Appeal: SAIT Soccer-Miron |
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Appeal Ruling
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2017-18 SeasonSeptember 22, 2017Background:SAIT Athletic Director Wade Kolmel filed an appeal with the ACAC office on September 14/17 in reference to ACAC Interim Commissioner Alan Rogan’s Ruling of September 12/17 suspending SAIT Men’s Soccer player Fran Miron for 4 games. Step 1 of the ACAC Appeal Process requires that an Ad Hoc Appeal Review Committee of ACAC members chaired by Joel Mrak and including Francois Fournier and Diane St-Denis, meet to determine if there are sufficient grounds for the Appeal to move forward to Step 2 and be heard by an ACAC Appeals Panel. The Role of the Ad Hoc Review Committee:Per OC Article III, Section 4, the following describes the role of the Ad Hoc Review Committee: 8. Evaluation of Grounds for Appeal 8.1 The Case Manager shall convene an ad hoc evaluation committee consisting of the President, the President-Elect and one Council member to review the appeal to determine whether it meets the Grounds for Appeal identified in item 6 above. Should, in the opinion of the Case Manager, there be any evidence of conflict of interest with one of either the President or President-Elect, the Case Manager shall replace that member with an alternate from amongst Council. 8.2 More specifically, the ad hoc committee then has a responsibility to: a) Determine if appeals are within the jurisdiction of this Policy; 8.3 In the event the Ad Hoc Committee finds sufficient grounds for an appeal, the hearing shall be scheduled to be held within seven (7) days as per OC, Art. III, Sec. 4, 9. Ad Hoc Review Committee Meeting:The meeting of the Ad Hoc Review Committee by WebEx video conference was convened on Thursday September 21/17, where documentation and a video of the game in question submitted by SAIT, was reviewed by the Ad Hoc Appeal Review Committee. The declared Grounds for Appeal was d) from the excerpted list of 6 possible Grounds for Appeal in the ACAC Operating Code: Grounds for Appeal according to OC Article III, Section 4: a) Making a decision for which it did not have authority or jurisdiction as set out in governing documents of the Conference; Decision:Whereas the Ad Hoc Review Committee unanimously determined that the appeals is within the jurisdiction of this Policy and was brought in a timely manner; that the appeal satisfied the requirement of d) Failing to consider relevant information or taking into account irrelevant information.. This constituted acceptable Grounds of Appeal for the Appeal to move forward to an Appeal Panel Tribunal. Rationale:The Ad Hoc Committee agreed unanimously that the video information provided by SAIT was new and relevant information that could be taken into consideration to determine an appropriate ruling about the incident. An inconsistency between this video evidence and the officials report of the incident was evident. While the determination of ‘violent conduct’ in the context of a soccer game can be deemed discretionary, and admittedly the committee members are less qualified than an official to make that determination, it was also acknowledged that officials can occasionally err in their description or evaluation of an incident that occurred during the game in the post-game write up process Conclusion:As per the decision of the Ad Hoc Appeals Review Committee and OC Article III, Section 4, the determination is that sufficient grounds for the appeal are found and the Appeal will be considered by an Appeal Panel. The original decision of the Commissioner is stayed pending the outcome of the Appeal Panel Hearing.
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