Jackie Broon

Not necessarily, I deal with decisions that can only be challenged on a point of law, there's pretty much always a point of law that can be found to challenge on and I've seen many challenges go one way at the High Court, then the other way at the Court of Appeal and even back again at the Supreme Court. Although, I can't see it coming to that.

The legislative basis for the arbitration is the Arbitration Act 1996, that allows appeal on a point of law. Irrespective of what it says in the PL's rules I don't think they could override the right to appeal in primary legislation. Seems to be a common theme in the PL's rules to go above and beyond UK law with no legislative basis to do so. Although, if the arbitration fails I would think the fall-back will be the CAT case rather than an appeal, but I think that would be more likely to be for compensation rather than a route to the takeover because it will take too long.

Yes, it was changed in January, the section 'Acquisition of Control' (F24-27) was added. I assume they will be using the rules at the time that the declaration was submitted in April 2020. Even if they are using the new version, there have been no changes to the definitions in section A that are being considered in the arbitration.

I don't buy the 'club wanted to make a point' stuff. The club thought that Beloff should have been removed and lost that argument. I personally (and admittedly completely unqualified to do so) think the decision was flawed and probably challengeable (I see High Court decisions overturned by the Court of Appeal all the time in my line of work, so they're not infallible). Basically the Judge said that the arbitration is just about section A (which is just definitions) not section F (the O&D test) which Beloff forgot to disclose he had given advise on changes to. However, fundamentally section A is just definitions, those definitions only have meaning in relation to the rules themselves, which in this case is section F, so I can't see how the Judge could conclude that section A is a completely separate matter to section F. It just would have taken too long to appeal it.

That really reminds me of something

I doubt they will too, but you have got to wonder why they are so desperate to keep it private. This is probably their last big chance to do something to say 'look, we are open and transparent' before the review reports and they potentially end up with a regulator overseeing them.

That seems pretty damning in relation to the likely outcome of the review for the PL, I think it actually puts a great deal of pressure on PL to agree to an open hearing to show they are listening and being more transparent.

The Business Secretary Alok Sharma has still not granted the exclusion order to enable the PL to extend it's UK TV rights deal without tender, well over a month now since the consultation on that ended. So the government to currently have some potential leverage over the PL, if they want to use it.

That make absolutely no fucking sense at all.

Good point. Possibly because of stuff that has come out in disclosure. It might also be related to the CAT jurisdiction challenge, supporting their case of there being a material difference between the CAT and arbitration.

I suppose because the brand is so tied to them and a lot of the other clubs are transitory, being relegated and promoted. Ironically, I think the WhatsApp group the other 14 have is potentially illegal under competition law.

Well the theory is that having hearings in public increases transparency and accountability, that's why the human rights act protects the right to public criminal trials. Also, they may have stuff from the disclosure that would be embarrassing for the PL and, if so, it puts extra pressure for the PL to settle before it goes ahead. The only private information should be commercially sensitive information for the club and PIF, there shouldn't really be anything that the PL should be worried about being made public; unless they have done something wrong.

She's the Chair of the review panel currently looking into English football governance, she could potentially make recommendations that could result in the PL losing its powers to self regulate. If the PL insist on this being held privately when everyone else wants it to be public it's a very bad look for them when the panel decide whether there needs to be independent regulation of the PL.

That's just another Burnsie account I think.

He's clearly just a bullshitter, possibly just to wind up Burnsie and other 'ITKs' who pick up stuff from there or just in general.

That does sound very like something Donald Trump would say, although I have a feeling you might take that as a compliment.

Well, hopefully, I'm wrong on that because it looks like the PL are likely to fail to get the CAT case heard in private if that's true, and they certainly seem to have something they are desperate to hide.

Not saying he doesn't have contact with the club / consortium, but I really don't think he's being told anything of note.

I'm not convinced that he knows much about what is happening with the case, or that he had as much influence on the club's CAT case as he makes out (otherwise they would have reimbursed him for his work on it). I get the impression from him and Kennedy of people desperately trying to appear relevant and ITK when really they've just been used when it's been in the club/consortium's interest and know fuck all other than that.

Told... by the club's statement. The article suggests that he's just taken that from the statement, but I think he's possibly wrong. "It is currently attempting to prevent the competition courts considering a claim by the sellers from taking place in public," (prevent the CAT case, which would take place in public, from going ahead) "arguing that too should be held in confidential arbitration." (arguing that the arbitration, which is confidential, should consider the claim instead)

I think Kennedy has just inferred that (the jurisdiction challenge has failed) from the club's statement, possibly incorrectly because the wording of the statement is very unclear on that point.

Of course you fucking did

I thought that on first view but I think it can be interpreted either way. Particularly with it saying "that too should be held in confidential arbitration", the CAT claim is not arbitration. What I think it is most likely actually saying is that the PL are trying to prevent the CAT case, which would be public, from going ahead arguing that should be dealt with under the arbitration instead. That suggests to me that the PL's jurisdiction challenge is still yet to be decided.

Yeah, the only reason a process like this needs to be confidential is that it potentially involves commercially sensitive information for the consortium and club. The PL has absolutely no legitimate reason to insist on confidentiality if the club and consortium want an open process.

Although, from Michael Beloff QC's emails published in the high court judgement: “It does occur to me that with EFLs permission I could respond by saying that my advice did not iscuss (sic) the meaning of the defiitionsin hre (sic) rules of person’’dire tor’or control’. (sic) The cklub (sic) would have to-asnd (sic) might not-take my word for it,amnd (sic) would say that without the advice they could not be confident that this was so”