Appeal to EFL

[Exiled_Rover]

3 hours ago, ben_the_beast said:

On reflection, I'm quite pissed off about this. Maybe I need to be more cynical in life as I genuinely thought us taking it this far meant there was legitimate reason behind the appeal. Fair play to those posters who saw through what people at the club were doing. Spending money to take the heat off and protect themselves. 

I'm interested as to who drove the appeal reaching this stage and like the poster who has emailed Waggott, I want a true and transparent investigation. Fat chance of that happening since the ones who probably lodged the appeal are those culpable. Looking at the spurious reasons behind our appeal maybe there were a lot of heated discussions behind closed doors, which is why it took so long for the club to communicate with fans when this first happened. Why Broughton came out and said the buck stops with him, I've no idea as there are certainly others in the firing line far before him. Maybe he just gradually recognised that nobody else at the club was going to have the decency to do so.

I was annoyed at us not getting the transfer over the line, but this feels like treating the fans with contempt. So Waggott and Sylvester could protect their own backs.

I'm going to try and forget about this now. The playing staff and JDT are making us proud and bringing genuine enjoyment. That doesn't mean I want this swept under the carpet, but I'm sure it will. The appeal was stage one of operation save face.

That's exactly what that Broughton interview was.

He gave an accountable face - it wasn't his mistake, but he had the decency to knowledge that the fans needed communicating with.

The rats at fault would never put their heads above the parapet like that.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 hour ago, 47er said:

That would be up to us.

If there’s nothing in writing what’s to stop Rochdale accepting another offer from another club in Summer ?

[Mercer]

You would think our owners and Pasha would want to know why we keep losing 'legal' cases, Berg, Shaw etc and now EFL.  Both costly and embarrassing.

[wilsdenrover]

39 minutes ago, J*B said:

I agree with every single thing you’ve posted here in the last 24 hours - there is absolutely no way LOB or Forest have a leg to stand on RE any form of compensation. Essentially we proposed a deal and - through our own negligence - didn’t get it approved by the EFL. The contract is worthless until it’s signed by all parties AND approved by the league. Forest could have told him to come back to Nottingham at any point on Deadline Day and there was nothing we could do. 

Reading through the order of events it just makes me even more infuriating that Waggott was at Birmingham that evening. There isn’t a single explanation which I’ll accept about what on earth he was doing there - and I certainly won’t accept “there’s an unwritten rule that the CEO attends every game” which was the explanation at the time. 

To be absolutely clear we had our CEO and Owners Representative in Birmingham, our Secretary at Ewood and our DOF in Manchester (then Brockhall) with the player. Absolutely astounding. They should have all been at wherever is best placed to deliver a transfer, whether that is Ewood or Brockhall. We put LOB through club media in the key hour period between 9:45pm and 10:45pm where the EFL where waiting for details of the transfer - INCREDIBLE!!! Do the fecking media the following day!

As I’ve just mentioned, we didn’t just propose the loan agreement (a contract in itself) we also executed it.

What we didn’t do is execute the playing contract related to a permanent transfer - we merely agreed what that contract would be should the option be exercised.

[wilsdenrover]

4 minutes ago, Mercer said:

You would think our owners and Pasha would want to know why we keep losing 'legal' cases, Berg, Shaw etc and now EFL.  Both costly and embarrassing.

A look in the mirror might suffice…

[den]

I haven’t read all the posts on here. The LOB appeal was based on rovers running out of time because of “complications” over required clauses? 
 

What were rovers reasons for submitting the straight forward deal for the Rochdale lad late?

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, den said:

I haven’t read all the posts on here. The LOB appeal was based on rovers running out of time because of “complications” over required clauses? 
 

What were rovers reasons for submitting the straight forward deal for the Rochdale lad late?

I don’t think anyone knows because that one hasn’t gone to arbitration 

Based on the O’Brien one I guess we’d all go for incompetence…

Edited March 2, 2023 by wilsdenrover

[Gav]

23 minutes ago, Mercer said:

You would think our owners and Pasha would want to know why we keep losing 'legal' cases, Berg, Shaw etc and now EFL.  Both costly and embarrassing.

That would imply that actually give a shit......

[wilsdenrover]

1 minute ago, Gav said:

That would imply that actually give a shit......

Or even know about the losses…

[den]

14 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

I don’t think anyone knows because that one hasn’t gone to arbitration 

Based on the O’Brien one I guess we’d all go for incompetence…

Thanks.  
 

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by den

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, J*B said:

I agree with every single thing you’ve posted here in the last 24 hours - there is absolutely no way LOB or Forest have a leg to stand on RE any form of compensation. Essentially we proposed a deal and - through our own negligence - didn’t get it approved by the EFL. The contract is worthless until it’s signed by all parties AND approved by the league. Forest could have told him to come back to Nottingham at any point on Deadline Day and there was nothing we could do. 

Reading through the order of events it just makes me even more infuriating that Waggott was at Birmingham that evening. There isn’t a single explanation which I’ll accept about what on earth he was doing there - and I certainly won’t accept “there’s an unwritten rule that the CEO attends every game” which was the explanation at the time. 

To be absolutely clear we had our CEO and Owners Representative in Birmingham, our Secretary at Ewood and our DOF in Manchester (then Brockhall) with the player. Absolutely astounding. They should have all been at wherever is best placed to deliver a transfer, whether that is Ewood or Brockhall. We put LOB through club media in the key hour period between 9:45pm and 10:45pm where the EFL where waiting for details of the transfer - INCREDIBLE!!! Do the fecking media the following day!

Disagree with your legal perspective.

Law is either statute or case (established by precedent and there always has to be a first case which becomes a precedent and this could be it!).

Feel certain Forest or O'Brien or both will have a pop at us.

All parties had signed contracts and execution was only frustrated by one body failing to meet the timely requirements of its regulatory body.  I think negligence could be construed to have caused financial and other loss.

Only the next few days / weeks will tell but I strongly suspect Rovers haven't heard the last of this.

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Disagree with your legal perspective.

Law is either statute or case (established by precedent and there always has to be a first case which becomes a precedent and this could be it!).

Feel certain Forest or O'Brien or both will have a pop at us.

All parties had signed contracts and execution was only frustrated by one body failing to meet the timely requirements of its regulatory body.  I think negligence could be construed to have caused financial and other loss.

Only the next few days / weeks will tell but I strongly suspect Rovers haven't heard the last of this.

Do you agree with my interpretation I posted a while ago?:

Loan agreement entered into - ‘sueable’ losses

Permanent contract agreed but not entered into - no ‘sueable’ losses

[Gavrover]

2 hours ago, Mercer said:

Well for starters, Forest are now paying wages and employer's NI at 13/14% that they wouldn't have been doing should he have joined Rovers on loan.  Seemingly, Rovers were meeting O'Brien's wages in full so that's at least £500k over the loan period.

If Rovers get promoted, Forest would have pocketed a £10million fee and would have freed themselves of the remaining obligations on O'Brien's contract - that's likely to be no less than £5million.

Then you have what O'Brien might want for Rovers stalling his career and maybe putting it into regression.

Should Rovers narrowly miss promotion when O'Brien might have given them an edge then that's perhaps a £500million opportunity cost including parachute payments in the event of relegation.

What a sorry and potentially huge financial mess.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Load of deals don’t get over the line due to errors or lateness due to things being last minute. If forest had told us the day before issue would have been different. We are incompetent but no one is going to claim huge wages because a transfer breaks down. Just doesn’t happen. We will no doubt be stung for some legal fees for the EFL though 

[den]

So we submitted two deals - both late. One of them was as simple as could be, I imagine. 
 

Seems to me that we just weren’t capable of completing either deal as required by EFL regulations - with or without contributory factors. I would have thought the club might have realised that before they entered into a potentially expensive legal appeal that they didn’t believe they could win anyway.

So poor.

Edited March 2, 2023 by den

[RoverDom]

19 minutes ago, den said:

What were rovers reasons for submitting the straight forward deal for the Rochdale lad late?

Probably something ridiculous like the admin team having a lasagne in the oven that took longer than expected to cook. 

[arbitro]

6 minutes ago, RoverDom said:

Probably something ridiculous like the admin team having a lasagne in the oven that took longer than expected to cook. 

That's daft mate - you are implying that our lot know how to operate an oven.

😃😃

[wilsdenrover]

1 minute ago, arbitro said:

That's daft mate - you are implying that our lot know how to operate an oven.

😃😃

No he’s not, he’s just forgotten to mention why it took longer - they forgot to turn the oven on 😁

[Exiled in Toronto Mk2]

I think there are some good clues in the agreed timeline as to the underlying problems:

First document submitted at 20:28 - it probably never occurred to Broughton that a professional football club couldn’t finish submitting the rest of the paperwork in 2.5hrs.

The EFL intervention lasted only 27 minutes until 21:48. Nothing was then submitted for 1hr and 6mins at 22:54, turning a tight but manageable schedule into a last minute panic. This delay was the catalyst for disaster.

Because of this delay, other factors come into play: e.g. the player being at Brockhall not Ewood. While it was Broughton who took him there, he did so at a time when all looked in hand. Whatever was the delay in that 1hr 6mins, Sylvester should’ve given Broughton a heads up this was going to go to the wire so get the player to Ewood.

23:03 Sylvester resubmits form H4 in error. This to me implies he’s in a panic, making basic mistakes and, from this point, the transfer is doomed. Factor in there’s another last minute transfer going on, and events showed we clearly had neither the capacity nor capability to do two last-minuters at once. That could be because of some of, or all of, Sylvester not up to the job, hollowing out of the office admin team, poor / non-existent communication between Sylvester and Broughton, absence of their boss.

Given all the above, it is beyond belief that the one man accountable for all parts of the organization functioning smoothly on the most crucial evening of the season chose to eff off to a footy match 100 miles away.

[booth]

5 hours ago, CambridgeRover said:

I know I have said this a million times but Steve Waggott should not be our CEO. If we as a club are always looking to improve we need to be looking for the best people for each job. 

In his previous clubs he was the CEO for Coventry when they were relegated with their awful previous owner and Charlton when they went into administration, ground sharing,  fan protests!!

Do people think it is coincidence this man has worked for some of the worst owners throughout the football league. No no, he found his level, being employed as the stooge for horrendous owners.  Until the day that Waggott goes nothing truly good can come to our club.

The top comment on the telegraph (from a dingle)  the day he joined summed it up perfectly and nothing has changed since

 

Steve Waggott: "This is my fifth club." "The first one was Charlton Athletic... We got relegated, tough times" "after that I moved to Coventry City for four very tough years." "I went for a short while to Gillingham" "I did a short stint with Southend" "Then I came to Blackburn."

There's real pedigree there.. What an absolute shambles. You really could not make this stuff up! It's no wonder your club is utterly shafted.

Ex football agent, failed CEO at multiple clubs. It shouldn't be a surprise when things go wrong.

[RoverDom]

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

That's daft mate - you are implying that our lot know how to operate an oven.

😃😃

Good point since Mrs Mowbray stopped making her lemon drizzle the oven hasn't been touched. 

[Dreams of 1995]

I am surprised there’s not been a few apologising about the outrageous accusations made against Broughtons professionalism and personality 

It’s abundantly obvious he did his job correctly. By 8.25pm he had agreed to sign Lewis O’Brien after chasing him throughout the transfer window. As a DOF his job was complete when he had the boy in the training facilities. It was down to the secretarial team - who do not come out of this well at all - to finish the rest. They didn’t

Broughton did his job. And then had the balls to go out and face the music. Where is Waggott? Where is Sylvester? Nowhere. Living it up, not arsed.

If GB had a competent commercial department (because this is a commercial matter) then he would have secured us one of our best signing in a long time, with the option to purchase at a good fee if promoted. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Dreams of 1995

[roversinmyblood]

51 minutes ago, Exiled in Toronto Mk2 said:

I think there are some good clues in the agreed timeline as to the underlying problems:

First document submitted at 20:28 - it probably never occurred to Broughton that a professional football club couldn’t finish submitting the rest of the paperwork in 2.5hrs.

The EFL intervention lasted only 27 minutes until 21:48. Nothing was then submitted for 1hr and 6mins at 22:54, turning a tight but manageable schedule into a last minute panic. This delay was the catalyst for disaster.

Because of this delay, other factors come into play: e.g. the player being at Brockhall not Ewood. While it was Broughton who took him there, he did so at a time when all looked in hand. Whatever was the delay in that 1hr 6mins, Sylvester should’ve given Broughton a heads up this was going to go to the wire so get the player to Ewood.

23:03 Sylvester resubmits form H4 in error. This to me implies he’s in a panic, making basic mistakes and, from this point, the transfer is doomed. Factor in there’s another last minute transfer going on, and events showed we clearly had neither the capacity nor capability to do two last-minuters at once. That could be because of some of, or all of, Sylvester not up to the job, hollowing out of the office admin team, poor / non-existent communication between Sylvester and Broughton, absence of their boss.

Given all the above, it is beyond belief that the one man accountable for all parts of the organization functioning smoothly on the most crucial evening of the season chose to eff off to a footy match 100 miles away.

For me Sylvestor and Waggot should go. They have the experience of these last minute deals and screwed up due to lack of organisation and coordination. Amateur hour. Broughton got the player to agree to join us and agreed the potential player contract and sorted the medical. The paperwork was left to the “professionals to sort out”!! It’s not his fault that we have a useless admin team. 
From such a mega deal of a “game changer” player Waggot should have been on hand to make sure everything went smoothly. He should have been around for any eventuality. Very, very poor leadership. 

[lraC]

One has to wonder how many others have gone wrong in the last, but we have managed to sort them out, as we had time? Maybe the EFL were fed up of for example sending the Hyam papers back 2 or 3 times, before the finally got them right.

They may well do this all the time, but on this one deadline day deadline minute, meant we had no time to go back and correct it.

Billy Smart would do a better job.

[wilsdenrover]

5 minutes ago, lraC said:

One has to wonder how many others have gone wrong in the last, but we have managed to sort them out, as we had time? Maybe the EFL were fed up of for example sending the Hyam papers back 2 or 3 times, before the finally got them right.

They may well do this all the time, but on this one deadline day deadline minute, meant we had no time to go back and correct it.

Billy Smart would do a better job.

[Rogerb]

For me this deal had The V,s  mitts all over it. The insistence on pursueing the appeal as far as possible even when the opinion of the DOF was it was highly unlikely to succeed. The sudden availability to pay a wage way above the ceiling. The fact JDT wanted a striker and not another mid fielder. it was another of their special operation punts. Let's not forget they have previous for pursueing pointless legal cases and not listening to advice