I was not saying he should or shouldn't sue. Just that getting embroilled with these morons could be more trouble than it's worth. If on balance it is seriously injuring the club as a whole then yes, go ahead. I am well aware that pre-action correspondence could solve the matter. Just hope it doesn't get drawn out. We should not underestimate the stupidity of some people.I'm sure Scally doesn't take taking legal action lightly and has judged the damage to the club's reputation to be sufficent to make the threats.
As what Eager said, it doesn't necessarily have to be expensive and purely on the basis of a lack of media followup post Patang57 then the threat might be sufficent. From my limited expertise of defamation cases, most defamation cases tend to end with a strongly worded demand letter and a "polite" request to retract the statements.
"he'd never get all his costs back off the type of person he is referring to"
Hmm, are you implying that the uneducated morons throwing around the mindless accusations must be the poor working class? Joking aside, once the club has confirmed the identities of people, I am sure the club could do credit reports on everyone and initially target those who do have the assets depending on the judgement knowing that the poorer people would quickly fall into line.
As with the Patang57 situation, I recall Scally invited him in for a chat so he could show him how the club really works. Quite possibly Scally would look to go down that sort of mediation route again and depending on who made what accusation, get everyone to sit down in the boardroom with the accountant to explain how financial accounts work and why nothing dodgy is going on etc. And then Scally sues the balls off anyone who then doesn't learn anything from it.
Ideally he should have ignored these muppets some time ago but we are where we are.
Agree that he will be damned for "suppressing free speech" (although I doubt they would know of the word "suppress").