Livingston - all the threads merged

[Skyline Drifter]

Just to point out.. MacIntyre hasn't been involved with us for years and years. Turned up at Dumbarton a while after he left and is now at Albion Rovers

Apologies, I actually thought he had moved on but wasn't sure where to.

[Guest Flash]

"The consortium says its business plan for Livingston's future hinges on it remaining in Division One. "

That is a pretty robust argument in favour of no sanctions. This should be incorporated in the SFL rules:

76.1 The Management Committee shall have full power to deal with as it thinks fit, including power to suspend, fine or expel any club, club official or player guilty of misconduct or of violating, infringing or failing to observe the Rules of the League or League Challenge Cup Competition.

76.2 The Management Committee shall also have full power to deal with as it thinks fit, including power to deduct championship points before or during a season and/or to impose a player registration embargo on any club guilty of conduct contrary to the interests of the League and its member clubs or any registered player or former registered player, or potentially likely to prejudice the orderly progress of the League Championship and/or the League Challenge Cup competition in any season. Such conduct, for the avoidance of doubt, may include a club in or going into Administration, Liquidation, Receivership, Sequestration or any other insolvency

procedure by whatever means or having a Judicial Factor appointed to its undertaking.

76.2A Any club which can demonstrate that its business plan is predicated on survival in a particular division shall be exempt from any or all of the above sanctions.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Flash

[Double Jack D]

It's not a good point, because it isn't true! Did Massone help matters? No. Christ only knows what he thought he was doing - he may well be genuinely insane. But let's not forget, administration (for the second time) and threat of liquidation is the result of chronic corruption and mismanagement.

In case you didn't notice, football ownership is effectively legalised money laundering. It's the only reason - at least on a large scale - that people become involved in football. Massone is not the first. Not even the first at Livingston (therein lies the heart of the matter). Look at Hearts. The guy is fleecing them to the hilt, but gets away with it because without him the club is unsustainable.

Which is why its a good point to bring in rules to prevent these launderers from walking away Scot Free. The only people getting punished at Livvy (as well as at my club and Hearts in the future) is the people who have to mop the mess up afterwards and the creditors. The real people to blame very often walk away, at worst, even steven.

I'm not advocating that Livvy are not punished but suggest that there should be rules preventing this from happening in the first place.

[shizzlemanizzle]

A couple of weeks ago I would have said my views on this scenario were moderate - yes, pissed off with Livi & frustrated at the way they have conducted themselves but didn't give much of a shit beyond that. Now I am absolutely livid! I really did hope that this would be the dawn of a new HONEST era (the first of its sort at almondvale) but they are now saying the will walk away if x, y or z happens. This is utterly utterly bewildering & really, given the events of the last week, is tantamount to blackmail. Why oh why oh why are we bending over backwards to help this mob. Kill them off for christ sake & do Scottish football a HUGE favour.

[TheDoctor]

That is a pretty robust argument in favour of no sanctions. This should be incorporated in the SFL rules:

76.1 The Management Committee shall have full power to deal with as it thinks fit, including power to suspend, fine or expel any club, club official or player guilty of misconduct or of violating, infringing or failing to observe the Rules of the League or League Challenge Cup Competition.

76.2 The Management Committee shall also have full power to deal with as it thinks fit, including power to deduct championship points before or during a season and/or to impose a player registration embargo on any club guilty of conduct contrary to the interests of the League and its member clubs or any registered player or former registered player, or potentially likely to prejudice the orderly progress of the League Championship and/or the League Challenge Cup competition in any season. Such conduct, for the avoidance of doubt, may include a club in or going into Administration, Liquidation, Receivership, Sequestration or any other insolvency

procedure by whatever means or having a Judicial Factor appointed to its undertaking.

76.2A Any club which can demonstrate that its business plan is predicated on survival in a particular division shall be exempt from any or all of the above sanctions.

That must be the new rule they are looking to change

[Uncle Psychosis]

That must be the new rule they are looking to change

If Livi survive in the first next season then I really hope whichever club has ended up in the relegation spot takes legal action---"our business plan won't survive relegation" and cites Livi as the precedent.

I've gone from absolute apathy about this (my only wish was that airdrie didn't get saved *again*) to really hoping that this shower of cheating wasters get the book thrown at them. At this stage I think they have to be kept in the first, but only because any other result would cause hassle for everyone else. Lets just make sure the outcome is definite and deduct them 30 points.

[Skinheed]

If Livi survive in the first next season then I really hope whichever club has ended up in the relegation spot takes legal action---"our business plan won't survive relegation" and cites Livi as the precedent.

I've gone from absolute apathy about this (my only wish was that airdrie didn't get saved *again*) to really hoping that this shower of cheating wasters get the book thrown at them. At this stage I think they have to be kept in the first, but only because any other result would cause hassle for everyone else. Lets just make sure the outcome is definite and deduct them 30 points.

So tell them they can stay in the First as long as they promise to get relegated?

[Ever the Optimist]

Get real! The days of businesses borrowings being dependent on solely their assets vanished decades ago

So what exactly are football clubs(who are fortunate enough still to be able to borrow) borrowing against? Not even the ridiculous business practices of the financial institutions over the last few years would give football clubs money without guarantees. So they must be borrowing against an asset in some way shape or form.

I can assure you that it is the supermarkets themselves that choose to sell below cost, even after screwing over their suppliers.

At the risk of us going off topic, the suppliers most certainly don't (they simply screw the producers...why do you think Mohammed Sarwar became a millionaire by sticking to the supply chain side & leaving the shop and producing side to others?).

What you are perhaps thinking of is the practice where supermarkets force suppliers wanting the all important eye-level shelves have to pay what is to all intensive purposes 'rent' for the privilege. There was also the case of Safeway demanding food manufacturers pay them money for their products to feature in their adverts (which rightly blew up in their faces)

A lot of these abuses however have decreased primarily due to the flak generated by George Monbiot's Captive State: The Corporate Takeover Of Britain, though there is still a long way to go.

You are right. It is the supermarket that chooses to sell below cost, but it is most definitely the producer/supplier(the companies I have worked for supply direct to the supermarkets) that absorbs the cost of any special offer, BOGOF promotion etc. And as I said before if the producer doesn't like it they lose the business of that supermarket.

And in supermarkets the eye-level products are usually the higher priced premium products as they have the biggest profit margin.

[Ever the Optimist]

QUOTE (onejamesgrady @ Aug 5 2009, 00:14) Just to point out.. MacIntyre hasn't been involved with us for years and years. Turned up at Dumbarton a while after he left and is now at Albion Rovers

Apologies, I actually thought he had moved on but wasn't sure where to.

Don't worry about it. The only apologies should be ours for letting that man be involved with a football club in the first place.

[Casey]

This "hassle" if Livi were relegated re. sponsorships, hospitality, buses etc.

Is it any worse than a game being frozen off in January at short notice?

[EdinburghPar1975]

I'm sorry but why were they only making a business plan based on SFL1 football? That was ridiculous in the first place. Given that the club was in such a bad state they should have been planning for the worst situation, not one that was the best they could get and then pin their existence to it.

Although the bond does seem excessive in monetary terms its really something that has be lodged if they are unable to gaurantee the games. My club are on thin enough ice without losing two home games income.

I'd fully expect a smaller bond to be agreed (@£250k but i'd imagine that this will also be too much) with a points deduction (knowing the SFL the deduction will be appealed and overturned!).

Although I don't agree with what Rankine and co are doing, I understand why they need to do it..every penny (and point) counts!

[Sergeant Wilson]

I don't believe it's right that they should start on a level playing field, when you consider other clubs have abided by the rules and cut all kinds of costs, with Clyde leaping to mind in particular.

Errrm, they didn't really stick to the rules either though, did they?

[Ivo den Bieman]

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.

[banjo player]

The bottom line in all of this posturing from Massougall and Rankone is that they are in this to rip somebody off, somewhere along the line. Anybody can see that the Livi model is not sustainable as it stands and it would be bloody hard to get it to work even if the ground was available rent free for the foreseeable future.

Massone was clearly living from hand to mouth last season to avoid dipping his hand in his own pocket and even paying the players out of the cash coming in could not be done on time. And before the Livi apologists come in and that commercial sponsors withdrew because they hated Massone, with respect that is pish. They withdrew because there is a recession, the atmosphere was crap with only 800 people next to them in the West Stand and because firts division football is pretty duff as far as entertainment goes.

Massougall and Rankone will have Nixon's cash, the trust's cash and the supporters cash firmly trousered and be back over the dyke before tea time. Why? Well why else are they involved?

[shizzlemanizzle]

I'm sorry but why were they only making a business plan based on SFL1 football? That was ridiculous in the first place. Given that the club was in such a bad state they should have been planning for the worst situation, not one that was the best they could get and then pin their existence to it.

Exactly! The notion of relegation has been widely discussed as a viable punishment for quite some time so why the fcuk would they completely ignore this & base their knight in shinning armour act solely on 1st div football. Is this all one big joke? Are they on the wind-up? If livi stay in the 1st I urge all away fans to stay away from almondvale. I wonder what that would do to their business plan!!!

Edited August 5, 2009 by shizzlemanizzle

[The Master]

By all means keep them in Division 1, but slap them with all the sanctions you can think of:

20 point penalty

Ban on signing players (regardless if a CVA is put in place...the ban is lifted only at the discretion of the SFL board)

Ban on charging admission to away fans...ahem...

[shizzlemanizzle]

Ban on charging admission to away fans...ahem...

Don't think that is going to be much of an issue........

[Nowhereman]

At last! It has sunk in.

Presumably you didn't read my original post on this point. I was always referring to the club not the company

[Homer Thompson]

It does, because what you and all the other detractors refuse to accept is that football is a business like any other, and all this talk of "cheats" because a club overspent in anticipation of further gains shows a breathtaking amount of naivity. They were doing what businesses tend to do.

I notice one clown from this thread that's been baiting Livi (and in the past baited Gretna) is up to his old tricks now with the Killie fans. When are some people going to take off their rose-tinted specs about the running of professional football companies somehow possessing anything resembling some sort of Corinthian spirit? In Roy Of The Rovers, maybe, but not in the real world...

If you don't want your football to be all about evil lucre...watch the amateurs.

I really cannot believe you have just written that.

OF COURSE he's damn well competing with Tescos! Why do you think the supermarket has the loss leaders? To lure people into going the extra distance to go to them instead of the corner shop!

Ask any bank how many loans small shop keepers take out simply to allow them to stay open when faced with a new supermarket in town they know has been given a large "loss leader" budget for it's first 2 quarters by national HQ in order to establish itself?

I think the boards of Clyde, Stranraer, East Stirlingshire might have something to say about that one...

Of come off it! St Johnstone would be in deep shit if it wasn't for the largesse of their chairman - he even bought Alan Main in a last desperate attempt to destablise Gretna enough so they would pip them to promotion, the sort of tactic usually reserved by the Old Firm against any upstarts threatening to split them.

One of the reasons Scottish football historically has such an appalling track record of bust clubs is that they are by and large dependent - thanks to the grossly inflated power the Old Firm has over the rest - on a chairman or board of directors happy to continually throw good money after bad in order to keep the club alive. The moment they go - or the money dries up thanks to the boardroom becoming a battleground - they are invariably in trouble.

So please spare us the "sustainability" line, because in Scottish football outside of the Old Firm that has always been directly linked to the size of the Fat Cigars in the boardroom's pockets.

So the crux of the matter is it's all down to sour grapes about Livi actually winning a real trophy as opposed to whatever Mickey Mouse consolation tournament the SFA runs up as a sop to 'the minnows' before doing whatever the Old Firm wants?

We'd never have guessed

No wonder Stranraer attracted plenty of sympathy around Scotland when they were about to go under owing people left right and centre and having alienated a large part of their locality by ignoring local talent for that further afield [and hence the setting up of Stranraer Athletic (RIP) in the South of Scotland league].

Everybody sympathises with a club on its uppers in Scottish football...if it's one your team can beat.

My local shopkeeper isnt competing against Tescos, in the same way that Queens arent competing against Celtic. Yes, we're in the same business and, yes, we're trying to attract the same customers, but we're not going head to head with them. We cant match their buying power, their finances etc etc. Tescos sale targets are in the hundreds of millions per year, my local shopkeepers arent. Even at a local level what the manager of Tescos considers success is a million miles away from the local corner shop. In the same way, Queens arent targetting the SPL title and a good run in the Champions League. Livy overspent trying to compete with clubs that they couldnt, and shouldnt, have been trying to compete with.

This is why you're "football is just another business" comment is so very wrong. If that were true, Livy would already be out of business and a new company would have been formed and looking forward to the new season. Speculate to accumulate is all well and good, but if it doesnt work then there should be consequences. For most businesses, its going bust, for a football business, they should be football related.

Sour grapes? Not at all. Thats an easy line to peddle out to try and distract from the real point.

[The Naitch]

McDougall and Rankine have, predictably, put the SFL under pressure with their ridiculous comments today. I just hope that the SFL have found their backbone and don't buckle under the pressure.

I'm with most of the folk on here in that a points deduction is the only realistic punishment relative to the crime committed. Had this all unfolded six weeks ago then relegation would have been more suitable.