DISCIPLINARY REGULATIONS - REVIEW PANEL OUTCOME

Date: 19th February 2015

The Review Panel announced at the AGM met on 21 January and has agreed this website posting.

The general views of the panel were that discipline in 2014 was not as bad as in previous years. These views were based on the number of clubs in the league now and by comparison with other leagues. The level of umpiring generally was also felt to control players’ behaviour. An interesting comment from one of our newer clubs was the feeling that some clubs have issues with opponents which lead to animosity on the field but also that other teams had excellent relations with each other. Clearly the latter is the attitude which is expected and is central to the Spirit of Cricket.

A particular problem discussed at length was that of ‘social media’. Use of ‘twitter’ and ‘face book’ is so common amongst the players these days that they consider it as just another way to speak to each other. What some don’t realise is that their messages may be copied on to people who find their content offensive. It was acknowledged that league officials do not surf these websites looking for offensive messages and only act on matters reported to them. Despite numerous warnings to clubs and their members that any message which is detrimental to the interests or reputation of another player, club or official is a disciplinary offence and will be punished, several such offences have been reported in 2014. The panel asked for the warning to be publicised as often as possible. The L&DCC regulations on social media follow closely those issued by ECB for all Premier Leagues. The panel noted that cricket has similar restrictions on the use of social media as have other major sports.

The Disciplinary Committee was criticised for some of the communications with clubs which gave the impression that their player was guilty as charged and must be banned. The regulations will be reinforced to make it absolutely clear that clubs are responsible for the behaviour of their players. Clubs must have in place procedures for investigating any breach of discipline in a match within 48 hours of close of play even if the umpires’ report hasn’t been received. The Committee will contact the club after forwarding the report to confirm the action taken in line with the disciplinary tariffs. In most cases it is expected that a reported player will miss the following week’s match at least.

Other communication problems which occurred in 2014 will be addressed in the regulations by widening the number of club officials contacted by the Disciplinary Committee and if the club does not acknowledge receipt within 24 hours the club secretary will be telephoned. Clubs will be specifically responsible for keeping their reported players fully informed throughout the disciplinary process, ie. the Disciplinary Committee will not directly contact the clubs’ players, and just as important a reported or disciplined player must not directly contact L&DCC officials.

The revised L&DCC Disciplinary Regulations will be strengthened, where appropriate, by the incorporation of the latest set of ECB Disciplinary Regulations for Premier Leagues. In particular five new sections are direct copies of ECB regulations: Aims and Jurisdiction; Non payment of disciplinary fines; Mutual recognition of penalties; Data protection consent; and Confidentiality. Where these are similar to the previous L&DCC Guidelines clauses in the latter have been deleted. In other places the ECB wording is preferred to our original. Several new clauses refer to ‘Participants’, defined as ‘all those who participate in the L&DCC, including players, clubs, club officials, club members, the Leagues, representatives of the Leagues and any other person or body who is from time-to-time engaged in cricket- related activities under the auspices of the L&DCC’.

ECB regulations require any appeal against the decision of a Disciplinary Hearing Panel to be based on reasonable grounds. The Review Panel agreed that reasonable grounds will include fresh evidence not available at the time of the Hearing, failure by officials to follow the procedures, or any evidence of manifest injustice.

ECB regulations now provide an extended list of penalties which disciplinary hearings may consider appropriate. These are considerably more severe than the present guidelines and one or two are beyond the remit of even the Management Committee, eg the expulsion of a club from L&DCC competitions, and others would require approval at a General Meeting of the L&DCC, eg imposition of fines and the deduction of league points. ‘Expel’ will be replaced by ‘recommend the expulsion of’ and it is not proposed for hearings to impose fines or deduct points unless a General meeting so approves.

The list of Disciplinary Tariffs will be amended to be more in line with the ECB regulations and in particular any offence warranting a ban of 4 or more weeks will result in a mandatory disciplinary hearing.

The Review Panel examined all these proposals and changes were agreed unanimously and will be incorporated in the revised Regulations. The L&DCC Disciplinary Regulations 2015 will be applied from the start of the 2015 season and will be included in the 2015 Rules & Regulations Handbook.

Finally the review panel agreed that a list of potential hearing panel members should be produced to widen club involvement. Clubs will be invited to nominate their representatives.

The Review Panel has agreed the content of this website posting.

Review Panel Membership

Richard McCullagh (Chairman), Eric Hadfield (Secretary), Chris Weston (L&DCC Hon Sec), Mike Dixon (Disciplinary Representative), Colin Mahon (Firwood Bootle CC), Ian Robson (Liverpool CC), Ian Walkden (Newton le Willows CC), Anthony Coyne (Northern CC), Jamie Doyle (Old Xaverians CC), Walter Armstrong (Ormskirk CC), Franny Joyce (Parkfield Liscard CC), Mark Boyns (Sefton Park CC) and Kevin Wilson (MCUA).