Sports Republics response to “Spygate”

[Lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Eh? What are you smoking?

They are completely different situations. Virtually in a separate universe.

A closer parallel would be where a loan player cannot play against his own club.

So you have information to suggest that David Winnie is still employed by Middlesbrough FC?

[Mr X]

4 hours ago, LGTL said:

I think it’s blindingly obvious the direction that the club is going in after that statement. Both legally and from a football perspective. 

Is the direction down to league One? 

[Teamsaint1]

11 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

So you have information to suggest that David Winnie is still employed by Middlesbrough FC?

If you had been asked to go on that panel, and had , even once played for Middlesbrough, would you not have declared it?
I certainly would. 

[Lighthouse]

6 minutes ago, Teamsaint1 said:

If you had been asked to go on that panel, and had , even once played for Middlesbrough, would you not have declared it?
I certainly would. 

Somehow I doubt that information was shrouded in secrecy, it's literally on his wikipedia page. The simple fact is that it's irrelevant. I would have made it known, as it was with Winnie, and I highly doubt anyone would care.

[wild-saint]

10 minutes ago, Teamsaint1 said:

If you had been asked to go on that panel, and had , even once played for Middlesbrough, would you not have declared it?
I certainly would. 

also would boro have been happy if one of the panel had a former saints player on it regardless of the number of starts. 

[saintwbu]

I guess the question is, was it really not possible to find a panel of 3 individuals who did not once play for, or legally represent, one of the two clubs involved? Doesn’t feel like it would be that difficult to do so, but maybe it was. 

[Whitey Grandad]

25 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

So you have information to suggest that David Winnie is still employed by Middlesbrough FC?

What?

Don't you understand? It's enough that he at one time was employed by Middlesbrough. Any connection,  no matter how tenuous, is enough that he should have turned down the appointment. 

[HarvSFC]

5 minutes ago, wild-saint said:

also would boro have been happy if one of the panel had a former saints player on it regardless of the number of starts. 

They wanted Charlie Austin on there.

[Whitey Grandad]

6 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Somehow I doubt that information was shrouded in secrecy, it's literally on his wikipedia page. The simple fact is that it's irrelevant. I would have made it known, as it was with Winnie, and I highly doubt anyone would care.

It most certainly is not irrelevant. He would, at one time, have felt some affinity with Middlesbrough. 

[hypochondriac]

Things can be true at the same time. Did the fact this guy had one appearance for Boro influence the panel? Almost certainly not. Should saints have made a fuss about this prior to the disciplinary? Definitely. Should this guy have brought this up and removed himself from the panel? Absolutely.

[James]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Things can be true at the same time. Did the fact this guy had one appearance for Boro influence the panel? Almost certainly not. Should saints have made a fuss about this prior to the disciplinary? Definitely. Should this guy have brought this up and removed himself from the panel? Absolutely.

Exactly. Whether there was bias or not (and there probably wasn’t) is irrelevant. Saints could and should have used this to question the integrity of the proceedings at the time and/or stall the timeline by having the Panel reconstituted. In proceedings of this magnitude you have to do background checks on the people deciding your case.

[Lighthouse]

16 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It most certainly is not irrelevant. He would, at one time, have felt some affinity with Middlesbrough. 

I fully agree. If this panel was being put together in 1994, I certainly wouldn't have him on it.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. Absolutely nobody involved in the enquiry was aware of information which is readily available on wikipedia.
2. People did know about it but decided to keep him on anyway because everyone secretly hates Saints.
3. People did know about it but decided it was inconsequential and wouldn't affect his judgement.

Out of those three options I know which is by far the most plausible option. Perhaps some of you would sleep better if we'd been kicked out the playoffs by a different guy who hadn't played one game on loan 32 years ago. Personally, I couldn't give a hoot.

[aintforever]

4 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I fully agree. If this panel was being put together in 1994, I certainly wouldn't have him on it.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. Absolutely nobody involved in the enquiry was aware of information which is readily available on wikipedia.
2. People did know about it but decided to keep him on anyway because everyone secretly hates Saints.
3. People did know about it but decided it was inconsequential and wouldn't affect his judgement.

Out of those three options I know which is by far the most plausible option.

Obviously three but how can anyone, except for the person himself, know wether it would affect his judgement?

If you were putting together an independent panel why choose a former Middlesbrough player when there must be thousands of legal experts out there with no links at all. 

[trousers]

20 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Things can be true at the same time. Did the fact this guy had one appearance for Boro influence the panel? Almost certainly not. Should saints have made a fuss about this prior to the disciplinary? Definitely. Should this guy have brought this up and removed himself from the panel? Absolutely.

Indeed. It's really not very complicated, is it?

[hypochondriac]

28 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I fully agree. If this panel was being put together in 1994, I certainly wouldn't have him on it.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. Absolutely nobody involved in the enquiry was aware of information which is readily available on wikipedia.
2. People did know about it but decided to keep him on anyway because everyone secretly hates Saints.
3. People did know about it but decided it was inconsequential and wouldn't affect his judgement.

Out of those three options I know which is by far the most plausible option. Perhaps some of you would sleep better if we'd been kicked out the playoffs by a different guy who hadn't played one game on loan 32 years ago. Personally, I couldn't give a hoot.

He really should have realised it amounted to a conflict of interest for a case of this magnitude and voluntarily removed himself. Doesn't really matter because it almost certainly made no difference to the judgement but it doesn't look good and really you want to be beyond reproach with this.

[saintant]

35 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I fully agree. If this panel was being put together in 1994, I certainly wouldn't have him on it.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. Absolutely nobody involved in the enquiry was aware of information which is readily available on wikipedia.
2. People did know about it but decided to keep him on anyway because everyone secretly hates Saints.
3. People did know about it but decided it was inconsequential and wouldn't affect his judgement.

Out of those three options I know which is by far the most plausible option. Perhaps some of you would sleep better if we'd been kicked out the playoffs by a different guy who hadn't played one game on loan 32 years ago. Personally, I couldn't give a hoot.

Let's put it this way, in the charge of spying we claimed we gained no advantage. The EFL and enquiry stated it wasn't whether there was advantage gained it was the intent to gain an advantage. Same applies with Winnie - nobody can say he was biased but he might have been. He should have declared his connection to Boro and excused himself from forming part of the panel. The legal woman should probably have done the same. There is no room for such ambiguity in such high stakes enquiries so it was unfair to us and we can well imagine the furore if the boot was on the other foot. How hard was it to make sure the panel had zero connection with either club?

[Whitey Grandad]

16 minutes ago, saintant said:

Let's put it this way, in the charge of spying we claimed we gained no advantage. The EFL and enquiry stated it wasn't whether there was advantage gained it was the intent to gain an advantage. Same applies with Winnie - nobody can say he was biased but he might have been. He should have declared his connection to Boro and excused himself from forming part of the panel. The legal woman should probably have done the same. There is no room for such ambiguity in such high stakes enquiries so it was unfair to us and we can well imagine the furore if the boot was on the other foot. How hard was it to make sure the panel had zero connection with either club?

Indeed. If Winnie is not smart enough to appreciate that he shouldn't have got involved then he's not smart enough to take part in decisions of such importance.