Two waterpolo premier league clubs, Sliema and San Giljan, have written separately to the Amateur Swimming Association following what was described as “unorthodox” and “bizarre” decisions taken following the incidents that erupted during the Sliema-Neptunes encounter held on 25 July, which had also led to the temporary suspension of all ASA activities.
Their protests were sparked by a decision, taken by the disciplinary commissioner appointed by the ASA, to suspend Neptunes player Tamas Molnar for 15 days, starting on 25 July and ending on 8 August, both days inclusive.
What is odd is that, rather than the suspension starting on the day after the match was played – that is 26 July – the commissioner chose to prohibit him from playing for 15 days as from 25 July, the day the match was played.
This means that Molnar will be eligible to play on 9 August against San Giljan in what should be a crucial encounter for championship purposes. If the suspension had started the day after the match was played on 26 July, which is the norm as per previous decisions taken in similar situations, then the Hungarian player would not have been able to play in the Balluta Bay derby.
This unusual decision sparked protests from both San Giljan and Sliema, for different reasons. It must be pointed out that there is a three-way battle for the championship involving the three teams in question.
On the one hand, San Giljan believe that rules should apply to everyone equally, and that Molnar’s 15-day suspension should start on 26 July, which would make him ineligible to play against the Saints.
For their part, Sliema are arguing that if Molnar’s suspension started on 25 July, then he should not have been able to play for Neptunes against Sliema in the match played on that day, and which sparked all the mayhem.
The decision, the two clubs say, favours Neptunes both ways as the player should have been, according to the disciplinary action taken against him, either ineligible to play against Sliema – which is bizarre in its own way because, until the match was played, Molnar had not yet committed the infringements that led to his suspension – or should be ineligible to play against San Giljan, given that a 15-day suspension should start the day after a game is played. As it is, Molnar played against both Sliema and can play against San Giljan.
What is also shocking, Sliema and San Giljan insist, is the way that the ASA handled the protest the clubs lodged separately on the result of the Sliema-Neptunes match (by Sliema) and on the dates of Molnar’s suspension (by San Giljan).
Such protests should have been decided by a Protest Board or Appeals Board as any other protest of their kind, boards that are independent of the ASA. But the protests were thrown out by the ASA Executive, and were not even referred to independent boards as should be the case, the clubs say.
Contacted by The Malta Independent, Sliema president Michael Gatt said that there should be a distinction between the executive and legislative, in this case the ASA, and the judiciary, in this case the body that should decide on situations according to established regulations. It seems that this distinction is not so obvious for the ASA, he said. If this separation of powers is not applied, the rule of law goes out the window.
Sliema, he said, filed the protest within 24 hours of the decision taken on Molnar’s suspension, as per regulations and to protect the club’s interests, given that Sliema stood to gain the points of the match if Molnar had been deemed as being ineligible for the Sliema-Neptunes encounter.
But the ASA considered the 24 hours as having started when the Sliema-Neptunes game ended on 25 July, not when Molnar’s suspension was announced on 30 July. This, again, is quite an unorthodox way of seeing things, Mr Gatt said, as Sliema could not have known about Molnar’s suspension given that it came about five days after the match was played.
Contacted by The Malta Independent, San Giljan president Daniel Aquilina was on the same wavelength with regard to the way the ASA Executive dismissed the club’s protest without referring it to the Board of Appeal. This is a dangerous precedent, he said, as the ASA should not act as a substitute to an independent board of appeal.
He said the decision taken by the ASA with regard to Molnar’s suspension – that is starting it the day the incidents occurred, not the day after – is bizarre. Suspensions should be calculated from the day after incidents occur, as has happened in all other similar circumstances, and not on the day they take place.
No punishment should start before the act is committed and for which a player is found guilty, Dr Aquilina argued. He said that since the league was suspended between 25 and 28 July, Molnar’s suspension should actually start on the day the competitions resumed (28 July), and not on the day when the incidents which led to the suspension occurred.
The two clubs have little hope that the decisions taken will be overturned, as the only avenue left is to take matters to the Courts of Law which would mean that the leagues would have to be suspended indefinitely until a decision is taken.