Legal basis, corrections and right of reply

This site does not investigate and makes no allegations of its own. Every entry is a fair and accurate report of, or extract from, a decision, finding or statement already published by a court, tribunal, public inquiry, regulator or governing body. Nothing here originates with this site. Where a fact is not in one of those documents, it is not on this page.

The footing. In the United Kingdom, fair and accurate reports of this kind attract qualified privilege under section 15 of and Schedule 1 to the Defamation Act 1996. Reports of proceedings in public before a court (Schedule 1, Part I, paragraph 2), of a public inquiry appointed by a government (paragraph 3), and copies or extracts of material published by or on the authority of a government (paragraph 7) are privileged without further condition. Findings and decisions of a body empowered by its constitution to adjudicate upon those connected with a “game, sport or pastime” — which is what a Premier League Commission is — fall under Part II, paragraph 14. That privilege is conditional, and the condition is the next paragraph.

Right of reply. Privilege under Part II is lost if a person named asks the publisher to carry a reasonable statement by way of explanation or contradiction and the publisher refuses or neglects to do so. This site therefore undertakes, as a standing commitment rather than a courtesy: if you are named here, or represent an organisation named here, and you consider an entry inaccurate, incomplete or unfair, write to [email protected]. A reasonable statement of explanation or contradiction will be published with the same prominence as the entry it concerns, and any error will be corrected against the primary source. No request is required to be in any particular form.

Privilege is also lost by malice. This record takes no position on what any organisation deserves, campaigns for no outcome, and is not written to injure anyone. Where a matter is undecided or under appeal it is labelled as undecided, and that labelling is the point of the page rather than a hedge.

Quotation and copyright. Extracts from published decisions and from reporting are used for the purpose of reporting and criticism, with attribution and a link to the source in every case. Court judgments and government publications carry their own licensing; where an extract is longer than that permits, tell us and it will be shortened to a summary.

This is not legal advice, and it is a statement of the basis on which the site publishes rather than a guarantee of any outcome. It describes the position in the law of England and Wales; the site is read elsewhere, and other jurisdictions treat reports of this kind differently.

This page is a summary of published, publicly available documents — decisions of independent commissions and appeal boards, official statements by governing bodies, and reporting by established news organisations. Every factual claim carries a numbered reference to its source. Nothing here is original allegation, inference or speculation.

Findings are labelled by status, and those labels are the point of the page. A matter that was alleged and never tested is not the same as one proven before a court, tribunal or regulator, and this record does not treat them as if they were.

Where a case is subject to appeal, or where sanction has not yet been decided, it is marked as such and should be read as unresolved. The organisations and individuals named here are entitled to the presumption that undecided matters are undecided.

This is a factual record compiled for information. It is not legal advice, not a statement of opinion about any individual, and carries no affiliation with any of the regulators, courts, companies or governing bodies named. If you believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date, the sources are listed in full at the foot of the page so the record can be corrected against them.