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Court It Is Then


Bobbyhouston
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1 hour ago, eljaggo said:

We've heard a lot on here about what the SPFL is not responsible for,  with the Clubs themselves seemingly taking responsibility for all decisions affecting this sorry mess.

What precisely is the SPFL Board responsible for?

What is Doncaster's role?  It cannot be just an administrator at that level of salary.

He is responsible for strategic oversight of the organisation, securing revenue streams, and ultimately, yes, administration of the leagues.

But at the end of the day the SPFL is governed by its members, just like any Limited company. The board can only act if it has the confidence of the members and major decisions can only be taken with the approval of the members.

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39 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

He is responsible for strategic oversight of the organisation, securing revenue streams, and ultimately, yes, administration of the leagues.

But at the end of the day the SPFL is governed by its members, just like any Limited company. The board can only act if it has the confidence of the members and major decisions can only be taken with the approval of the members.

Just out of interest are you a lawyer?

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7 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

Because that wasn't what they agreed to do or why they did it.

The SPFL set aside funds to meet liabilities to the broadcasters under their contracts with them. The partial rebate concerned television fixtures that the broadcasters were entitled to broadcast, but which were never in fact broadcast because the SPFL decided to end the season early.

Had we "null and voided" the season there may have been arguments with certain sponsorship arrangements that all of the money was due back to them. However in the context of the TV sponsorships, they were still paying part of their way for the matches they had already broadcast.

To be clear, the season was finished. It was finished prematurely but by a decision of the SPFL. The SPFL rules allow either the SPFL Board or the Clubs via an ordinary resolution so to decide.

How do you know what the SPFL rules allow.?

I thought the SPFL rules were a closely guarded secret that only Rod McKenzie knows the password to.

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8 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

My job is law related but I am not in legal practice.

Then as someone with some legal experience you will be interested to know, if you don't already, that every football association operating under the auspices of Uefa is required to have in their disciplinary procedures a requirement for members to take complaints to the Court of Sports Arbitration! 

This is a compulsory requirement made to ensure sports disputes are settled or adjudicated within sport and not in the civil courts of member countries. 

Clubs which fail to do this can face suspension or termination of their membership and fines up to £1m. 

Hope our legal team can counter this! 

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Record reporting as follows :

 

  Quote

Hearts and Partick Thistle could be hammered by the SFA after holding a £10million gun to the heads of the rest of Scotland’s clubs.

Record Sport understands compliance officer Clare Whyte is currently assessing if the M8 alliance has broken the articles of association by threatening to drag the SPFL into the Court of Session unless they are spared from relegation.

 

sounds like they are finally realising its getting serious - fkin rats 

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7 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

They’re not under an obligation to put anything to the Clubs.

However they did explain that they had considered what options were available and that the one they put to Clubs was the only one they considered viable.

They didn’t stop Clubs coming up with their own legally competent and viable alternative and voting on it.

They are entitled to present as many or as few options to the membership as they like.

If others don’t wish to propose concrete and specific alternatives that’s not the SPFL’s problem: there was no legal bar to it.

End of the day the members were asked and they decided.

Many of the "members" claimed the full facts and implications of of the option presented to them were not fully explained.

Surely the SPFL as the representative body of the member clubs should  , as a matter of good practice, set out fully what options are available to the Clubs and what the consequences of those actions are. I fully accept that legally they might not be bound to do this, but it is the correct thing to do. It is not for the SPFL officials to decide which option they prefer;  present that as the only  viable option and then do everything in their power to influence the voting of the members ( including rigging the voting).

They are supposed to be the facilitators of decisions, not the decision makers.

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10 minutes ago, Emsca said:

How do you know what the SPFL rules allow.?

I thought the SPFL rules were a closely guarded secret that only Rod McKenzie knows the password to.

The SPFL‘s Articles of Association are lodged with Companies House and publicly available. The SPFL’s Rules are in a PDF on its website.

6 minutes ago, exiledjag said:

Then as someone with some legal experience you will be interested to know, if you don't already, that every football association operating under the auspices of Uefa is required to have in their disciplinary procedures a requirement for members to take complaints to the Court of Sports Arbitration! 

This is a compulsory requirement made to ensure sports disputes are settled or adjudicated within sport and not in the civil courts of member countries. 

Clubs which fail to do this can face suspension or termination of their membership and fines up to £1m. 

Hope our legal team can counter this! 

I don’t think that’s quite right and in any case resort to CAS depends in part on the nature of the dispute. It is ultimately a form of arbitration that the relevant parties need to agree to.

If this is indeed a requirement that applies to disputes of this kind I’d be interested to know why the French and Belgian disputes haven’t (yet) gone through CAS and why, for that matter, Thistle went through the domestic courts when it unsuccessfully challenged the old SPL’s decision about Inverness.

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2 minutes ago, Emsca said:

Many of the "members" claimed the full facts and implications of of the option presented to them were not fully explained.

This can, at most, get the original resolution in its entirety annulled. It doesn’t let us pick and choose which bits to annul and it doesn’t force the Clubs to approve an alternative that avoids relegating us, and it doesn’t mean we would be due any compensation.

2 minutes ago, Emsca said:

Surely the SPFL as the representative body of the member clubs should  , as a matter of good practice, set out fully what options are available to the Clubs and what the consequences of those actions are. I fully accept that legally they might not be bound to do this, but it is the correct thing to do.

What’s the correct or good thing to do here is for the birds. We are dealing with the law not morality or prudence.

2 minutes ago, Emsca said:

It is not for the SPFL officials to decide which option they prefer;  present that as the only  viable option and then do everything in their power to influence the voting of the members ( including rigging the voting).

They are supposed to be the facilitators of decisions, not the decision makers.

With the best will in the world this is a very naive understanding of the role of a board of directors.

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7 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

This can, at most, get the original resolution in its entirety annulled. It doesn’t let us pick and choose which bits to annul and it doesn’t force the Clubs to approve an alternative that avoids relegating us, and it doesn’t mean we would be due any compensation.

What’s the correct or good thing to do here is for the birds. We are dealing with the law not morality or prudence.

With the best will in the world this is a very naive understanding of the role of a board of directors.

Oh sorry for my naivety.

It is common sense to me that the officials of an organisation ( not the Board of Directors) are supposed to provide information to allow decisions to be make by " the Company". Seems to me the SPFL like to make / unduly influence the decisions , then hold their hands up in mock horror and declare " it wasnt our decision it was the members" But again that is probably just  my naivety and  lack of Boardroom experince. 

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10 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

Again, the vote wasn't about automatic relegation. That rule wasn't changed. It was just about the only rule that wasn't changed by the resolution!

The SPFL is not liable for Thistle being a shit company in the third tier. It is only liable for it being in the third tier, if indeed it's liable for that at all.

"An arguable case" falls well short of a credible one.

Because we don't have an arguable case.

The original legal advice was:

1. The conduct of the April  vote can be challenged, in particular the Dundee no vote being changed to a yes vote but more importantly, 

2. That the SPFL have duty of care responsibilities applicable to all 42 clubs and is clearly in breach of these responsibilities in respect of the 3 'relegated' clubs. 

This sounds like both an arguable and credible case to me but then I admit to not being a lawyer. We do though have a team of people consisting of a QC and LLPs who also seem to think we have an arguable and credible case! Or are they just in it for the money which would be unethical! 

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1 minute ago, exiledjag said:

The original legal advice was:

1. The conduct of the April  vote can be challenged, in particular the Dundee no vote being changed to a yes vote but more importantly, 

Yes but as we’ve explained at length on here that’s only helpful if you think the Clubs wouldn’t vote to reinstate the resolution if it  was annulled.

1 minute ago, exiledjag said:

2. That the SPFL have duty of care responsibilities applicable to all 42 clubs and is clearly in breach of these responsibilities in respect of the 3 'relegated' clubs. 
 

No that wasn’t the argument. The argument was that the SPFL Board had failed to provide adequate information to *all* Clubs to inform their decision and therefore that they had breached a duty to the Clubs collectively. The suggestion emphatically was not (as a matter of law) that they had breached a duty specific to relegated Clubs.

1 minute ago, exiledjag said:

This sounds like both an arguable and credible case to me but then I admit to not being a lawyer. We do though have a team of people consisting of a QC and LLPs who also seem to think we have an arguable and credible case! Or are they just in it for the money which would be unethical! 

Again as several people have pointed out before there are lots of situations where a legal advisor tells a client candidly that they have poor prospects of success but the client still instructs that a course of action be taken.

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Absolutely delighted we're fighting this, I would have, reluctantly, accepted relegation in normal circumstances but, the fact there is no start date for league one is the clincher. The clubs that happily voted for the option that had the least economical impact to them personally are realising there might actually be a cost. 

We are all in this together and if you haven't realised that yet then, f#*k you!

Edited by dagenum
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"The SPFL‘s Articles of Association are lodged with Companies House and publicly available. The SPFL’s Rules are in a PDF on its website."

I am sure they are but only Rod McKenzie understands them or is able to interpret them.

You might think when it says Black it means Black, but that is not always the case. There is a sub-clause which says when it says Black it  usually means Black but not if the Brechin Chairman has odd socks on that day, in which case ort means White!!

Fact is they administer the "rules" as they see fit and as has been demonstrated if any member Club dares to question their interpretation they are made out to be a pariah threatening the whole existance of the game in Scotland. 

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8 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

Yes but as we’ve explained at length on here that’s only helpful if you think the Clubs wouldn’t vote to reinstate the resolution if it  was annulled.

And it’s being explained at length that your view that no club would change its  vote in what would be different circumstances is just your opinion and speculation .....no one knows what will happen if the vote is deemed unlawful so let’s see

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9 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

The SPFL‘s Articles of Association are lodged with Companies House and publicly available. The SPFL’s Rules are in a PDF on its website.

I don’t think that’s quite right and in any case resort to CAS depends in part on the nature of the dispute. It is ultimately a form of arbitration that the relevant parties need to agree to.

If this is indeed a requirement that applies to disputes of this kind I’d be interested to know why the French and Belgian disputes haven’t (yet) gone through CAS and why, for that matter, Thistle went through the domestic courts when it unsuccessfully challenged the old SPL’s decision about Inverness.

There was some speculation at that time that Thistle's action could lead to their expulsion. It came to nothing.

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7 hours ago, dagenum said:

Absolutely delighted we're fighting this, I would have, reluctantly, accepted relegation in normal circumstances but, the fact there is no start date for league one is the clincher. The clubs that happily voted for the option that had the least economical impact to them personally are realising there might actually be a cost. 

We are all in this together and if you haven't realised that yet then, f#*k you!

Well said - I was all guns for action at the start of the tainted vote but mellowed a bit and accepted that reconstruction was never getting through & Budge was only papped it to shut her up - if it was to be L1 then so be it.

The fact that we've been sold a total whopper and the league is gubbed before it starts means that, due to the benevolent gift, we can take action & I'm all for it. 

I reiterate that I wouldn't want any club to go under, but if it hurts some of these scumbag chairmen in their pockets & it means their I'm alright Jack attitudes preceding it means they have to get a porer cheaper set of players then so be it.

Get it right up them. 

Mon the Jags. 

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1 hour ago, Emsca said:

"The SPFL‘s Articles of Association are lodged with Companies House and publicly available. The SPFL’s Rules are in a PDF on its website."

I am sure they are but only Rod McKenzie understands them or is able to interpret them.

You might think when it says Black it means Black, but that is not always the case. There is a sub-clause which says when it says Black it  usually means Black but not if the Brechin Chairman has odd socks on that day, in which case ort means White!!

Fact is they administer the "rules" as they see fit and as has been demonstrated if any member Club dares to question their interpretation they are made out to be a pariah threatening the whole existance of the game in Scotland. 

Rule 151 of their own articles seems fairly clear - they can be challenged legally - I'm sure their compliance officer will read it at some point - mind you she couldn't see a red card usually when she had the video. 

Again I should state that I have no legal knowledge so 151 probably means what they want it to mean to suit what er argument. 

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As I understand it the Compliance Officer works for the SFA, not the SPFL.  If so, we're talking about the potential for a censure, fine, expulsion, or ejection from the Challenge Cup (I assume that means the Scottish Cup) or any other sanction deemed appropriate by a Judicial Panel. Is that correct?  If so, does anyone know if a club has to be a member of the SFA to play league football?

I like the irony that clubs are united in their fury about the threat of an injunction.  Hearts and Thistle have united clubs in a way never seen since the leagues were suspended!

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