EFL appeal

[G STAR RAM]

53 minutes ago, therams69 said:

I never said that was bad management did I? Clearly he needed to be dealt with...

I said it was bad management sacking him. This needed to be watertight and clearly wasn't, however, clearly we took the risk and we are now paying for it. This isn't your standard workplace mistake of perhaps a few thousand, we are talking 2.3m. A huge oversight. 

Hardly surprising though considering we had already got it wrong with Sam and paid him off. God knows how much that was. Mel was intent from day 1 in sacking Keogh and as I have eluded to before, he always gets his way because he has no one around him to challenge him. Unless of course you think this would be coming out his personal pocket, in which case I have no issue. But if this is coming out the clubs coffers then yes its bad management. Obviously.

Would we not have had to pay him the £2.3m anyway...which would have come out of club coffers?

[Indy]

33 minutes ago, cool_as_custard said:

Quite succinct summary of the EFL ruling:-

The arbitration panel (with no accountancy expertise) rules that the commission (which includes an accountant) was wrong on a point of UK accountancy law. And that is being referred back to the original commission (including the accountant), who went into a fair amount of detail about why UK accountancy law had not been broken, to decide on a punishment for the club. Makes no sense.

[Apologies to Paul Ludditt who I nicked this off on Twitter]

Who nicked it off me (post on here earlier)!!

?

[therams69]

1 minute ago, G STAR RAM said:

Would we not have had to pay him the £2.3m anyway...which would have come out of club coffers?

Very fair point... I suspect a little has been added on mind with legal costs and all that.... That lawyer we have must have made a killing at DCFC.

That being said, if that was the case we wouldn't have had this embarrassment in the press over it.

[Jimbo Ram]

10 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

With him being on a works night out and having refused the offer of a taxi home I would say it was gross misconduct and brought the club into disrepute.

Just my opinion though and by no means a comment on employment law.

The ruling suggests it wasn’t gross misconduct ?

[Eatonram]

3 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Would we not have had to pay him the £2.3m anyway...which would have come out of club coffers?

Quite.

IMO Mel acted like most employers would under the circumstances. And ask yourself this, who has arbitrated on this? yes, the EFL.

[kevinhectoring]

22 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

So it could be that the DC panel now consider Pope’s evidence and still say ‘no problem here’. 

Not what the EFL statement seems to say. I read it as saying the appeals panel found our accounts did not reflect the FRS. If that’s right, then the lower tribunal has to accept that finding, and decides on a sanction 

Edited May 11, 2021 by kevinhectoring

[Indy]

11 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

You’re not supposed to. Too much spin 

I think that’s harsh. The club statement puts a lot in context about the original ruling and who has been involved in this one. If the media (and the public) relied on the EFL statement they’d think we broke the law, and have no knowledge of the discrepancy in accountancy expertise, or Boro’s determination to insert themselves into another club’s proceedings. I think the EFL statement is pretty misleading with omissions and implied wrongdoing. 

[archram]

Haven’t managed to read all this as it makes my brain hurt. However the bits I did read were a bit clearer when I realised DC didn’t stand for the club but for Disciplinary Committee! duh! ??

[Indy]

I wonder if the EFL just want to get some kind of paper victory so they can try and lump some legal costs back on us. Our sanction might be irrelevant, as long as they can claim we were in the wrong (as happened to Birmingham).

[Jimbo Ram]

2 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Not what the EFL statement seems to say. I read it as saying the appeals panel found our accounts did not reflect the FRS. If that’s right, then the lower tribunal has to accept that finding, and decides on a sanction 

It does beggar belief that an appeal panel looking in to accounting discrepancies has no qualified accountants represented on it. I am quietly confident that the original panel won’t be too harsh in their punishment...

[AndyinLiverpool]

Just now, archram said:

Haven’t managed to read all this as it makes my brain hurt. However the bits I did read were a bit clearer when I realised DC didn’t stand for the club but for Disciplinary Committee! duh! ??

I'm glad I wasn't the only one

[Jimbo Ram]

1 minute ago, Indy said:

I wonder if the EFL just want to get some kind of paper victory so they can try and lump some legal costs back on us. Our sanction might be irrelevant, as long as they can claim we were in the wrong (as happened to Birmingham).

Yes, my kind of thinking. Won’t please the likes of Boro, Rotherham and Wycombe though...

[Van der MoodHoover]

3 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

Got a migraine from reading that club statement? 

Are we ducked or are we really ducked?

i think my take was that you're really ducked mate. And doomed.

 

the rest of us are grandy and dandy......?

[kevinhectoring]

5 minutes ago, Indy said:

I think that’s harsh. The club statement puts a lot in context about the original ruling and who has been involved in this one. If the media (and the public) relied on the EFL statement they’d think we broke the law, and have no knowledge of the discrepancy in accountancy expertise, or Boro’s determination to insert themselves into another club’s proceedings. I think the EFL statement is pretty misleading with omissions and implied wrongdoing. 

This is from the EFL statement:

“More specifically, the panel determined that the Club’s policy was not in accordance with accounting standard FRS ...”

That’s the heart of the matter and it doesn’t exactly jump off the page of the club statement 

we’ll know for sure after reading the judgement 

 

[Yani P]

3 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

I'm glad I wasn't the only one

I thought it was the comics..

[NottsRam77]

6 minutes ago, archram said:

Haven’t managed to read all this as it makes my brain hurt. However the bits I did read were a bit clearer when I realised DC didn’t stand for the club but for Disciplinary Committee! duh! ??

Your not alone lol 

[RoyMac5]

11 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Not what the EFL statement seems to say. I read it as saying the appeals panel found our accounts did not reflect the FRS. If that’s right, then the lower tribunal has to accept that finding, and decides on a sanction 

It’s down to the DC panel to now consider Pope’s evidence and make a decision as to whether the FRS102 breach is worthy of a sanction. Then both parties make submissions if there is a sanction applied by DC panel.

[Indy]

6 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

This is from the EFL statement:

“More specifically, the panel determined that the Club’s policy was not in accordance with accounting standard FRS ...”

That’s the heart of the matter and it doesn’t exactly jump off the page of the club statement 

we’ll know for sure after reading the judgement 

 

Yes. That was the opinion of the panel (no accountancy expertise). The original ruling from the commission (including an accountant) went into great detail on this and concluded we were compliant (as did three years of auditors signing off accounts). And it’s going back to the same commission (and accountant) to determine the punishment and by implication admit to their own incompetence in the original ruling. 

[nogbad van 50]

There’s a bit of real irony in this situation ! Because of Gibson’s meddling which delayed the proceedings for some time, the likelihood is that any sanction, be it a points deduction or fine, isn’t likely to be applied retrospectively.If that’s the case then I’d expect him to get a really warm welcome in Sheffield or Wycombe as well as the one he keeps ducking here!

[RadioactiveWaste]

1 minute ago, Indy said:

Yes. That was the opinion of the panel (no accountancy expertise). The original ruling from the commission (including an accountant) went into great detail on this and concluded we were compliant (as did three years of auditors signing off accounts). And it’s going back to the same commission (and accountant) to determine the punishment and by implication admit to their own incompetence in the original ruling. 

Without knowing the full detail (and to be honest, little intention of digging it) it's still not clear from either statement what the actual fallout is going to be. EFL has triumphantly announced we are in breach and will be punished, DCFC has said a partial part of the appeal was successful which, whilst not mutually contradictory the DCFC statement contains a lot more detail and implies it's not really as simple as the EFL statement reads.

In the context though, the EFL "needed" a win from this, hence the triumphant statement, leaking the story to the press, allowing it to be put around within the game that we're done for, I feel the EFL want everyone to believe thier narrative of events - and given the press coverage and apparent fan reactions on twitter they'v achieved that.

In terms of going back to the Disciplinary Commision, I think it's the case they can't change what the LAP decided (which was the EFL won part of the ammortisation charge) and therefore can only decide on the sanctions accoring to the rule book on sanctions. If it's the same panel, I don't think they'll like having been told they are wrong, but will be acting within a set out proceedure.