Sheaf Saint

I can't wait for the Panorama investigation, complete with pixelated analysts being interviewed and voiced by an actor. You know it's coming.

We naively and arrogantly believed we would just get a fine if we complied. What I cannot get my head round is us accepting the additional charges being brought on a Sunday, leaving us 48 hours before the hearing. Serious alarm bells should have been ringing by this point, but it seems our legal team were asleep at the wheel.

I don't think that's how 'taking the bullet' works. Unless our management are so mind-bogglingly inept that they can't even do that right.

Yep. They are either complicit, incompetent, or both (most likely). In either case, they need to go.

This is what happens when you promote the dry cleaning delivery boy above his station.

The problem with that is that we can't recruit a permanent replacement while he is still in post but suspended. Our only option would be to appoint a caretaker from within, and that would most likely be Lallana. How on earth are we supposed to attract new signings in the summer if that's all rumbling along in the background? The situation needs resolving immediately.

He didn't even know it was against the rules, obviously.

I get all that. Doesn't make it right though.

Yes, we have been punished for seeking to gain an advantage. I'm coming to terms with that (through gritted teeth, obviously), so the fact that we didn't gain an advantage should not influence the sanction imposed on us. However, the fact that we didn't gain any material advantage, and our attempt to gain one didn't have any effect on the outcome of the tie, means that the decision for Boro to be 'reinstated' when they lost the tie fair and square, is a fucking carve up. Like others have said, that decision to shoe-horn them into the final was obviously made purely as a commercial decision for the EFL to be allowed to proceed with their money-spinning event without having to reschedule it or replay any of the other playoff ties. By using the argument that we only sought to gain an advantage but didn't get one to justify our expulsion, Boro are in effect negating their case to be given that free pass.

Neither is he, obviously.

Yes it's been highlighted before and is now key to the whole entrapment theory. Boro had seemingly been fed their evidence of us doing it to multiple clubs before Salt turned up at Rockcliffe.

As anyone who has ever worked in management will know, you can't just give someone their marching orders on the spot. The usual process would be to suspend them, pending a disciplinary hearing where they have a right to be accompanied (by a union rep, for example). Having said that, wasn't he only on a short term contract until the end of this season anyway?

Probably something in this, but he should at least have been immediately placed on gardening leave, pending the outcome of the FA investigation. The fact we have someone at the club who has been publicly outed as having bullied junior staff members into breaking rules, and haven't yet taken any kind of action whatsoever to address that, would suggest that the senior management are asleep at the wheel.

Doesn't matter how insignificant the connection is. Any connection whatsoever should be identified and should rule that person out of any independent panel. If you do jury service, you have to declare if you have any prior connection to the defendant, no matter how minor it may be, and if so then you have to be replaced. The fact our defense didn't pick up on this and demand anyone with prior links to Boro be replaced is quite breathtakingly negligent.

This all reminds me of that classic episode of Red Dwarf where Kryten was defending Rimmer and came out with the line "A man of such awesome stupidity, he even objects to his own defense counsel". That's us, isn't it 😞

And why did our defense not object? That would have been such an easy win to get the process delayed. The incompetence is truly mind-blowing.

So on the panel of three independent adjudicators, one of them was an ex-Boro player and another one was an ex-Boro lawyer. And one of the guys on the board at the EFL is also a Boro director. And we're supposed to believe that the decision they came to being EXACTLY what Boro demanded in their press release is just a coincidence? Utterly fucking corrupt.

What! Why has nobody told me this before? 20+ years of contributing to this place and it was all for nowt 😥

We've "lost" the opportunity to sign him permanently would be a better way of putting it.

Clearly that was just guff that was intended to placate the fans who were unhappy at the way the club was being run at the time. It's the equivalent of an abusive partner saying "Please give me one more chance babe. I promise I've changed and things will be different this time" before fucking off back to the pub with his mates and boasting about how gullible she is. No more chances now Dragan. The winning run under Tonda papered over the cracks and took the heat off you for a bit. But it was all just a convenient veneer to disguise how fucking abysmal your ownership of this club has been.

Oxford will still be in the EFL next season, just not in the Championship. So I expect it's more likely that these were just the only ones there was compelling evidence for and it's just coincidence that neither of them will be in the same league next season.

This is the sad reality of it I think. Shafted by our own naivety.

If anyone genuinely believes these were the only three instances, and not just the only ones for which there was evidence that we couldn't refute, then I've got some magic beans to sell them.

They have savvy owners and good lawyers who know exactly how to get away with these things. Whereas we're run by the fucking chuckle brothers.

The very fact he had a change of clothes ready strongly suggests that he knew damn well he wasn't supposed to be there.