I am genuinely curious to know what the PL have evidence wise to proceed with this case, I dont buy into the theory that they have been pushed into this and if they have then more fool them. They must be convinced that they have enough to gain a positive outcome and it will be interesting to see what this is. If the believe this to be the case then fair play to them for coming after us.
Likewise, I struggle to see a situation where if the club have knowingly breached the rules that we would have allowed it to get this far. I have no doubt that we have sailed close to the wind and used the woding of the rules to the limit, I dont know any big organisation that doesnt. There is nothing that I have seen from our owners over the last decade to make me distrust them when they claim everything is above board. We seem to be extremely confident in our position, rightly so if we have done no wrong.
I guess it will be a case of us winning some points and the PL winning some points, it all depends on who is successful on the main charges..
That seems a very fair take, but I’m not sure I fully agree on the PL.
I think there was huge pressure for action by the other clubs and PL where stuck between having not enough to charge us and large amounts of non-cooperation.
So the other clubs and I would (might have to hide after saying this) say arguably with reason put pressure on PL to charge if we were not co-operating. This part is just putting 2 and 2 together and making a guess on what has happened.
There is no doubt other clubs had information before us as I believe they leaked it before we got told.
I believe the club where surprised as the investigation had stalled and PL had a choice to make.
Now whether it was the pressure of other clubs or that the PL simply could not accept none co-op (which could be a fair position to take) they raised the charges. It seems highly co-incidental the date with the white paper coming out and I’m sure that plays in at some point.
So I don’t think PL have necessarily sat down and been advised of high probability of success, in fact I believe it could be quite low.
The long trail and large amount of evidence being called, I also feel paints a picture of no smoking gun or anything ground breaking, more a lot of small points to try and paint a bigger picture.
All the signs point to me of PL trying hard without too much of substance.
However, you are correct they will within there evidence win some points (which no doubt the media will pick up on) but the burden of proof for the high level charges.
I seriously doubt they will be anywhere near the standard required.