Originally Posted by
John2
I'll help you with this as I do think you are capable of understanding.
They have different authorities in different disciplines.
In the context of our criminal legal system obviously the courts have higher standing, whereas the FA have none.
In the context of enforcing the rules of association football, the FA have a higher standing and decide the rules, however our civil courts would have a higher standing in the event that there was a legal dispute between parties over the enforcement of any FA rules considered to be in breach of either contract or the laws of the UK.
To help clarify further, they are separate entities with separate burdens of proof and separate laws. They are each responsible for enforcing their own and act completely independently of eachother.
This is not dissimilar to the distinction between criminal and civil law, which also have different burdens of proof and different punishments. It's why in some jurisdictions an individual can be found 'criminally' innocent of something like rape where the burden of proof is exceptionally high, but guilty of the same crime in a civil court where the burden of proof is lower, but also so is the scope of the punishments.