Appeal to EFL

[ben_the_beast]

Wasn't the previous test with Forest pretty cut and dry in that the fault was on the club. And they were appealing for common sense to prevail in that what does 15 seconds or something like that really matter. In that case they can simply point to the rule book. 

In this case it seems as though we are pointing to shortcomings or moot points from the EFL which caused the delay. So very different scenarios. I imagine the amount of time this is dragging on for is because its being taken seriously and they have legal experts analysing the case rather than it being just 3 people from within the EFL casting their eyes over it. Any decision which is made has to hold up to scrutiny.

[bluebruce]

57 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

The thing we are forgetting.

EFL won't pass it. 

If they do then it opens the view from Rovers that we would have won on Monday if we had O'Brien.

A situation they wouldn't ever allow happen - hence rejection.

We could claim that but I don't see how it would hold up.

When a player gets sent off in a match, and it changes the outcome, but is later rescinded because it was bollocks, the team doesn't get any points back for it. Nor do they try to. And that's much more impactful than switching a player out for another.

[TimmyJimmy]

Common sense does need to prevail, but it won't.  When do the footballing authorities ever show common sense?  The time limit for doing transfer business is an arbitrary dreamed up hurdle.  Does it really matter if someone's paperwork gets there 20 minutes late?  Really?  There's no competion to us trying to sign a player that someone else wants and there's no arm wrestling going on between the clubs.

The selling club are keen to let him go, we are keen to employ him, no one else involved.  As long as he doesn't play before registration is complete who cares.

It's like all these programmes on TV where stuff has to be completed against some invented deadline to make things exciting.  It's all b*llocks.

I have a lot of experience with legal contracts in business.  When lawyers are involved everything takes a lot of time.  The slightest change in wording triggers loads of back and forth exchanges between the lawyers of both parties and it drags on and on.  If the EFL raised an issue at the 11th hour it was always going to take ages to get it past the lawyers, they should have expected us to be late and made an allowance for a situation they themselves created.

The outcome is obvious, our appeal will fail.  The EFL will want to save face and not be held to ransom in future transfer windows.  Their decision will be for their benefit not ours or the players whose immediate career comes to an abrupt halt, and for what?

The moving finger writes and having write moves on.  We will not be succesful, the EFL are c*nts, such is the world, move on.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, TimmyJimmy said:

Common sense does need to prevail, but it won't.  When do the footballing authorities ever show common sense?  The time limit for doing transfer business is an arbitrary dreamed up hurdle.  Does it really matter if someone's paperwork gets there 20 minutes late?  Really?  There's no competion to us trying to sign a player that someone else wants and there's no arm wrestling going on between the clubs.

The selling club are keen to let him go, we are keen to employ him, no one else involved.  As long as he doesn't play before registration is complete who cares.

It's like all these programmes on TV where stuff has to be completed against some invented deadline to make things exciting.  It's all b*llocks.

I have a lot of experience with legal contracts in business.  When lawyers are involved everything takes a lot of time.  The slightest change in wording triggers loads of back and forth exchanges between the lawyers of both parties and it drags on and on.  If the EFL raised an issue at the 11th hour it was always going to take ages to get it past the lawyers, they should have expected us to be late and made an allowance for a situation they themselves created.

The outcome is obvious, our appeal will fail.  The EFL will want to save face and not be held to ransom in future transfer windows.  Their decision will be for their benefit not ours or the players whose immediate career comes to an abrupt halt, and for what?

The moving finger writes and having write moves on.  We will not be succesful, the EFL are c*nts, such is the world, move on.

 

Me too, which is why I was surprised so much was made about us allegedly spelling an agents name wrong... As long as there's a signature at the bottom, it's irrelevant. It shouldn't stop us registering him. 

[RoverCanada]

My view may be skewed by North American sports, which is more 'regulated' and the players unions have a great deal of power, but I can certainly imagine a case where the EFL needs to bend here (with obvious heavy caveats at what's been leaked so far!). Broughton may have simply been playing down expectations for now...

Lacking a clause for if we get relegated obviously appears to be a moot point and worth contesting. You may question the impartiality of the appeal observers (Stoke and whoever?), but they will want to keep any unreasonable EFL pedantry in check. I also imagine the reaction of the PFA would need to be taken into account (even if player unions aren't all that powerful in European football?) given there's now a player in the prime of his career without a club for 6 months through little fault of his own.

The EFL may simply retort that we failed to use standard contract templates/clauses that any other club would have readily included, hence we were incompetent. Case closed. I recall there was some fuss over Steve Kean's leaked contract defining his salary if we ever got relegated to League One - ha - given he would clearly (hopefully...) be fired by then but all eventualities need covering in a long-term contract (e.g., any payoff Kean was due for getting sacked would drop if we got relegated). But we can argue such details are obviously unneeded here for a short-term loan + conditional purchase agreement...

The Brierley transfer, rather pathetically, sounds more like a case of a 'broken fax machine'/paperwork errors. It was good to hear Broughton say they will make sure Rochdale is at least covered financially for now until the transfer can go through in the summer... Best I can imagine, if the unticked 'White-British' box is to be believed, is we would argue that the EFL already has such information on file, so it's redundant for a within-EFL transfer, or any 'reasonable' person wouldn't get confused about the agent name misspelling... in any case, I can imagine the EFL not bending on paperwork errors (and, frankly, this transfer is less important, if still an annoying setback)

Edited February 10, 2023 by RoverCanada

[bluebruce]

4 hours ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Well, well, well

I'll continue to wait for the full details, but this update - if true - really does put a whole new perspective on things

It's not really an update, or giving a new perspective. What Sharpe has said fits with what Nixon said about a week ago. In fact it gives less detail really.

4 hours ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Because, within 10 minutes, it would be more than possible to insert a line into a Contract which states:

"In the event of relegation to League 1 the Club are under no obligation to sign the player Lewis O'Brien"

I'd say it sounds a lot more likely this was done, ratified, signed and sealed in ~10 minutes than it does to then agree a contract to cover promotion, and indeed wages/clauses/fees etc with it, in that same timeframe

Arbitro was asking how an entire player contract between us and O'Brien in the event of promotion could be drafted up in 10 minutes, not how our obligation to buy clause with Forest could be clarified in 10 minutes. There are three competing claims I've seen about what has happened, some of which seem to have come out of nowhere, probably speculation and chinese whispers. I've ranked them in order of likelihood based on what information is out there (which may still be wrong information):

1) The club had an obligation to buy LOB if we got promoted, but the league wanted to know if we would still buy him if we got relegated. This one seems incredibly stupid but is closest to what Nixon appeared to be saying in the only story that has surfaced which seems to more or less say exactly what has happened.

2) We had an obligation to buy him if we got promoted, had drawn up a contract with him in that event, but the contract didn't include a relegation wage drop clause in the event that we then came back down to the Championship. I think this one has come about from re-interpreting of the Nixon article. A bit speculative essentially, though it does fit with the kind of thing the EFL might ask of a previously embargoed club - no good reason to actually delay the deal past the deadline though.

3) Rovers hadn't drawn up a player contract for LOB in the event that we were obligated to buy due to promotion. This one seems to be purely speculative and hasn't been mentioned much. It's also pretty unlikely, since we did a loan with an obligation to buy a few years ago (Brereton) so we know that a player contract has to be drawn up if there's an obligation to buy involved. The only difference with this deal is the obligation might not kick in, but since it's possible a contract is still essential.

If it's 1 or 2, I'd think we have a strong case. Maybe not with the EFL themselves, who are pricks that only think of what's convenient for themselves, but in an independent arbitration court. As far as I'm aware, these are superfluous things to enquire about that in the case of 2, are good to have in there perhaps, and considerate to ask us about if it were say, Jan 29th, but as I said no good reason to delay us on deadline day.

I highly doubt it's 3, but if it is then we don't have a leg to stand on. I doubt we would have even appealed if it was just that, let alone citing causes beyond our control or whatever it was. And I expect we'd have heard by now.

Also worth considering that for 1 and arguably 3, Forest would be equally culpable for not noticing the oversight, as they'd have had eyes on the paperwork too (in the case of 3 I'd expect them to ask the basic question 'Have you and Lewis agreed terms?' before signing it all off). Therefore it would be very odd that they've publicly lambasted us if this were the only factor.

Of course, Nixon's article also claimed we slightly misspelt the agent's name on the paperwork. As much as that's highly pedantic, even petty, it's incompetent so legally I can see that standing up if we were to take it beyond the EFL's appeals process. It would also give Forest the right to be mad at us regardless of whether the other factor was 1, 2 or 3.

Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert.

Edited February 10, 2023 by bluebruce

[Armchair supporter supremo]

I think having such an abrupt transfer deadline is pretty silly, its just built up the way it is to get more people glued to shite sports news on deadline day. 

I think there should be a cut of point for clubs to put offers in for players, but then say another day or so for final player negotiations and paper work to be completed.

These are multi million pound business deals that can make or break a club/businesses fortunes, they need to be got right not rushed. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Armchair supporter supremo

[bluebruce]

45 minutes ago, RoverCanada said:

The EFL may simply retort that we failed to use standard contract templates/clauses that any other club would have readily included, hence we were incompetent. Case closed. I recall there was some fuss over Steve Kean's leaked contract defining his salary if we ever got relegated to League One - ha - given he would clearly (hopefully...) be fired by then but all eventualities need covering in a long-term contract (e.g., any payoff Kean was due for getting sacked would drop if we got relegated). But we can argue such details are obviously unneeded here for a short-term loan + conditional purchase agreement...

 

Unless the clauses other clubs 'would have readily included' are actually mandatory for player registration, I don't see how the league could argue it was right to enforce a delay in the transfer. It doesn't matter what good practice is, it matters what obligatory practice is.

[wilsdenrover]

10 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Unless the clauses other clubs 'would have readily included' are actually mandatory for player registration, I don't see how the league could argue it was right to enforce a delay in the transfer. It doesn't matter what good practice is, it matters what obligatory practice is.

This is the standard form of contract that has to be used - it’s the Premier League one but is the one referred to in the EFL regulations (64.2):

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/579f1eef2e69cf81541f5565/t/57bc6605e58c62993057c155/1471964677468/standard%2Bpl%2Bcontract.pdf

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by wilsdenrover

[Roverthechimp]

Could it be so stupid that wording was used along the lines of “If BRFC remain in the championship then the deal is off”?
Which would explain why the EFL needed to ask the question seeing as nothing would have been presented that covered what happened in the event of relegation this season

[DE.]

I mean, you have to have a cut off point somewhere, or you might as well bin the concept of a transfer window. Easy to say 'bump it to 30 minutes' or whatever, but all that means is there'll be complaints when a transfer isn't allowed due to it being 30 minutes and 10 seconds over. 

If we did submit on time and the EFL were delaying with irrelevant, stupid questions then obviously the fault lies with them and they should accept that. I can't help but think there's more to it than that though. 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by DE.

[ben_the_beast]

Well it's 5:30 so I assume the EFl are going to allow this to drag on even longer. Maybe they're giving us a lesson in meeting deadlines. 

Genuinely though this is ridiculous. Initially I thought the appeal had no chance. Now I think it may be possible. But we're all trying to join the dots between a chaotic Rovers and an incompetent, nonsensical EFL. Its pointless really trying to guess what is going on. One thing is certain, it's farcical it happened in the first place and farcical that it's still ongoing.

[neophox]

If its a clear NO it would had been told by now..... something is unsure and this will drag on. Sure they wanted this solved ahead of the weekend.

[speedies gonna get ya.]

I suspect they decided answer was no before the hearing. Rovers have perhaps offered a decent defence and the answer is still no but the EFL are working out how they can justify their response.

[Andy]

29 minutes ago, speedies gonna get ya. said:

I suspect they decided answer was no before the hearing. Rovers have perhaps offered a decent defence and the answer is still no but the EFL are working out how they can justify their response.

I'd suggest that this is the most likely situation.

[ageoftherover]

2 hours ago, speedies gonna get ya. said:

I suspect they decided answer was no before the hearing. Rovers have perhaps offered a decent defence and the answer is still no but the EFL are working out how they can justify their response.

I'd suggest they know they've cocked this up and they're just working out which response minimises the risk of legal liability for them. Ie, are they more exposed to damage claims if they ok the transfer and we get promoted/make play-offs or if they deny the transfer and we fail to get promoted? Either way there will likely be an aggrieved party and theyre probably running scenarios to decide which option is more palatable for them.

[bluebruce]

59 minutes ago, ageoftherover said:

I'd suggest they know they've cocked this up and they're just working out which response minimises the risk of legal liability for them. Ie, are they more exposed to damage claims if they ok the transfer and we get promoted/make play-offs or if they deny the transfer and we fail to get promoted? Either way there will likely be an aggrieved party and theyre probably running scenarios to decide which option is more palatable for them.

I wouldn't worry about that if I were them. Unless there is also a quality striker deal pending that we haven't heard anything about, we aren't getting promoted or making the playoffs. If that's the scenario they should just ok the transfer.

[ageoftherover]

8 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

I wouldn't worry about that if I were them. Unless there is also a quality striker deal pending that we haven't heard anything about, we aren't getting promoted or making the playoffs. If that's the scenario they should just ok the transfer.

You know, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if that was factoring into calculations.

[R0verb0y]

On 07/02/2023 at 21:07, RoverDom said:

Never having overturned a decision on appeal can mean mean one of two things

1) The appeal system is pointless and not for for purpose

2) The EFL has never cocked up a transfer

Insomnia, caused by another problem - not Rovers-related - has brought me to this thread.

Surely, while the first of those two points is valid, @RoverDom, I don't know where you're going with the second.

I've never been a qualified solicitor, but my "day job" used to be as a para-legal; and it's with that background that I ask, "How could the EFL 'cock up' a transfer?"

Isn't it the responsibility of the two clubs to ensure that the paperwork they submit to the regulatory authority - which is surely what the EFL is when it comes to transfers - is correctly completed? And as the keeper of those records, the role of the EFL is surely to do no more than verify that the paperwork is indeed correctly completed by the deadline it imposes on clubs for a transfer to be valid.

 

[R0verb0y]

On 08/02/2023 at 12:07, Exiled_Rover said:

Why is the Director of Football being asked to resign because the Club Secretary can't complete a form correctly?

He shouldn't be. Imo, it the club’s Chief Executive should be requiring the resignation of the official whose responsibility was to submit the necessary forms to the EFL before the deadline.

In many organisations, common decency might require that official's supervisor to accept some responsibility if the deadline was missed, especially if the supervisor was about 100 miles from the office as the deadline grew closer.

But it sounds like that common decency isn't in plentiful supply in Rovers' administrative staff.

[R0verb0y]

On 08/02/2023 at 16:51, goozburger said:

A lot of damage has already been done.

Tomasson is clearly unhappy with the situation. That's evident in his interviews since deadline day. If we have a Head Coach that is disillusioned with his Director of Football (and CEO) due to their incompetence and complacency, then it's clear to me that they should go.

There is also the damage that, rightly or wrongly, this has done to the club's reputation in the transfer market (should there have ever been one). It's hard enough as it is with our restricted budgets, but clubs are now going to think twice about dealing with us, particularly if those responsible are still in situ.

I felt the club had made decent strides in the past few seasons, in spite of Waggott's poor connection with the supporter base. The transfer deadline day debacle just reminded me that we are still run by people that are not competent enough for a football club looking towards promotion (be it this year, next year, or whatever the plan is). The conundrum in my mind is that our owners would just replace them with more unprofessional people, but in a normal club, these two should be fired.

As usual, nobody seems to be held accountable. I don't follow the line of forgiveness with Broughton. He's not good enough.

We were dealing with legalities here - "dotting the i's; and crossing the t's" - and I can't imagine that the club's adminstrative staff haven't had to cope with such pedantic issues in the past as the EFL oversaw "Deadline Day transfers".

I find it difficult to imagine, before our distant owners purchased us, that John Williams and Tom Finn would have gone to watch a match 100 miles distant from any means of ensuring that transfers went through before any deadline without having left behind at Ewood at least one member of staff capable of ensuring that any hitches that stemmed from what we now see as the EFL's pedantic attitude could be "sorted" before the 11.00 deadline.

[RoverDom]

4 hours ago, R0verb0y said:

"How could the EFL 'cock up' a transfer?"

Yeah they only have to receive review and approve or reject but within that there is surely scope to cock up given the volume of late transactions and last minute nature. 

If they're querying contractual clauses as has been suggested with us rather than just rubber stamping the transfer then there's definitely scope for then to have messed up the transfer

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

5 hours ago, R0verb0y said:

Insomnia, caused by another problem - not Rovers-related - has brought me to this thread.

Surely, while the first of those two points is valid, @RoverDom, I don't know where you're going with the second.

I've never been a qualified solicitor, but my "day job" used to be as a para-legal; and it's with that background that I ask, "How could the EFL 'cock up' a transfer?"

Isn't it the responsibility of the two clubs to ensure that the paperwork they submit to the regulatory authority - which is surely what the EFL is when it comes to transfers - is correctly completed? And as the keeper of those records, the role of the EFL is surely to do no more than verify that the paperwork is indeed correctly completed by the deadline it imposes on clubs for a transfer to be valid.

 

Is it not possible for the EFL to impose further checks that are outside the scope of what is reasonably required ? 

[Tugayisgod]

Makes me laugh, Forest fans giving it plenty on social media. Maybe they have selective memory ...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.efl.com/news/2020/october/efl-statement-kamil-grosicki/&ved=2ahUKEwjLl8iwhI39AhUHWcAKHaeHCgsQFnoECBoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw05yfjMZDEW8UDpxn8qGn7-

The link to the verdict at the end is interesting...

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tugayisgod

[K-Hod]

Given how many transfers they were able to successfully conduct in the summer, I’d say they were experts in getting deals over the line tbh….