Yesterday’s decision by the SFA’s Judicial Panel, which ruled that Josh Meekings could not be subject to retrospective action as the referee saw the contentious incident on Sunday contradicted the initial official version of events, and totally vindicated Celtic asking for clarification of the incident.
I’ve not had a chance to read through all the apologies from those who used their platforms to criticise the club, but I’ll set aside an hour to do so later. Keep an eye on the very personal attacks on Peter Lawwell. There are people at Hampden who don’t like his influence.
It’s never good to get ahead of yourself, and it would be foolish to assume too much ahead of our visit to Tannadice tomorrow, but I hope the Highlanders take a point against Aberdeen today. Winning the title would be a great way to start a holiday weekend.
Loving the narrative coming out of Ibox at the moment. It appears they haven’t even applied for membership of the ISDX yet as they haven’t found an advisor yet. I assume that’s the fault of the Easdales. Or the BBC. Or Celtic. Or maybe it’s the Pope of Rome!
What a shower. You know how this story ends….
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“It seems that Caley Thistle are going to go ahead with playing Josh Meekings in defence despite him being on the SFA list of suspensions. They are confident that he is not banned even though they appear to have not had clarification from the governing body.”
Looks like they think they are on a roll with decisions … maybe they feel they can argue no sporting advantage for playing an ineligible player??
But can you imagine the flak we would get in this situation?
Got a letter from the lovely people at Sky today.
My television viewing experience is going up £3 per month from now on.
They inform me of the following…..
“We’ll continue to invest in the sports that matter. Next season you’ll be able to watch 116 live Barclays Premier League games, increasing to 126 games…”
They then go in to talk about Formula 1, cricket and golf.
Shows where we in Scotland are in the pecking order.
Kick them oot.
Tbj
Out cutting the grass and I could hear Cambuslangs finest beating their drums and playing their flutes.Yip! It’ll now be every week.
Bhoys, if you can watch this pish on Sky 117, McGuire, Rough and Duffield commentating live from Poundland, no pictures of the game, just these clowns talking guff.A bit like the Archie MacPherson character on Only an Excuse
#sweptaway
Vale Bhoy
On point 1, one of the Newcastle loanees (they’re not doing much else).
Point 2 . .. Someone made that point yesterday and, having already plagiarised St Stivs’ post earlier, I had to ignore that clear weakness in my argument!
auldheid…
I admire all you and your comrades are doing but, if we can’t stop blatant cheating something has to change.
Financialy we lost over a million pounds, our support lost the chance to watch a treble.
We all know the sfa is riddled from top to bottom with the handshake.
Our best bet is disclosure, if an employee is a member of said organisation it should be registered, afterall what have they to hide, if it’s not beneficial to them?
BMCUW
Or she might have said “Philately will get you nowhere!”
(Carefully checks before posting).
Bada Bing
Do you think Roughie picked that tie especially?
TBJ…
You drinking that carlsberg:))
beatbhoy
14:48 on
25 April, 2015
McCall’s right in saying that “Rangers” wouldn’t have sent a letter of complaint.
======
During the time when Scottish referees were allowing us to see some good refereeing by going on strike, Donald Findlay on BBC said that if Rangers had a problem with referees then a phone call would be made and the matter resolved without any fuss.
theglasgowcelticway-cringeworthy stuff mate, I’m sure the singing will be drowned out…..
Iki
That statement from Finlay followed by days of awkward, incisive questions from the SMSM, no doubt.
I see Falkirk are being held
Away to the bookies to get my money back on a reverse forecast I did at Donny yesterday.
One of my nags lost it in the stalls and somehow crawled under the gate and got out, while the other one in the next stall freaked on seeing this and had to be let out the back gate and was withdrawn!
Would’ve got some odds on that happening!
No horses or riders were hurt in the making of this post.
Hail! Hail!
Good afternoon all.
How nice it is to be on the blog at the same time as the Swindon CSC. :-)))))
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
BEATBHOY
Aye,I got my card stamped.
How you doing buddyboy?
Aye,still knocking them back and taking on allcomers. At that price I can afford it.
Chooks laying their blue eggs yet-something you want to tell us,ya hun?
Beatbhoy
The second horse probably thought he couldn’t catch the first n flounced ;)
Gordon-J 15:05
I’m sure it could be quite easily brushed off as an “honest mistake”. And in any case the best players should be free to play. Apparently…..
lennon n mc….mjallby
Nae flouncing unless in a tutu. Thems the rules.
Bobby
Is that a Russian motor?;)
Hibs score:))
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 0-0 Aberdeen
Posted at 15:36
“No no no no no no. You can’t miss them opportunities. Incredible, incredible miss,” says BBC Radio Scotland pundit Willie Miller after Marley Watkins spurns another chance for Inverness.
*looks like ICT are trying not tae score. Sheep will be awarded points and a 3-0 victory after ICT been seen tae have played an ineligible player.
Josh Meekings
Banned for today
Honest mistake
No outcry if he scores the winner today eh?
GlassTwoThirdsFull,
Maybe the ref will see him walk on but fail to notice his name so it will be ruled as dealt with?
Or perhaps there wil be no sporting advantage gained.
Squeaky bum time at ipox..
BEAT BHOY
Hahaha
sipsini
Falkirk shading possession, Hibs all over Alloa..
Whaur’s ma popcorn:))
Bada Bing 15:06
Wonder if they’ve got the mug :-)
2-0 Hibees
auldheid,
I’ve decided to renew but withdraw from the Home Cup Ticket Scheme so it’ll be league and European games for me next season.
I’m disappointed the renewal date is before the end of this season (is it earlier than normal this year?) as I would prefer not to buy tickets for matches more than a year in advance and have absolutely no intention of buying tickets for any match against ‘same club’ rangers.
If ‘same club’ are promoted this year my seat will be empty when we play them and should they avoid relegation next year I will move to buying my tickets on a game by game basis or do my bit to add to TV viewer figures.
I simply cannot justify my unquestioning continued financial support of the utter corruption that has allowed us to get to this point.
cv
Will the Caley Jags regret their profligacy in front of goal?
Pogmathonyahun aka Laird of the Smiles
Great time to score, The Mullet’s legendary half time talk will have to be good:))
Good Afternoon.
Last night, I listened to Craig Patterson on Radio Scotland where he said that he regretted the extent of the lagal formality that had been brought into football.
He bemoaned the fact that Josh Meekings had walked away from potential punishment on the basis of a legal technicality and with the help of a “clever lawyer” rather than on the basis that the the right thing had been done by the game of football.
He accepted that Celtic had the right to be aggrieved but went on to spout that old mantra that at the end of the day these things evened themselves out over the course of a season. He regretted the passing of the days when players, managers and officials just shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
For the record, I believe Craig Patterson to be a decent enough bloke and think he was a good pro in his time.
However, he not only lives in the past but in a rose tinted past.
I think it is fair to say that in the eyes of many in society — whether in business, socially, politically or whatever — lawyers and the law are seen as a pain in the arse!
They charge a lot of money for being too clever by half. Many only think of lawyers as working in the courts when in actual fact they work in all sorts of fields and areas. Further when you do think of a court lawyer the tendency is to think of the defence attorney who will use every trick in the book to get his client off.
Hence Craig Patterson’s focus on the “clever lawyer” getting Meekings off.
However, what Craig completely ignores is that when considering the Meekings incident, there were at least three lawyers in the room who would have their say.
The compliance officer who brought the proceedings, Tony McGlennan, is a fully qualified solicitor who obviously looked at the rules, the referees report and decided to bring a charge against Meekings based upon those rules and the officials report.
Of course, these days, suspension appeals and the likes are dealt with by a “judicial panel” which sits with a lagally qualified chair person and it will be he or she who drafted the statement of reasons which was later released through the press office and which brought the question of retrospective action against Meekings to an end.
At 12:33 on the previous thread TBB gives a detailed examination of the rules concerned, how they were (mis) interpreted by the panel but presumably not by McGlennan on the basis of what persuaded him to bring the case in the first place.
The whole focus of the public debate since is whether this was “fair” on Meekings, who would have lost out on a cup final appearance, and just why the case was brought if the whole thing was never a runner in the first place?
Yet no one seems to stand back and simply examine the blindingly obvious failings that exist in these proceedings.
For a start there is no means of appealing the wording of the final decision. As TBB has pointed out, the detailed decision does not refelct the terms of the rule that the panel was asked to consider.
In short, the decision is legal bullshit. Pure rubbish. Utter nonsense and not worth the paper it is written on.
In any other forum, that decision could be appealed and an appropriate upper tier legal brain would use polite words to describe the decision as no more than toilet paper!
Next, if you accept TBB’s perfectly valid interpretation and explanation of the rule and the idiocy of the decision, you have to ask ” eh who appointed such an idiot of a legal chairman?”
Forget about the standard of referee for a moment and whether he should ever blow a whistle again, what about the legal chairman at the SFA? That person should never sit on another panel and I, for one, would not be going to them for advice on anything.
Words and their meaning are a lawyers trade in stock. You should be trained to use them wisely, at the right time, with the right knowledge and for the right purpose ….. and this last is key.
Those “legal technicalities” that I am always hearing about are always there for a purpose and that purpose is to ENSURE fairness and justice. The words that are used in rules and regulations should be chosen to absolutely ensure that there is no room for doubt as to what the law is and how it should be applied and to guard against misinterpretation and deliberate bias.
That is why in legislation and the like you get words like “shall” meaning you have no choice and other words like “may” which give a judge discretion to do something or not. One is an instruction, the other grants an allowance and the use of each or either is very deliberate.
It is not a legal technicality to point out that the rules have been ignored or misinterpreted it is a legal FUNDAMENTAL and if you don’t apply the fundamental there goes your case no matter what human sympathies may arise for any person or any circumstance.
In this instance, the judicial panel rewrote the fundamentals as they had been interpreted previously as outlined in TBB’s post.
That is something that should be questioned, questioned and requestioned. Just who did that, why and how?
However, let me bring into play another lawyer or set of lawyers and they are whoever it was who wrote the rules in the first place.
When you draft legislation or a contract or a letter for that matter, you choose the best words available to explain clearly what you mean. If you choose the words carelessly, or if you don’t understand the concept of what you are trying to explain, or don’t see the difficulties in the application of the rule you are trying to draft, or are just making a rule up to get a convenient result, or are just plain thick as shit, you will end up with bad law.
An example, in my opinion, of all of the above is the legislative career of Kenny McAskill who to be honest just does not understand the application of the rule of law, what it means and how it should be dealt with.
But that is an aside.
The people who made up the rule that this panel considered will be scratching their head at the written decision as the reasons stated are not what they intended at all and not the conclusion that their words point to.
But what can they do about it?
The answer is nothing.
The fundamental problem with football and the SFA in the 21st century is accounatbility or lack of it.
There are lots of people who, like Craig Patterson, don’t want to know about accountability and who would rather rely on the somewhat unprofessional, rather un pain in the arsey, old fashioned and unscientific mantra of ” ugh we should all move on as it will all even itself out in the end ” speech.
Except that these days we have PROFESSIONAL referees and officials who are paid a wage. We have PROFESSIONAL executives and decision makers at the SFA who are expected to administer and manage PROFESSIONALLY. We have PROFESSIONAL and legally qualified chairmen and women who are paid for their supposed legal expertise, impartiality and integrity when fulfilling these positions and they are assisted by PROFESSIONAL and paid wingmen and women who sit in judgement.
Football relies on broadcast monies from PROFESSIONAL broadcasters who in turn rely on highly paid marketing men and women extracting money from more highly paid men and women in charge of advertising budgets.
Clubs are now run by PROFESSIONAL executives who are paid high salaries and who are obliged by law to keep the books right and to comply with the companies acts and the various other rules that govern the conduct of the company and its employees.
You cannot go before the courts or the tax tribunals or the bank credit committee and say ” Oh we made an arse of that quarter and we completely screwed up here and here but over the course of the year or a three year cycle it all evens itself up in the wash!”
That just will not work.
The SFA is not run like any other business in the country. It lacks professionalism. It lacks a proper management matrix where people are accountable and where they take responsibility in return for the money. It is not an organisation where there are proedures in place which are designed to correct managerial and individual errors when they happen as they will in every company and in every walk of life..
Instead the SFA has unspoken piecemeal objectives, slapdash procedures, poor methods of reporting and cohesion and is amateurish and unbusinesslike in general.
It is an amateurs utopia, a haven for error, poor judgement and corporeal failure.
It is in need of a revolution in terms of standards and consistency and it is in need of a complete overhawl in terms of commercial strategy if it wants the game of football to survive and floorish from grassroots levels up to the highest echelons of the professional game.
Yes all of that may involve the kind of guys that ex players like Craig Patterson don’t really want to know about — The lawyers, the accountants, the book checkers, compliance officers, managers, budget controllers and so on.
It may mean someone looking at a rule or two and saying ” sorry you can’t do that” much to the annoyance of some, but it is better than the alternative of amateurish “fix its” that we have become so used to when the SFA face a problem in any shape or guise.
What’s more, by applying those pesky and inconveient technicalities you gain something and that is called integrity.
Integrity cannot be bought and lack of integrity cannot be disguised by continued and repeated unexplicable amateurism — or anything else that is dressed up to look like that.
starry plough..
Here’s hoping, reckon the the huns are sick of me tap dancing into work, how sweet can it get :))
Starry, he’ll probably try to motivate them by telling them that Timmy was out of order for asking for an answer from the SFA about their inept/corrupt officials.
Awe naw! Bookie not paying out!
They were under starter’s orders.
The starter saw the incident but didn’t notice half a ton of horse crawling under the 12 inch gap between the gate and the turf, the stalls shaking as the other critters went berserk, or the jockeys clambering off in panic.
Suppose these things even themselves out.
The huns must be rank rotten as Chic is in depressed mode.