I must say this is a satisfactory answer. The question now would be is this fair? If teams were breaking the rules, should they get away with it because of the 48 hour rule....
Thanks for the clarification.
You made a comparison to Lance Armstrong being a cheat a couple of days back. Well, you actually said "Neil", who was an astronaut, but considering it's not likely possible to cheat at astronauting, I rightly guessed you meant Lance. The reason why the Tour de France has not listed a winner for all those years Lance won but admitted to doping (7 tours) was because the list of known, proven positive testers went past 10 places deep. They couldn't give it to another rider because they WERE ALL CHEATING!
Now, in this case of ITCs, I actually don't see it so much as cheating as ignorance of the rules. If you are to sanction two, don't you have to sanction them all? It's likely most premier level teams have ITC issues.
You have other sour grapes, and that is the issue of alleged cash payments for services to play soccer, specifically and allegedly Rinos. That's a different war cry.
On the issue of ITCs, the way I see it is that the leagues need to sort their shite out, but also take responsibility for the hand they have in this mess. To sanction teams now that have lost protests when it's known that most other teams also carried and played players with ITC issues would simply be wrong. Fix it in the offseason, and start 2018/19 with a clean slate, and clear expectations so far as rules and ITCs.