{"id":15405,"date":"2020-03-14T20:03:22","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T20:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=15405"},"modified":"2020-03-14T20:07:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T20:07:01","slug":"the-league-ends-when-the-spfl-say-it-ends-as-do-the-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=15405","title":{"rendered":"The League Ends When The SPFL Say It Ends..As Do The Debates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judging EBTs : guilty does his bit for sporting integrity and looks at the rules to pertaining who wins what and why when the league championship is brought to an abrupt and unexpected end….<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’ve been firing emails to news agencies all day about the SPFL having the capability\u00a0 to finish league early rather than voiding it.<\/p>\n

At this stage in the proceedings, their usual lack of leadership has led to various experts giving their own opinions on exactly what should be done and why, and yet it’s all immaterial.<\/p>\n

It would be nice if they decided to either end the season or simply postpone it.<\/p>\n

As they have so far failed to clarify what will happen, speculation has evolved into fantasy for some experts…<\/p>\n

Experts such as Alex Rae, who is an example of what happens when someone not entirely qualified for a job gets handed the chance to show why he shouldn’t have been given the job.<\/p>\n

Alex is employed by one or two media outlets to offer his opinion, usually in crayon, on matters pertaining to Scottish football.<\/p>\n

He’s prone to getting a little confused, however, and on the current debate as to whether or not Celtic should be handed the title if the competition is suspended he offered this analogy…<\/p>\n

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Alex Rae<\/span><\/div>\n
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@alexrae1969<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If a horse race <\/span>over a mile starts and one horse is 10 lengths clear and the rest have fallen and the lead horse falls at the last hurdle do they give the lead horse the win as he was in front + does the bookies pay out as a winner ??? Asking for a friend ?\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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Not the best analogy, as you can see, in fact, one could argue it’s scarcely an analogy.\u00a0 It’s just some words, not necessarily in the right order, which he uses to suggest that the league isn’t finished because none of the clubs have got over the line.<\/p>\n

I think.<\/p>\n

Although it did spark a bit of debate…<\/p>\n

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Fr Jeb<\/span><\/div>\n
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Replying to<\/p>\n

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If a Horse Race has a heavily doped horse & it wins 9 races in a row but toll of cheating means a Vet has to put the horse down, and the owner of the horse sells its name & history to a different horse owner who uses the name. Do the old wins still count?\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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from a number of people…<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Se\u00e1n de B\u00farca<\/span><\/div>\n
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@seanburke1888<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00b7<\/span><\/div>\n

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Replying to<\/p>\n

@alexrae1969<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What if one horse dies and it gets replaced by a similar horse, is it the same horse?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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\u00a0Michael Stewart, the pundit placed into self isolation by the BBC when he infected their airwaves with an opinion that didn’t match their guidelines, countered…<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Stewart<\/span><\/div>\n
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@mstewart_23<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00b7<\/span><\/div>\n

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Although I agree in principle that we should be trying to finish the campaigns before handing out trophies, equally these are unprecedented times and we should stay away from the partisan rhetoric. It doesn\u2019t help anyone during these difficult times.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Alex didn’t take that lying down, though he probably should have…<\/div>\n
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@mstewart_23<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Agreed. In these unprecedented times, partisan rhetoric isn’t a one way street, although fact based opinion is a much better option as ur always keen to point out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So, to close the debate, here is some fact based opinion….courtesy of the rulebook.<\/div>\n
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Remember, there are no plans to shut the season down, only media speculation, and it’s more than likely it will restarted at the point it left off when the global health crisis has eased.<\/div>\n
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And there’s no need for\u00a0 talk of postponements or what happens when leagues are abandoned, when there is already a clause covering the length of a season.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Under page 23 of the existing rules :<\/span><\/div>\n
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https:\/\/<\/span>spfl.co.uk\/admin\/filemanager\/files\/shares\/SPFL%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%2022-Jul-19.pdf<\/span>\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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“<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Season means the period of the year commencing on the date of the first League Match in a Season and ending on the date of the last League Match in the same Season <\/span><\/em>or otherwise as determined by the Board <\/span><\/em><\/strong>and which excludes the Close Season”\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
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This in fact means if the SPFL board decides the league shouldn’t fulfil the rest of it’s fixtures, all leagues finish as is and the appropriate action is taken for each clubs position in that league.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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It’s up to them.<\/div>\n
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This is, in fact, what all clubs agreed to at start of the season with this document dated 22nd July 2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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I understand we’re in uncharted waters here, but I don’t see how any club can mount a legal challenge against such a decision.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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When it’s already part of the leagues rules and regulations.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0The facts, not an opinion.\u00a0 Though we can hardly expect the SMSM to suddenly start taking any notice of facts….<\/div>\n
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And although the SFA\/SPFL and whichever entity is working out of Ibrox may want to change those rules, even Peter Lawwell might argue that this is one rule he won’t ignore when oit comes to allocating champions League spots next season….<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judging EBTs : guilty does his bit for sporting integrity and looks at the rules to pertaining who wins what and why when the league…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/xBlZ2530.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-40t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15409,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15405\/revisions\/15409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}