is this cloak of confidentiality?

15:54And full honesty is all about when you introduce the tribalism of football fans? Possibly. Could another reason be, you sort of alluded to it earlier about the infrastructure all around that area of Manchester and how much money. They've more than doubled, I think, the amount of money. I think it was initially 10 billion they were pledging to put into regeneration, government, etc. It's now more than double that, according to Forbes from last year. And the Prime Minister himself has been caught up in certain quotes that he said and then they backtracked on about his involvement in this case or not involvement in this case.

16:33Do you think that is clouding, making things even trickier because of how entangled their finances have become in this government and in our country?

16:45Paul Gilroy KC: Again, in the tradition of lawyers ducking questions, I'm going to have to caveat by saying I have no real clue. I have to try and work it out like everyone observing this case. but I have heard it said and I agree with this I cannot believe there have not been conversations on an intergovernmental level about all of this because Abu Dhabi is too important to simply sweep away and say this is just a storm in a teacup we can deal with it a bit of football, irregularity, what the hell, doesn't matter it's far too important I think the Prime Minister made a misstep in his initial statement about this.

17:29Paul Gilroy KC: I think it's the first misstep he's made since he came in. But I think the publicity I think he's had on it is slightly harsh. He's having to navigate a very difficult path to balance all the interests here without upsetting people. And you're going to upset somebody with this, regardless of what you say. So we are in a state of flux in many ways. There's a hiatus on this because we're going back to behind closed doors. Yes. So what's going on right now? What's that process? Is it literally deep breath, panel of three, back to the start? No, it is definitely not back to the start. What happens is, and as I said, I think it may already have started.

18:17Paul Gilroy KC: When this decision came out, I actually read it as saying we've already selected an appeal panel. they're strictly they're called appeal board so your first body is called the disciplinary commission the next people are called the appeal board and it's cranking it up a level so if you look at the rules the appeal board has to be chaired by someone with judicial experience so you're adding not that the initial panel would have been anything other than lawyers at the top of their game, you're adding gravitas. Biggest case, biggest name. Yeah. So, but it's an appeal board. It's behind closed doors again.

19:00Paul Gilroy KC: And what the club will have to do is they will have to say the first body, the commission, made the following errors. So they erred in law in concluding X. They misconstrued regulation Z. The tough one is to say, factually, they got this wrong. Now, the decision is littered with phrases which in themselves convey the seriousness of this. They talk about the disguised funding scheme. We don't need to be very mature to understand that that's a very negative. the disguised funding scheme the sham contracts mentioned eight times in the decision the fordham arrangement the fordham arrangement whoever thought a football decision would have the fordham arrangement in it the fordham arrangement is allegedly hooky deals going on with players image rights yaya tori there's a there's a part of the case about yaya tori which we haven't gone into detail they've anonymized it but we know that was one of the cases where there were payments made to offshore companies, weren't paid by the club, made direct by third parties for image rights.

20:24Paul Gilroy KC: None of it allegedly declared and on the books. So when this panel has gone through, as you've said, that number of witnesses, that number of documents, that number of experts, 42 days of sitting listening to this, two years of deliberation, you're going to have to go some to say well actually they misconstrued the facts really in what respect did they misconstrue the facts and the one factual story which i think has emerged since the verdict that city seemed to be very strong on in terms of pushing it the chief executive made a statement very quickly after the verdict and he said this all depends on one on one piece of the evidence.

21:11Paul Gilroy KC: And that surely got to be the panel got it wrong in terms of where the funding was coming from. Because they will say that is the thread that goes all the way through this decision. Unpick that thread and the whole thing falls apart, they say. But very long-winded way of answering your question, Colin. It doesn't all start again. They've got to start by saying, here's the decision. here's the 50 things you got wrong not we want to have another stab at this

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22:48If you're breaking it down to the most simplest form ever, there's a pile of money, right? Are you getting the pile of money out? Yeah, right? And a man said, you're saying it came from here. it came from the government and the Premier League said no then it came from here and they're saying yeah but this is owned by that so it doesn't matter are Man City in its most simplest terms arguing about what account it came from

23:15Paul Gilroy KC: no across the piece that does feature but there are so many different angles to this that that would be too simplistic an answer to try and demonstrate this point the Everton case was the profit and sustainability rules. It was compartmentalized. It was all to do with that. Well, on the indictment here, that is but a part of the story. It depends on what view you take. It's either 25 of the charges or three of them. Why do I say that? Because there's some confusion about the way in which the charges were formulated. And originally, they actually said it was 130 charges, not 115 I don't think ultimately when you stand back from this the number matters because all you need to do is understand the central seriousness of the whole piece and the sheer scale of it for example to arrive at a sanction you don't sit there with a slide rule saying oh well that wasn't as serious as that one so we're going to take three weeks off your transfer ban it doesn't work like that These people sit back and look at it and say, this overall sentence meets the justice of the case.

24:32So this is what we're doing at the moment, isn't it? And the media just constantly pontificating about how bad these punishments might be. Before we talk about what sanctions are open to them, City have appealed this case. We know they've always maintained their innocence. Is there an element where people have immediately sort of insisted they're guilty? They're getting quite a lot of joy out of it, some fans, I'd say. As a lawyer, do you think there's a world where we need to be a bit more cautious than that?

25:01Paul Gilroy KC: I do think that, but I'm whistling in the wind if I think that's going to happen. As Colin's already said, tribalism dictates the way these things work. You're not going to persuade the fans of cities' biggest enemies of any gram of innocence here. it is opportunistically alighted upon and exploited that's the way it works in football you're not going to get any real sense from the normal football fans slightly harsh I have seen vox pops with some fans who've been quite measured about it they are the exception yeah they're the ones they're the ones that your producer goes yeah you can put that one on the radio like let's be honest about how it works.

25:48And the same goes the other way, by the way. I've heard fans go, look at the disgrace of those Man City fans where they're blow-up bananas and they're, you know, one billion in the bank and going down and whatever it is. And I'm like, what did you expect them to do? Buy their heads and apologise. Guilty or not guilty, this is what fans do. Absolutely, that's what fans do.

26:10Paul Gilroy KC: Siege mentality, the Liverpool game, we are professionals, we are paid a lot of money to do this job, we're going to go out and do our job. And whatever else happens, we'll take its course. They're doing their job very well at the moment. And so I guess what the Premier League's disastrous situation would be is if we get to May and their potential... Which year? Right? Well, this is the point. If we get to May next year and they're crowned Premier League champions, and this is still very much hanging over, and based on what you're saying, it really could... I'm betting all my, I'm betting my money in it.

26:47You're betting all your Canadian money on this. Yeah. This is the worst case scenario for the league, surely.

26:53Paul Gilroy KC: Yes, and I'm afraid there's precedent for it. We've had this happen in the past. People have said, how can this situation continue to the end of the season? 10, 12 years ago, QPR were facing potential sanction and they went to the final game of the season. they completed the final game of the season they were on the pitch having finished the 90 minutes and there was a panel sitting in central london deciding whether they were going to impose a sanction which meant they couldn't i think be promoted was the scenario whatever it was it was a it was a league division determining decision and the flack that came from matt to permit that to happen to allow football supporters to go to a game not just go to a game but to actually see the whole of the game and wondering whether that score is going to actually determine my club's future so i'm afraid there are precedents for this it does happen in many ways could that be part of manchester city's current legal plan which is this it it's a disaster in the making and it's, to use an obvious analogy, it's two cars facing each other down, heading towards each other at 100 miles an hour.

28:18And who's going to blink? And who's going to pull out of the way? The word sham was used in that report. Many times. I'll use the word sham that if this goes beyond May of next year of a sham season. And that's the Premier League's worst nightmare. They have this multi-billion dollar product, this global product that is inevitably going to be damaged by this. its past credibility is going to be damaged by this if they win, let alone if they lose two years down the line. In many ways, I don't see how the Premier League win out of this financially. Is it a legal strategy then, when you look at what you've described, which is elongating it out into this disastrous another two years through the High Court, through the Court of Appeals, of a blink-first strategy?

29:03Paul Gilroy KC: It could be. often a legal strategy in litigation almost always involves a cost-benefit analysis so your cost-benefit analysis would be so we're under the cautionary we're man city we've got this thing we've got to get rid of it in some we've got to attack let's attack this on the following 10 fronts let's do this this this this and this now the parties that were against and the interested parties in the background at some point are going to be looking at all of these things facing them because we've put the 10 tanks on the lawn that we have to come up with a strategy that deals with that that is not the strict you shall not pass you're guilty we're finding you guilty of the whole lot so it certainly could be that's a long-term game um it could be uh something that's been given consideration to.

29:57If you were dealing with this for City.

30:01Paul Gilroy KC: I can feel a caveat coming up. If he was dealing with this for City, he wouldn't have got the train here. He would have asked us where the hell he part was. Yeah. But if you were. Have they not told you? If you were, what would you, how would you be playing this? And what would you be advising them? Do you know, I've said about 15 times, ducking the question. Yes. It kind of depends on what they want. Yeah. But it's interesting in itself. Because a lawyer will say, look, this is the landscape. These are the things that can happen. You can do these things. You don't want to do those things because there's obvious downside to that.

30:42Paul Gilroy KC: But overall, here are your options. It's over to you to decide what your options are. What do you want to do with this? The legal upside of point A is X, Y, Z. there may be a reputational aspect of that, that you don't want to pursue. I've done cases where clients would rather settle the case than have the matter litigated, even where they are absolutely adamant there's nothing in the case because of the PR value or rather the damage that is done, not of the person even succeeding, but of the matter even going forward to a court. Bad analogy because of confidentiality, but if it's in the open court system, we all know how this works.

31:31Paul Gilroy KC: The press turn up for day one, and it says, man eats dog on live TV, capital letters, and then font size eight below, a court hears. Yeah. and then they clear off and they don't come back for the rest of the trial when they hear that story was garbage so PR comes into it no question especially if we look at the way the ownership came in why they came in what they have done they've taken great plaudits on the reputational side for the things that we've discussed and there's been some fantastic things that have happened in the east side of Manchester the east side of Manchester around that ground, if you go there and you go around, not just the infrastructure of the club, the housing, the facilities, it's amazing, which makes this a rather sad story, really, all round, not just for football.

32:31I'm loathe to ask, because anything that I think is straightforward... Nothing in this case is straightforward. ...lets us know that it's not. Is the punishment even straightforward? Let's say, for example, I went through everything, And we were setting it back here probably in 2053. And guilty, guilty again. Appeal on the appeal. Guilty again. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Nowhere else to go.

32:56Paul Gilroy KC: Yeah. Is the sanction straightforward? It's not because it's off the scale. It's off the scale. So you look at precedent. You guzzle around looking for precedent. You won't find it. Right. Because of the sheer scale of it. So here we go. Everton, November 2023. 10 point deduction, reduced to six on appeal. Second case resulted in a further two point deduction. Exceeded permitted PSR losses by just under£20 million. £20 million. Now, compare that to this. And there's your scale, OK? Forrest, March 24, four point deduction for£34.5 million. Appeal dismissed. Chelsea, a deal,£10 million. agreed fine and suspended transfer ban initial sanction of six points suspended until June 2027 set aside points of distinction again Everton Forest and Chelsea admissions pleas of guilty, mitigation, city irrefutable evidence of our innocence European football Juventus Calciopoli in 2006 refereeing corruption, original punishment, relegated to Saria B, 30-point deduction, final punishment, relegated to Saria B with a nine-point deduction.

34:19Paul Gilroy KC: All sorts of clubs around them affected. Back in time, 1990, Swindon Town, multiple relegations, club officials sent to prison because of criminal proceedings that followed. There will be proceedings if this verdict remains intact, there will be proceedings before the football regulator who can demand the club is sold in certain circumstances. There will be proceedings before the FA, and the FA has already said, we are monitoring this decision very carefully. It's a question of the timing of when they jump in. But all of the individuals who have signed off on accounts in this case will be deemed to be, in inverted commas, participants under the FAA's rules.

35:04Paul Gilroy KC: So they are subject to the jurisdiction of the FAA. So there's a whole load of things coming down the tracks, regardless of Man City, individuals who will face proceedings if this decision stands. So precedent just doesn't help. It just, any panel looking at sanction, any judge, if you will go down the road now to the Old Bailey, listen to a judge giving sentencing remarks. We see that quite a lot on the TV now. They televise the judge's sentencing remarks. What they're supposed to do is they're supposed to look at the gravity of the situation. There may be guidelines on what the gravity is and where that's pitched in terms of sanction and they pitch it where it is in the scale of things and it's quite regulated but what all judges are required to do and it's no different here with a sporting body looking at sanction is you have to stand back from the whole thing so you're facing a massive detail of this happened and that happened and it was that transaction and there's this hundred million pounds, et cetera, et cetera.

36:19Paul Gilroy KC: You've got to stand back from the whole thing and say what is a proportionate punishment here. And there's a hell of a lot they can do. Points deductions to make them relegated. They can't expel them. They can recommend expulsion, which goes to a vote under Rule 6-5. The majority, sorry, three quarters majority has to be secured. That's going to be a majority of 19 clubs because one team will not be voting. I can't see that. I guess what, you know, that word proportionate, what's a proportionate thing? At this point, it just sounds like the sanction panel are sort of having to put their finger in the wind because we've never seen anything like this before.

37:02Paul Gilroy KC: I don't think they're doing that, but I think they are. Are you sure they're not doing that? They're having to grapple with something that, for example, it would be very difficult, pretty much whatever they come up with, unless they come up with something incredibly lenient or incredibly punitive, it'd be difficult to criticise because people would say, well, they're making new football law. They've got nothing to help them. The final decision and the only decision I think that works is one that nobody's happy with. And I also fly against the logic that the Premier League would push for an expulsion of Manchester City.

37:44Let's say we were all working. There was 20 of us in the team and we were all running a sales business and we all hammered the phones every day. And the person who made was in the top three sellers on our team, right? And the reason why we were in business, the reason why we just opened a new branch in Manchester, got caught stealing 20 quid out of the tuck shop, got stuck stealing tea bags out of the cafeteria. And you'd say, well, that's wrong. look how much money they make and that's not me saying they're guilty I'm saying if the Premier League have found them guilty and the Premier League think they're guilty I don't think that 2 plus 2 equals 4 that they're looking to throw the biggest of books at Manchester City

38:23Paul Gilroy KC: they're not but go back and read Richard Master's statement when it was published if you think the decision's bad read what he said do you not think that he has to say it and do you not think the owner of Manchester City has to say it and there's a lot of things they have to say which is why I've loved talking to you because you've said, well, what is said when the door is open and what is said when the door is closed or the procedure when door closed is just the different story that we're getting today. Any lawyer reading this decision goes to paragraph 29 and says, wow, this is something special.

38:59Paul Gilroy KC: You can have panels that decide things on the balance of probabilities. They look at inferences that they can draw from the documents and matters of that nature. But this is what paragraph 29 says. we concluded that the majority of the witnesses of fact who gave evidence before us were doing their best to provide honest evidence and to assist us in our determination of the charges there's a however however a set out principally in appendix six there are 37 appendices we concluded and this is you know that you know you're in trouble when there's an a and a b a that evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects.

39:41Paul Gilroy KC: And, and this is the kicker, B, certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest. So when, going back to what we said earlier about how the appeal is conducted, if you appeal on questions of fact, at the appeal, the Premier League will be going back again, again, and again to paragraph 29. So the tanks are on both lawns. Yeah. There's something just so, as a football fan, and we're all football fans, there's just something so unedifying about football being decided by lawyers. Couldn't agree more. And so what does that mean, really, for the future of our game?

40:21Because you've cited a lot of precedents in terms of clubs that have had this before, and there's nothing been on this scale, but it's just depressing. It feels just a bit... What's the alternative?

40:32Paul Gilroy KC: What's the alternative? Mob rule, we just do what we want to do. It's underrated that. We don't have any system. I've said this before, you don't take the memories away from fans. I'm sick of fans being held up as lawyers, as accountants. You believe what you're told, you believe your manager, it's tribal and it all goes together. I think you put whatever stars you want. I use the word stars because I really struggle to say the word asterisks. You've got several on your forearm, I see. oh I'll hide my Liverpool tattoo yeah you know is that the asterisk against their title that's 2005 clear check check your binder is that one okay 1984 check okay these are safe but yeah I don't take those memories away from Man City fans I think you're right what's the alternative would I cross in that horrible line just to finish of guilty or not guilty, where it'll end up.

41:35Just timescale now, the three of us. Well, I wonder, would we all have agreement just with a very honest thought of where this ends? You said earlier that the High Court is such a high bar and it should be a high bar, right? Yes. In terms of what they can argue. You have almost described it as a bit of a pyramid of how we get there.

41:53Paul Gilroy KC: Yes, I have used that phrase. So do you think it's likely or unlikely to end up there based on what you're seeing? I think it is likely to end up there because in the high court, you are free to issue your challenge. So whatever the merits of the challenge, you get to issue it. Now, let's say they went for serious procedural irregularity, section 68. the other party to get rid of it would have to make an application to the court to say this should be struck out or there should be summary judgment against this case because the merits are so poor very difficult most judges would say well i can't deal with that on a summary assessment let's hear the case so it could be weeded out if it needs to be weeded out when it's heard but not until it's heard substantively.

42:52So I think the way it's looking,

42:55Paul Gilroy KC: and this could be just the image that's portrayed and it's not true, I think the way it's looking, it is going to go through all the way through the Premier League process and then into a high court process. Which means way beyond this season. I think five years. Oh, I can't be here in five years. Five years. We can't. What are we going to do? We'll have run out of music by then. Five years? Like in my head, I was being as pessimistic as I agree. It goes all the way to the end. And by the way, I don't mind saying it in the record. I wouldn't make a decision on guilty or not guilty when it goes to the high court.

43:28Man said he'd been here before with UEFA. I wouldn't put a penny either way on it. And in a weird way, it cleans up easier if they win their appeal, doesn't it? Not looking at it emotionally. It's the only clear way out. Well, fine, you killed me there, mate. You're not allowed back.

43:44Paul Gilroy KC: It isn't clear. because guess what there's more than one party who can appeal yes oh god right thanks for that Paul it's a place I think you could put your binder but I'm not going to say it we're just going to come back in 2031 where we'll be discussing Man City again part 7 well it's a right old mess get ready for if that was the case season after season after season have people taken you know I've already seen it I've seen Liverpool fans and Chelsea fans saying we're 3 or 4 points off the top of the league and they're not they're 8, 9 points off but here we are Paul we're trying not to do Man City all the time in this but we just really want to have a proper legal conversation get behind closed doors and also kind of bring it to full stop and go right we probably aren't going to talk about this for quite some time and he's cleared up we could be talking about it a lot but not for a while I think is the case thank you so much mate pleasure appreciate it five years five get me out of here all years got a bus to catch yeah you've got a bus I've got a train Thank you so much for listening to us.

44:46Remember, we are all about fans. We do want to hear from you. Drop us a comment, like, subscribe, send us a DM, send him a carrier pigeon with a letter and he might get it in five years. Yeah, with a city verdict. Exactly. Come back next week. We've loved having you. Thank you. Bye. It's Olympics is every four.