craigkillie

Yes, I did read the story. Another poster (The Moonster) essentially said that null and void might have been a cheaper option for the SPFL since they wouldn't have faced any court cases. I suggested that Dundee United, Raith and Cove would likely have gone to court in a similar way if that had happened, but he disagreed that this would be likely. I then followed up with this story to show that, in fact, teams who were denied promotion in exactly those circumstances had to be paid compensation to avoid court action. The point I was make at the time, which remains valid, is that the SPFL would likely have been taken to court no matter what decision was made on ending the season, since there was always going to be a party negatively affected by it.

UEFA have spent weeks, if not months, deliberating over complete and detailed competition schedules for the 2020/21 Nations League, Euro 2020 Playoffs, Euro 2020 itself, 2019/20 Champions League, 2020/21 Champions League, 2019/20 Europa League, 2020/21 Europa League, 2019/20 Women's Champions League, 2019/20 UEFA Youth League, 2020 UEFA Super Cup and various youth international competitions and other minor tournaments. All of these were approved this week. There is absolutely no way that they have gone to all of that effort just to placate sponsors and advertisers. It has a very clear basis in reality, and I would expect that every single club and federation involved in these competitions is fully expecting them to go ahead on these dates. There is not a single country in Europe which does not expect to be playing domestic football by August/September Of course, there remains the possibility that another breakout could put paid to some or all of them, but the idea that these are fantasyland dates just put out as placeholders is simply not true.

It would be quite frankly embarrassing for a number of Dundee fans if their iron clad guaranteed to pay out insurance ended up, you know, not paying out. I'm not sure they'd be able to post on here with a straight face again.

Just to follow up on this, the Dutch FA chose to settle out of court to provide compensation to clubs who were denied the chance of promotion as a result of their FA ignoring the will of the clubs and choosing not to have any promotion/relegation. Different countries and rules and so on, but still pours a bit of water on the idea that the SPFL could have prevented any hassle by going null and void.

I think this is the important part - any individual scientist is only really going to provide expertise in their own field, because that's what they're trained to do. The reason most academic scientific research is collaborative is because each of the collaborators bring different knowledge to the table which the others simply don't have. She is a public health expert and therefore any advice that she provides is purely on that basis. The economic impact of that advice is for someone else to worry about. It's the job of the government to bring together a variety of different experts, consider the advice from all of them and then make a decision based on all of the available information.

I don't know enough and I'm not affected enough to get in to the rights and wrongs of the ways of coming out of lockdown, but relaxing things faster doesn't automatically make you more "forward thinking". The USA have basically never bothered with a lockdown and I doubt anyone would call Trump "forward thinking".

The format has literally been announced and includes our clubs.

It's in this post here. You appear to be advocating for the SPFL to become some sort of guerilla football league choosing to play outside of the normal football regulatory framework purely in an attempt to extend a lower league season which the vast majority of the clubs were quite happy to end.

Heard the chairman of one of the English clubs on the radio yesterday saying that it was costing them something like £125k to go ahead with the play-offs, and that's only for three matches across 12 days.

It is a given, based on the fact that they have literally done so and the fact that they have already provisionally scheduled next season's tournaments.

Normal life would be when we are out of Phase 4 (an implicit Phase 5). However, Phase 3 allows live events (presumably including sporting events) with restricted numbers and social distancing. Phase 4 includes further relaxing of these restrictions. We're basically in Phase 2 now, so if things keep moving in the right direction as they have then there may even be some possibility of having some fans inside the stadium by the time the season kicks off.

Yes. We've also played England and Wales in qualifiers recently.

Dunfermline had already been relegated from the league when Rangers were expelled, and therefore were no more an SPL club than anyone else.

Other countries have fans back already. Are you saying that you genuinely don't believe that we, a country averaging less than 20 cases and 5 deaths per day, will be able to do this at any point in the next 11 months?

The SPFL have absolutely no part in disciplinary decisions, they are administered entirely by the SFA. What happened is that one SFA panel made an utterly ludicrous decision and the SFA then came up with a fudge to put it in front of another panel, who overturned that decision.

I've been vegetarian for nearly two years and don't eat a lot of dairy and was still able to successfully impregnate my wife. Make of that what you will.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 372 times, shame on me.

There was a separate vote proposed well before that, back in the SPL days, where Aberdeen voted alongside Celtic to block a change to the 11-1 majority. Ironically, the example you've shown there and the carry on with the colts in recent weeks has shown that the 11-1 does have some benefits too. The main reason people used to complain about it was because it prevented a more equitable split of the prize money in the SPL days (it used to be 32% between the top two clubs), but a fairly substantial change to that was voted through while Rangers were away anyway. What happened in the St Mirren and Ross County case is that both of those clubs were against the 12-12-18 structure with the mid-season 8-8-8, and blocked it from happening. Then, in a last ditch attempt to get it through, Celtic (and maybe others) proposed a change in the voting structure to 9-3 purely so it could get through, and St Mirren and County blocked that change.

There are routes of appeal within the football structures which clubs are supposed to follow in these cases. They can go to the SFA and then all the way up to CAS if they want. It is in the best interests of everyone involved in football to keep these things out of civil courts where possible.

This is the problem with blindly using technology in any setting. Sometimes it doesn't work, and you need to have failsafes in place for when it doesn't. In this case it is completely unforgivable, because they have a second set of technology available to use which would have quite obviously told them it was a goal too. I don't blame the on-field officials here, because they have a reasonable expectation of the system working, but VAR is yet again provide to be completely unreliable.

It's worth noting that he's pushing the ball against the side of the post, not the back of it though. At that stage I don't think it's in, but it may well have been before.

I'm still slightly confused by the pictures every time I watch it, because there are so many moving parts - his glove, the defender, the ball. I thought it was definitely in live, and it still looks like it was. I'm definitely suspicious that they haven't shown you the usual goal line technology digitisation that they usually show after these incidents.

Shotts Bon Accord took the Central Juniors to court in 1995 after they fined them £500 for postponing a game without permission due to a flu outbreak. They were suspended for a year by the league and eventually had to re-enter at the bottom tier (they were in the top flight).

I don't think Hearts and Thistle's argument will stand up in court either (not that I'm convinced it will ever get there), but I'd say each of those other clubs you mentioned would also at least have enough grounds for putting some form of legal case forward. Even someone like Hibs who dropped from 6th to 7th based on PPG could have a claim for loss of income. I think that would be strongest for Dundee United and Cove, both of whom could justifiably argue that any reasonable person would have expected them to be promoted from their position and that they have been denied the additional income associated with the change in decision.

They would make exactly the same sorts of arguments in reverse, that the SPFL changed the rules mid-season and that they were disadvantaged by a decision which denied them the opportunity to gain promotion. Hearts don't have the cash to pay their players properly and have still managed to afford legal action.