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League Reconstruction 20/21 season


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37 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

They're trying to turn the weans  against us! ©jkb

 

“Reminds me a fair bit of my divorce from my first wife.”

I like this. Adds narrative colour.

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21 minutes ago, Green Day said:

Now, for me this was just a source of amusement - but I wonder if they have gone so far down the rabbithole that its impossible - even if they lose - to grasp the realities?

Remember how Rangers were ultra seething for years, claiming they would be joining other leagues, be dismantling the league bodies, be forcing through change at every level all the time refusing to accept that their club did anything wrong? Sound familiar?

Wind forward 8 years or so, and while there is still a hugely bitter streak amongst a certain section of their support and a simmering hatred at board level, what do we have? That's right, Rangers have achieved nothing, they have towed the line. "Surrendered", if you will.

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21 minutes ago, Romeo said:

It looks like Hearts top, top best in the land legal team (who are 100% going to win everything) might have made a procedural error.

 

eta - Before any seethlotan fans ask "ARE YOU A LAWYER OR A QC?"

I am both.

Sure you are & during the week I’m a brain surgeon & a RAF fighter pilot on weekends 🙃

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12 minutes ago, Stag Nation said:

They are the same.  Contempt of Court Act 1981, section 19.

Are there the same kind of constraints on media coverage as there are in criminal procedures with a jury?

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20 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

Plus, it gives the judge two sets of arguments against Hearts to choose from. If he doesn't like what Neil Doncaster is saying, he can go with what United are saying, and vice versa. More chances to win!

Probably not a popular view, but could those who are convinced that Hearts will gain nothing through court action are also possibly prone to confirmation bias? Don't agree that what Hearts are doing is just, but I would be wary of drawing conclusions until there is feedback from the court as to each side's respective arguments. 

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5 minutes ago, Golden Gordon said:

Probably not a popular view, but could those who are convinced that Hearts will gain nothing through court action are also possibly prone to confirmation bias? Don't agree that what Hearts are doing is just, but I would be wary of drawing conclusions until there is feedback from the court as to each side's respective arguments. 

Yeah, there's always confirmation bias; both sides of a case underestimate the other side's case, but that doesn't relate to my comment. I made no comment on the merits of either set of responses; I've not seen them.

However, the judge only has to find one set of grounds to reject the petition and that is helped by having an extra set of arguments to find it in, confirmation bias or not.

Edited by Aim Here
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Just now, Golden Gordon said:

Probably not a popular view, but could those who are convinced that Hearts will gain nothing through court action are also possibly prone to confirmation bias? Don't agree that what Hearts are doing is just, but I would be wary of drawing conclusions until there is feedback from the court as to each side's respective arguments. 

Both sides are doing this on here. Nobody has a clue how the court will act, its a pretty much unprecedented situation in Scotland, and court decisions can be unpredictable at the best of times.

My hope is that if Hearts do win their massive £8m compensation, the SPFL clubs en masses invoke the Articles of Association point that enables clubs to be punished for taking legal action against the body, and remove Hearts from the league.  They can only start in league two on payment of £8.1m to buy back a place in the league.

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1 minute ago, PauloPerth said:

My hope is that if Hearts do win their massive £8m compensation, the SPFL clubs en masses invoke the Articles of Association point that enables clubs to be punished for taking legal action against the body, and remove Hearts from the league.  They can only start in league two on payment of £8.1m to buy back a place in the league.

Don't think that's at all likely anymore. The SPFL letter suggests that the hearing on Wednesday will consider whether it should go through the SFA administration process, and whatever that ruling is will probably be accepted by everybody.

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1 hour ago, Tannadeechee said:

I wasn't saying that the other clubs were making, or requiring,.or wanted to make any representations to the court. Merely depending on legal makeup of SPFL would they be allowed to see the SPFL's response due to being members etc? As seeing what their organisation was doing in respons

 

Only petitoners and respondents have access to documents lodged with the court.

As you say it depends entirely on the Articles of Association/Constitution of the organisation.

Ordinarily an ordinary shareholder would not expect to be given copies of documents lodged with the court. I suppose the SPFL could decide to share with their members but given there is absolutely no advantage to them doing so and a potential risk of contempt they are directing the club's to follow procedure if they wish to see them.

Edited by invergowrie arab
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14 hours ago, Aim Here said:

No reason why the fixture list should be affected. Hearts and Thistle aren't seeking an interdict, it's possible that even if they win, they'll only be due compensation, and the worst case scenario is just that some team names are swapped around in the list if the relegations are halted. Fixture lists get edited regularly throughout the season anyways, as matches are postponed or moved for TV  purposes so changing a few fixtures as a result of a court judgement isn't very far out of the normal way of doing things.

We will see what the SPFL think if they release a set of fixtures that never l have Hibs and Dundee United at home on the same weekend.

10 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

Yeah, there's always confirmation bias; both sides of a case underestimate the other side's case, but that doesn't relate to my comment. I made no comment on the merits of either set of responses; I've not seen them.

However, the judge only has to find one set of grounds to reject the petition and that is helped by having an extra set of arguments to find it in, confirmation bias or not.

That isn't how it works.  The judge will make his ruling on the basis of fact.  It doesn't matter the number of arguments or parties in the action.

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9 minutes ago, Aim Here said:

Yeah, there's always confirmation bias; both sides of a case underestimate the other side's case, but that doesn't relate to my comment. I made no comment on the merits of either set of responses; I've not seen them.

However, the judge only has to find one set of grounds to reject the petition and that is helped by having an extra set of arguments to find it in, confirmation bias or not.

Yes, I understand the point you are making, they are providing the judge with more rope to hang them with if one approach is on weaker ground than the other.

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1 minute ago, strichener said:

We will see what the SPFL think if they release a set of fixtures that never l have Hibs and Dundee United at home on the same weekend.

That isn't how it works.  The judge will make his ruling on the basis of fact.  It doesn't matter the number of arguments or parties in the action.

The facts aren't likely to be much in dispute in this case, so the judge will almost certainly be ruling on the basis of law (in jury trials, judges don't even rule on the facts,  juries do).

The arguments of the parties involved will mostly be two sets of legal theories as to which side is in the right, and it's a case of which one persuades the judge is the winner.

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2 minutes ago, strichener said:

We will see what the SPFL think if they release a set of fixtures that never l have Hibs and Dundee United at home on the same weekend.

That isn't how it works.  The judge will make his ruling on the basis of fact.  It doesn't matter the number of arguments or parties in the action.

He will base his judgement on subjective interpretation of facts and arguments presented. There is a whole field of jurisprudence that studies what influences judicial reasoning.

If it was just feeding facts into the system we could run courts via an algorithm.

Having various parties responding to a petition gives the petitioner much more of a problem if those respondents are making different points

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5 minutes ago, Golden Gordon said:

Yes, I understand the point you are making, they are providing the judge with more rope to hang them with if one approach is on weaker ground than the other.

The burden of proof is on Hearts. Hearts have to provide a chain of reasoning (and suitable factual backup) to show that the SPFL's process was unlawful and unfair and warrants compensation of £10 million quid. If the SPFL or United knock one link out of that chain, they win. If United's lawyers convince the judge that, say, the outcome of the season end vote was entirely fair, it doesn't matter if Kevin Clancy, acting for the SPFL, puts on a pair of clown shoes, blows a whistle and awards a penalty to Ann Budge. The case still gets chucked.

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10 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

Both sides are doing this on here. Nobody has a clue how the court will act, its a pretty much unprecedented situation in Scotland, and court decisions can be unpredictable at the best of times.

My hope is that if Hearts do win their massive £8m compensation, the SPFL clubs en masses invoke the Articles of Association point that enables clubs to be punished for taking legal action against the body, and remove Hearts from the league.  They can only start in league two on payment of £8.1m to buy back a place in the league.

The legal points are not unprecedented. The Court are being asked whether a group of minority shareholders have suffered an unfair prejudice. That's a statutory test with plenty of caselaw to guide the  Court. Hearts and Thistle clearly have been prejudiced (suffered a detriment) so the question is whether that's unfair. If the Court find that there is unfairness then they look to see what remedy, if any, would be appropriate. 

United, Rovers and Cove only get involved at that stage in arguing that the remedy shouldn't unfairly prejudice them. I'd say that there's at least three hurdles for Hearts to overcome to get back into the top flight  (1. to prove unfairness, 2. to show that the unfairness is sufficiently material to demand a remedy, 3. to somehow convince the Court that a remedy which denies promotion to United, Rovers and Cove - in the immediate short-term lending a new vote - is more fair than leaving things as they are). If they cross the first two hurdles but fall at the third then they might get some cash. Personally I would be very surprised if they even got past the first hurdle.

Actually, there's a hurdle before they even get to that first - convincing the Court that it has jurisdiction when the parties have arguably contracted to binding arbitration. 

I don't see Hearts being punished for this, other than in an award of costs. If the Court orders arbitration then there's been no real prejudice to the SPFL in the action (a minor admin issue). If the Court decides it can hear the case then it doesn't really support an argument that Hearts breached the Articles by raising the case.

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Just now, strichener said:

We will see what the SPFL think if they release a set of fixtures that never l have Hibs and Dundee United at home on the same weekend.

There are too many moving parts to consider to try to produce a fixture list that avoids Hearts/Hibs, Dundee/Dundee United, Dundee United/Hibs and Dundee/Hearts clashes. The fixture list will be drawn up based on the current make-up of the leagues and in the unlikely event that clubs have to swap divisions then any clashes will require games being moved to a Friday night or a Sunday. That's what happened in 2012, and Killie ended up going to Tannadice on a Friday night and Dens on a Sunday as a result.

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2 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

The legal points are not unprecedented. The Court are being asked whether a group of minority shareholders have suffered an unfair prejudice. That's a statutory test with plenty of caselaw to guide the  Court. Hearts and Thistle clearly have been prejudiced (suffered a detriment) so the question is whether that's unfair. If the Court find that there is unfairness then they look to see what remedy, if any, would be appropriate. 

Unprecedented in football terms I was saying*. Something most of us have limited experience of, so the outcome is largely guesswork for the majority of us on here.

 

* if not unprecedented, then certainly a rare occurrence in Scottish football.

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