You're saying that Spencer should have accepted his guilt and plead guilty, that's your perfectly acceptable opinion.BFG wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:49 amNone, the red card was enough, unfortunately I think a failure to accept any responsibility probably went against him.Christophelp wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:34 amWhat length of ban would you say he did deserve?BFG wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:47 am LLTC, I've read that any contact with the head was denied at the hearing.
Taking everything else out of the scenario, denying any contact with the head at all is just ludicrous and reflects arrogantly.
He didn't deserve four weeks and has been let down by a lack of sensible guidance in my opinion.
That is reflected in everything recently, the constant coaching sackings, the skipper saying what he did to the referee at the time live on T.V, the coach laughing at it etc, everything.
It's a clear case of two players coming together at changing angles.
They are in it together and reliant on eachother really and so have to share the responsibility.
To completely deny any head contact happened though would be foolish in my opinion.
A complete guess on my part but I'd guess that they thought that he hadn't learned any lesson so needed something else to think on.
But accepting guilt and pleading guilty of the offence with which he was charged would have resulted in a 3 week ban.
Disciplinary panels have clear guidelines that they can only reduce a ban for mitigation by 50% from the original entry point. With there being contact to the head, there's an automatic mid-range entry point for which the sanction is a 6 week ban. Therefore, pleading guilty to an offence that carries a 6 week ban entry point would result in Spencer receiving the maximum 50% reduction and a 3 week ban.
You can't say that he, "has been let down by a lack of sensible guidance in my opinion" but then provide an alternative guidance scenario that couldn't possibly be achieved (well, you can but in my opinion it would not be sensible to do that).
I do agree with you that it is ludicrous to suggest (as it was put in the disciplinary panel summary) that no contact was made to the head - it clearly was.
My opinion is that the initial contact (albeit only just) was not shoulder to head (it was shoulder to shoulder) but (again imo) following that initial contact there was indeed clear contact with the head.
If that was also the belief of the club and the player (that initial contact is not with the head), then it is perfectly reasonable guidance for him to have plead not guilty, knowing that the difference between being found guilty having plead not guilty is one additional week to your ban but that if you plead and are found not guilty the difference is not receiving a 3 week ban. There's a risk attached to pleading not guilty but that is balanced against the potential reward of being found not guilty.
That to me is reasonable and sensible guidance.