OMG - Wednesday sue their own fans...

[Shaggy]

....for criticising them on the internet!

http://www.thefootballforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=129216

I cannot find a current thread on this subject, but if there is then please can the mods deleate/merge etc etc

On todays Radio Sheffield (linked below) the current goings on at the club have been highlighted finnally by the media. Included in this at the lunchtime news the Club have confirmed they are sueing one fan for £50k.

And there is also a list of a further 39 or so to be later sued upon gaining information.

Below is a link to a show this morning where the whole business is discussed, plus a quote from one person that the club is wanting to sue, and I believe the letter from the fan is the best way of descibing what has gone on that my mish mash of a post.

I sent this on Monday ....


Dear Sir,

I am one of the many Sheffield Wednesday supporters that the club is looking to sue. If nobody in particular and the other board members get their way, I face bankruptcy, losing my home and jeopardising my 7 year old son's future.

What could I possibly have written on a internet messageboard that could trigger such a fierce retaliation? I expressed an opinion that the club's activity in the transfer market was not as genuine as it appeared. I used no foul language, I merely expressed my genuinely held opinion.. I named no-one. Yet apparently, this constitutes defamation. I am also aware of another life long supporter of the club who is subject to possible legal action for suggesting that Chris Brunt would be sold and that we would have a poor start to the season. Both of which are now evidently correct.

Is this what Sheffield Wednesday have now stooped to ? Is there really such tyranny in the boardroom that any dissent amongst the paying customers is met with such excessive action ?

I am advised that if all of the defamation action against the supporters of this club comes to fruition, it will cost the club in the region of £8 million pounds. To what end ? Are the club really going to spend that much money to pursue targets that have little or no money in a bid just to stifle any questioning of their handling of matters in the boardroom ? The action cannot be taking place for financial gain. It is merely bullying and intimidation.

Supporters of the club should be made aware of this. How would fans feel that £8 million pounds is available for these lawsuits, yet we cannot afford to strengthen a team that , given the progress made on the field last season, should easily be challenging for promotion this year ? If supporters knew that this is where their money was being channelled , would there be an outcry ? Would there be fewer attendees ? I guess it's not possible to speculate as supporting a football club is generally a matter of the heart and it is difficult to switch off one's passion but I am aware of many supporters who will no longer contribute to the club to fund such a repugnant course of action.

I am copying this letter to the Football League and the FA as I feel that the actions taken by the Sheffield Wednesday directors are harming football in general. Damaging the product. Football has long been a game of opinions and if Sheffield Wednesday get their way and proceed with legal action against 40 paying customers, it will rip the heart out of football in this country.

I implore you to investigate and report on these actions. As journalists, it is your duty to get to the truth and to report accurately on exactly what is transpiring in our football club. Recent articles show a disgraceful bias toward the club. nobody in particular will not be chairman of Sheffield Wednesday for ever, but the fans will always be here and you should bear that in mind when you publish letters and stories without getting a proper balance.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide my name or address as nobody in particular is unaware of my details, he needs these to proceed with legal action against me and, despite the clubs crippling debt, he continues to spend the clubs money to acquire them.

If you have any sense of fairness, you will print this letter, but given the current levels of sycophancy towards the club, you will appreciate that I harbour doubts as to whether you will.

Can I just add that I too am one of the supporters the club is looking to sue, but what is different to Vaughan in my case, is that (this is how I understand it anyway) the club do not have a specific post relating to any comments I have made, however, they have demanded access to Owlstalk postings from me over the last 12 months, probably so they can try to find something to cite me for.

So let me run that by you again.

- They have nothing on me.

- Want to find something.

- So have demanded to see my posts over the last 12 months.

I am also in the same position as Vaughan in that I too could face bankruptcy, losing my home and jeopardising my 4 year old daghter's future. And for what, they seemingly don't even appear to have a specific post to cite me for!!!

Brilliant letter by the way Vaughan.

[Reece]

How utterly utterly bizarre.

[The_weatherman]

I think rage and sarb24 should watch themselves now, we have such a wonderful club to support with a wonderful manager and even more wonderfullerer owners. Everything is rosy at Liverpool.





*Can a mod erase everything I have posted on here about the owners and such, they are after all just doing what they can*

[tommyg]

Hope H&G dont crack onto this idea, i might have to delete my account!

[Shaggy]

Forget it - the date on that link is 2007. My Wednesday colleague tells me all cases were dropped after a huge fuss was kicked up by one bloke who was being sued while he was dying of cancer!!

[Reece]

Thread FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheStig]

What on earth do the directors think they will get out of this?

Madness.

[TheStig]

Forget it - the date on that link is 2007. My Wednesday colleague tells me all cases were dropped after a huge fuss was kicked up by one bloke who was being sued while he was dying of cancer!!

Kurtangled?

[PTP]

still crazy tho haha ****ing mental

[zimbo]

Read about this in yesterday's Guardian. The cases were only dropped last week.

How can the rich still be buying our silence with this 13th-century law?If even football fans can be sued by their club for online remarks, it's clear libel is too easily used to stifle legitimate dissent
George Monbiot The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008

So we saw him off. Last week, in a victory for both medicine and free speech, Matthias Rath dropped his libel suit against the Guardian. But it seems amazing that the courts of this country allowed him to pursue this case. Rath, a German doctor, appears to have encouraged South Africans with HIV to stop using anti-retroviral drugs, and take his vitamin pills instead. Several of them died. It's an important story, which shows journalists are of some use after all. But the Guardian stood to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds for having the impudence to publish it.

This newspaper is big enough to look after itself. But the legal net that Rath used is now being cast to catch ever smaller fry. In the past few days, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has dropped its cases against some of its fans. I am now allowed to write about the worst example of legal bullying I have ever seen.

The club has had serious problems, on and off the pitch, and many of its fans use an internet forum - owlstalk.co.uk - to discuss them. They make the kind of comments you would expect to find on any talk board, and which would normally be forgotten within 15 minutes. Two and half years ago the club launched its first suit. Only now have the people who posted these comments emerged blinking from the labyrinthine nightmare of English law.

As Geoffrey Robertson and Andrew Nicol explain in their excellent book, Media Law, England's defamation laws date back to a statute created in 1275. The criminal offence of scandalum magnatum was devised to protect "the great men of the realm" from stories which could stir the people against them. Three centuries later, the Star Chamber allowed noblemen to launch civil actions for libel, to provide them with an alternative to duelling.

They made prolific use of this privilege until Fox's Libel Act of 1792 determined that the claimant (the person bringing the case) had to prove that the words used against him were false, malicious and damaging. This means that libel law 216 years ago was more liberal and more in tune with the principle of free speech than it is today.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Robertson and Nicol show, "the common law was re-fashioned to serve the British class system from the perspective of ... the Victorian club". To protect wealthy people from criticism, the courts reversed Fox's burden of proof. They created a presumption that any derogatory remark made about a gentleman must be false. This remains the case today. Defamation differs from all other civil or criminal laws in Britain: the burden of proof is on the defendant.

The law remains the privilege of gentlemen, by which I mean people who are able to afford costs that often exceed £1m on each side. Cases tend to be resolved by sheer financial might, as the plaintiffs bankrupt the defendants, or force them to give in before their money runs out. This ensures that the law retains its 13th-century function. It guarantees that most attempts to hold the wealthy to account founder before they are launched, as people bite their tongues for fear of losing their homes.

Since 1879, corporations have also been able to sue for libel. The inequality of arms this causes is compounded by the fact that there is no legal aid for defamation cases. Lawyers are now allowed to fight these suits on a no-win, no-fee basis, but this freedom is double-edged: if a defendant loses, he could end up paying double the claimant's legal costs.

This is the context in which Sheffield Wednesday went to court to demand the names and email addresses of 14 people who had posted comments on owlstalk. Here are some of the comments over which the club complained. "What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we've become." "Another day, another blunder. I doubt even Leeds were in such a mess this time last summer, and look what happened to them." "I am waiting with bated breath to hear who the Chuckle Brothers have signed after their trip to watch players abroad. With the amount of money they have to spend and the wages they can offer the best we can hope for is that little known Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel."

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday's lawyers to be "false and seriously defamatory messages" which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club. (They should try posting an article on the Guardian's Comment is Free site.) The lawyers threatened "proceedings to include claims for injunctions, damages, interest and legal costs (which could be substantial)". The judge threw most of the application out, but instructed the forum's host to reveal the email addresses of four of the posters, whose remarks seem to me to be almost as trivial as those he dismissed. This took place a year ago, and the long shadow of the law hung over the posters until the club's lawyers dropped the case last week.

Another case dates back to February 2006, when the club sent a warning letter to a fan called Nigel Short. When he received the letter he offered to apologise and to change his comments, but the club rejected this. He was able to fight it only because he found a lawyer - Mark Lewis of George Davies Solicitors in Manchester - who was incensed by this case and was prepared to represent him. "I've had two and a half years of worrying I was going to lose my house," Short tells me. "It's been hell. If Mark hadn't done this no win, no fee, I would have been bankrupt by now."

In November 2007, Short was diagnosed with throat cancer. The case continued. But on Wednesday September 3 he announced that his treatment had been successful. On Friday September 5, the club dropped the case and agreed to pay his costs. It issued a press release which suggested it had done so because of "Mr Short's medical condition". I asked the club whether it had abandoned the case because it knew that Short would now live to fight the action. It has refused to answer my questions.
The point of this story is not that the directors of Sheffield Wednesday have behaved like a bunch of petulant bullies. It's that the law equips them to do so. Most people see this as an issue only for journalists. But the internet ensures that the law of defamation now threatens anyone who stands up for what he believes to be right.

This autumn the English branch of PEN, which defends the freedom to write, will launch a campaign against our libel law. But where are the rest of you? Where are the petitions, the public protests, the lobbies of parliament? Why is this 13th-century law still permitted to stifle legitimate dissent? Wake up, Britain: your freedoms are disappearing into the pockets of barristers and billionaires.

[Shaggy]

Thanks for posting, zimbington.

It is absolutely unbelievable.