East Lothian Saint

What's really galling is that we were given a warning with the 3 keepers situation and yet passed up the opportunity to tighten procedures.

Really not sure where to start with this terrible situation, so please excuse this rant. It’s not complete, but in no particular order ...

If we broke the guidelines, and seems we admitted this, then we cannot complain about the points deduction and fine.
Sanctions should have been agreed before the season started, but as they weren’t there’s no room for complaint.

Losing 3-0 to Well could easily have happened had the match been played, but not against Accies, certainly not by 3 goals - I think we’d have won or at worst drawn that match, so that hurts.

Hopefully having points awarded to those clubs can be turned into motivation and galvanise the players to get results we need.

The club also loses out on ppv money from these 2 home matches. I’ve no idea what that’s worth and perhaps we were lucky it was those teams, probably not costing us as much than it was some others.

There needs to be an internal inquiry at the club to discover why the guidelines were not being followed. Although given the recent appointments, this may already have been done.
We need to ensure this does not happen again.

I do not like the suggestions on here that Kibble are to blame. They are a thoroughly professional outfit and take their image and charity status extremely seriously.
In fact, I’d like to see them have more involvement and oversight on all matters, including “football”, rather than less.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the financial issues came to light because Kibble were questioning the nature of some transactions.
Their input can only help raise standards at the club on and off the pitch, something we’ll certainly need once fan ownership is confirmed.

To end, we need to take the punishment on the chin, put this sad and damaging episode behind us and get behind the team, starting with the Dons match on Saturday.

COYS !!

Only the SPFL could turn a pandemic into a disciplinary issue. They should be assisting clubs during a difficult time, not turning it into a grassing contest with eye watering fines if you get caught. 
That said, the club have been truly truly negligent - they knew the rules, and blatantly ignored them. The full transcript is a difficult read. 

St Mirren FC can’t seriously put out statements saying we’ve done nothing wrong and call for fans to be back in the stadium whilst they know this shite is going on in the background... 
Add that to financial irregularities, the Magennis exit farce and a complete lack of transparency about who is actually running the club. All things considered, I’m pretty pissed off at the way our club is being run at the moment. 

The severity of the punishment is my only gripe,  well that and the amateurish way the club has performed throughout this season regarding the Covid rules. 
I don't think for one second the big 2 Glasgow teams would have been handed out the same level of punishment,  and for this reason its fundamentally wrong. 
 

That vote was for action resulting from a postponement NOT as a consequence of a breach I.e. a club has a postponement due to Covid, that automatically triggers a SPFL enquiry which in turn results in a verdict that the club had followed every measure they signed up to and hence the postponement was not caused by spread via non adherence. I'm not sure what folk don't get here. As for your earlier question about who decides we broke rules, need two buses etc, read the 15 page deliberation before posting nonsense. The outbreak triggered an NHS MIT report. They through questioning club employees established the facts. Same would happen with any outbreak in a workplace. The club has royally screwed up here. We need to accept that. We signed up to follow SPFL protocols not SG protocols. Social Distancing rules were crystal clear for all situations including bus travel. And the club have admitted we broke all these rules yet still some supporters won't accept it. All we can gripe about is the severity of the punishment.

Ok, I can't be arsed reading a 15 page document just now so the answer to this might be in there somewhere.

From what I can see, from this thread, we have been found guilty of (ok, admitted to) not complying with the "covid rules". The fact that games were postponed is a side issue. Does that mean that if a club breaks the "covid rules" then they will be punished with a 3-0 defeat even if they didn't have to postpone a game? If, for example, sevco win a bigot derby but are later found to have breached the "covid rules" in the days prior to the game, will they be punished with a 3-0 defeat in a game that they won? It's just a hypothetical question.

If the postponements are the relative factor, then a bigger club, with a bigger squad, could theoretically breach the rules more, have more infected players but still be able to field a team and so escape punishment?

I get that we have f#cked up and deserve to be punished for that but punishment doesn’t fit the “crime” for me. The coach travelling puzzles me ....... based on the judgement around social distancing then teams should be using 2 / 3 buses for travel to away games.
 I’m assuming all other teams in the SPFL have been complying with this directive ?

The whole situation is a farce.
Football should not have resumed.

You can hug after scoring a goal but not shake hands before the match. Ayr right!

We may argue that the punishment is severe however it doesn't look like we have any defence in being found guilty.

As CEO Tony has a bit of explaining to do as he is responsible for day to day management. The buck stops with him. Why were we so inept?

And yet there are still countless numbers trying to deflect with what about rangers / septic / dons.  
We f**ked up !! Internal investigation needed to find out why this happened and who is responsible . The culprits need to be identified and disciplined accordingly .
l

I would imagine that when we were given the go ahead to start back training that someone would have sat the players down (socially distanced😃) and explained what they can and cannot do. Why then are we as a club in so many breaches of things that are/were off limits, it is staggering to believe that a Professional football club can get so many things wrong. Also what is more worrying that it looks like nobody (covid officer, manager, coaches, doctors, physio, ceo, chairman...delete as appropriate) had the foresight to put a stop to it.
I look forward to top four Tony's comments or even better a statement from the Chairman (do we still have one?)
I would hope that the appointment of the ex police and the safety man, means that the players are now managing that extremely difficult task of socially distancing on the bus and while being fed?
 

Forget the punishment. What we are looking at is total negligence by the club really. Allowing 4 to car share, 2 players from different clubs sharing a flat, I could go on and  on about the shambles that has come to light.
Any other workplace would be slammed from pillar to post.
 

It looks like a fair decision given the circumstances. 
 
Systemic failures and failures of leadership and management. Looks like an example of having the paperwork and policies but not actually carrying out the actions. 

Best to concentrate on ourselves, no point in wasting time on other teams, guessing what might or might not happen.
 

I think we deserve to be punished but I think the SFA have gone OTT in awarding Hamilton and Motherwell Points. That punishes everyone in the league not just us. Even a points deduction for us would have been fairer, as awarding 3 points to Hamilton and Motherwell could get Livingston or Ross County relegated or get Motherwell into Europe ahead of Hibs.
Authorities playing a strange game
 

Club Statement
The club operated honestly throughout the whole process and will review its position before issuing a further response.
 
Who's idea was it to tell the truth?????    Is that why they have now appointed an ex-cop.

I think we deserve to be punished but I think the SFA have gone OTT in awarding Hamilton and Motherwell Points. That punishes everyone in the league not just us. Even a points deduction for us would have been fairer, as awarding 3 points to Hamilton and Motherwell could get Livingston or Ross County relegated or get Motherwell into Europe ahead of Hibs.
Authorities playing a strange game
 

I think we deserve to be punished but I think the SFA have gone OTT in awarding Hamilton and Motherwell Points. That punishes everyone in the league not just us. Even a points deduction for us would have been fairer, as awarding 3 points to Hamilton and Motherwell could get Livingston or Ross County relegated or get Motherwell into Europe ahead of Hibs.
Authorities playing a strange game
 

The NHS IMT report conclusion was that our lack of adherence was likely to have caused the infection to spread. I take it you haven't read the full findings ? If we as a club were not following the rules we signed up to and those breaches were likely to cause spread of Covid in a situation where we encountered a positive case amongst playing staff then it's an open and shut case.

The actual postponements were not one of the charges they were a consequence of our non adherence. It was agreed by all 12 clubs that these measures were designed to prevent spread of infection. Where the infection originated from is totally irrelevant, we by our non adherence gave the infection the chance to spread and as a direct consequence of that we were unable to fulfill our fixtures.

I think the biggest crime out club has committed here is telling the truth. 

I posted a way back in a reply to Schull that there would be an almighty f*ck up somewhere along the road, and all it would take is one club to come to grief and the whole season would be a bu**er's muddle.
It has all come to pass.
Whilst I will accept the reality of the club being negligent, you are not going to tell me that out of all the other clubs in the SPFL they aren't doing the same thing as St Mirren or Kilmarnock, it just so happens they haven't had the covid outbreak hit them (yet)
In an ideal world, you go and tell the powers that be that; "they can go f*ck themselves". I know that sounds like throwing the toys out the pram, but no-one said at the outset that breaking rules would make you lose games 3-0. They make it up as they go along that lot.
Of course the Old Firm won't ever get hit as they have endless numbers of players they can field to make up the necessary numbers. 
I'm totally pi**ed off by this pronouncement to the extent that I'm losing interest in everything that is Scottish Football. 

No as the games vs Motherwell and Hamilton would still be scheduled to be played in that scenario.
If you deduct points, you don't do so at the expense of less fixtures.

I think we deserve to be punished but I think the SFA have gone OTT in awarding Hamilton and Motherwell Points. That punishes everyone in the league not just us. Even a points deduction for us would have been fairer, as awarding 3 points to Hamilton and Motherwell could get Livingston or Ross County relegated or get Motherwell into Europe ahead of Hibs.
Authorities playing a strange game
 

I agree.
Saints will still climb into the top 6 with this group of players... if they are well-organised (and not suffering from cv19!).
It's these clubs you have to feel sorry for... Livvi, RC, DU and St Johnstone...