Former Deportivo La Coruna director González Dans has been found not guilty of committing misappropriation of funds or colluding with Manchester City over a deal for defender Angeliño.
That’s according to AS, who cover the issue today and a subsequent court ruling which has found Dans and Manchester City not guilty of anything inappropriate.
Dans had found himself being accused by the current board at Deportivo, who believed that through his actions the former director had robbed the club of over €400,000 in fees relating to Angelino’s move to Manchester City earlier in his career.
The Spanish club believed that Dans ‘acted illegally’ and stopped the club from earning €447,994, a payment which was due as part of the defender’s move to the Etihad for €4.5m in 2013.
The first was paid and the second was due but Manchester City exercised a purchase option to get him back from PSV and, via a somewhat convoluted explanation, Dans decided City didn’t have to pay the second part of the initial agreement.
The current Deportivo board were unimpressed by that and claimed it was an ‘undue appropriation’ and took the case to court.
Their claim made a brief mention of ‘alleged corruption’ as they believed that Dans had been rewarded by Manchester City for his actions. That also came in two parts, one was the option to join Girona, who are part of the City Football Group, while the second reward was an invitation to the Champions League final.
The presiding judge rejected both, though, insisting that the first was not legitimate as the job had been offered through LinkedIn and not directly through Manchester City. The latter was dismissed as he felt the distance between the two events was too great to consider them to be linked.
Thus, Dans and City have been judged to have done nothing wrong and the case is now done with, much to Deportivo’s frustration.
