| Should Saints forget about Spygate or go to court? 21:27 - Jun 5 with 1517 views | MattFinish |
We clearly can't reverse the EFL's scandalous punishment but I think there are enough things that happened to point to some fairly strong links between the EFL/Sport Resolutions to suggest that the Disciplinary and arbitration processes could possibly have been flawed and biased.
Again I would like to say I'm not accusing anyone of being biassed I'm just stating that impartiality in the decision making process was possibly compromised and these points need to be investigated further for transparency in the matter.
I’ve had a bit of time and unearthed a few other things that I feel have an air of suspicion about them and warrant investigation.
Firstly the impartiality of the EFL Disciplinary Commission was clearly compromised as they had somebody who'd formerly played for Middlesbrough football club and a lawyer who worked for a law firm who have represented Middlesbrough FC in two very high profile cases and may have represented them on other levels that we don't know about. It has been said that Southampton's legal team should've objected to those two people being on the panel but surely it is the EFL's responsibility to ensure that their disciplinary panel had no links to either club and were completely impartial.
The arbitration panel that looked at Saints appeal consisted of one person, Sir Gary Hickinbottom. The EFL insisted that they had to go with one person on the panel because the hearing had to be rushed through to enable the final to take place. This is complete rubbish, because the EFL knew when they charged Southampton, prior to the Disciplinary Committee that Saints would appeal so they could have had a three person Arbitration Panel lined up.
I thought I'd search for any links between Sir Gary Hickinbottom and Middlesbrough football club. I found that there's a possible link between Sir Gary Hickinbottom and Peter Rowley OBE (MFC Foundation Trustee) which lies in their prominent, contemporary leadership roles within national sports governance in the United Kingdom, specifically across closely related combat and weight disciplines. It is entirely possible that they have come into contact often in these roles. Who knows they may have no knowledge of each other but there is a very possible link.
I also found that Anna Thomas, a Senior Case Manager at the independent sports dispute resolution service Sport Resolutions, has been involved in providing administrative and tribunal support for official Middlesbrough FC and English Football League (EFL) disciplinary and sanction hearings.
I really feel that there is conflict of interests with Neil Bausor sitting on the EFL board. I don't care if he said he stepped away from this because of conflict of interest, he still knows all the other members of the board very well so could quite easily have exerted an influence on our punishment.
Something else I discovered is that on Neil Bausor’s LinkedIn profile the current posts and history have been deleted. On LinkedIn your posts remain visible unless you manually delete them. Is that possibly because he's got links to people on either of the panels that sat or at Sport Resolutions? Again, I'm not making any accusations, I'm just posing questions to ensure transparency. One of the contacts on Bausor’s LinkedIn account was Marc Ashton, chairman of Ipswich Town. Could he be on there because they discussed Spygate? I'm being a bit mischievous here but another one of his contacts is Andrew Cullen Chief Executive Officer of Portsmouth Football Club Ltd.
Whether Saints board has decided to accept the situation and concentrate on next season or not I feel that there are a lot of unanswered questions and suspicious activity which might warrant legal action. As I said above we're not going to reverse the expulsion or points deduction but I feel we should be seeking a financial settlement and a large one at that. |  | | |  |
| Should Saints forget about Spygate or go to court? on 21:51 - Jun 5 with 1451 views | kernow |
Admire your diligence, determination and attention to detail Matt.
Personally, unless there are any more potentially draconian punishments, I would leave it, let it go and move on.Why enrich lawyers?
We shuffle on marching. |  | | |
| Should Saints forget about Spygate or go to court? on 22:04 - Jun 5 with 1405 views | shotters |
Seeing as we admitted the charges there is much more we could say or do
Use this to galvanise the team and fanbase
Whilst I’m still pretty pissed off about what we did and the repercussions, I’ve fast tracked myself through the stages of grief and am ready for next season
F**k the EFL and UTFS |  |
| Fail we may, sail we must |
| |
| Should Saints forget about Spygate or go to court? on 12:37 - Jun 6 with 1068 views | DorsetIan |
I second Kernow's comment about your diligence, determination and attention. I believe that these efforts have alerted the world to the serious irregularities in this matter, all of which have now been reported all across the national press and on at least one international football governance website.
If you now google 'David Winnie', the 6th thing on the first page is him denying bias. Southampton have also, of course, referred to this in their own recent press release.
It is the David Winnie thing which is the real problem here. "A Boro player on the Tribunal?? - wtf?? "
And Winne doesn't have a leg to stand on because Neil Bausor had aready shown him the correct appraoch by himself standing down.
Whatever happens the decision is tainted by Winnie's presence.
I was speakign to a lawyer friend of mine who is very good on legal principle. He is also usually very cautious about speculative legal arguments. But when I explained about Winnie he just shook his head and said immediately that it's completely irrelevant where or not Winnie was actually biased. The appearance of possible bias is all that it takes to undermine a legal decision.
The EFL/Sports Resolutions/Winnie have done that. The decision is compromised.
What my friend also said, however, was that he wasn't sure whether anything could now be done, because Tribunals like this operate outside the main legal system, so he was doubtful that the right of judicial review (which would be the normal way to set aside a tainted decisions like this) was available.
And the Club is saying that they accept their punishment even though they maintain that it was unfair and procedurally compromised.
So that is, I'm sure, the end of the road. |  |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.