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Club Statement 24 November 2021


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7 minutes ago, cmdc said:

I agree about duty of care point but would go further. I think in the circumstances the club was right not to issue a statement when he signed, not to answer questions about it at the Q&A and not to directly address the issue in the statement above. His conviction is spent, he is no longer on the sex offenders register and so, in the eyes of the law, he is rehabilitated. If he was to move on he would be perfectly entitled not to disclose his conviction to prospective empolyers. It would have been unlawful to refuse to sign him on the basis of his previous conviction alone and it skirts the limits of the law, and in my opinion is morally and ethically dubious, to draw public attention to spent convictions through statements and the like. Taking rehabilitation seriously means not dragging the individual back over the coals each and every time he moves on. I suppose the issue here is whether an ambiguous statement was better than no statement at all, which probably depends on a host of factors behind the scenes.

I agree with quite a lot of this. I do think a statement when he signed to the effect of "he's paid his debt to society, now we're all getting on with it" would have avoided a lot of what we've seen recently. But it is true that, as his employer, they can't treat this as the sole defining matter in his life and have to do right by him both legally and morally.

The issue I'm facing is, what is this aggression that's being referred to, how is it materially different to what happens at every ground week in, week out, and what info are they looking for, exactly? In other words, I get why they can't constantly bring up what this is all about, but the other half of that equation is they can't go being surprised when other people do bring it up.

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9 minutes ago, vikingTON said:

2) For a newly fan-owned club whose leadership is tanking credibility, this sense of entitlement is also woefully misplaced. They are in absolutely no position to take action. 

This is also a key point, albeit more tactical than moral. I'm sure the people who wrote this believe they are behaving morally. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But what they certainly are doing is gambling that they have got more people who matter onside with their statement than otherwise. 

To put it a bit more crudely and maybe cynically: Lithgow is almost done as a player, he's not at full fitness, he's out of contract in a few months and it's hard to see him justifying another season at Championship level. In other words, he's not exactly part of the furniture, is he? That doesn't mean the club can wash their hands of him. They do have a duty of care towards him as an employer. But it isn't clear to me why that duty of care extends to ultra-vague accusations of 'aggression' that will, rightly or wrongly, make some fans feel that they're in the crosshairs because Lithgow's upset.

Obviously I've not been to any games this season but I'm struggling to see why we all have to be up in arms about the personal abuse he's received. It's been eleven years of it, isn't it water off a duck's back by now? Why is this even a big deal?

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1 minute ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

I've not done a poll or anything, but my gut feeling is that probably about 10% of the fanbase are outraged by it, about 10% are uncomfortable with it, and about 80% don't give a flying fuck about it.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.  I find it somewhat disturbing that so many Morton supporters feel comfortable about having a sex offender in the playing squad, and are willing to turn a blind eye to his past based purely on his ability to kick a ball about a field.  Would those same people be as comfortable about a convicted sex offender dressing up in the mascots costume to entertain the kids?  Or would they be comfortable about a convicted sex offender being involved with coaching the youth team?

A lot of people (including myself) have voiced opinions about the disgraceful child abuse cases at Celtic, Rangers and, lets not forget, Partick Thistle, which may have robbed Scottish football of a golden generation of players as well as causing real misery and suffering to its victims and their families - however here is the real uncomfortable truth.  I genuinely DO NOT believe that any of those above football clubs knowingly employed those coaches knowing that they were paedophiles and posed a danger to the youngsters they were responsible for; however the team that we support - Morton - were fully aware of Lithgow's past crimes and that he is a registered sex offender, yet despite this they went ahead and signed him.  That is an outright disgrace.

 

*insert signature here*

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Just now, Jamie_M said:

Nope - he is another who was outrageously given a 2 year deal.

Oh. My mistake. Well, that invalidates around 50% of my point. There's a longer-term aspect at play here. Still shorter than those of risking alienating some lifetime fans. Which is another calculation that a responsible board would make. Perhaps clearing out a few die-hards who also happen to be troublemakers is a good thing, in their view, and the number of people who either agree, don't ever hear about this, or don't care will be vastly greater. That's a possibility, certainly.

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As I understand it all squad signings and contracts are the responsibility of the manager. MCT could have highlighted/restated this at the outset and possibly taken some of the flak away from their door albeit it then raises the question over the two-year stability contracts to the management duo.

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1 hour ago, TRVMP said:

I do think a statement when he signed to the effect of "he's paid his debt to society, now we're all getting on with it" would have avoided a lot of what we've seen recently.

I was thinking about this when you posted the Clyde statement about Goodwillie, but I think there are a couple of important differences here. One is that Goodwillie had only just left Plymouth, and Clyde was his first move since (and only shortly after) those accusations were subject to civil proceedings, and live proceedings were (I think) still underway, as he left Plymouth to pursue an appeal in that case. The other is that there are limits on what an employer can disclose about spent convictions without the consent of the individual concerned (certainly, for example, an employer can't disclose spent convictions in evidence at an employment tribunal without the consent of the individual) - so I can understand why they would err well on the side of caution there.

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43 minutes ago, HamCam said:

As I understand it all squad signings and contracts are the responsibility of the manager. MCT could have highlighted/restated this at the outset and possibly taken some of the flak away from their door albeit it then raises the question over the two-year stability contracts to the management duo.

Even if tempted, better I think that owners/club directors don't try to shirk responsibility. The buck ultimately stops with the them. I think the same about some of the references to 'the board member who sanctioned the signing' or the 'board member who handed MacPherson a two year deal' - whether an individual recommends these things, it is the whole board who has to act on that and so the whole board should be accountable for all of the big decisions (or individuals should resign if they feel unable to agree to/defend those decisions in public). A caveat, obviously, is the accountability of MCT reps on the club board to MCT members.

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2 hours ago, cmdc said:

I was thinking about this when you posted the Clyde statement about Goodwillie, but I think there are a couple of important differences here. One is that Goodwillie had only just left Plymouth, and Clyde was his first move since (and only shortly after) those accusations were subject to civil proceedings, and live proceedings were (I think) still underway, as he left Plymouth to pursue an appeal in that case. The other is that there are limits on what an employer can disclose about spent convictions without the consent of the individual concerned (certainly, for example, an employer can't disclose spent convictions in evidence at an employment tribunal without the consent of the individual) - so I can understand why they would err well on the side of caution there.

That's all fair enough but Livingston made a statement when they brought him on. Not everyone's going to agree on this; I just think the club's done badly and it's only gotten worse as time's gone on.

If they really want to just draw a line under it and let bygones be bygones then they have to lead by example.

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12 hours ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

I've not done a poll or anything, but my gut feeling is that probably about 10% of the fanbase are outraged by it, about 10% are uncomfortable with it, and about 80% don't give a flying fuck about it.

Even if people arent upset about a sex offender captaining our club, they should be upset by the fact that MCT don't answer questions to their own members never mind the wider fanbase.

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3 hours ago, so72 said:

Even if people arent upset about a sex offender captaining our club, they should be upset by the fact that MCT don't answer questions to their own members never mind the wider fanbase.

Absolutely. Even if it's only a minority who have strong objections, they are still valid and deserve the courtesy of an acknowledgement at the very least. Pretty sure that no matter what justification or explanation is given, it still won't be accepted by those who have the strong objections. But at the very least they can no longer be accused of ignoring these concerns, and to an extent at least draw a line under it. It defies all logic that they can't see that.

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5 minutes ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

Absolutely. Even if it's only a minority who have strong objections, they are still valid and deserve the courtesy of an acknowledgement at the very least. Pretty sure that no matter what justification or explanation is given, it still won't be accepted by those who have the strong objections. But at the very least they can no longer be accused of ignoring these concerns, and to an extent at least draw a line under it. It defies all logic that they can't see that.

Not too sure why they don't just say something like the manager is given a budget and signings are up to him and that he does his due diligence to make sure they are right for the club. It doesn't need to address individuals and could be a blanket statement to cover the recruitment process. That ship has probably sailed now though but at least it would cover some accusations of not addressing questions about signings. 

That said, some people wouldn't accept anything. 

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Assuming the statement is in regards to what John Gisbey mentioned, then I think the club shouldn't have made any statement. Albeit I wasn't through on Saturday so I don't know the extent of what was dished out to the player, or others. 

Generally abuse is dished out by people looking for a reaction, and so this will have been like a moth seeing a flame burning. 

Ignoring this kind of thing is probably the best way to minimise further incidents, while supporting the player / employee in private. 

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16 minutes ago, piehutt said:

Assuming the statement is in regards to what John Gisbey mentioned, then I think the club shouldn't have made any statement. Albeit I wasn't through on Saturday so I don't know the extent of what was dished out to the player, or others. 

The fact that it was stuck in the Tele probably made them think they had to say something.

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Lithgow's conviction will follow him around all his life.  I doubt he's any danger to anyone (a few years ago I was involved in a situation where as a child protection officer I was told that he would be playing in a game at which a girls team were to be the ball girls, but looking further into it, there was no risk).  I don't really rate him as a player (doesn't look fit) but if he was Bonnuci or Chiellini he would probably be given more leeway.  The club would have been better not drawing attention to this matter and it would probably fade away in a few weeks.  I didn't want him as a signing but he's here, so we need to just make the best of a bad job.  Mcpherson though, that's a different matter.  He should be the lightning conductor for our displeasure.

Fair to say the board are not yet bringing a fresh approach to interacting with the supporters.

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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1 hour ago, irnbru said:

Not too sure why they don't just say something like the manager is given a budget and signings are up to him and that he does his due diligence to make sure they are right for the club. It doesn't need to address individuals and could be a blanket statement to cover the recruitment process. That ship has probably sailed now though but at least it would cover some accusations of not addressing questions about signings. 

That said, some people wouldn't accept anything. 

They won't accept any explanation or justification, for sure, but at least MCT could no longer be accused of ignoring these concerns. 

A simple statement along the lines of 'it was a long time ago and he has not reoffended, everyone deserves a second chance, blah, blah, blah', is all that's needed. Then, any time it's brought up again, they can quite legitimately say they have already addressed the issue and have no further comment to make. 

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34 minutes ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

They won't accept any explanation or justification, for sure, but at least MCT could no longer be accused of ignoring these concerns. 

A simple statement along the lines of 'it was a long time ago and he has not reoffended, everyone deserves a second chance, blah, blah, blah', is all that's needed. Then, any time it's brought up again, they can quite legitimately say they have already addressed the issue and have no further comment to make. 

But that leaves the issue of drawing public attention to a spent conviction, which is something that needs to be handled really carefully (and I can't see anything in the current circumstances that justifies doing so) and probably with the individual's consent. I think on this occasion MCT/GMFC are being criticised for doing the right and responsible (and professional) thing.

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The best thing about this thread is that the OP, who is notoriously in the know about almost all things within the inner sanctum of the club is posing a question as to what this is all about, as if he doesn’t know exactly what happened and who the alleged perpetrator is.

There’s absolutely no doubt he’s trying to draw attention to the matter in the hope that someone else does a bit of name dropping and a ban is issued without him actually grassing on anyone.

Fooling nobody.

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1 hour ago, cmdc said:

But that leaves the issue of drawing public attention to a spent conviction, which is something that needs to be handled really carefully (and I can't see anything in the current circumstances that justifies doing so) and probably with the individual's consent. I think on this occasion MCT/GMFC are being criticised for doing the right and responsible (and professional) thing.

But some people are continually drawing attention to it already. I don't think they're going to let it go, so MCT's inaction is in fact perpetuating it. The cancelled Q & A would have been the prefect way for them to address it as it could have been contained 'in-house' without having to go public on it. They've fucked this up big time.

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