And wrongdoing would be proven in court how? In the absence of evidence of coercion or bribery or financial conflict of interest, you’d have to somehow convince a judge or jury that the official was not acting in good faith, rather than it being one of the countless times every week that calls go one way or the other. Good luck with that.
Were there fraud charges for the clearly bogus penalty called against Simoni Lawrence on a pick six play late last year that almost certainly cost us homefield for the East Final?
Coercion and bribery are offences that are separate and apart from fraud. Conflict of interest is an ethical or regulatory issue and very, very rarely would attract criminal sanction, as a fraud would.
If I were a lawyer/investigator, I would probably not look to any preexisting clues of fraud because they would be very difficult to find and prove. I would, however look to what the alleged fraudster did after the event to find evidence of attempts to cover up the fraudulent transaction. Like, when questioned about calls that were wrongly made or ruled upon, trolling the answers for statements that are demonstratively false or inconsistent with the actions of the ref. Seek and ye shall find.
The point is that if you look at things like point-shaving scandals, proving that the accused fraudster benefited from the fraud is generally an important aspect of the case. If an official’s only motivation for swaying a call is personal bias, it becomes much more difficult to prove they deliberately wronged the affected party rather than merely made an honest mistake.
My guess it that they admitted it only to the Ticats during the course of the investigation into the matter - thus no public admission that the call should NOT have been made. IMO the call should have been dealt with as well as the sanctions on Austin.
Drew Edwards reported that the league "quietly admitted" it was a bad call, it has been discussed in another thread. However no official statement by the league has been given at this time which is strange. I mean, if it was the correct call why wouldn't the leauge make a statement saying it was so?
The fact that they are quiet on the situation makes me believe otherwise.
You can’t compare an offside to this type of call, it’s apples and oranges. Offside’s happen every game, this is a penalty that hasn’t been called in well over two years and it is rarely called all together. Despite what your opinion is, this was not a good call, most of the media and “experts” agree it was a bogus call, or questionable at best. When the penalty was called, the announcer was even questioning the legitimacy. As I already mentioned, we have seen in the past the league issue statements when fans and media call a penalty into question, and we aren’t seeing it here for a reason. I understand that you have no issue with the call, and that’s fine. However as stated, much of the media and fans (mostly Hamilton) have an issue with the call, and the league, if they are correct should/would issue a statement.
Also, one issue you are overlooking, is whether the ref would have thrown the flag if the RR player didn’t start yelling that the ball had been moved.