At Thursday’s press conference, Tuto revealed the reasons why the SM league license was rejected. The Turku club would have needed more interaction from the league license committee.
Tuto Hockey, which is interested in the Ice Hockey SM League, organized a press conference today, Thursday, where the club’s management went through eight points, because of which the league license committee did not accept the Mestis club’s league license.
At the end of last month, the SM League stated that the application of Tuto, who applied for a place in the main series, has been rejected. After this, the club was still given the opportunity to respond to the additional clarifications required, but despite the additional clarifications, no favorable decision was made.
Chairman of the board of Tuto Hockey Oy Tuomas Haanpää admitted on Thursday that mistakes have been made in the application process, but would have liked a dialogue between the parties involved. It was difficult for Haanpää to digest all the grounds for rejection, as some of them could have been avoided with one phone call.
– This is more about technical issues. The thing is, we would have liked this to be more of a dialogue. If we forgot something about the papers, we could have been contacted, Haanpää stated.
Among other things, the club had not submitted its latest financial statements, which would have been signed. The signature was missing because Tuto did not have time to organize an extraordinary general meeting.
Eight grounds for rejection by the League Licensing Committee:
1. The financial statements for the period 2022–2023 approved by the general meeting were missing (there was no time to organize an extraordinary general meeting).
2. The auditor’s signature was missing from the audit report 2021-2022.
3. The company’s equity is negative (compensation measures made in the supplementary statement were not taken into account).
4. The club had a non-payment note that was disputed (paid in the supplementary settlement).
5. Taxes and pensions had not been paid (receipts paid in the supplementary statement, delivered).
6. TPS’s commitment to rent the Turku hall was not enough (there should have been a lease agreement).
7. The club’s equity has been negative in previous seasons.
8. The club has no evidence of sporting success from the last three seasons.
Tuto already announced last week that it plans to file a complaint against the rejection of the league license with the Sports Legal Protection Board. The club management confirmed at the press conference that the process is underway.
– We have informed the Sports Legal Protection Board that we are dissatisfied with the decision and plan to file an appeal. We were given 30 days to file an appeal, when we immediately announced that we were dissatisfied with the decision, explained Haanpää.
Tuto’s management thinks that the team was not wanted in the league now. The league license committee previously granted Kiekko-Espo a conditional league license.
– Is this process really fair for everyone? We want an answer to this when we file a complaint with the Legal Protection Board. We feel that we have grounds for appeal.