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All of the Ridsdale actions are facts which can be evidenced by the links I put into the post.
Dave S`s point about PR receiving election support from 19 of the 24 Championship clubs is also factual.
A further point of concern is why the EFL CEO Trevor Birch didn`t raise concerns about Ridsdale getting on to the EFL main board (even though he was voted in by clubs rather than the rest of the EFL board). Trevor is a very experienced Licenced Insolvency Practitioner so would have been aware of how serious an offence Ridsdale would have committed in order to get a 7 year banning order
Cardiff City and its owner and directors made several errors throughout the whole matter of the Emiliano Sala transfer, including the following
1. Allowing Neil Warnock to promote and push for the transfer in the first place with his friend Willie McKay because the transfer fee was well above what Nantes were expecting from the deal and the salary being offered to Sala was 4 times what he was being paid by Nantes. No-one at the club had the football knowledge to spot this straight away or ,if they did, failed to prevent the deal happening
2. In addition to the over inflated fee and wages the club knew (or most certainly should have known with about 5 minutes of research) that Willie McKay was not a licenced intermediary and was also subject to a 5 year bankruptcy. Neil Warnock certainly knew as he had previous experience of dealing with the McKay family - with Willie at QPR and with his son at CCFC (Sol Bamba`s agent was McKay`s son`s company which subsequently went into liquidation in the Scottish courts)
3. The club made an error in the transfer agreement with Nantes by not having a clause that said the transfer fee only became payable when Sala`s contract terms were accepted by all the football authorities for all competitions that CCFC played in. The CAS ruling notes show that the Premier League (in which we were playing at the time) said that some of the contract terms were unacceptable to them but he tragically died before the necessary adjustments could be made. Again an example of football contract details knowledge which the club didn`t have.
4. Despite being given warning of a deadline, the club appeared to miss a payment before that deadline lapsed
After all of the above is said , there is a large degree of unfairness(in my opinion) in the EFL decision to impose a three window transfer restriction even if the club pays the rest of the transfer fee due to Nantes. The specific breach which the club is being penalised for is to prevent clubs failing to pay for a player who enhances their playing squad. For tragic reasons the club could never have gained such a playing advantage and this , as I understand it, is the basis of the club`s appeal to the EFL to have the decision reversed.
I must say that after 3 years of reading literally 100's of 'ITK' posts on this matter [including a few of my own], this is the most succinct and informative summary of the situation. Thank you.