verdict

The Spanish coach won 20 trophies during a glittering 10 years as City manager before departing in May.

Former Manchester ‌City manager Pep Guardiola has spoken out ⁠in support ⁠of the Premier League club after they were found guilty of serious ⁠breaches of financial rules.

The Spaniard handed over to former assistant Enzo Maresca at the end ⁠of last season after a decade in charge.

“I want every single @ManCity fan to know I am here; more than ever. I am, always have ‌been, always will, be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran, the players, staff, Enzo and you, our unique supporters,” Guardiola said on Wednesday ⁠in a first reaction on his ⁠X account.

“Let me be clear: we will get through this together. I love you all.”

City’s Chief Executive Ferran Soriano addressed staff in a video on Tuesday in which he rejected the independent commission’s findings.

Guardiola ⁠took charge of City in 2016 and under his management, ⁠they won six Premier League titles – ⁠including four in a row – three FA Cups, five League Cups and the Champions League.

The Premier League charges, relating ‌to “sham” commercial contracts used as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more ‌than 900 ‌million pounds ($1.2bn) over nearly a decade, cover the period from 2009-18.

In doing so, they concealed the true state of their finances and avoided breaching Premier League and UEFA spending limits during a period in which they won three league titles.

An independent commission found the club guilty on all charges related to breaches of financial rules over the nine-year period.

They have also been found guilty of most of the charges they faced in relation to a failure to cooperate with a Premier League investigation.

City, who continue to deny any wrongdoing, have said they will appeal and have until Friday to do so.

The ruling has sent shockwaves through English football and cast doubt over the future of a club that has become a European giant.

The likely punishment is uncertain but according to Premier League rules, City could face a substantial points deduction, a fine or even expulsion from the top division.

Everton and Nottingham Forest were handed points deductions in the 2023/24 season for single breaches of financial sustainability rules.

On that basis, City would likely face relegation given the sheer weight of the case against them.

There is speculation they could even be stripped of their titles.

“If the appeal fails, Manchester City cannot stay in the league, they have to suffer. And I say that as a supporter and a fan,” said the club’s former chairman, David Bernstein.

Another factor is a potential flood of compensation claims that could cost the club hundreds of millions.

Former Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow told the BBC that clubs would be “queueing up to seek compensation”.

Premier League clubs are seeking legal advice about compensation from Manchester City over the case.

One source, who held a senior executive position at two Premier League sides, said they expected clubs to submit individual compensation claims against Manchester City.

Another leading lawyer told the BBC that process could even be centralised by the league.

Premier League rules allow clubs to seek legal action against each other for compensation.

In June, Everton were told they must pay Burnley £35m after they broke PSR over a three-year period.

Burnley argued the breach impacted their chances of staying in the Premier League, and sought compensation for the losses associated with being relegated.

Everton are appealing, with sources previously saying they would “robustly and thoroughly” contest the ruling, but it provides an interesting backdrop to the Manchester City case.

There is uncertainty over a statute of limitations, which would set a cut-off point for claims.

Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur reportedly preserved their rights to claim compensation two years ago.

This is not just about Manchester United (twice) and Liverpool, who finished as runners-up to City in their title-winning seasons.

It is about those clubs who just missed out on the Champions League, or failed to make Europe, or even those who were relegated.

And it could even result in claims over the prize money for each Premier League place, or the potential commercial earnings lost by rival clubs.

Kieran Maguire, professor of football finance at the University of Liverpool, told BBC Sport it would be considered a “denial of an opportunity” by complainants.

Maguire explained that the “statute of limitations is not referenced” in the Premier League’s traditional handbook, though that could be subject to a legal challenge from City.

But what of the compensation? Just looking at Champions League qualifying could bring huge financial claims.

“The Champions League in those days was worth a minimum of £30m,” Maguire said. “I think by the time we got to 2018, it was probably worth £60m or £70m, and that’s in prize money.

“On top of that, you could claim for loss of gate receipts, loss of sponsor bonuses. This is highly unlikely, but it’s certainly being discussed.

“Players get bonuses for qualifying for the Champions League. Those bonuses, if you talk to people connected to the elite clubs, are normally in the region of 25%.

“An average salary in those days would probably, if you go back to 2012, be in the region of £80,000 or £90,000 a week. Twenty-five percent of that is four or five million pounds a year. That’s how the issues stack up.”

Points deductions, fines, and compensation claims.

This is an extremely messy situation for the Premier League, and it does not look like being resolved anytime soon.

Prosecutors have requested a 45-year jail sentence for Thaci and three wartime commanders accused of war crimes.

The Kosovo war crimes tribunal will on Wednesday deliver its verdicts in the case of former President Hashim Thaci and several wartime commanders accused of murder and torture during the self-declared republic’s break from Serbia.

Thaci, 58, is facing several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and persecution, along with three former commanders from the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a separatist militia that fought Serbian troops.

Thaci and the other former high-ranking commanders, Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Kadri Veseli, deny the charges.

Prosecutors have requested 45-year prison sentences for each of the men.

The case is extremely contentious within Kosovo, where Thaci remains a revered figure for many Kosovan Albanians due to his role in the 1998-99 independence war.

On Saturday, tens of thousands gathered in the capital, Pristina, to call for their acquittal in the latest of several rallies since the trial began. Portraits of the four former KLA fighters have been plastered across the city along with a huge digital clock counting down to the verdicts.

“In the name of the people, declare them innocent,” one banner read.

According to prosecutors, the men targeted political opponents and civilians perceived as collaborators and traitors during their time in the KLA.

Thaci’s lawyers argued in February there is no evidence that directly links him to any of the crimes.

“There are no orders in the record from Thaci to perpetrators of crimes. There are no reports from perpetrators of crimes to Thaci,” lawyer Luka Misetic told judges at the Kosovo tribunal in February.

Most of the 13,000 people who died in the war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day campaign of NATO air attacks against Serbian forces ended the fighting. About one million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were driven from their homes.

In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, a move that Belgrade refuses to recognise. Ties between Kosovo and Serbia remain tense, despite years of negotiations mediated by the European Union.

It’s been more than six years since teenager Noah Donohoe was found dead 600m into a freezing underground water tunnel in Belfast.

His death – and the speculation over what happened to him in the week between his daylight disappearance and the discovery of his body – became a huge news story that provoked countless unanswered questions.

Now, after an inquest and months of exhaustive hearings and long deliberations by a jury, there is a verdict – but much is still unknown about what happened to Noah.

Why, the night before he disappeared, did he leave his home in the middle of the rain-soaked night? Where did he go? Why did he come back 34 minutes later, as documented by CCTV, barefoot?

LIVE: Noah Donohoe inquest jury finds failings by department officials possibly contributed to death

Hours later, on Sunday 21 June 2020, he left the south Belfast home he shared with his mother for the final time.

Why did he leave and go to an unfamiliar part of north Belfast? Why was the teenager naked when he was last seen in the area of the water tunnel entrance?

And what might have been if he had seen the social media message sent him by one of two friends he planned to meet in north Belfast telling him their plans were cancelled?

An autopsy found Noah had died from drowning, with the tunnel he was found in heading towards Belfast Lough and its tides.

Now, after years of delays, a jury has found that it was possible, but not probable, that failings by the Department of Infrastructure over the tunnel in which he was found contribute to his death.

They also found 13 failings by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) but that these did not in any way contribute to the 14-year-old’s death.

Having spent months in court following all the evidence, it was clearly not an easy process for the men and women of the jury.

They heard from dozens of witnesses and received voluminous amounts of official and expert documentation.

This week they deliberated on Monday and Tuesday. But it came more than two months after the inquest was dramatically adjourned in the early hours after three days of deliberations did not lead to a verdict.

EXCLUSIVE: A contestant on The Jury has revealed just how difficult it was for the group to reach a verdict in the latest episode

A man who appeared on The Jury has opened up on ‘most difficult’ deliberation yet.

The contestant took part in the Channel 4 hit show and explained the extraordinary difficulty of reaching a verdict as the gripping series heads towards its final episode.

James, one of the members of the specially assembled jury, admitted the group faced an incredibly challenging time when they retired to deliberate over the case.

Speaking to The Daily Mirror about the experience, he said it was “probably one of the most challenging deliberations and claimed it was the most difficult the jurors had faced across the series so far.

James added, “I know for a fact out of 2 seasons previously, it was probably the most difficult of deliberations so far, and I suppose we really, really struggled to come to a decision.”

His comments come as The Jury reached the crucial stage of its four-part run, with the final episode airing on Channel 4 tonight (September 9).

The series has placed ordinary members of the public in the extraordinary position of having to decide the fate of two brothers accused of killing their stepfather.

Unlike a conventional documentary, the programme recreates a real-life murder trial using actors, with the jurors watching the evidence and arguments before being asked to reach their own verdict.

In the real case, the brothers were accused of killing their stepfather after years of alleged abuse and violence within the family home.

The Channel 4 series changed the defendants’ names, with the teenage brothers referred to as Daniel and his older brother as Luke.

The case presented the jurors with a particularly difficult question: could the brothers’ age, background, and claims of abuse alter how responsibility for the killing should be judged?

Reaching a conclusion was far from straightforward, and for James, it was even more difficult as he was voted as the jury’s foreperson.

He recalled the moment he was left feeling “really disrespected” when he was called out by a fellow juror. He said, “There was a moment where I went around all the jury members.

“I went around individually, and I asked people for their final decision, and when it came to be, quite literally, the last person to go, I was really thinking about what I was saying. And then another member of the jury, Phil, called me out, basically said, ‘Come on mate, we’ve not got all day, get a move on’”.

James added: “I just felt really disrespected because I had been voted in as the foreperson, so I had a responsibility to moderate a conversation, a really serious one of that, but also have my say at the same time.”

You can stream the new season of The Jury on Channel 4