der Berliner 3,815 Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 No need to give the Scum supporting paper clicks ... Quote Rangers star Jon Flanagan and his errant elbow have made a mockery of the SFA - Michael Gannon The defender was offered a retrospective ban then cleared on appeal and Michael argues a new disciplinary process is needed. There are certain situations that go so far down a ridiculous road they no longer prompt feelings of anger or indignation. It results in laughter. Like this Brexit carry on when Boris Johnson announce he’s going to make a charge on Downing Street. Of course he is. The future of the country might be serious stuff but it gets to the point you need to laugh, or you’ll end up greeting. We’re now past that point with the SFA disciplinary process. It’s the Still Game sketch where the old boys keep slipping on the black ice and the more they deck it the funnier it gets. What a mess they have got themselves in. It’s a set of earphones that just get more tangled the more you tug. Eventually it’s best to give up, lob them in the bin and get down the nearest Apple Store. It’s time to haul Clare Whyte from under the pile of paper work at Hampden. Tell the compliance officer to take the whole lot and chuck it in a metal drum, douse it in petrol and toss in a lit match. The entire system has been a home made bogey cart for years and while we’ve managed to rumble on for a bit with a couple of wonky wheels, all four have now came off and we’re lying by the side of the road with skint knees. Enough, already. The tale of Jon Flanagan and his Errant Elbow is the final straw. It’s taken the whole process to Boris on a bungee cord levels. The Rangers player planted one on Scott Brown’s chops. It could have been a red, the ref gave a yellow. That should have been it. Handing him a ban and then seeing it overturned on appeal was enough to get everyone chuckling. The Hampden disciplinary process has more WTF moments than the last series of Game of Thrones. Which is why the entire thing needs to go. When you get this lost, the best solution is to go back to the beginning and start again. Where is the beginning? Well, the definition. Retrospective action. The power to punish or sanction for incidents not seen by the referee during a game. Specifically acts of violent conduct. We’ve managed to get so many lawyers involved in what actually constitutes violent conduct it’s Scottish football’s knickers so twisted we’re all going to need industrial amounts of talcum power to cope with the botty rash. How’s about applying common sense. Violent conduct is exactly what it says on the tin? Get involved if a player throws a punch or headbutts someone, yes, maybe even an elbow, but after that, don’t get involved. If a referee doesn’t spot stuff like the Flanagan forearm smash, then come down on the official like a ton of bricks. Chuck in bans for diving to win penalties and we’re good to go again. We’re going to have to let referees referee games again. Right now they are making a pig’s ear of the job and relying on a safety net made of straw. No one is saying we should have prison rules in Scottish football – even though it would be a lot of fun to see – but there needs to be a cleaning up of the system because this weekly kangaroo court is not doing anyone any good. Rangers have called conspiracy. Celtic have as well. Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, Hibs, every blooming team in the league thinks the beaks have it in for them. Just who is this conspiracy helping? Do the folk at the SFA have a sweep going on how many red cards they can hand out retrospectively or how many they can get overturned. It’s total lunacy. Poor Clare Whyte is the human pinata of the day but she’s just a convenient picture on the dart board for clubs to aim at. It’s the whole department that needs to clear their desks and hit the reset button because they’re way beyond being a laughing stock. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-star-jon-flanagan-errant-16165936 Lovely headline there and Gannon writes of elbow and forearm smashs ... interesting anatomy study there. Interestingly enough, he skips the point that various incidents from Yahoo players weren`t cited or sanctioned ... but the season`s objective - i.e. preventing SG snatching a title has been accomplished already. So let`s do away with the system before it becomes even more obvious. BTW, people do talk about VAR and that it may help. "May" is the correct word here, as we have to remember who will sit behind the monitors. For those will come from the same pool of referees who managed to turn blind eyes on the Yahoos` fouls as well as from those three who wanted to punish Flanagan unanimously (sic!) despite his foul being no more than a yellow card. Does anyone expect a quantum leap in quality there? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian1964 10,761 Posted May 29, 2019 Share Posted May 29, 2019 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Roberts 246 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Does anyone know how much all the lawyers cost the game, and clubs? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewarty 2,060 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 1 hour ago, Rick Roberts said: Does anyone know how much all the lawyers cost the game, and clubs? Would be impossible to say exactly given it would fall under the general bracket of professional services in their accounts but the fact that law firms have dedicated sports lawyers says just about everything you need to know. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Roberts 246 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 2 minutes ago, stewarty said: Would be impossible to say exactly given it would fall under the general bracket of professional services in their accounts but the fact that law firms have dedicated sports lawyers says just about everything you need to know. Yep, lawyers are good at creating markets for themselves. If this costs the game, say even, £200k, a year then its money wasted. It's added nothing this year. Another side observation, is that we've had 12 or so citations. We've challenged half of these. That's costing money (and time and effort). Celtic obviously haven't had many citations (when they should have) so have avoided that hassle. They obviously had the Brown antics after the game at parkhead, but they didnt take long to bat away. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewarty 2,060 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 1 minute ago, Rick Roberts said: Yep, lawyers are good at creating markets for themselves. If this costs the game, say even, £200k, a year then its money wasted. It's added nothing this year. Another side observation, is that we've had 12 or so citations. We've challenged half of these. That's costing money (and time and effort). Celtic obviously haven't had many citations (when they should have) so have avoided that hassle. They obviously had the Brown antics after the game at parkhead, but they didnt take long to bat away. I would wager it is significantly more than £200k per year tbh. Celtic have heavily lawyered up in the past - which is part of their strategy of influence. We should adopt the same until such time as the process is fair and transparent. I suspect we will continue to be paying for lawyers for some time to come. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,815 Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Quote Under Scottish FA rules, an offence witnessed by a referee can only be retrospectively punished if it meets at least one of the following criteria - the involvement of excessive force, brutality or a resulting serious injury. Dunno, why did the panel of the day did not see any evidence when Simunovic floored Oli Shaw with his elbow, escaping even a yellow card? Shaw was near unconcious and went off to hospital. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BEARGER 1,830 Posted May 31, 2019 Author Share Posted May 31, 2019 Interested to read the rationale given for not agreeing with the compliance officer. Surely her competence must be called into question as it was very clear brown was not struck in the face. "Compliance officer Clare Whyte flagged the case to three former officials for further assessment, and they unanimously agreed the incident merited a sending off and Flanagan was given a two-game ban. However, that was overruled by a fast-track tribunal on 17 May. Under Scottish FA rules, an offence witnessed by a referee can only be retrospectively punished if it meets at least one of the following criteria - the involvement of excessive force, brutality or a resulting serious injury. Whyte told the panel she would only be arguing that the clash featured brutality, which she defined as "savage, ruthless or deliberately violent". After hearing Whyte, Flanagan and Rangers' lawyers present their cases - which included video replays of the incident - the panel sided with the former Liverpool player. It rejected the compliance officer's claims that Brown had been struck in the face, insisting contact was made with the "chest/neck area of the opponent". Only question remaining unanswered is why was brown not then charged with bringing the game into disrepute for feigning he was struck in the face! 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacK1950 2,399 Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 20 hours ago, BEARGER said: Only question remaining unanswered is why was brown not then charged with bringing the game into disrepute for feigning he was struck in the face He would hope that if it happened no other of his simulation acts were taken into account. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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