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Court It Is Then


Bobbyhouston
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Let's turn this round for a minute. We don't know WHY clubs are allegedly wanting to see the documents lodged with the court. Is it possible that, despite all the bluster about being outraged at Hearts and Thistle taking the action they have and claims some of them wanted to vote us out of the SFA (or was it the SPFL?), there is an element of cold feet here? Could it be some clubs are having second thoughts and want to see the strength of our case? How many of them now feel strongly that they were duped into "calling" the season  in order to receive the last of the funding? How many of them are speculating what the cost of a successful compensation claim might be for them (or even a "solidarity" payment)?  

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1 hour ago, Woodstock Jag said:

I have answered this question several times.

I am not and never have been a solicitor or advocate, but my job is law-related and requires a law degree.

You don’t “qualify in company law”. That’s not a thing. You qualify as a solicitor or advocate based on an LLB and the Diploma in Legal Practice. Both of those qualifications involve elements of company law.

So effectively your only stating your opinion as we are 

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8 minutes ago, a f kincaid said:

Let's turn this round for a minute. We don't know WHY clubs are allegedly wanting to see the documents lodged with the court. Is it possible that, despite all the bluster about being outraged at Hearts and Thistle taking the action they have and claims some of them wanted to vote us out of the SFA (or was it the SPFL?), there is an element of cold feet here? Could it be some clubs are having second thoughts and want to see the strength of our case? How many of them now feel strongly that they were duped into "calling" the season  in order to receive the last of the funding? How many of them are speculating what the cost of a successful compensation claim might be for them (or even a "solidarity" payment)?  

Really surprised that this hasn’t been resolved out of Court , no idea what the SFA have being doing in all of this , surely they should have been mediating to try and get a solution.

No faith in any of the governing bodies .

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31 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

I’m not whinging. I’m simply pointing out that Norgethistle is feigning ignorance as to my credentials while regularly checking them.

LinkedIn doesn’t always show all relevance as due to what or where you may have worked you don’t show all. 
Yes I checked as your acting like a barrister on here effectively telling everyone you know better, when in fact it’s merely an opinion (that you are entitled to) that you are putting forward like everyone else on here

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4 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

Really surprised that this hasn’t been resolved out of Court , no idea what the SFA have being doing in all of this , surely they should have been mediating to try and get a solution.

No faith in any of the governing bodies .

For an out of court settlement you’re going to need a decision of the company to reconstruct the leagues, cancel promotion and relegation, or make a payment to the relegated clubs.

Its not hard to see why such a decision hasn’t proved possible. The reason is straightforward: not enough of the member clubs are in favour of authorising their SPFL Board to do any of those things.

Neil Doncaster and the SPFL Board cannot do anything involving changes to the SPFL Rules without the backing of a supermajority of the clubs.

That might be evidence that the corporate governance of the SPFL is inflexibly structured but that’s also hardly a surprise.

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Not being versed in the law, the fine points of the debate on here have been difficult for me to judge. 

However what does strike me is that Doncaster in his choice of options given to members in both ending the season early and accessing court documents has been partial.  That may breach the duty of care that must surely attach to his responsibilities, especially if a strong pattern of this behaviour can be demonstrated.  

The counter argument I guess is that members should be sufficiently sentient to arrive at different options themselves.  However there is almost certainly difficulties in achieving this - time constraints imposed by the SPFL for decision making, and an effective forum outside the SPFL structure that can influence SPFL Board decisions.

Doncaster has been manipulative in dealing with the Board and SPFL members.  His actions may not be illegal, but they shine a strong light on the deficiencies of Scottish football that I hope will have fundamental consequences.  Doncaster's days are probably numbered.

For a sport that survives on sectarianism (compulsory 4 old firm games per season to bolster TV rights), the court ruling may not result in a change in the league results, but may give a bigger victory in the longer term. 

 

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4 minutes ago, eljaggo said:

Not being versed in the law, the fine points of the debate on here have been difficult for me to judge. 

However what does strike me is that Doncaster in his choice of options given to members in both ending the season early and accessing court documents has been partial.  That may breach the duty of care that must surely attach to his responsibilities, especially if a strong pattern of this behaviour can be demonstrated.

This analysis might apply to the lack of alternatives presented to the SPFL resolution as a means of responding to the season being unable to be completed.

I cannot see how it applies to the disclosure of court documents.

The existence of any "duty of care" cannot compel the SPFL do something which its own legal advice suggests would amount to contempt of court.

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It might apply as I suggested if a strong pattern is evident on other matters.  As for the court documents disclosure issue, the SPFL advice should have contained a clear(er) warning of the implications of their advice, along with the obvious alternative of remaining (legally?) neutral and biding their time.  Again the SPFL has taken the precipitous and partial route as they did on the season ending matter.

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Just a hypothetical question on the voting structure.

I believe that it needs an ordinary motion to call the season early in the SPL and that requires 11 of the 12 clubs to back the motion for it to take effect. So, hypothetically, Celtic have a dreadful start, lose their first league game and are bottom of the league. Could the other 11 clubs at that point vote to call the season early and therefore Celtic would be relegated ? Would they at that point have no legal course of action and just have to take their medicine ? 

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2 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

It’s not cryptic. It’s specific. My job requires a law degree but it does not require the holder to be a solicitor or advocate.

I work for the House of Commons.

But of course Norgethistle already knows this because he’s creeped on my LinkedIn profile twice in the last week.

The plot thinkens..

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7 minutes ago, eljaggo said:

As for the court documents disclosure issue, the SPFL advice should have contained a clear(er) warning of the implications of their advice, along with the obvious alternative of remaining (legally?) neutral and biding their time.  Again the SPFL has taken the precipitous and partial route as they did on the season ending matter.

But from what we've seen of the letter did not "advise" or "encourage" Clubs to become named parties to the dispute. They merely explained that the reason they would not disclose the documents to the clubs was because of a risk of contempt of court, and explained that risk would not apply if a club was a named party. It then explained that if a club wished to become a named party and to associated itself with the SPFL's submissions, they were happy to discuss that with them.

There is absolutely no suggestion of clubs becoming named respondents without having first taken independent legal advice of their own.

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9 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Just a hypothetical question on the voting structure.

I believe that it needs an ordinary motion to call the season early in the SPL and that requires 11 of the 12 clubs to back the motion for it to take effect.

No.

The Premiership's competition structure is set out in the SPFL Rules and Regulations. You are correct that variation of those rules requires an ordinary resolution.

But an ordinary resolution requires the support of 9 Premiership, 8 Championship and 15 League One and Two clubs.

9 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:

So, hypothetically, Celtic have a dreadful start, lose their first league game and are bottom of the league. Could the other 11 clubs at that point vote to call the season early and therefore Celtic would be relegated ? Would they at that point have no legal course of action and just have to take their medicine ? 

The legal arguments around minority shareholder abuse would be much stronger in a situation like that, since there would have been no exceptional, objective or commercial justification for bringing the league to an end prematurely. Unlike the current situation, where there is literally a pandemic.

Moreover, there are other significant legal and practical hurdles to such a decision. For example, it would probably lead to catastrophic financial consequences under the SPFL's TV deal, and other sponsorship agreements.

There would also be significant problems with football's governing bodies, most notably UEFA, if such a course of action were to be taken. You will note that there were concerns raised at the time that the Dutch and Scottish footballing authorities had been premature in ending a season in the way that they proposed.

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What you have described is partial  - it contains no suggestion to do nothing and wait, and to my reading encourages active involvement by dint of a lack of stated options.

As for independent legal advice - the clubs were going to the SPFL for that independent advice.

The advice was therefore unbalanced.

Edited by eljaggo
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2 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said:

I’m not whinging. I’m simply pointing out that Norgethistle is feigning ignorance as to my credentials while regularly checking them.

In other words: asking in bad faith.

I have been on annual leave...?

WJ relax a bit please, you commentary on the legal action has been appreciated by the majority of the forum

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15 minutes ago, ARu-Strathbungo said:

WJ relax a bit please, you commentary on the legal action has been appreciated by the majority of the forum

You'll forgive me for getting mildly irritated at people asking personal questions and rummaging around to find out more about me simply because I've said stuff they don't like on a football forum.

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