BrahimHemdani

Some of you will remember that last year Supporters Direct Scotland (SDS) ran a survey on the future of Scottish football. Over a period of about a week this brought in almost 5000 respondents. The results are still being discussed by the media as they were in stark contrast to the proposals put forward by the SPL. In light of these responses SDS has been working on a Fansâ?? Plan to put forward suggestions for Scottish football. Encouraged by last yearâ??s fantastic response SDS would like you to complete a short survey which will help them to finalise the Plan which SDS hope to publish early in the New Year. The survey includes updated questions on league reconstruction, finance, competitiveness of the leagues etc. You will also have an opportunity to sign up for the new Scottish Football Supporters Network (SFSN). The survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LWDRPV8 PLEASE take the time click through and fill it out as the more respondents there are the more weight the results will carry in SDS dealings with the Government and the SPL. It would be very helpful if you would also notify all your friends and family and ask them to fill it out, and then notify their friends and family likewise. Also if anyone on here can post this to other sites that would be great. Many thanks.

The site is a nightmare at the moment, it keeps timing out to the error message - Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, AGREE? OR is it just my TalkTalk internet?

Yes Ian, it is illogical but the bottom line is that you can't criticise a referee even if it is later held that he got it wrong, because so far as the result of the game is concerned his decision is final.

I apologise for not expressing myself very well. When I was a referee (many years ago!) the word "deliberate" was part of the Laws of the Game. Today the relevant section of the Laws specifies a free kick when a player: kicks, trips, jumps at, charges, strikes or attempts to strike, pushes or even tackles an opponent in a reckless or dangerous manner; holds, spits at an opponent or handles the ball; and if inside the penalty area, when the ball is in play, it results in a penalty. So I agree that if you push or trip someone it doesn't have to be deliberate to result in a free kick or penalty but equally simply touching a person's arm or making contact with their foot does not necessarily result in a free kick or penalty unless the referee considers it to be a push a hold or trip. You are absolutely correct to say that dangerous play of the type you describe normally results in an indirect free kick and the offending player may be cautioned or sent off depending on the severity of the offence. However, the offender does not have to gain an advantage from his actions for a foul to have been committed, though that would most often be the case.

Agreed, Aluko made contact with Hardie, as he was going down, not the other way around.

Football is a contact sport. What matters is if he was DELIBERATELY tripped or pulled back or pushed down, mere contact with a hand or arm or foot doesn't make it a foul, otherwise fouls would be would given every ten seconds. Looking at the view from behind the goal and constantly stop starting it, it seems to me that there is about a foot between Aluko and Hardie when he starts to go down. I think he has dived before the foot contact is made and as he dives his back foot contacts Martin Hardie's foot, rather than the other way about. From the side it looks like Hardie tries to stop himself and brings both his feet together. There IS contact between Hardie's arm and Aluko's arm but it is not clear to me that Hardie pulled or pushed Aluko such that he would have fallen forward. What you can see clearly in the still pictures is that Aluko's eyes are closed and his arms are in a suspiciously swallow like mode. It looks like a dive to me but he might escape unpunished or get off on appeal because the pictures do show contact.

The ref will be assessed by the supervisor.

I have watched it over and over again, stop start to make it like slowmo and I am still not sure. It is clear that Martin Hardie tries to stop himself and brings his two feet together, if there was contact at that point then it was very minimal. From behind the goals it looks like a balatant dive. He can be charged with simulation even if the referee awarded the penalty.

As I said at #59, I think someone inside the Club has tried to be too clever (perhaps Whyte himself)and just made us look more stupid. It is clearly obfuscation. If it is isn't then ignorance is no defence. This type of statement should be signed off by the Club's lawyers anyway.

I think the Club will be fined about £10,000 and Whyte will be forced to resign until the 5 years are up.

It takes a lot of time because it all has to go through the Board(s) and then be approved by the Club in General Meeting, which is once a year unless they call a Special one.

NO, as BD said some fine tuning perhaps, nothing more.

I agree it's poorly worded but I still maintain that the intent is obvious because the other intepretation makes no sense at all. Semantics I know!

"humiliating and embarrassing" are the words indeed.

With respect, Craig, the rule isn't ambiguous at all, for the very reason you state, namely that any other interpretation would be illogical.

It's not the vodka that makes you go blind.......:blush:

Would that be like a vodka and coke then Zappa?

The police can't abandon a match they can advise him but only the referee can do that. Of course they could close the ground which comes to the same thing.

That's not farcical at all. The test applies at the time he becomes a director not 6 months or a year later. If you take out car insurance and fail to declare that you were disqualified from driving within the past 5 years, have an accident and the insurers refuse to pay the claim on the grounds of non-disclosure; there is no use arguing that what you failed to disclose would have been clear 6 months later.

In financial services (agreed not the same as football!) the test of being fit and proper is whether or not you are "honest, competent and solvent". In that context, as here, being dishonest i.e. not disclosing that you were disqualified within 5 years (and as I have already stated there is little doubt that that would be from the end of the period of disqualification) may well be regarded as more serious than the fact of being disqualified, because it begs the question - what else are you not telling the truth about. Either Rangers have been incompetent twice: firstly in failing to disclose a material fact and secondly in saying â??Craig Whyte was disqualified to act as a director of Vital UK Limited in 2000 for a period of seven years.â?? when they should have said â??Whilst a director of Vital UK Limited in 2000 Craig Whyte was disqualified to act as a director (of any company) for a period of seven years.â?? or they have stupidly and deliberately tried to hide the truth. I am not sure which I prefer to believe but whoever wrote the second statement should be sacked.

I may be wrong but my recollection is that he did not travel to Kaunas. I did and it was a pissing wet miserable night. I recall thinking after seeing him at Falkirk taking the plaudits of the fans (though not near as many as Novo), what a two faced ugly bast*rd he was, but a great centre half nonetheless.

Apparently not at that time, Zappa. April 2, 2001 - QPR Official Statement - RANGERS IN ADMINISTRATION The Board of Loftus Road PLC regrets to inform shareholders and supporters that after consultation with its advisors it has decided that the best course of action to help ensure the Group's longer term survival, is to put the holding company, Loftus Road PLC, and its wholly owned subsidiary The Queens Park Rangers Football and Athletic Club Ltd (QPR), into administration. INDEPENDENT/Nick Harris - QPR go into administration Tuesday, 3 April 2001 Queen's Park Rangers went into administration last night after the struggling First Division club's parent company announced its losses are running at £575,000 a month. "This decision [to put QPR into administration] has not been taken lightly and is a direct result of the losses incurred by the group," a statement from Loftus Road plc, which also owns Wasps rugby club, said last night. Wasps have not been put in administration because a takeover by an unnamed buyer is understood to be imminent. It has been reported that a former director of QPR, Andrew Ellis, is considering a takeover of the football club but negotiations are understood to be in their infancy. Ellis bid was in the July of that year and withdrawn in the August. In any event even if he was a director at the time a club went into administration that wouldn't disqualify him from having another go.

The claims by Bain and McIntyre may have an impact on the accounts but not in the way you describe. If the claims arose before 30 June or refer to the period before 30 June then there would be an issue as to whether or not they give rise to liabilities in the accounts. In other words if the Directors have reason to believe that there is a possibility that Rangers might lose the case then they ought to make a provision for that in the accounts. This is the similar to when a bank thinks it is going to lose money on mortgages, it writes off the money even before it is lost. Another way to deal with the potential liability would be simply to make a note in the accounts without actually reserving or making a provision for the loss. They might be arguing over (a) whether or not the Directors have good grounds for taking whatever view they are taking or (b) exactly how to treat any provsion that is made for the potential payments if the case(s) are lost. Even so, I doubt that this is worth arguing over to the extent that the accounts remain unaudited or are qualified if audited. My feeling is that the auditors want to qualify the accounts; effectively saying that they have been unable to satisfy themselves as to their accuracy or that they represent a true and fair reflection of the financial position as at 30 June, either way that would be cataclysmic for Rangers. BD may be better placed than me to clarify the circumstances that would give rise to the different treatments.

Well I am the right person to answer that one, because as you may be aware I was the Secretary of RST at the time! Ellis was never close to RST. We tried very hard to make contact through official chanels and I spoke to his representative in Guernsey twice, one of these conversations was witnessed by another Board member. In the first conversation, his adviser told me categorically that Ellis had no interest in Rangers as a Club, his only interest was the "opportunity" that the advsier had recommended to him. As is well documented, it is my belief that that interest was in the development opportunity in the south west corner. I do not believe that Ellis had the kind of money required and that belief is strengthened by the fact that Whyte was lending him the money for a share in the takeover. In the second conversation, the adviser told me that Ellis would he happy to sell the Club to the fans in say 5 years when he had made his money. I believe that some other members of the Board of RST may have spoken to to certain journalists who knew Ellis or claimed to know or be speaking to him and one Board member may even have spoken to him directly but to say he was close to RST is a myth. I also had another contact who was close to a personal friend of Ellis (the friend being close enough to be having dinner with him on a weekly basis) and that is where most of the information that I was putting on Gersnet at the time was coming from. In the end it turned out that Ellis didn't have the money to do the deal. There was a story at the time that when his backers found out it was Glasgow Rangers not Queens Park Rangers, they pulled out and I think there is more than a grain of truth in that. So why would Whyte want him on Board? Well perhaps because Whyte is more an asset stripper than a property developer and Ellis seemed to fit the bill. I find Whyte a bit of an illusion. On the one hand, he seems to be a ruthless sharp cookie but on the other he seems to make a lot of very naive mistakes and perhaps Ellis is one of them. Hope this helps.

No chance whatsover, the fallout from unaudited accounts is far too great.