Hull KR fans fight each other ? How strange.

As a matter of interest, does anybody know the basis for a legal challenge to this fine?

The tribunal was chaired by a Crown Court Judge

=#8000FFStill not a judiciary if it's an RFL panel though, is it? it could have been chaired by the Queen and it wouldn't have mattered.

You caught me out me there!

Your point is not relevant. Your club were fined partly for [i"failure to undertake a meaningful inquiry afterwards"[/i.

The point was made that "meaningful" is subjective and the implication made that it was less valid because of that.

I made the argument that many cases of interpretation of "laws", of sports, and even of the country, are subjective, and are therefore decided by a representative of the presiding authority, whether that be a judge acting for the RFL, or a magistrate acting for the state.

Therefore a subjective law is no less valid, and the fact that Cas did [inot [/iundertake a meaningful inquiry afterwards, which would have been an appropriate action to take, means they are now liable to this fine.

Dunno but if Cas do pursue it they had better hope they win or it could be ta-ta. Presumably it would then be the Boards fault!

How would it be ta-ta if they lose the case ?

[url=http://castleford.dyndns.org/article.php?id=877Cas to appeal[/url

Sounds like no-one heard it apart from a few in the WRE.
Makes you wonder how on earth ''cry baby'' heard it when he was down the other end of the field supposively concentrating on the game.

Talk about blown out of proportion

after reading through the statement from the club for which they are to base their appeal on i think they are in a very stong position but i dont claim to be some boot room barister as many others seem to be on this thread, all i am baseing my comment on is what is writen in the clubs statement and what was said by the match commisioner and other officials. I dont for one minute think the fine will be overturned because A its cas and B Thomas has gone out of his way to make it known how hurt he was by the whole incident in every media outlet that has been available to him, and unfortunatly for cas the RFL are going to have to show a strong stance against it even if it has all got blown way out of proportion and as has been mentioned earlier i think, this is not going to look good on our next SL application.

£2,666 per second of chanting - how can anyone say that isn't disproportionate?

That makes interesting reading and it would be great to hear the RFLs version of events. I imagine it would be something along the lines of, "Well Gareth is currently writing a book i think, and so needs as much publicity as he can get. As such, he's been banging on about a bunch of knuckle dragging northerners from a homophobic town called Castleford. We haven't the foggiest clue what happened to be honest, but since there was a lot of bad mouthing of our sport in the press we thought we'd randomly apply a fine of £40k to make it look like we're really serious about sorting all this out and that we're in touch with our feminine side".

So? Are you suggesting a sitting Judge would endanger his reputation and livelihood by not dealing with this matter in an unbiased manner instead joining in in some RFL conspiracy against Cas?

=#8000FFWhere did I say that? I was merely commenting on the fact it isn't a judiciary.

It should be overturned for the simple fact it wasn't raised initially, and further more Cas should take legal action against Thomas himself for the way he is trying portray the club.

Thomas has not said anything other than what happened, he has just said it a lot. Cas has nothing to sue him for.

This rather indicates you consider the decision was already made before the Judge heard the case.

=#8000FFBut was there REALLY any need for him to say the teams name everywhere he possibly could and make it out like millions of people were ganging up on him as opposed to the facts which were 15 chavs were chanting something that wasn't audible to 99% of the people in attendance, including most importantly, the Match Commissioner, Thomas wouldn't have heard the chants at the game I'll tell you that now.

Personally I don't believe so, but my point is legally Cas have nothing to sue for. I was stood about the same distance from the chabters as GT, and I heard it. He was at the other end of the pitch when they were singing about holding hands, he was very near when they were singing about his sexual practices. I can assure you he did hear it. If he hadn't how would he know to complain?

from what it says in the cas statement i would say you are bang on with that comment, i thought it was standard practice for the match commisioner to attend any hearing that was relevant to a game he had attended, but seeing as his view did not suit the RLs view he was not required to attend the hearing and it also seems that reading between the lines the RFL atempted to hold the hearing at a time when he would be unable to attend, as i have said earlier in my opinion the matter has been blown out of all proportion, i heard the chanting myself but for anyone who was not at the game and did not hear it you would not think we were talking about the same incident, especially with a 40K fine and the clubs name being dragged through the mud.

Err no. I was simply commenting on the fact that people are suggesting that the decision was made by the RFL (Lewis, Wood, board of directors, general bogeyman) and that a tribunal chaired by a Judge with two other individuals on it free of any club ties just go along with it without bothering with any evidence. It is nonsensical for anyone to think that a Judge would put himself in the position of just being a mouthpiece for others. Instead it is quite common practice in many sports to have quasi-judicial tribunals with members of the judiciary involved so that clubs/sportspeople are given a fair hearing.

As to how the matter arrived at the tribunal it is quite easy to find the operational rules on the RFL website.

As to Cas' statement on the appeal, good luck to them if they think they have a case (albeit my reading of their statement is that they loused up their defence)

how did they louse up there defence as you put it, it seems to me that reading the statment from the club the RFL have gone out of their way to take away any defence the club may of had. but hey as long as it all looks good for the RFL in media that they have taken a very stong stance against the totally homophic club that is the Castleford Tigers then its ok i suppose.

It's simply the impression I got. A club statement is not fact. It is their view on proceedings and having defended the matter they are hardly likely to say they wrong to do so. If they have a case for appeal, good luck to them, but it does seem part of it is on technical grounds as to who brought the complaint. If the operational rules allow for a complaint to be brought by the RFL itself rather than the match commissioner I can't see what the point of stating that is. It won't get them anywhere, but just muddies the waters.

Depends how vigorously they pursue it but Court time is expensive. Ask Bradford!

Have the crusaders played at Hull KR yet ?