SPFL Season declaration challenged legally (ongoing discussion)

[CammyF 6,787]

Decent article in Belfast Telegraph 

 

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/scottish/how-the-sorry-saga-of-the-spfl-vote-descended-from-incompetence-to-scandal-39140041.html

 

[RANGERRAB 3,259]

Robert Mugabe would have been proud of the recent SPFL voting process

[CammyF 6,787]

Leanne Dempsy resigns from the SPFL League Reconstruction working group...... 

[buster. 4,808]

47 minutes ago, CammyF said:

Leanne Dempsy resigns from the SPFL League Reconstruction working group...... 

I wonder if that point towards a possible No vote ?

Certainly smells like fundamental disagreement.

 

Reconstruction without touching financial model (% of prizemoney received1-XX) requires 9 yes votes. If financial model to change it´s the old 11-1.

 

edit.

Reports say she resigned prior to any meeting to focus on "the biggest issue facing our game"

 

 

Dempster was one of 15 club officials named on Friday as part of the panel, who held their first meeting on Monday.

However, the Easter Road chief executive took no part in that call.

Instead, she will work with other clubs "to identify how and when football supporters can safely return to Scottish grounds".

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by buster.

[ian1964 10,416]

How the sorry saga of the SPFL vote descended from incompetence to scandal

Maxie Swain assesses Good Friday's calamitous vote on the Scottish football season which has set Rangers and the SPFL on a damaging collision course.

 

Maxie Swain 

April 20 2020 11:10 AM

 

Matt Hancock had not long delivered another sobering assessment of daily life in these benighted times.

It was mid-afternoon on a sun-drenched Good Friday, the hottest day of the year providing a jarring backdrop to another bleak and chastening press briefing from the health secretary.

It was the deadliest day yet, a record 980 souls lost to the pandemic, and while news on Boris Johnson's condition was more positive, the mantra was the same - stay in, save lives, there's no end in sight.

More than one week on, however, and as shameful as it sounds, it's already old news now, overtaken by events as each day melds into the next; the same, steady funereal roll-call of death and devastation.

Around the time Hancock was addressing the nation, some 400 miles to the north, emails were zipping through the ether and popping into Michele Shields' and Iain Blair's inboxes on the sixth floor of the SPFL's Hampden headquarters.

The issue at stake was the fate of the football season north of Hadrian's Wall, and while lives may not have been at stake, livelihoods and the very survival of member clubs certainly were.

With the coronavirus crisis dominating news agendas, the machinations haven't commanded the column inches it otherwise might have.

It was such a straightforward vote after all; each club required to submit a simple yes or no to the SPFL's resolution that the season should be 'called' - in other words, that the Championship as well as League One and Two should end now, and titles, promotions and relegations decided on present league positions.

A decision on how to resolve the all-important Premiership would then follow.

Yet somehow, what appeared to be a simple enough undertaking has descended into a modern-day football farce with more than just a whiff of scandal about it.

It's an unseemly, unsightly quagmire of claim and counter-claim; of rows over faltering faxes and internet firewalls; accusations of coercion, bullying and abuses of due process, and no shortage of coruscating commentary from within and without Scotland on how such a routine vote has led us to here.

And as ever in Scottish football, a rancorous tribal undercurrent is electrifying the whole process with Rangers in one corner and Celtic the other.

The Hoops are now poised to complete the hugely symbolic 'nine-in-a-row' after the resolution was eventually passed, five days late, in controversial circumstances on Wednesday.

But of course this has gone well beyond the traditional blue versus green battleground of Glasgow.

For the vast majority of Scotland's cash-starved clubs, how to fast-track their slice of the £9.3m prize pot in these desperately straitened times is the burning issue; squabbles over Old Firm supremacy the least of their worries.

The SPFL were adamant their resolution was the only show in town and the only way to do this but Rangers disagreed, submitting an alternative resolution which would see loans advanced to clubs based on current league standings, pending the final distribution of monies once the season is played to a finish.

But wait a second, let's rewind a bit, back to those blue skies of Good Friday as the clock ticked down towards the 5pm deadline.

Just two days before, on Wednesday, April 8, in an hour-long video conference call, all 42 clubs throughout the league were informed they had 48 hours to return their ballots, via fax or by scanned email.

In reality, they had 28 days to mull their decisions, with Good Friday's deadline merely a request.

As the cut-off point approached, the SPFL announced that all clubs had complied bar three. The Premiership, League One and Two had already met the 75% quota to pass the resolution, but the Championship remained in limbo, with Dundee FC identified as the club with the casting vote.

Then finally at 4.52pm, eight minutes to deadline, Eric Drysdale allayed fears of an incomplete ballot.

In actual fact, messages in a private club WhatsApp group confirmed they had sent their vote half an hour earlier at 4.24pm.

"Alea iacta est, as they said in Ancient Rome. DFC vote submitted," the Dundee FC secretary and SNP councillor posted, Latin for 'the die has been cast'.

A photo of their vote would later emerge online showing that the Dens Park club had voted to reject the resolution.

In that case, the SPFL had failed and it was back to the drawing board... or so we thought.

Then this happens:

• 5.51pm: Less than an hour later, in a bizarre move which may yet have fatally undermined the whole process, the SPFL release the results, and it quickly becomes clear that there is still one vote missing;
• 6.07pm: Dundee, somehow realising theirs is the missing vote, despite the SPFL not revealing the breakdown of clubs, send an email requesting the SPFL disregard any incoming vote that is subsequently discovered.

It has since been established that Dundee's vote did land in SPFL servers before the deadline, as Drysdale said, but had been redirected into Blair and Shields' junk folders.

What then follows is where the whole sorry saga nosedives from incompetence into scandal territory.

Rather than simply resend their email, or fax it through, it soon becomes clear Dundee are now equivocating and no longer prepared to stand by their vote, with John Nelms, the club's managing director and the signatory of their ballot, now the villain of the piece - for Rangers fans anyway.

In the ensuing horse-trading, a flurry of messages and emails are leaked showing Nelms lobbying for money, indicating that he now supports the resolution, as would eventually come to pass on Wednesday - five days later - begging the question why the "Damascene conversion," as one online cynic wryly put it.

Thrust into the role of kingmaker and noting his newfound leverage, messages show Nelms was in contact with "big hitters" once it was known his vote had somehow gone astray.

Amid talk of lucrative "friendlies" and alleged contact with some major SPFL powerbrokers, it seems he changed his mind.

Cue all-out civil war.

Stranraer, now relegated as a result of the resolution, said they were "incensed" by the SPFL's decision to reveal details of the vote before it had been concluded, adding they believed it could have prejudiced the entire process.

Both Partick and Aberdeen issued statements decrying the lack of information and time they were given in the lead-up to such a seismic football decision, while Raith Rovers raised suspicions over why an ostensibly democratic ballot was couched in such leading terms, with the SPFL document "(making) clear that declaring the seasons ended was the only way to achieve distribution of funds".

For most clubs, this would have been the only thing to consider, yet it has since been discredited. There were other ways to get their hands on the money without calling the season.

Inverness CEO Scot Gardiner said it was "fundamentally wrong to conflate the two", Stranraer described it as "disingenuous", while Rangers, Hearts, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Partick - all admittedly clubs with something to lose - have rowed in behind.

Rangers have demanded a full, independent investigation into the whole debacle, while also calling for the suspension of SPFL chief Neil Doncaster and his legal adviser Rod McKenzie.

A few days ago, speaking on Sky Sports, Gers chief Steven Gerrard branded the situation a "mess".

Partick are up in arms too. As things stand, they are now relegated from the Championship despite lying just two points off Queen of the South with a game in hand.

Predictably, Twitter has been ablaze with invective as angry supporters questioned the integrity of the process.

Of course there's nothing illegal with Drysdale, the man in charge of administering Dundee's vote, having been on the SFA judicial panel which sent Rangers down into the Third Division.

Does it really matter that Rangers' rival resolution is being blocked by McKenzie, the SPFL's solicitor who also works for Harper McLeod, the company who provide Celtic with legal advice?

And what about the curious case of Brechin City, cut adrift at the foot of League Two but saved from relegation in the restructuring? Their chairman Ken Ferguson sits on the SPFL board.

None of this amounts to corruption or skulduggery, of course, but it is certainly catnip for the conspiracy theorists.

And taken alongside everything else, the gaffes, the back channel politicking, the abuses of protocol which would make even Fifa blush, whether you sympathise or not, the siege mentality at Rangers is at least understandable.

Unlike Covid-19, football is not a matter of life and death.

But in the current climate, and with so many clubs with more to lose even than Rangers, was it really too much to ask to have a transparent vote?

The clamour for an independent investigation to clear the stench of alleged underhandedness grows daily. The reputation of the Scottish game may well depend upon it.

Timeline

Good Friday, April 10

4:24 A message on a WhatsApp group confirms Dundee FC have voted.

4:52 Dundee secretary Eric Drysdale writes that 'The die has been cast'

5:51 The SPFL releases the results of an incomplete ballot. The Championship is still short of 75%

6:07 Dundee FC contact the SPFL requesting that their vote rejecting the resolution is discounted, should it subsequently be discovered

Wednesday, April 15

6:09 The SPFL confirms that the ballot is now complete. Dundee voted in favour of the resolution which is now passed with the bottom three divisions 'called'

 

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/scottish/how-the-sorry-saga-of-the-spfl-vote-descended-from-incompetence-to-scandal-39140041.html

[buster. 4,808]

On 19/04/2020 at 12:36, Bill said:

I've seen it all now. Rangers fans looking for succour in the ramblings of Sportsound, as if the world was holding its breath to see what Billy Dodds or Tom (didn't he do ever such a good job) English would say next. Seriously, if you're going to clutch at straws at least find one that floats. No one listens to Sportsound, least of all the SPFL. No one cares what they say. Sportsound reflects anti-Rangers sentiment, it doesn't create it. Sportsound is an echo chamber designed to fill your head with shite and make sure people don't accidentally think for yourselves. Does anyone seriously believe Tom English would be passing time in the backwater of Scottish media if he was wise or insightful. Forget Sportsound. It's irrelevant, a distraction, a signpost to nowhere.

Your first two sentences in bold text are simply and very obviously incorrect regards the last two Saturday afternoon programmes..... To say otherwise, might be termed original thought, but it wouldn´t be accurate. 

 

This isn´t me getting on your back. Generally speaking, trying to get a handle on what is going on needs us to interpret some of the basic things correctly, ie. better  to be said.

 

 

Regards your third sentence in bold text, Sportsound (BBC Scotland in general) generally reflect, promote and at times help create what you call anti-Rangers sentiment.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by buster.

[buster. 4,808]

18 hours ago, CammyF said:

Decent article in Belfast Telegraph 

 

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/scottish/how-the-sorry-saga-of-the-spfl-vote-descended-from-incompetence-to-scandal-39140041.html

 

Its better than some but it didn´t incorporate the very relevant Legal Opinion that Partick Thistle made public.

 

Thistle might have said they don´t inend to act upon it but regards the timelines...

 

4:24 A message on a WhatsApp group confirms Dundee FC have voted.

 

At that point, a QC and junior counsel opine the resolution to have lapsed or failed.

 

Not to mention the other points raised, eg. misinformation by omission 

[ian1964 10,416]

 

[ian1964 10,416]

 

[ian1964 10,416]

The voting farce questions the SPFL must answer – but hasn't

The shambolic ballot and ensuing mess needs answers from the SPFL as the clamour for an independent inquiry grows.

 

In a useful news diversion a bloated, 14-person task force formed to consider reconstruction in the Scottish Professional Football League convened for the first time on Monday. A vote will be required to approve any of its recommendations. No sniggering at the back.

Meanwhile the chairmen of Aberdeen and Heart of Midlothian have joined their equivalent at Rangers by calling for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the ballot to abandon the 2019-20 season. This means 25% of the top division is seeking the same inquiry, which the SPFL – recently very keen on percentage mandates – has intimated no desire whatsoever to hold. “The SPFL looks an absolute mess,” Steven Gerrard said last week.

Sturgeon suggests Scottish football will not return behind closed doors

Read more

But it is more serious than a PR fiasco. Ongoing doubt – triggered partly by a lack of transparency – into the governance of Scotland’s national sport is unfair on customers. Nicola Sturgeon’s stark comments on Monday regarding the non-viability of football in Scotland any time soon, including behind closed doors, will set off alarm bells but the SPFL should not simultaneously be allowed to brush off a damaging saga.

Immediately after Gerrard’s comments, the Guardian asked the SPFL for clarity on its position on the convening of an independent investigation and received no reply. On Monday, the following straightforward questions were submitted. “There won’t be anything further from the SPFL on the below,” a spokesman replied.

These were the questions:

1. Why does the SPFL remain reluctant to permit an independent investigation into the circumstances with chairs of 25% of the top division now supporting such a move?

Speaking on Sunday, the SPFL board member Les Gray said: “There is no wrongdoing here, we are absolutely certain of that. So there is no need for investigation in my view.” This at least infers the SPFL has a predetermined position. So, too, the comments of the SPFL chairman, Murdoch MacLennan, to members: “I am entirely satisfied, based on all the information at my disposal, that the SPFL and its executives and legal advisers have acted wholly properly at every stage in this process.”

By allowing an independent investigation allegations of impropriety could be comprehensively dismissed. Moreover, given the language used by Rangers in particular, the league would have scope to fight back against highly damaging claims. Instead, the SPFL is strangely reticent to permit external focus.

2. Why were emergency loans not detailed as an alternative financial distribution option in the paperwork sent out to clubs before the vote, with particular reference to the fact the league already had funds to pay end-of-season money?

The key basis for calling 2019-20 as it stands, as vehemently pushed by the SPFL board, was the release of end of season prize money. “The SPFL documentation received by all clubs on Wednesday 8 April made it clear that declaring the season ended was the only way to achieve distribution of funds and to then proceed to the next stage,” a Raith Rovers statement said.

However, it has emerged that the SPFL board has the power to issue emergency loans to clubs. This wasn’t highlighted or explained when the paperwork to which Raith refer was issued. The league and its directors, naturally, need to be protected against loan defaults but there has been no articulation as to why any such payment would not be protected against - and limited to - prize money the SPFL had in its possession. The league appeared in a frantic rush to abandon the campaign.

3. Will the league publish the electronic timeline of Dundee’s two votes – and recall – from Friday 10 April? If not, why?

Dundee’s role in this farce is now infamous. MacLennan explained it as thus: “One Championship club attempted to submit a voting slip, which did not reach the SPFL until late that evening. Earlier, at 6pm on Friday, that club had confirmed in writing to the SPFL that any attempted vote from that club should not be considered as cast.” The precise reasoning for Dundee’s subsequent volte face – no to yes – remain unclear.

The timings of Dundee’s submissions will have an online template. The information contained therein is not remotely sensitive. In fact, one of their voting slips was in the public domain within 24 hours. There should be no problem with the league showing the public the exact details.

4. As per the Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack’s comments on BBC Scotland, why did the SPFL chief executive, Neil Doncaster, call him at 4.40pm on the aforementioned Friday?

Cormack said he had “no problem” with Doncaster calling him 20 minutes before the guidance deadline of 5pm for the vote to close. Yet Cormack stated Doncaster’s advice was that Aberdeen’s vote “didn’t matter” because the top flight had already reached the necessary 75% threshold to call the season. So Aberdeen, who had been undecided on the resolution, were given notice of an irrelevant vote. Dundee sent in two.

5. Which other clubs did Doncaster call that same day and why?

As the chief executive of the league, Doncaster is an official for all 42 member clubs. The SPFL board’s strong wish for the resolution to pass was well known but if the chief executive was speaking to clubs on that theme, governance questions would be raised.

6. What was the rationale behind the “result” of an incomplete vote being published on 10 April?

Dundee U-turn inches Celtic closer to ninth Premiership title in a row

Read more

Much of this wholly unacceptable affair can be traced to the SPFL’s unprecedented decision to release “result” figures with a number of clubs – including, crucially, Dundee – still to register a vote. The league has not addressed why this move was taken.

7. Have the Championship clubs been asked if they felt threatened during the voting process?

Cormack said the vote was “forced down our throats”. Ann Budge, the Hearts owner, has raised the possibility of the SPFL board exerting “undue influence” on the resolution process. Rangers said in a statement: “We are aware several club directors claimed they were being bullied.”

The Championship, though, emerged as the most significant – and fraught – voting domain.

These are only seven of the questions that the SPFL should answer but instead silence prevails. It is a wholly unsatisfactory response.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/apr/21/the-voting-farce-questions-the-spfl-must-answer-but-hasnt