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Livingston - all the threads merged


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Whatever is decided today will either confirm or otherwise the credibility of the SFL. They must not allow a precedent to be set and they need to demonstrate they are a serious football league once and for all. What I don't want to see is an SPL-esque judgement that stinks of protectionism while putting two fingers up to Scottish football and justice itself.

A 15 point fine (plus an outright ban from the league, suspended for 5 years - activated if administration recurs in that timeframe).

The SFL are more likely to cave and hand out a suspended points deduction <_<

Today's Scottish Tit & Bum predicts "chaos" if "Livi" are sanctioned/relegated, with whining from the new owners, including the classic from MacDougall "this isn't blackmail". <_<

The spectre of SFL appointed lawlords, ruling on an inevitable appeal from the Franchise in the event of sanctions being applied, and the league thrown into disarray, is raised.

Chaos

what a mess.

Surely this quote is absolute nonsense?

Ex-Dumbarton owner Rankine added: "There is now only one obstacle standing in our way. That is the decision of the Scottish Football League on Wednesday.

"Every other issue has been satisfied or solved.

What about the small matter of the CVA? Did I miss that all being agreed with the creditors?

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Excuse my ignorance, but can someone explain how any decision will be made, or more accurately, who makes it.

As I understand There is a committee of six(?) people who will sit down and decide Livingston's future. Is this committee acting on instructions from the 29 clubs or do they have powers to do as they see fit?

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In that case, you'd have to take the SFL to court and prove that the rules (which Livi voluntarily signed up to when becoming a member) are illegal.

Which rule in particular do you consider to be illegal?

I was making a general point so no need to go on the defensive.

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Excuse my ignorance, but can someone explain how any decision will be made, or more accurately, who makes it.

As I understand There is a committee of six(?) people who will sit down and decide Livingston's future. Is this committee acting on instructions from the 29 clubs or do they have powers to do as they see fit?

I believe today's meeting consists of all 29 voting clubs (although Livi will surely be forced to abstain).

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every away fan shouldn't go to livi if this mob get away with riding roughshod over every other club in the leagues.

f#ck em

I don't get this point at all.

Yes, Livi have been very badly managed financially (by an utter fruitcake) but how is that riding roughshod over other clubs?

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Originally Posted by fanfromday1

Its typical of that shower.

I posted earlier that I wouldn't trust them to come to a decision based on anything other than self interest and vindictiveness. Hope I am wrong. Talking about kicking a man when he is down.

If we get hit with a massive points deduction or worse relegation we should take out a court injunction against the SFL and totally screw up their fixture list.

It wont make us any more unpopular than we obviously are

. From LL this morning..

This is exactly the kinda shite that your man Massone would have pulled and I love the fact that he was pilloried and abused for tactics like this by the Livi fans right up till he was hounded out by the baying mob.

Now YOU want to try to blackmail the SFL with your fucking appaling threats..You make me sick.......

imeter1.gif

Edited by The ghost of Jim Morton
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I don't get this point at all.

Yes, Livi have been very badly managed financially (by an utter fruitcake) but how is that riding roughshod over other clubs?

you blaming massone? the club had been run into the ground before he came along or are you meaning flynn's the fruitcake?

you've been in adminstration twice in recent years and somehow seem to retain your position in the leagues. other clubs try and run themselves within their means yet you lot sem to ignore that.

piss off down to the third and come back when you've earned it, properly.

*away fans to boycott livi if they get away with it again*

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I don't get this point at all.

Yes, Livi have been very badly managed financially (by an utter fruitcake) but how is that riding roughshod over other clubs?

Em, because you've consistently been paying for players you cannot afford over your 14 year existence?

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By the way, if Livi want to appeal in the law courts, any hearing would take place tomorrow or Friday and be thrown out immediately, because:

1) Livi agreed to be bound by the rules of the SFL when they accepted membership

2) The rules are not illegal

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This all goes back to lack of will to deal with the Livingston problem.

That we are three days away from the league's big kick off, and this still isn't resolved, is entirely down the the refusal of the SFL to confront the issue and deal with it accordingly.

After all, if they had said at the end of last season "Livingston will be given every assistance to survive their present difficulty and will face no sanctions of any kind" then the position would have been clear and no one could complain about it, even though the basis on which the decision was made would probably have still been debated up to now.

Instead, they believed Massone's bullshit and chose to hide in the gents bog and lock the door for the summer, and hope that it all just went away. That cowardliness alone has led to today's impasse, leaving aside the issues of Massone's bonkers mismanagement, and the sleekit, conniving manipulation of the media and officials by McGruther and the new owners.

The committee today can decide to throw the league into chaos now, or later. Livingston as currently run cannot consistently survive at SFL 1 level- for the size of the club they are, they're no bigger than Stirling Albion. The problem for "Livi" is that in the first six years since they were franchised into the town, the clubs support were fed tons of utter horse manure about the club being a natural SPL club. Now that they are on the slide towards their more natural level, they will be hit by the apathy of many "fans" who refuse to turn up or say "am nae watchin that pish" when they drop out of the top two leagues. It's a cleft stick. the supporters will turn out for the SPL or if they;re challenging for promotion at the top end of SFL 1, but structurally the club will never be big enough to sustain that level of football and remain solvent.

At some point this season one of the ruling triumvirate will fall out or run out of money, or one of the creditors will be so pissed off he'll insist on liquidation just to prove a point, and chaos will ensue at that point. The model of a franchise club is fundamentally flawed as "Livi" have shown in the fourteen years of their existence.

So, the committee today decides whether to face down the blustering threats of MacDougall and co., or they fold and leave it to another committee to decide at some point in the future. Given the SFL's track record on this issue the latter is by far the more likely option.

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Regarding the required bond...

I wonder if the thinking behind this is ....

Livi put up £720,000 which the SFL hang on to. That equates to £20,000 per league game. After each game has been played, the SFL then release £20,000 back to the club. This ensures a steady cash flow for the whole season. Now if these guys are serious about investing in Livi and have the money (which they claim they do), I cannot see what the problem would be.A large portion of this released cash could then be paid directly to creditors to help clear the debts (and who I would hope would be agreeable to such a repayment proposal) , with wages and other club expenses being met from revenue generated by the club throughout the coming season. Any surplus cash generated would also go to outstanding creditors..

If they do go tits ups the SFL would then distribute the cash amongst the remaining 9 teams to cover their loss of revenue on a basis of who they had and had not played up to the point when they went out of business

They claim to have the money, they claim they're gonna repay the debts. This proposals works unless they don't actually have that sort of cash, in which case they're back to square fucking one anyway...

Oh this money isn't money they want to invest in the club. No sir, no way. This would return from whence it came. The new boys in charge have absolutely no intention of investing capital in the club which does not remain wholly within their control. They want the club to be completely self financing with absolutely zero "investment".

It matters not one bit where the club ply their trade after this coming season as what they are after is not football related. They want to be in the mix for what can be gleaned from it. They have what I will call a "sympathetic" council leader who is not overly aversed to being wined and dined ...........that might buy a lot of goodwill from that particular individual.

What they are after is land and property. If they had been dealing with a council famed for their equal and rigourous application of policy, they wouldn't have gone to Livingston. They are there because they are dealing with a council who might be compliant with what they want to do. The most attractive part of all is Peter Johnston (the council leader). Watch what happens in the next 24 months.

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Of course I do. That is a fair reflection of the situation. But you have to remember that Airdrie United , as a club , were in existence at the same time as Clydebank. They had to be because they applied for league membership while Clydebank were still members of the Scottish league. When Mr Ballantyne bought Clydebank and changed the name, the ground and the strip he had to obtain the permission of the Scottish league to do so. He obtained that permission ( even although there was precedent for not being allowed to do so )from the sfl. He therefore changed Clydebank's name to that of a club that was already in existence. That is why I think that it was in effect a breach of the rules. The sfl effectively sanctioned the transfer of Clydebank's league place to Airdrie United. I am distinguishing the ' football club' from the legal entity that is a company which I think you agree with given your post. It is easy to hide behind a strict interpretation of the company law rules and that is exactly what the blazers did when they allowed Airdrie to take Clydebank's place.

I think we are 90% there. As Stuart pointed out earlier. Airdrie only existed on paper at the time. Indeed it was given as a reason for the non-election to Div 3 earlier that month. So they shares and the league place were purchsed, not transferred to another member club.

But they did something about the situation and sorted it. Massone stuck his head in the sand and hoped it would all go away.

But what I meant was the fact that Clyde had to release every one of their players and start again from scratch.

True, they did, but they did pay more than they could afford to obtain a competitive advantage (worked like a dream, eh). The contracts were then torn up when it no longer suited them. i thought that might have been in breach of a rule or two. Did they get round that by co-ercing the players to agree to termination, ie mutual consent, therfore "you can't touch us for it".

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Originally Posted by fanfromday1

. From LL this morning..

This is exactly the kinda shite that your man Massone would have pulled and I love the fact that he was pilloried and abused for tactics like this by the Livi fans right up till he was hounded out by the baying mob.

Now YOU want to try to blackmail the SFL with your fucking appaling threats..You make me sick.......

imeter1.gif

It was ever thus.

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Oh this money isn't money they want to invest in the club. No sir, no way. This would return from whence it came. The new boys in charge have absolutely no intention of investing capital in the club which does not remain wholly within their control. They want the club to be completely self financing with absolutely zero "investment".

It matters not one bit where the club ply their trade after this coming season as what they are after is not football related. They want to be in the mix for what can be gleaned from it. They have what I will call a "sympathetic" council leader who is not overly aversed to being wined and dined ...........that might buy a lot of goodwill from that particular individual.

What they are after is land and property. If they had been dealing with a council famed for their equal and rigourous application of policy, they wouldn't have gone to Livingston. They are there because they are dealing with a council who might be compliant with what they want to do. The most attractive part of all is Peter Johnston (the council leader). Watch what happens in the next 24 months.

But the SFL could attach conditions that say the bond must be lodged by Livingston Football Club and any money released back from it goes to the same place.

EDIT: I suppose the difficulty there would be getting the money into the club in the first place without the creditors getting a bit irate.

Edited by Sir Calum Melville
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So, yet more blackmail from "Livi's" new owners.

As I understood it the only definite scenario in which they would walk away, is if the SFL relegated them to Division 3. The Division 2 plan is a grey area (they've made no statement on that as far as I can tell) and I still think that is the only appropriate sanction.

I think there's been some very interesting points made in the last twenty or so pages. It would be great to see some kind of fan-based grouping emerge (maybe from the posters on this thread and other interested fans who don't bother with the internet?) to try and campaign for the kind of changes we'd want to see enacted, and try and feed those into McLeish's review.

As someone else said after "deadline day" last week, we need to take some kind of action or forever consign ourselves to moaning pointlessly on the internet about what "they" (the blazers, UEFA, etc etc) are doing to "our" game.

Maybe hopelessly utopian but it would be interesting to see what could come out of it.

This is something that should perhaps be followed up on once the dust has settled here.

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