COMETDisciplinaryModule
Disciplinary Module
One of the main COMET Modules is also the Disciplinary Module. It is a module for managing disciplinary cases, and all notifications and sanctions of certain persons and organizations are being entered in it. A disciplinary case can be opened against each entity in COMET, that is, it can be opened against: referees, coaches, officials, but most frequently it is opened against players. In all mentioned cases the workflow is the same.
Responsible organization
A disciplinary case is always carried out within an organization, in most cases, within a national federation, but sometimes is it also possible that a regional association manages it. The disciplinary administrator is in charge of the process, based on the hierarchical principal. Based on the case, the decision is being made if the offender will be sanctioned or not. In accordance with the FIFA regulations, there are various types of sanctions, e.g., fines, return of rewards, suspensions for a certain number of matches, etc. The sanctions in COMET are exactly the same as the FIFA sanctions. The player that received a red card is sent off from the field and he is automatically suspended from the next match. For every person that receives a red card, once the match is "CLOSED", (a status is set to "PLAYED"), COMET automatically inserts a new disciplinary case and adds an active sanction "Suspension for a certain number of matches" and a number of matches is set to one (or to as many as the Association rules require). In most cases, no other additional action is required. While the player has an active sanction, he will be marked in red for the next match. When the sanction expires, he will appear on the list the same way as the other players. If for any reason, the player received some additional sanction, or he was suspended for more matches, and not just one, the user with appropriate roles and permit ions has to search for his disciplinary case and change the value of the existing sanction or add new sanctions.
New disciplinary case
To activate a new disciplinary case click the menu item "New case" and the form for entering new case will open. Complete all mandatory fields (marked in red): select offender type (player, referee, delegate, etc.), then organization and competition, date and match and a person (or any other entity) that has committed a foul. On the right side of the screen there is a field for entering paragraph that explains sanctions for certain fouls. After that, enter a date of a decision and describe a foul in a text-box.
Once you have entered all mandatory data and pressed the "Save" button, a new case is stored in the system, the status is automatically set to "ENTERED" and a system generates a COMET ID. You can still search, select and modify a case by clicking the "Search cases" item. After that, the list of all cases will open. Select a case to open its details. If necessary, they can be changed. On the same screen there is an "Add sanction" tab. Click on it to open a window on which you can select a sanction type that varies according to the offender type. Applicable sanctions are not exactly the same for persons and for organizations.
It is possible to obtain more than one sanction for one foul.
After you click the "Save" button, selected sanctions are stored in the system and they become visible on the list of sanctions of a certain disciplinary case (in status ENTERED) and a sanction status is set to ACTIVE.
Insert matches on which the suspension was served
If a player gets suspended for certain number of matches, as we explained previously, the sanction needs to be changed (added) manually. It is also possible to enter matches on which the suspension was served. In order to do so, open the sanction details (see image below), and press the "add" button to add the matches.
Only played matches can be added and the sanctioned player can not appear in the line-up.
After adding matches, they appear on the list, and a number of remaining matches is set to 0. If you need to insert a match that is not in the COMET system, you can insert a description into the description box, instead of selecting a match from the drop-down list.
It is extremely important to change the sanction status once there are no matches remaining, because while the sanction is ACTIVE the player wont be able to play. He will stay marked in red. In order to do so, click the pencil item on the right of the sanction, then the "EDIT" button and finally the check-mark to close the sanction.
Click on the check-mark, enter the reason for changing the sanction status and close the sanction. Once the sanction status is set to closed, the player is free to play again.
Change sanction status
Select an entered sanction from the list of sanctions to open it. Click the "Edit" button in order to change it. New window with two buttons with different symbols will open. Clicking the one with the "X" symbol opens a new window that serves for entering a reason of a sanction status change to "CANCELED", and the one with the check-mark opens a new window for entering a reason of a sanction status change to "CLOSED".
Changes are visible on the list of sanctions.
If offender gets suspended for certain number of matches or for a certain period of time, he will be marked in red and wont be able to play until all of these matches are played or till the restriction period comes to its end. This data is also very important for the Competition Module.
Delete disciplinary case from the match in status "PLAYED"
When a player receives a red card during the match, the disciplinary case is created automatically when the match status changes for the first time to "PLAYED". In order to delete a red card first it is necessary to delete a disciplinary case and afterwards a red card.
Press the delete button on the warning message in order to complete the desired action. Once the disciplinary case is in the status "DELETED" it will be possible to eliminate a red card from the match.
My active cases
You can access your active cases by clicking the menu item "My active cases". The list of all of your cases in the status "ENTERED" will open.
As if it was mentioned previously, a red card automatically starts a disciplinary case, that prevents a player from playing. When the "red card" event is inserted on the player, it is immediately visible on the line-up table (See image below).
After inserting red card in the Competition Module, the disciplinary case status is set to "DECISION MADE". In order to open it, press the menu item "Search cases". The player is automatically sanctioned and has to serve the automatic one-match suspension. Until that match is played, he will be marked in red in the Competition Module.
In case the player has to serve more than one match, the sanctions need to be inserted through the Disciplinary Module. In order to do so, select the case from the search list to insert additional sanctions into the system. The procedure of entering new sanctions is done the same way, as it was described previously. The procedure of changing statuses was previously described as well. Select the sanction, press the "Edit" button then change the "ENTERED" status to "CLOSED" or to "CANCELED".
Sanctions tab
On a player form, and also on a club form there is the "Sanctions" tab on which you can open all the sanctions that were assigned to a player or to a club.
Select the desired sanction in order to open all the respective details.
If necessary, you can proceed working on sanctions, making any necessary change the way it was previously described in this Chapter. In case of clubs, the process is the same. Search for the club and press the "Sanctions" tab to open all the club sanctions.
Scope on Sanction
List of sanctions of disciplinary case contains two more columns: suspension scope and serving scope. Dialog for adding/editing sanction contains fields for defining suspension and serving scope of sanction.
When new sanction is added, the system will set proposed values for suspension scope and serving scope based on system settings. For example, it might set the values based on defaults. Suspension scope and serving scope can be defined for every default sanction. If default sanction contains some suspension scope, it will be used for automatic creation of sanction rather than using the defaults from tenant's properties file.
Scopes on competition
Suspension scope and serving scope can be overridden with competition setting. Fields for selecting scopes are located in "Disciplinary" section of the competition's screen.
Setting scope to new sanction based on settings in competition, default sanctions or properties file
The system will set the suspension scope and serving scope based on settings in this sequence:
- if disciplinary case is connected to competition and competition has scope defined, then use it for new sanction
- otherwise if disciplinary case is connected to competition and competition has parental competition and its parent has scope defined, then use it for new sanction
- otherwise if sanction is created based on default sanction and default sanction has scope defined, then use it for new sanction (this step is used only for automatically created sanctions as default sanctions are never used for manually created sanctions)
- otherwise use the default setting from tenant's properties file
List of suspension scopes
- Competition - suspends person in same competition or in competition under same parent as is the competition of sanction's disciplinary case
- Competition type - suspends person in competition of same type as is the type of the competition of sanction's disciplinary case
- Age category - suspends person in competition of same age category as is the age category of the competition of sanction's disciplinary case (please, note that ids of age categories should be the same as there is seniors category for some tenant under one id, for some other tenant under some second id and for national team under some third id and those categories are not considered as same)
- Sport - suspends person in competition of same sport as is the sport of the competition of sanction's disciplinary case (please, note that international competitions are divided from national competitions because AFA's default suspension scope is sport, but persons suspended in AFA should not be suspended in CONMEBOL competitions)
- Organization team type - suspends person in national team competitions if sanction's disciplinary case is connected to a national team competition or suspends person in club competitions if sanction's disciplinary case is connected to a club competition (please, note that this scope makes sense for usage only in CONMEBOL and CONCACAF and it also differentiates between friendly and official competition types since suspension in an official match should not suspend person in the friendly match and vice versa)
- All - suspends person everywhere
List of serving scopes
- Competition - serves suspension only with the match of same competition or competition under same parent as is the competition of sanction's disciplinary case
- Competition type - serves suspension only with the match of competition of same type as is the type of competition of sanction's disciplinary case
- Age category - serves suspension only with the match of competition of same age category as is the age category of competition of sanction's disciplinary case
- Organization team type - serves suspension with national team match if sanction's disciplinary case is connected to a national team competition or serves suspension with club's match if sanction's disciplinary case is connected to a club competition (please, note that this scope makes sense for usage only in CONMEBOL and CONCACAF and it also differentiates between friendly and official competition types since suspension in an official match cannot be served with a friendly match and vice versa)
Notes
Lastly, one should keep in mind there is an option "Only players in catalogue serve suspension" under "Disciplinary" section on competition's main screen which, if set, will allow serving of suspension only if player was registered for the competition (added to the list of players on "Clubs" tab of the competition).
Monetary sanctions
As it was explained previously in this chapter, a disciplinary case can be opened against each entity in COMET. For example, it can be opened against referees, coaches, clubs, but most frequently players. In addition to receiving suspensions for some number of matches or suspensions for a period of time, it is very common for Clubs or Players or Team officials to be sanctioned with a monetary Fine. In accordance with the league competition rules and association disciplinary code, for each played match and round (after the referee makes it official by changing the status of the match), Comet can be configured in a way to automatically provide the following:
- Default amount of monetary fine for a yellow card (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
- Default amount of monetary fine for a red card (direct red vs 2nd yellow)
- Default amount of monetary fine for an expulsion of a team official
Furthermore, COMET can be configured to keep track of the payment status of these fines and even to prevent persons from participating in matches when the fines have not been paid. If your association is using COMET for this purpose, a special console called „Monetary sanctions“ can assist users in tracking the status of all sanctions of type „Fine“.
If you have the required permissions in the system, you can access the menu option “Monetary sanctions“ listed in the „Disciplinary“ module.
Monetary sanctions console shows two distinct tabs: „Active – unpaid“ sanctions and „Inactive – paid/cancelled“ sanctions. The initial screen immediately shows the list of active-unpaid sanctions with relevant details on each one (Image below, section A). If you want to consult the list of inactive – paid / cancelled sanctions, you can do it on the same screen with a single click on a tab “Inactive –paid /cancelled“ (Image below, section B). If you want to obtain the list of monetary sanctions, you can download an Excel document by pressing the icon in the top right corner of the table (Image below, section C). The magnifying glass icon takes you directly to the disciplinary case details (Image below, section D), on which you can view, edit, close or delete the case/sanction, if you have required system permissions to perform mentioned actions.
In order to narrow down the selection, the list of active sanctions allows you to search by dates, as well as to filter the list by any of the data table columns. If you would like to obtain the sanctions for a certain period of time, the System allows you to specify a range of dates (based on the date of the Disciplinary Case) and press the „Search“ button (see Image below). The list will display only the sanctions which match your criteria.
Closing monetary sanctions
The System allows you to close one or more monetary sanctions using the “Monetary sanctions“ console. One typical scenario for using this feature would be when a Club submits a payment to the association for some amount in order to cover one or more unpaid monetary sanctions issued to the club or its players or staff. In such a case, instead of manually opening one case at a time and closing one sanction at a time, the console allows the user to do it „in bulk“. In order to close sanction(s), check all the checkboxes next to the sanctions you want to close, and then press the “Close sanctions“ button at the bottom of the screen.
The window for closing sanctions opens immediately. Complete the mandatory field “Date to“ and add a note (if required) and then press the “Close“ button.
After completing described action, the selected sanctions will no longer appear on the list of active monetary sanctions.
Disciplinary notifications
Functionality of disciplinary notifications enables users to (automatically) create disciplinary notifications. Disciplinary committee is notified about any new opened notification and authorized users are able to either cancel the notification or to open a disciplinary case against an offender based on reported notification.
Match screen contains checkbox "Disciplinary committee intervention".
Automatic creation of disciplinary notification
If the option "Disciplinary committee intervention" is checked, upon changing match status to PLAYED, the disciplinary notification will be automatically created with match summary text (and incidents of both match clubs) copied into description of the new notification.
Depending on the configuration, notifications are sent automatically upon creation of disciplinary notification. Email is automatically sent to competition and disciplinary managers and administrators.
Manual creation of disciplinary notification
Authorized user has an option to manually create new disciplinary notification.
User who handles disciplinary cases is able to discard the disciplinary notification by changing its status to CANCELLED/CLOSED, but, in most cases, user will use the button "New disc. case from this notification" to create new disciplinary case based on disciplinary notification.
Most of the fields in disciplinary case will be automatically filled based on values of disciplinary notification.
Once the disciplinary case is created based on disciplinary notification, the status of notification is automatically changed to CLOSED because it was successfully processed.
Sending emails on changing status of disciplinary notification
Depending on the configuration, mail notifications are sent automatically upon changing status of disciplinary notification. Email is automatically sent to the original user who created the notification.