RUGBY FOOTBALL UNION

COMPETITION APPEAL

SUDBURY RFC v LONDON & SE DOC

At:  Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury

On:  Monday 10 March 2008

Match:  Basildon v Sudbury

Venue:  Sudbury

Date of Match:  1st December 2007

Panel:  Jeff Blackett (Chairman), Peter Budge and Jeremy Summers

Attending:  Ray Collins (Chairman, Sudbury)
                      Dan Connell (Hon Sec, Sudbury)
                      Brian Lorking (Registration Officer, Sudbury)

                      Paul Astbury (Chairman, London & SE DOC)
                      Bob Morrisson (Registrar, London & SE DOC)

This is an appeal by Sudbury RFC against a decision of the London & SE DOC to confirm the League Secretary’s decision to deduct two championship points for playing an unregistered player in their match against Basildon on 1st December 2007.

FACTS

On 1st December 2007, Sega TAMANI was listed as a replacement on the match card for Sudbury’s league match against Basildon.  He came onto the field and played the last 10 or so minutes of the game.  At the time of the match he was unregistered, but he was subsequently registered.  Having investigated the case the League Secretary ordered that the club be deducted two championship points and that decision was upheld on review by the London & SE DOC on 10th February 2008.

There is no allegation of cheating by Sudbury in this case.  The deduction of points was solely for what the London & SE DOC described as administrative errors by the club.

On Friday 23rd November the Sudbury Registration Officer, Brian Lorking, posted a registration form to the London & SE Registrar enclosing copies of TAMANI’s passport and working visa.  At the same time he faxed a copy of the registration form annotated with a written request that if there were any problems the Registrar should telephone Brian Lorking.  There had been some postal strikes earlier in the autumn and postal services had not completely returned to normal so the club assumed that the fax message would ensure that the Registrar would receive, and be able to act on, the application in time.  Unbeknown to Brian Lorking, the receiving fax machine did not produce a paper version of incoming messages, but converted them to electronic form.  The Registrar only uses this fax machine for expedited applications which have to be dealt with by Thursday of each week.  Thus any fax received on a Friday would not necessarily be read, and in this case the Registrar could not say whether or not he was aware of this message.

The original documentation was received by the Registrar on Monday 26th November.  It also contained a written annotation inviting the Registrar to telephone Brian Lorking if there were any problems.  On receipt of the application the Registrar decided that this was an invalid attempt to register TAMANI because an old form was used (2006 rather than the current version) and there was no stamped addressed envelope included as required by the Regulations.  The Registrar did not attempt to contact Sudbury by telephone to inform the club that the registration was invalid.  He stated that, as a matter of policy, the Registrar never contacts clubs in this way because if he ever failed to make contact that would be a cause for complaint.  Had there been a stamped addressed envelope included with the application he would have used it to inform the club of the failure to register.

Brian Lorking was away from home during the week commencing 26th November.  He assumed that the registration was successful because he had not received a telephone call telling him it was not.  However, when he returned to his home at the end of the week he and his son made a number of attempts on two separate computers to verify the registration on line through RugbyFirst.  On each attempt (on the morning of the match) an error message appeared and they were unable to access the page for positive confirmation that the registration was complete.  Brian Lorking concluded that, as he had submitted a fax and original documentation more than seven days in advance, and as he had not received any message from the Registrar that the registration had not been successful, it was safe to assume that TAMANI was properly registered.  Although he was not able to verify this online, he advised the first team coach that TAMANI was registered and could be included on the match card.

SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF SUDBURY RFC

Sudbury RFC accepted that they had made some administrative errors.  However, they submitted that they had acted in good faith and their mistakes were honest.  They asserted that the Registrar failed in his duty to assist the clubs by not telephoning the club to inform them of the deficiencies, and since RugbyFirst was inaccessible on 1st December they were unable to check the registration.  The club submitted that they were entitled to take the Registrar’s silence as a positive statement that the registration had succeeded – particularly as the previous Registrar had maintained a two-way dialogue with club registration officers in the past.  Since the club had taken all reasonable steps to register the player, and since they were used to a more responsive modus operandi from past experience with the previous Registrar, in the circumstances it was not in breach of the Regulations.  Alternatively, if there were a breach the sanction should be reduced to “no penalty” because:

• The conduct of the RFU or its professional agent contributed to the breach;
• The club’s honesty was never in question and the player was named as a replacement on the team sheet;
• There were exceptional circumstances – namely a postal strike which interfered with normal methods of communication; and
• The club did not benefit from the breach because they lost the match.

SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF LONDON & SE DOC

Paul Astbury stated that the submission of an application to register by fax was in breach of the regulations as it was neither an “online” application nor an expedited application.  Thus it was dealt with as a normal postal application.  Such an application requires “all the requisite documentation and a stamped addressed envelope” and will not otherwise be accepted by the Registrar (Regulation 11).  The Operating Procedures in force (3.2.1, 3.2.2 and 4.3) require the current registration form to be use and states that where the Registrar is unable to accept the application the club will be informed in the stamped addressed envelope provided.

Bob Morrisson confirmed that the application was received on Monday 26 November but that he was unable to accept it because it was submitted on an out-of-date form and there was no stamped addressed envelope included.  He did not get in touch with the club to inform them because it was not the policy that he should.  In any event, the application was received less than seven days before the relevant match and, even if it had been a valid application registration would not have been effected until 3rd December (i.e. TAMANI would not have been registered in time to play on 1st December in any event).

Finally, Paul Astbury said that the club had failed to take sufficient steps to check whether he was properly registered.  Even if there were difficulties in using RugbyFirst, the club could, and should, have contacted one of the league secretaries by telephone to check.  Operating Procedure 6.1 states that clubs may not assume effective registration until they have received a computerised listing showing the date of registration, so ultimate responsibility for checking lies with the club.

DECISION

The panel had some sympathy with the club.  It clearly acted in good faith throughout and there is no suggestion that they were trying to cheat the system.  However, they were clearly in breach of the Regulations and Operating Procedures.  The panel are concerned about the apparent inflexibility of the registration system, although it acknowledges that the vast majority of applications comply with the strict requirements of the system and that incorporating a more flexible approach would ultimately create more difficulties.  However the panel believe that the Registrar could have taken a more sympathetic approach (as his predecessor appears to have done) and telephoned Brian Lorking, as requested on the documentation, to tell him of the problems.  We are not convinced that the policy of no contact provides an appropriate level of support for volunteers.

Nevertheless, the panel do not accept Sudbury’s submission that the RFU or its agent contributed to the breach by failing to react to the annotation on the application.  Nor does it accept that there were exceptional circumstances caused by the postal strike.  Even if there were still problems with the post, the club could have submitted the application earlier or used the expedited registration procedure.

However, the crucial mistake in this case was that Brian Lorking assumed that the player had been effectively registered when he should have ensured that he acquired positive confirmation.  Although he was unable to access RugbyFirst, he could have telephoned a league secretary – and if that were not possible then the club should not have selected the player (even though he may have been registered).  Without positive confirmation the club took a risk which could have been avoided.  The integrity of the whole system relies on certainty of registration and allowing clubs to rely on assumptions would be a recipe for chaos.

The appeal is, therefore, rejected and the deduction of two championship points is confirmed.

Signed:  Jeff Blackett, Chairman

Date:  11th March 2008