That crossed my mind as well. Kept internal then it's one person's word against another and its a he said she said type scenario. We've now got a timeline of events documented by lawyers and laid out in public. I want to beleive that because I just don't want it to be true that as a club we thought that silvestre being in a different place to the player, or the CEO being at a football match, is something that the EFL is at fault for and should give leniency on.

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

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

Agreed. The club is riddled with cancer, but it's not GB or JDT

Morally and legally are two different concepts though. We fucked up and morally we're probably mostly at fault for the whole situation. Legally I can't see how we owe them anything.

Ludicrous to think LOB will be due compensation from us. We fucked up yes and that may damage our reputation when dealing with future transfers but I can't see how we owe him or forest compensation. The way I see it there are three parties at fault for LOB not playing and having his career on hold 1. Rovers for not completing paperwork on time and to a good standard 2. Forest for buying 1000 players and not having room in the squad for him 3. LOB for waiting until 11 hours before the deadline to decide that he actually would entertain the idea of coming here. Transfers breakdown all the time, he's still being paid and has the option of going to the MLS. From a legal point of view I can't see any reason why either the player or the club could claim compensation from us. The contracts couldn't be completed He's missing out on appearance and goal bonuses (first world problems right?) But he's probably got more of a case against forest for those as they've made him ineligible to play.

I don't know to be honest. I was going off the fact he said the buck stops with him and that he would look at the process. However the company secretary and team have a lot to answer for which I wouldn't think is within the remit of DoF. I can't tell where the blame lies, it's a transfer failing so you'd immediately think it was Broughton and team but it also feels like we were into the legalities and admin side of things.

Have to say I'm very disappointed with the reasoning put forward in the appeal. The fact we took it as far as we did made me think there was something in it but all we did was try and argue a pedantic point about the deadline and then give a sob story about staff being in the wrong place. I felt embarrassed reading the appeal and can't beleive we wasted the legal fees on it. Would have preferred Broughton came out admitted the cock up and made changes to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I don't get what takes so long. Surely the facts of the case are very straight forward. When the paperwork was submitted and what was queried (and when) is easy to establish so surely all it requires is someone independent to compare what happened to the rulebook and say "you're right and you're wrong". It shouldn't be rolling on a month later.

6 minutes?!?!

Has someone slowed that clock down?

Was about to say something similar. Players like Dolan can go from a standing start to their top speed in a flash but their top speed isnt very high. It's good in close quarters when you can leave your full back for dead but useless if you're going for a ball over the top and you have to sprint from the halfway line. I'm sure I saw something about 8-10 years ago of all the top speeds in PL and there were quite a lot of centre backs high up that last. I also remember seeing a video ages ago, it was Ronaldo vs a 100m sprinter and they did various challenges. Ronaldo left the sprinter for dead in the ones that involved twisting and turning but couldn't keep up with a straight line sprint. Think they had to do a slalom round a load of cones and Ronaldo had much quicker feet (as you'd expect).

Maybe waiting to see if we go up or not? Then he gets PL experience and PL wages

The only way I can make it work is if the buy option was so vaguely worded like "in the event rovers exit the division" but that's just so unfeasible even for us

Next week - how to tie your shoelaces

True - but the flip side of that is that even if their processes are 99.9% accurate then they've messed up atleast a small handful of transfers over the years and yet an appeal has never won. I've never seen a process that is 100% flawless, maybe they do exist but I doubt its within football governance. It's the hope that kills you isn't it🤣

And that's fine if Rovers messed up a crucial part of the transfer I agree there's no one else to blame. But there's a version of events pushed by nixon (or atleast an interpretation) that the EFL asked for clarification on something that didn't need clarified - it would be like the passport office ringing me up and asking my favourite pizza topping. Crucially no one knows though so we're owed an explanation of what went on not least because we've all sacrificed 17 days of work to transfer deadline day

If we feel we have a strong case we have to pursue it to the end regardless of whether or not it affects our on the pitch performance. The EFL can't be allowed to hide behind an appeals process that has always found in favour of the EFL. If we are genuinely in the right we need to make the EFL suffer for the good of everyone in the league not just Rovers.

This bit is spot on imo

What happens if O'brien gets bored of waiting, goes to the MLS and then miraculously our appeal gets upheld. Is he legally our player? Whether her stays at MLS or comes to Rovers there will surely be one hell of a compo claim from the club that have missed out. If its going in our favour the EFL might be minded to close it out sooner or later.

I just cant read this at all. If it was going to go in our favour, the EFL are making it much worse from themselves by dragging it out. On the flip side if it wasn't going in our favour we surely would have heard by now.

Detective Constable Chaddy: "Well the suspect said he didn't kill the victim and he wouldn't say that if it wasn't true would he?"

Bet you would have been shot down if you suggested giving him time...

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