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Adam Johnson Trial Verdict

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JonMc said:
They can't have a problem with it. As long as the club paid AJs wages it was nothing to do with the PFA.
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That's quite clearly not true and I can use an example I cited last night to show this.

Imagine a new manager arrives at a club and refuses to play there best player because he was black or gay or ginger...

I'm certain that the PFA would be able to get involved even though the club were paying his wages and had every right to decide who plays in their team.
 
hexhamali said:
They said in the statement they passed them straight on.
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I could pass a document 'straight on' eg. in 2 minutes, an hour, a day. In a year long proceeding one day is 'straight on'. I could also photocopy them and pass them straight on. It ducked the question. Why on earth would SAFC get documents, not look at them, and pass them straight on? It's not like it's their job to deliver stuff to the QC
 
JonMc said:
They can't have a problem with it. As long as the club paid AJs wages it was nothing to do with the PFA.
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Previous cases (not involving what Johnson was accused of but involving situations where the player was accused of something) brought in the concept of a "right to train." While I don't know what the PFA said but previous behaviour suggests they would have been there to uphold the player's rights regardless of what the player is accused of.

Doesn't give the player the right to be selected to play though.
 
Rober33 said:
It's absolutely about ascertaining his guilt because that's the precondition they would need to sack him, unless they decided to run their own investigation which I would think would at best be extremely ill advised when a criminal case is under way.
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They were not compelled to play him though. All this arguing over whether they could sack or suspend him really makes no difference. If, and it is still an if, the club knew what it is being alleged they knew, they could have quite simply refused to select him for any match day squad. They could have done this without prejudicing the trial by simply saying that because of the charges against him, Johnson was not in a mentally fit state to be playing, and the club were allowing Johnson time to deal with his personal issues without the added pressure of football.

Rober33 said:
Could he?

Are you sure the PFA would have no problem with him being dropped from the squad purely because of these accusations, given the long term damage that not playing could have on his career?
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There is no one, not the PFA, not Johnson's solicitor that could force the club to select a player for a match day squad, as long as he was being paid in full, and not officially suspended
 
walesie said:
Stupid language? What words should I use to describe the convicted child molester?
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TBH that's not how I see it.

The girl is not high on my list of concerns, she was old enough to know what she was doing, and got what she thought she wanted. If that was my daughter I'd have kept it all as quiet as possible as I'd feel utterly humiliated and let down by her. It's not at all the same thing as a predator hanging around a playground grooming preteens IMO. I despise Johnson because I put my faith in him when the incidents first came to light, and it turns out he's a bare faced liar, a creep and a cheat. You can't engage in sexual activity with an under 16, no matter how mature he or she may look, I don't believe for a second that he had to research that.

He's destroyed his career, destroyed his girlfriend's life and put her and his family through hell and back, and his little girl will have to grow up tarnished with these events. All for a grope with a 15 year old. A man who had the world at his feet and was in possibly the most privileged position imaginable with a great career and family, and thousands of devoted fans, has pissed it away and rubbed all our faces in the shit because having everything wasn't enough for him.

People need to get some perspective FFS. So the club looks a bit bad right now, so what? Lives are ruined forever, but the club will recover and the dust will settle. Yes, it's annoying and disappointing, but it won't keep me awake at night.

As an aside - Stacey Flounders has come out of all this looking like a real gem of a human being, bless her. I hope she finds happiness with a real man, she deserves it.
 
Kenna said:
Only issue is the club can't sue if the accusation is true, pretty sure the club would be make it clear by now if they were doing something but they are not and it's most likely because they cannot do anything because they are likely to be true.
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I agree. In my last post (the one before the one you quoted) I touched on this as well
 
redandwhiterob said:
She may be getting the stick but the decision has come from above her pay grade imo. No way on earth she has made the decision to play him alone imo
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Who else would have been aware then and made the decision to not do anything, as there's not many people higher than the CEO?
 
hexhamali said:
Where in the statement has it been said that the club read and understood the implications of the WhatsApp messages?
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CEO... criminal lawyer... if she read it she'd understand the implications... if she didn't read it why hasn't she said she didn't read it and why did they ever even receive them?
 
TopCat said:
I don't necessarily agree that they knew he would change his plea, and that point is actually irrelevant. The issue is that the knew he was guilty (based on the content of the messages) yet still allowed him to play. The fact that the club are focusing on his plea and not what they knew to be true is what is causing the problems and is what the press are latching on to
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I meant his legal team knew he would change his plea mate. I'm done with now like, just want to support my team and the manager.
 
The amount of unbridled assertions being made on here is quite amusing. The club releases a statement which denies all accusations made by Johnson, a proven liar on multiple occasions = club is obviously guilty. This assertion is made, because the statement doesn't address the exact forms of tittle-tattle thrown at it, which aren't even clear - the club knew 'everything' - what the fuck does that mean? What is everything? This meeting in which the club knew everything, also included Johnson's QC - which therefore means he absolutely knew Johnson was guilty, and continually advised to him plead not guilty - a plea which Johnson attributed to 'legal advice' in court.
Which of the following varieties of 'everything' did the club know?
  • I didn't know she was 16, yet I also did know she was 16
  • It was only a kiss, but it was also more than kiss
  • I'm not guilty of all charges, actually after a year of maintaining the former position, I've suddenly (about 5 minutes before the trial), remembered I'm guilty of 2 charges, or is it 3?
  • I told the club I'm guilty of everything, my girlfriend I'm guilty of some things, the police I'm guilty of nothing; told a variety of people a variety of things depending on how bad it looked, and what day it was
 
haway said:
I could pass a document 'straight on' eg. in 2 minutes, an hour, a day. In a year long proceeding one day is 'straight on'. I could also photocopy them and pass them straight on. It ducked the question. Why on earth would SAFC get documents, not look at them, and pass them straight on? It's not like it's their job to deliver stuff to the QC
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I don't know, I wasn't involved in the decision. Maybe they were legally advised not to look at them in fear of bringing the case into disrepute and preventing justice from being served. The point is there's many different ways to look at this, almost all of which see the club doing no wrong. You and some others have chosen to view it from the way that makes the club look bad.
 
If they didn't play him it would've sent a message that implied guilt and prejudiced the outcome of the trial b4 the fooka pleaded guilty on day one....
 
West Winger said:
The judge didn't accept it as fact. The judge specifically said

"Johnson told you that he had been sacked by Sunderland Football Club and dropped by Adidas after his guilty pleas.

“He said that the football club had known from the outset that he had kissed the teenager.”

That's not an acceptance of a fact that's the judge telling the jury what the defendant said.
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Accepted as fact is perhaps the wrong way to phrase it. The allegation by Johnson was put forward as part of the timeline of the case and not disputed by anyone. For the purposes of the trial it is taken as part of what happened. No doubt part of the fact no one disputed it is that it wasn't material to the jury's decision on Johnson's guilt or innocence.

The fact remains it has been alleged in court, not disputed, and reported in the press as what happened, and the club has failed to deny the allegation.
 
Surely if SAFC didn't know the details then that would be the main message in the club statement, as it is the statement only really says that they didn't know he was going to plead guilty, which isn't what anyone is complaining about.

If they didn't know the details then just happened to forget to include that in the statement then that's a fuck up in itself.
 
Anyone with an ounce of sense should have known there'd be a media field day following the club statement. Someone's going to end up on the dole over this.
 
Cockney Mackem said:
Accepted as fact is perhaps the wrong way to phrase it. The allegation by Johnson was put forward as part of the timeline of the case and not disputed by anyone. For the purposes of the trial it is taken as part of what happened. No doubt part of the fact no one disputed it is that it wasn't material to the jury's decision on Johnson's guilt or innocence.

The fact remains it has been alleged in court, not disputed, and reported in the press as what happened, and the club has failed to deny the allegation.
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Was it a peck on the cheek or something more? Did the club no he was aware the girl was under 16?

It's far from as clear cut as you are making out.
 
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