Ivo den Bieman

There's been debate here and elsewhere that it's unfair/too late to promote Airdrie and Cowdenbeath at such short notice, with so little time to prepare for a season in a higher division. there is certainly *no* time whatever for a proper election, with due diligence shown, of a new club into the league for 2009-10. Demonstrably, the SFL's utterly pathetic strategy is to sit tight, say nothing and hope by some miracle that the fairies at the bottom of the garden come along at night and make all Livingston's problems go away. If Livingston go bust, the SFL are likely to face entirely justified anger from fans and club officials alike at their handling of this, and severe embarrassment at having one of their competitions start a club short.

agreed- Livingston have the luck of the devil in situations like this and it won't surprise me at all to see them survive in some form. Meanwhile, in the parallel universe inhabited by the SFL, there has been no mention whatever of this crisis on their official news site for at least the last week. So they're not gearing up for action anytime soon.

I don't disagree with any of this- just that it's kind of irrelevant at the moment. According to Tonsilitis' timetable. Livingston now have roughly two to three weeks to avoid their liquidation becoming irreversible, and being kicked out of the SFL. Talk of a community run club is, at best, of academic interest in the current scenario.

I'm not as fixated on community/trust ownership. Without MacDougall the Trust don't have the necessary funds to make a credible fist of running the club at any higher a level than the EoS first division. They are rumoured to only have about 10k. to call on. I do know from observing MacDougall's career at Cowdenbeath that he is a football man through and through and a 100% straight as a die chairman. You couldn't wish for a better and harder working chairman at a lower league side. MacDougall + Trust- and maybe a name change to "Livingston Thistle" to distance the new owners from the past of failed shysters and fanatsists- and maybe those fans unhappy at Livingston;s formation and recent history might give them a chance. With debts running at their current level 100% trust/fan ownership is as much fantasy as Massone's Livingston qualifying for the Champions League.

I can't see how a credible election process could be held in such a short timescale. But with the SFL you never know!

It's also possible that with Massone's Livingston entity evicted the council could lease it to a new entity- if only the SFL would agree to transfer the league place. As the SFL would do almost anything to avoid Livingston disappearing, they might well agree to it, with the price to pay being relegation to division 3 or something like that. If Livingston *do* disappear, the Trust and McDougall have a year to get together a bid for a new Livingston-based team to replace the "old" defunct club by applying to join SFL 3 and starting again- of course, as Airdrieonians found in competition with Gretna, there's no guarantee of success. After all the trouble caused by the "old Livingston" since they were shat into existence in 1995, a Spartans bid would maybe look less risky. If it all collapses though, and no new Trust-backed team emerges, I'd imagine the council will sit on the land until the market improves and then sell it to the highest bidder to bulldoze and put houses/a retail park on it. That way they get quite a bit of their lost money back.

Debts we know about Council 280k Inland Revenue a "six figure sum" (say 250 k for the sake of argument) Scottish Power approx 40 k (32 k bill + reconnection fee + deposit) Police ?? could be anything between 10 and 100 k 100 + small creditors anything between £150 and £5000= approx 120k. unpaid wages etc. prob about another 100k a very rough and conservative estimate has them 890 k in debt and the reality is probably a fair bit higher. It's a long road ahead for the Trust and MacDougall if that happens

er...they've started action to liquidate the club in court. The only way this will be staved off is if Massone walks away which he shows no sign of doing. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if he deliberately stayed there to ensure the club were liquidated so that his mad version of events would be "vindicated". That said Livingston have more lives than an extremely lucky Irish cat, and it won't surprise me at all to see a version of them emerge intact from this shambles. The council don't *really* want to close them down and the SFL will stedfastly do nothing. That Ged Nixon appears on a council statement is significant- it means that a plan is all ready to roll to save the club when Massone walks (if he does). namely, the Trust + McDougall take over, make a large goodwill payment towards the settling of the council debt in return for a withdrawal of the liquidation proceedings, and agree a new plan to pay the rest back in a short space of time.

I imagine the SFL's interest ended pretty much when the players were paid. With that hurdle out the way, of course, they will continue to "monitor the situation" and do absolutely nothing.

Administrators would be appointed who would asses the club's debt, sell off what they can to reduce that debt, and try and find a buyer for the business. A buyer will need to be found by a certain deadline, failing which the company will be liquidated and any remaining assets sold off to try and pay off the accumulated debt, even if it is only a small part of it. The silence today (to be fair Massone has until 5pm) suggests that there is frantic last minute negotiation going on between interested parties. MacDougall is still interested according to the Scotsman, again he provides no reason as to his baffling interest in the club. I think that the players have been paid to keep the club up as a first division club, that may yet attract some interest or investment. As happened with Gretna last season, there would be zero interest from anyone in purchasing a newly demoted third division club with what is rumoured to be seven figures worth of debt. Massone is finished in the event of administration- all that will be left to him is a long series of dreary court cases in Edinburgh for petty sums of money which presumably he hoped Livingston FC would pay the bill. His dreams of a quick buck profit from whatever barking property deal he had in mind will be turned to ashes. It looks like the club just about has a pulse though.

They could still be relegated if the Hegarty situation has not been sorted out- and its not clear if *all* the players have got money, or just some.

It's pretty clear why if the players have been paid- to stave off relegation to Div 3 and ensure they turn up for pre season...

Rather pointless BBC summary of Livingston FC's existence here It's been a quiet day at Almondvale by recent standards- perhaps the final calm before tomorrow's storm, hence the padding article on the Beeb website. Not sure why everyone's getting so excited- administration is the worst that will happen, liquidation is some way off yet.

Now that the council seem to be playing hardball, though, they may well take the view that liquidating the club and holding the land until it can be sold at a good price for re-development will be the best way of realising some of their money back. The wording of their latest statement is clever- it states that whilst they want senior football to stay in town, that can;t be at the expense of their revenue from the ground- regardless of the hurt feelings and outrage of the minority of Livingston fans. Ergo, positioning themselves deftly so that the blame for the collapse of the club lands where it should- on Massolini's shoulders. Massolini and Rankine may well have a property deal at the back of their mind, but I wonder how long it will take Rankine to tumble to the fact that any deal will face much greater hurdles as long as Massolini is hanging around for his cut. There's a long way to go yet, though- it wouldn't surprise me to see Rankine pay off the council, and keep the club on life support for long enough to let him conclude the deal he'll be angling for.

To be honest all Massone has yet to do to complete the set of "megalomaniac bonkers chairman" attributes is to appoint himself manager and take training.

Have they been paid recently? If not, I'd suggest that the "contracts" that they have signed are barely worth the A4 they're printed on. With one newspaper reporting that the guys have been told not to bother reporting tomorrow for the scheduled start of pre season training (there being no coaching staff), I'm not really sure how many of those 15 will report if Livi's pre season ever actually gets going. If Livi go into admin the players will probably be the first out the door, and join the clubs long list of creditors.

If Livingston start the season with Massone still as some kind of figurehead, in administration, I can easily see attendances of fewer than 1,000 being the norm. Rather like Chester City under their bonkers American owner Terry Smith, they started their first conference season under him in absolute ruins off the park, with the fans united in their desire to see the back of him, and fewer than 600 turned up for their first home match (normally they'd get 2-2,500). Meanwhile on Livi Lions the rumour is that if Massone stays he plans to appoint the clubs American goalkeeping coach as the new manager. We can only assume that Livingston's youth team will actually be taking to the park. there are also dire predictions of stalling legal action by Massone in the event of administration, which will drag this situation on for months to come. Quite why he'd bother to stall is anyone's guess. Now that his "plan" to buy the stadium has been exposed as sheer fantasy, and Griffiths having been sold, there would seem to be no financial incentive whatever for him to stay.

I imagine there's a spaghetti-western style wagon train of creditors waiting to pounce on the money as soon as it leaves the Dens car park. Massone won't see a penny- and this "unity" chatter is too little, too late. MacDougall is being talked up as a viable alternative on Livi lions and apparently made a good impression at the protest on Friday. Why on earth he wants to buy into Livingston is anyone's guess, I suspect he could do with one of Duncan Freemason's headscans. It's rather like a new captain taking over at the bridge just as the ship, in flames, capsizes and sinks. The question is whether Livingston are allowed to enter admin now- which leaves MacDougall and the Trust in a strong position as the only likely interested party to take over- or whether liquidation is forced through, with the only option left to a few diehards (MacDougall will vanish in this scenario) to restart in the East of Scotland seniors, like Gretna have done.

To be fair when i wrote that last post I hadn't read the council's new and very hardline statement. It's hard to see how they could resile from their latest position and retain any credibility, if a joint Rankine-Massone "enhanced payment plan" is accepted. Massone faces Hobson's choice really- either default on the rent and be kicked out of Almondvale, or fail to pay the players wages on time and finally face SFL sanctions. It's clear that even with the sale of Griffiths, he doesn't have the money to do both.

Perhaps the SFL haven't acted as they have received private reassurances from the council that there will still be a team at Almondvale next season? After all, "maintaining senior football at Livingston is the priority"- not it would seem the waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds of ratepayers cash, propping up a demonstrably failed project. I really can't see the council ever playing hardball and meaning it with Livingston. The appearance of Rankine at the last moment may just have convinced any council waverers. I honestly think that if Livingston were going bust that someone would have administered the coup de grace by now. The fact that they still exist, at least on paper, suggests that they will still be around next season.

^^ excellent post, that's pretty much how I feel about Livingston in a nutshell. I agree with the Meadowbank stuff KotS has outlined above but whilst I wouldn't go to Livingston owing to my opposition to franchising, I wouldn't exactly blame others for taking a different choice. The Meadowbank thing is beginning to be a bit abstract for those who weren't there/didn't notice and I;m not sure that rehearsing this stuff endlessly gets us anywhere. As a fan I can feel a little bit of sympathy for the supporters who've watched the club since they were moved in '95, and since, a club going out of business is a horrible thing. That said if Livi do go bust I won't shed a single tear at the death of the club itself.

so the chef boy that's owed seven grand in expenses run up in his job gets about £170 as settlement of that? the players owed three grand wages get about £80? scandalous.

Administration might be the saving of the club, no? It would certainly mean curtains for Massolini, and would probably mean whoever's going to sign Griffiths get him for substantially less, as the new administrator desperately tries to fend off the creditors. It also gives the Trust an opportunity- not convinced MacDougall would take over once the full extent of the debt is revealed. If administration does happen, does that mean Massolini just gets to walk away unscathed? How does it work?

Maybe, but politically I'd imagine first division clubs have a much bigger voice within the SFL and will complain bitterly about the loss of two home games per season, unless the SFL covers that cost. I do think the SFL will be embarrassed into adhoc action rather than have their top league lopsided. I guess you're right though in that it could go either way. If I were the players and staff of Airdrie and Cowdenbeath I'd rather take my chances of a bad season at a higher level than not.

...in the Third Division, as it will be too embarrassing for the SFL to have their top league lopsided, and there isn't the time to elect a new club after a fair application and election process. Third Division clubs are likely to have a free weekend for their "Cowdenbeath" fixtures, assuming the Cowden are upped into Division 2. Let's face it, the chances of Livi surviving the close season, are roughly on a par with the chances of a lone Sopwith Camel in a dogfight with a squadron of Eurofighters.