Complaint to the FA Premier League re the Berbatov saga

Scrabble said:
Your committment to this 'cause' is commendable but I wish you would let this thread die to be honest. I find the obsession of it all very embarrassing and seeing as the board is crawling with little munchens I'm sure they're loving it.

Let it go monty, they got him, he isn't doing particularly well and you need to get on with your life
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Probably loving the use of that term more tbh with you.
 
Bluemoon115 said:
Scrabble said:
Your committment to this 'cause' is commendable but I wish you would let this thread die to be honest. I find the obsession of it all very embarrassing and seeing as the board is crawling with little munchens I'm sure they're loving it.

Let it go monty, they got him, he isn't doing particularly well and you need to get on with your life
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Probably loving the use of that term more tbh with you.
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Not condoning the use of that word, but two points, 1) They shouldn't be on here spying, so stuff 'em and 2) The thick rags won't understand it anyway cos its in German.
 
Sorry for the delay, my avid readers(!); I've just e-mailed my penpal at the Premier League with the following:

Cathy,

Thanks for your reply of 13 October 2008, which to be frank was rather disappointing, given there didn't even appear to be the pretence of trying to address the points raised in my e-mail of 1 October 2008.

I am realistic enough to know that any further attempts to press you on this are likely to be as futile as my previous efforts. However there is one seperate matter I would like you to respond to, before I consider what further avenues are open to me to highlight what I see as the inability of the Premier League to properly regulate its member clubs, because of an agreement outside of your rulebook that effectively makes your rule K3 unworkable in its published sense. And the point is this.

Your website says, and I quote, 'like every other league in England, the Premier League comes under the jurisdiction of the Football Association and must submit its rules for approval and sanction'. That being so, can you let me know whether you have previously made the Football Association aware that the member clubs have decided that only in specfic circumstances will rule K3 be applied and if so, the date(s) you advised the Football Association of this. Please also let me know the date(s) the Football Association approved and sanctioned what many supporters would regard as a significant practical amendment to rule K3. If indeed you ever did.

And finally, are you able to point me in the direction of any Press Release published by your organisation where you have explicitly stated that your member clubs themselves had decided, as a collective body, that they only wished rule K3 to operate where a member club had made an official complaint, as I can only find comments such as the like sent in your first reply to me, which implied you were unable to act in this case because your rules did not allow you to - and not because it had been decided in advance by the clubs that the rule should not be invoked.

Yours etc,

M

In the meantime I'm starting on an article which I would hope to get out to any interested journos. PM me if you are able to help.
 
I notice that the Football League is investigating match fixing allegations even though no complaint has been made by another club.

Perhaps you should get an MP to ask about the Berbatov transfer.
 
NQT said:
I notice that the Football League is investigating match fixing allegations even though no complaint has been made by another club.

Perhaps you should get an MP to ask about the Berbatov transfer.
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Good point.
 
mackenzie said:
NQT said:
I notice that the Football League is investigating match fixing allegations even though no complaint has been made by another club.

Perhaps you should get an MP to ask about the Berbatov transfer.
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Good point.
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The problem is, it is a different organisation. And secondly, it is just rule K3 (as far as we know, although the PL refused to answer the question as to whether there were others) where the clubs themselves have in effect told the PL not to investigate unless a complaint is made by a member club.

So the PL's position at the moment would appear to be that they can investigate potential breaches of all rules apart from K3, regardless of whether their members make a complaint.
 
Is it not the case that the PL can investigate all rule breaches, including those relating to K3, if they wish to do so? An explicit exclusion of one particular rule is unlikely to exist. All rules are subject to 'reasonable interpretation' and, if the PL has in the past taken the view that an investigation of a breach of rule K3 needs a trigger complaint, they have the defence of 'accepted practice'.
I suspect that the PL are not concerrned about any legal challenge and that they will not alter their decision regarding the Berbatov transfer. However, they will not wish to have to explain what amounts to a collusive stance in public, and ultimately forcing them to do so seems to me to be a worthy aim that might actually change things in the future. Pressure is needed now.The media and maybe politicians are the way to go.
 
Montgomery Burns said:
mackenzie said:
Good point.
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The problem is, it is a different organisation. And secondly, it is just rule K3 (as far as we know, although the PL refused to answer the question as to whether there were others) where the clubs themselves have in effect told the PL not to investigate unless a complaint is made by a member club.

So the PL's position at the moment would appear to be that they can investigate potential breaches of all rules apart from K3, regardless of whether their members make a complaint.
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You just need to look out for other potential howlers within the Prem then.

It WILL happen....I am sure about that. Then you can set about them with even more gusto.

Ignore some of the posters on here that want you to let it lie. The whole Prem thing stinks to high heaven, and I want you to piss them off. They need someone to let them know they are watching them.

Good luck.
 
I have to say the customer service standards at the PL appear to have improved, at least in terms of speed of response. The short answer is they have not informed the FA, as I suspected.

I will ruminate and come back to you again once my rumination has been completed.

Ms Long responded as follows:

M,

The Football Association are well aware that we do not act on every item of press speculation, and it would be nonsensical for us to go through the press articles each day and inform them hour by hour of every bit of internet speculation there is and how we don't intend to act on it! Apologies if this seems exaggerated, but it really is the reality of the situation. In any event we are not obliged to discuss with every detail of the implementation of each Rule, simply any Rule alterations as and when they are applied. The FA too, have to make similar decisions as to when to charge a Club with a breach of their Rules.

We don't have any press releases I can point you to. We rarely issue press releases, as we are in such regular contact with the media it is rarely necessary.

I have tried to answer each of your points as fully as I can, but I hope you appreciate there is a limit to how much time we are able to spend on each piece of correspondence. I don't expect that you will be satisfied with the responses we have given you as you clearly have a different view of how football Rules should be applied. Please be assured that we have taken your points seriously - we do not underestimate the importance of this issue - and have taken considerable time to ensure that we have addressed them correctly.

Regards

Cathy
 
All the best Monty. I hope you can keep going and possibly gets some media interest.

My personal opinion, the FA are bent and will never instigate investigations against any of the so-called "Top 4". I have lost all confidence (not that I had much) in the FA's impartiality and any willingness that they may have to actually pursue issues to try and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

A deaf, dumb and blind man could have seen that Levy's comment after the Berbatov transfer was his final attempt to try and get some justice from the system. It was blindingly obvious he could not specifically request further investigation, probably because of the alleged bung.

The only difference between the English FA, English PL and the Italian equivalents - the english ones haven't been caught yet.
 
Nuclear time! I have just sent the following message to Lord Triesman, Brian Barwick and Adrin Cooper at the FA and copied in David Conn, Henry Winter, Martin Samuel, James Lawton, Paul Hayward and Steven Howard. I don't have e-mail addresses for Mick Dennis or Alan Nixon as these bounced so if anyone can help please let me know.

A COPY OF THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT TO THE MEDIA OUTLETS SHOWN IN THE ‘CC’ COLUMN OF THIS E-MAIL

I understand the Premier League operates under the jurisdiction of the Football Association and like every other league in England must submit its rules to you for approval and sanction.

I am told that it is a general requirement for all leagues to have a rule in place to cover incidents that are known in common parlance as ‘tapping up’ The Premier League’s rule K3 is intended to cover this issue and is mentioned in the following terms:

‘Any club which by itself, by any of its Officials, by any of its Players, by its Agent, by any other Person on its behalf or by any other means whatsoever makes an approach directly or indirectly to a Contract Player except as permitted by Rule K1.1.2 or Rule K2 shall be in breach of these Rules and may be dealt with under the provisions of Section R’.

And rule R1 gives the Premier League the authority to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach as it sees fit:

‘The board shall have power to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach of these Rules and for that purpose may require any Manager, Match Official, official or Player to appear before it and to produce documents’.

It is a reasonable assumption that the two rules referred to above were amongst the rules submitted to you by the Premier League which you subsequently approved and sanctioned.

The regulatory framework is therefore in place to police any such allegations of ‘tapping up’. However I have been told by the Premier League that member clubs have indicated they do not wish rule K3 to be used until and unless a formal complaint is made by one of the member clubs of the organisation, or to quote them directly:

‘Premier League Rules are essentially an agreement between member Clubs that the Board applies, and in the absence of a complaint this is not a Rule that the collective body of Clubs wish to apply’.

This disclosure came as something of a revelation to ordinary supporters who had been asking the Premier League to investigate allegations of an illegal approach by Manchester United to Dimitar Berbatov on the last transfer deadline day, in accordance with its own published rules.

The initial response from the Premier League implied it was its own rules which prevented it from making enquiries when a complaint had not been received from a member club. However the Premier League later admitted this was not the case and only when questioned in more detail did they admit that a policy decision had been taken only to use rule K3 when a formal complaint had been made, and that as mentioned above this was at the behest of the member clubs. I can supply you with copies of e-mails I have received from the Premier League in relation to the points raised if you require.

The man on the Clapham Omnibus might be forgiven for thinking that the intervention of the clubs was designed to prevent the Premier League having much by way of effective power in being able to police the system in relation to allegations of illegal approaches. I was so concerned I asked the Premier League for confirmation they had asked you to approve what in any practical sense is an amendment to rule K3. A Premier League official has confirmed to me that they have not, and I must therefore presume that you are unaware that the Premier League has in place what many would describe as a secret agreement with its clubs which means in practice that rule K3 as intended and as approved by you has essentially been neutered by the very clubs the rule K3 was aimed at.

I would therefore ask you to make appropriate enquiries of the Premier League as by their own admission, they have entered into an agreement with the clubs which at the very least is intended to circumvent the spirit of rule K3 and at the more serious end of the scale allows, if unchecked, a culture of ‘anything goes’ to pervade through the game – and that by a body who is supposed to police the system, at least in relation to the Premier League.

I do not feel it an exaggeration to suggest the Premier League has a duty of care to all involved in its competition, to ensure that its rules are adhered to by all and that the rules are enforced without fear or favour. Many supporters I have spoken to recently feel the Premier League is not fit for purpose in this regard.

They say this because of the hitherto little publicised agreement with the member clubs mentioned above, which to the average fan seems to be little different than the same type of hidden side agreement characterised in the West Ham/Carlos Tevez affair. The average fan could perhaps be forgiven for thinking the Premier League has agreed, behind closed doors and completely off-record, only to uphold rule K3 in extreme circumstances and in the process given the more powerful clubs carte blanche to do pretty much what they want in relation to this rule.

On the face of it all an ‘offending’ club has to do, if ‘found out’, is to agree a level of consideration with the ‘victim’ club to avoid an investigation by the Premier League – it is only when the amount of consideration cannot be agreed upon that the rule can be activated. Only then could the Premier League in theory launch an investigation because no matter what, they cannot act unless they receive an official complaint from a member club.

This agreement with the clubs came to my attention in the aftermath of the transfer of Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United on the last transfer deadline day. Extensive coverage in all media outlets had suggested Manchester United made an approach for Dimitar Berbatov in direct contravention of rule K3 and subsequently reached an unspecified agreement with Tottenham Hotspur in return for Tottenham not making an official complaint to the Premier League in respect of their conduct.

Taking the agreement to circumvent rule K3 to its logical conclusion one can only conclude that if a manager or official of a member club came on Sky Sports News in person tonight and brazenly admitted to breaching rule K3, even perhaps going as far to boast his club had paid the other club not to report the incident, the manager would know there could be no prospect of an investigation in respect of the breach as he would be in full knowledge that the other club had received satisfactory consideration and would not therefore make a complaint to the Premier League.

I asked the Premier League to respond with their views about a scenario I presented of potential collusion between two clubs, where one club who had knowingly broken the rules by making an illegal approach paid the other club not to report the alleged breach to them. The Premier League failed to address this question which is somewhat disappointing given it would appear, prima facie, that this was precisely the allegation that had been made in the national media. Namely, following an apparent illegal approach to Dimitar Berbatov Manchester United ultimately reached agreement with Tottenham Hotspur whereby in return for an unspecified yet tangible consideration Tottenham Hotspur would drop its public threats to make a second official complaint to the Premier League about Manchester United’s alleged breach of rule K3, this time in relation to events of 1 September 2008.

This is perhaps the most high profile ‘tapping up’ case since the Ashley Cole affair. Every media outlet you care to mention suggested that despite Tottenham Hotspur receiving and accepting a bid from Manchester City for the player, the club at the time had not received an acceptable bid from Manchester United and had therefore only given Manchester City permission to speak to the player. Tottenham's chairman was widely reported as stating Manchester United did not have permission to speak to the player, but despite this, club officials of Manchester United, including the manager, met Mr Berbatov, discussed and agreed personal terms and conducted a medical. If press reports are to be believed, it is suggested that David Gill, who is the Premier League’s representative on the main board of the Football Association was present for at least some of these discussions, which would be a matter of some considerable concern if true.

It was furthermore suggested in the press after the event that Tottenham Hotspur withdrew their threat of a complaint as part of the 'deal' that eventually took the player to Manchester United.

It is scarcely conceivable that the Premier League as a body is in effect powerless to uphold its own rules, being prevented from even investigating many significant allegations of wrongdoing in the game that without question bring the game into disrepute.

That it is seemingly prevented from doing so by member clubs reportedly coming together to circumvent Premier League rule K3 and in the process disadvantaging a club who made a proper approach is somewhat galling for those who like the game to be played by the rules.

I have compiled a dossier which contains examples in the national media that suggests that Manchester United made an illegal approach to Dimitar Berbatov. I do not intend to send this to you within the body of this message as you will already be aware of the reports, but I can send details to you separately if you so wish. In view of the overwhelming and quite detailed coverage one could perhaps be forgiven for believing media reports in relation to the Berbatov transfer amount to rather more than mere press speculation.

The subliminal messages sent to the common man regarding apparent abuses of Premier League rule K3 seem loud and clear. The average fan may well feel the Premier League only act when they absolutely have to and not before with many supporters feeling the Premier League has no appetite for ensuring its more powerful members adhere to the rules. And that's a terrible thing to believe, because this goes right to the heart of the integrity of the game.

It's not as if fans don't know and even accept, albeit reluctantly, that tapping up doesn't go on. With the advent of agents I think we would all imagine it's often done via them so clubs are able to proclaim they have not spoken to the player, at least directly anyway.

But if what has been reported is true then Manchester United’s conduct has been breathtaking. An onlooker reviewing events unfolding on 1 September could have been forgiven for thinking it was as if Manchester United didn't care about the potential consequences of what they were doing, such was their desperation to make the deal go through.

But of course, and unknown at the time to the rest of us mere mortals, they would have known that as long as they ultimately paid the price demanded by Tottenham then nothing of consequence would be done by the Premier League, the very body entrusted with ensuring rule K3 was adhered to, because of the secret agreement that is in place with regard to rule K3.

There are a number of very clear messages the football authorities are giving the average fan by the Premier League’s refusal to uphold rule K3 in its literal and absolute sense. These are that the authorities are prepared to turn a blind eye to any tapping up unless and until one club makes a formal complaint to the Premier League. That the Premier League is not prepared to, nay, not able to uphold its own rules, due to an unpublished and off-record agreement between it and the clubs. And that as a consequence, the Premier League is not prepared to stand up for the rights of clubs and their supporters that play by the rules in relation to rule K3.

As the Premier League has already told me they are unable to investigate events surrounding the Berbatov transfer I call on you to investigate the Premier League’s secret agreement with its clubs in relation to rule K3 and secondly instruct the Premier League to carry out an enquiry as to whether Manchester United broke rule K3 on 1 September 2008 in relation to the transfer of Mr Berbatov. Given the Premier League have deliberately entered into a side agreement to negate the intent of their rule K3 then it falls to you to act as the overall policeman, since they self-evidently cannot be trusted to fulfil the role. In my humble opinion of course.

And finally, whilst I am more than happy to let The Football Association have my full contact details I would ask that you and all staff connected with your organisation respect my right to privacy in all matters and do not divulge my personal identity in relation to this letter to any third party outside your organisation. I will send details of my name, address and telephone number to you once you have let me know you are happy to comply with this request.
 
A little overstated in my opinion Monty, but does make several strong points. The prelude: re copies to the media - very good tactic indeed - almost guarantees action.

Your cause is a worthy one and I admire your skill and tenacity. Keep going!
 
really commendable work MB.

for the sake of your man joe public I'd suggest that you make clearer the ramifications. What we appear to be demonstrably seeing here is the unlevel playing field that our sides play on. to rally a groundswell of support i'd suggest that the point that the rags generally appear to have been allowed to *cheat* is not going to be a hard sell here, North and West London, or on Merseyside. It should be self-evident I know, but drawing the line and stating the point will always help, I think, if only to help those who feel remote from it to understand what it means to them.

If Berbatov scores the winning goal against your team at weekend, surely, under the circumstances, you've been robbed, and the PL itself is the fence?
 
The message has now got to the Express and Mirror so thanks for those who helped.

For good measure I have also sent it direct to Lord Triesman and Richard Scudamore at the FA plus our friends at Private Eye. And Mrs Burns reminded me of the Panorama programme of a couple of years ago called 'Football's Dirty Secrets'. So I rang them and told them I had uncovered another one. Thank you very much, they cried, send it to us and if we can't use it we'll pass it on within the organisation to someone who hopefully will be able to take it forward.

I'll try and post it on all 92 Rivals sites over the next few days. Sorry, make that 91, I'm not going anywhere near their site.

Cooking with gas.
 
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