Leeds United - v - Hull City ** Carabao Cup ***Matchday Thread***

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

I think you make a reasonable point - it does all go too far generally. Clearly a few of us differ on this particular example and i'm quite happy to respect other people's interpretations of the evidence - mine remains that he was racist and hasn't apologised for it.

The process was the one in place for dealing with such incidents within the organisation that governs his trade - he could have appealed to a legal court or accused the accuser of defamation, and looked at clearing his name afterwards. He didn't do any of that.

As HO states, the outcome was on the balance of probability. That is the same process for every decision made by every court. In the end, we disagree on the outcome's judgement of probability.

He could even have come out and said something like 'i did not do this, but i regret if anything i did say was interpreted in the way it was' - and then made a statement against racism and use of words like that in particular. But he didn't do any of that either.

Almost but not quite - criminal courts are to a beyond reasonable doubt (which often is thought to be about 80% convinced but that itself is not the test).

Racist comments would usually be dealt with by criminal courts by way of prosecution.

The accounts of who said what were not really corroborated by any other player so it was one word against another and because of some of the other things Kiko and the Leeds employee said the tribunal found him less credible than Leko.

From what was available from the judgement it seems clear Lego thought he had been racially abused not least from how he reacted at the time and afterwards.

Herein lies the rub you can have people who are bigoted and racist who are careful with what they say but you can have people who abhor those things and who would be said to be decent who in the heat of the moment say something that they would never intend and never do again.

Our ‘civilised’ society seems very keen to condemn people very quickly which does not actually seem very civilised at all.