[Team Radical disqualification]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb janbonator:

First, I agree that the rulebook is not perfect - in fact, I disagree with many parts of it, an arbitrary roster size rule being one of them. Secondly I am like-minded in thinking it should be applied to the word.

Before I go further I would like to just point out that I am not nor have I ever been part of the LA and I have not discussed the case with any members thereof.

That being said, I do disagree with your interpretation in this particular case.  According to the sections of the rulebook you quoted, I agree it was possible for the assistant captains to move to another team, however only after having secured enough new players to the team within 24 hours, in order to comply with section 13.3 (in bold in quote). Had they managed to do that I do not see an obstacle for the transfer.  Furthermore, I do not see how the timing of LA's final decision matters, when the rules clearly state in which cases a team is disqualified and that assistant captains of a disqualified team are not allowed to transfer. Once the roster had been under 8 players for over 24 hours I find very little room for interpretation.

Ok, one question: Where in 13.3 is the part saying a transfer of a player is only legal when his old team has invited enough players to comply with the minimum roster size again? There´s no such condition in the wording of 13.3. It reads “If a player is released or transferred…” which refers to a completed event (the transfer) in the past.

So, we need to take the timeline of events into account. The transfer is done (in this case with the exception of 13.4), from that point on, if you take the wording of 13.3 seriously, the player is part of the new team. Period. No conditions apply, not an OK from the league or anything else is necessary. Now the result of the second sentence of 13.3 is: the releasing team is asked to invite enough players to comply with the rules again (13.3 second sentence and 2.2). But how would that bother the previously released player? From the moment his transfer is done he´s part of his new team and cannot be hold responsible for the actions (failing to comply with 2.2) of his old team - even if he was an A on the old team. By agreeing with the transfer (13.4) the C kind of relinquishes the A´s of their duty to their old team, otherwise the consent requirement doesn’t make any sense.

 Plus, if I remember correct, right before the two A´s left, RAD had still 9 players on the roster. The evening the A´s left, also one of their Goalies left. So, the LA is in my opinion forced to give a concrete timeline, who left at which time, to make a substantiated decision. Let´s say the two A´s left right before the G did. Then the G is the one who puts them under the 2.2 limits. Can that bother already completed transfers afterwards? In that case the material scope of 13.3 is not touched. In fact, by the wording of the rules right now at least one transfer of the A´s was completely fine. There was no infraction with 13.3.

 Regarding your problems with the timing of the LA decision. Well, it´s the wording of the last part of the second sentence of 13.3 (“… otherwise it will be disqualified.”) implementing a disqualification requires an official act from LA. If they wanted an automatic disqualification for a violation with 2.2 the wording should be more like this: “… is disqualified without further ado/notice.”

[Team Radical disqualification]

I have been watching this situation quite closely from the “sideline” over the last few days. One thing really blowing my mind and the reason why I´m writing this lines, is the fact how arbitrary this decision is. If you make the effort to write and introduce rules you got to follow them and respect the wording – even and especially the ones who are carry them out. That is not the case here.

 

Let´s dive into the wording of the relevant paragraphs:

 

„13.3
Teams are allowed to release a player from their roster, provided this doesn’t violate the roster size rule. If a player is released or transferred to another team and thus the roster size is temporarily below the limit mentioned in 2.2, the team has 24 hours to invite a new player to the team to meet the rule again, otherwise it will be disqualified. Released players cannot go back to the team that released them and their next move is considered a transfer from the team that released them.

13.4
Team captains are not allowed to be transferred during a league/tournament. Team assistant captains are allowed to transfer in case the team captain agrees to a transfer. In case the team captain disagrees, an assistant captain is not allowed to be transferred to another team. This paragraph also applies if a team is not able to finish the tournament for whatever reason.

 

13.8
If a team is disqualified, its managers are banned from the league/tournament. The other roster players are free to transfer to another team, unless they were proven involved in the disqualification of their team, in which case they are also banned.“

 

As there is no rule embodying something like a “right to reject trades/transfers” for the LA, the following situation played out:

Team RAD was falling apart. After the C of RAD decided to shut the team down, the A´s didn’t have a chance to really solve this situation. So, they did what, I think, everyone in this situation would do: searching for an out. The seemingly got one by joining NOR.

Now we come to transfer rules. Yes, in general A´s aren’t allowed to change teams midseason unless they have the ok of the team´s C (13.4) – both A´s reached that agreement with their C. So they played by the rules.

Next step is 13.3 and 13.8. The captains of a team are disqualified from participation in the on-going season when their team is disqualified. Now the timeline of this situation becomes leading. As the wording of 13.8 says: a decision of the LA is needed to disqualify a team. But at the time the A´s got transferred to NOR there wasn’t any decision about a disqualification of RAD. If the LA wanted to prevent a situation like this from happening, they should have taken this into account when writing the rules. The other option for LA would have been to make a temporary decision on RAD and putting all transfers out of RAD on hold until the final decision is made. They didn’t obviously. What they did is handling the situation pretty sloppy and let time lapse away. Time the two players used to join NOR. Something A´s are allowed to do (13.4). So RAD was still part of ECL Elite by the time the transfer happened. In fact, the two players were already part of NOR when disqualification was vocalised. In my understanding of the rules there is no basis in the rules for disqualifying them after that point.

 

Now one might say: “The rules intended to keep Captains responsibly for their teams.” That argument is not valid here. If you want intentions to be taken into account in legal interpretation, you have to make these intentions publicly and more important by the time the said rule is established. You can´t just say, this was the intention when we wrote the rule back in the days. That´s not how rules work, because if you do so decision can (and almost certainly will) become discretionary. But it is exactly what happened here. The rules got bend in line with the feelings of how this situation “morally” should be handled.

 

Since NHLgamer wants to take the next step into a more professional league and tender cash prizes, situations like this can´t happen – that´s really hacky. Everyone should think twice about handing over money to a league that´s run the way it is at the moment.

I strongly recommend that you should re-evaluate those transfer rules and perhaps install something like a “rules committee” that is completely independent from the LA in order to separate  jurisdiction from legislation.