The Spygate Saga

[Weston Super Saint]

This is the kind of behaviour that 'brings the game into disrepute', actual breaking of laws :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3qjkpgengn7o

Quote

Switzerland captain Granit Xhaka is under investigation by Swiss prosecutors over allegations he obtained a forged Covid-19 vaccination certificate.

The 33-year-old is alleged to have obtained the certificate in 2022, when it was a requirement in Switzerland for some travel abroad.

The public prosecutor's office of the city of Lucerne confirmed the investigation was under way to determine whether any criminal behaviour took place in obtaining a "false or forged" certificate.

The Sunderland midfielder, who was playing for Arsenal at the time, posted a statement on social media on Monday saying he had a "mistrust" towards the vaccine and had been "influenced by worries and uncertainty".

He said: "In this troubled state of mind I acquired a vaccine certificate, instead of clarifying my unanswered questions in the proper way.

"Today I see clearly, that this way was not correct. It was a mistake. I'm sorry.

"I take responsibility for this decision, will engage with the process of establishing the facts and fully co-operate with the relevant authorities."

I'll bet Tonda receives a harsher sentence though....

[Lighthouse]

4 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

This is the kind of behaviour that 'brings the game into disrepute', actual breaking of laws :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3qjkpgengn7o

I'll bet Tonda receives a harsher sentence though....

Well yes, one’s an alleged criminal offence, the other is a breach of a sporting regulation. An F1 driver would get a five second time penalty for cutting a chicane but nothing for hare coursing, that’s not how it works.

[qwertyell]

It's the three seperate instances of spying that will probably bury Tonda, I think. Each one is an individual charge.

A one-off offence could perhaps be explained away as a miscalculation of the allowable timeframe for scouting the opposition. Hands up, our bad, take the small hit, move on.

Three times is a deliberate trend of cheating for which we have no credible defence (other than, apparently, whining about how unfair it is to hold us to account, and some guff about local businesses). 

Hypothetically, if the FA were to apply the red card standard where each further transgression gets an extra game of suspension, Tonda could be looking at, say, 3 matches for Oxford, 4 for Ipswich, and 5 for Boro. 

Could we live with a 12 game touchline ban? That's going to be the best part of 3 months of disruption. 

There's no way we can weather 3 months of drifting without a manager if it's a total ban from footballing activities. 

What a mess of our own making. 

 

[egg]

10 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

It's the three seperate instances of spying that will probably bury Tonda, I think. Each one is an individual charge.

A one-off offence could perhaps be explained away as a miscalculation of the allowable timeframe for scouting the opposition. Hands up, our bad, take the small hit, move on.

Three times is a deliberate trend of cheating for which we have no credible defence (other than, apparently, whining about how unfair it is to hold us to account, and some guff about local businesses). 

Hypothetically, if the FA were to apply the red card standard where each further transgression gets an extra game of suspension, Tonda could be looking at, say, 3 matches for Oxford, 4 for Ipswich, and 5 for Boro. 

Could we live with a 12 game touchline ban? That's going to be the best part of 3 months of disruption. 

There's no way we can weather 3 months of drifting without a manager if it's a total ban from footballing activities. 

What a mess of our own making. 

 

Pretty much my take on it. I've said 8-12 games, but arrived at differently. I think we could just about live with 8 and install a caretaker, but 12 is more testing. 

I agree re the whining which, for me, devalues the remorse. 

[Harry_SFC]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

Pretty much my take on it. I've said 8-12 games, but arrived at differently. I think we could just about live with 8 and install a caretaker, but 12 is more testing. 

I agree re the whining which, for me, devalues the remorse. 

Yep anything past Christmas and we'd need another manager, surely. It's a huge season for the club given the parachute payment situation etc. We can't piss about with Garner or Lallana in charge for the rest of the season. 

[Turkish]

17 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

It's the three seperate instances of spying that will probably bury Tonda, I think. Each one is an individual charge.

A one-off offence could perhaps be explained away as a miscalculation of the allowable timeframe for scouting the opposition. Hands up, our bad, take the small hit, move on.

Three times is a deliberate trend of cheating for which we have no credible defence (other than, apparently, whining about how unfair it is to hold us to account, and some guff about local businesses). 

Hypothetically, if the FA were to apply the red card standard where each further transgression gets an extra game of suspension, Tonda could be looking at, say, 3 matches for Oxford, 4 for Ipswich, and 5 for Boro. 

Could we live with a 12 game touchline ban? That's going to be the best part of 3 months of disruption. 

There's no way we can weather 3 months of drifting without a manager if it's a total ban from footballing activities. 

What a mess of our own making. 

 

A touchline ban for 12 games is very much doable, the work would be done on the training ground with Tonda involved and then you'd just have someone else in charge on the day, Tonda could even communicate with them so i dont really see that as particularly damaging. However as i said before i dont see why he'd get a touchline ban as the offence didn't happen during a game. I can see them coming down hard on him and us and Parsons bleating about how terrible it all is is completely embarrassing. 

[Cuddles]

Hoping for a £50k fine, three match touchline ban, £10 million fine for Everton and a penalty to Ipswich, suspended until they are back in the Championship.

[Challenger]

4 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

The point raised on tv today was spot on. We have already faced a very harsh penalty for last season and another penalty for this season with -4 points. Why yet another sanction against us?

Because we are a big enough club for everyone to notice and small enough for anyone to care.

[Saint_lambden]

From an optics point of view, it would look ridiculous from the FA to ban him outright after letting him take charge of the first 8/9 games of the domestic season. 

Having said that, I read the play-off expulsion wrong so I’m expecting the worst. 

Parsons’ interview won’t have helped matters.  He’s completely tone deaf at the best of times and playing the victim card a few days before the hearing is not a good look. 

[Saint86]

9 minutes ago, Saint_lambden said:

From an optics point of view, it would look ridiculous from the FA to ban him outright after letting him take charge of the first 8/9 games of the domestic season. 

Having said that, I read the play-off expulsion wrong so I’m expecting the worst. 

Parsons’ interview won’t have helped matters.  He’s completely tone deaf at the best of times and playing the victim card a few days before the hearing is not a good look. 

He's a total liablity - Solak should get ahead of this and just sack him immediately (has to happen after the decision regardless), and then use that to "apologise" to the FA.

Edited 27 minutes ago by Saint86

[die Mannyschaft]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

This is the kind of behaviour that 'brings the game into disrepute', actual breaking of laws :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c3qjkpgengn7o

I'll bet Tonda receives a harsher sentence though....

Its not a bigger sports story than Spygate. This is just a bit of documentation mistake lawyers will say. Accidentally down loaded something under stress, human rights to decide not to have vaccinations, oversight. 

[die Mannyschaft]

28 minutes ago, Challenger said:

Because we are a big enough club for everyone to notice and small enough for anyone to care.

We have a chance of promotion to Premier League which makes the case important.  if we were in league 1 or 2 no one would care, and the punishment would have been insignificant. 

[egg]

2 minutes ago, die Mannyschaft said:

We have a chance of promotion to Premier League which makes the case important.  if we were in league 1 or 2 no one would care, and the punishment would have been insignificant. 

I think it's more that the purpose of the cheating was to help us get to the PL, not that promotion to the PL is the prize from this league. 

[die Mannyschaft]

54 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Yep anything past Christmas and we'd need another manager, surely. It's a huge season for the club given the parachute payment situation etc. We can't piss about with Garner or Lallana in charge for the rest of the season. 

At the fans forum we were told there are contingencies and measures in place to cover possibilities. That implies a temp coach has been identified so currently staff or a manager out of contract (not sure who that would be) 

[die Mannyschaft]

4 minutes ago, egg said:

I think it's more that the purpose of the cheating was to help us get to the PL, not that promotion to the PL is the prize from this league. 

Good point

[Saint_lambden]

7 minutes ago, die Mannyschaft said:

At the fans forum we were told there are contingencies and measures in place to cover possibilities. That implies a temp coach has been identified so currently staff or a manager out of contract (not sure who that would be) 

Corberan…