Yoss

All this talk of keeping full-time players in case they're still in division one seems to overlook the small point that they lost something in the region of a million quid by maintaining a full-time squad in division one just last season.

Prest was a stroppy twat. Cristian Patino was a decent enough centre-back on his day though.

Football debt, in this context, is debt to other clubs and footballers.

It's going to sound like I'm having another pop here, or that I want Livingston to fail. The latter, at least, is not true, I really do hope they can sort themselves out. But, alarm bells should be ringing all over the place here. You would think, after having a whole string of saviours in the past who all left you in the lurch, that some degree of credulity would be applied to the current lot, but there's no signs of it so far, just blind trust that he knows what he's doing. And maybe he does, or at least he's a considerable improvement on Massone, but then that's not exactly setting the bar high. Successful businessmen tend to be full of confidence, and almost invariable assume that their success is down to their own merits and business acumen without necessarily acknowledging that there's often a huge amount of luck involved, and no particular reason to suppose that that luck will stay with them in any future ventures. Simon Jordan and Mike Ashley would be two obvious examples from people who've ventured into the world of footie. McDougall and Rankine have already worked within football so they're notploughing in quite so naively into a new industry in anything like the same way. Nonetheless, anyone assuming that because McDougall has achieved (relative) success at Cowdenbeath that everything's going to be fine, without paying any attention to the available evidence, has not learned any of the lessons from the past few years and may well find themselves with a nasty shock coming sooner rather than later. The early signs are that the consortium have made at least some miscalculations - at the time the consortium made the initial commitment (in buying Massone's shares) Livi were a first division club and their sums were based on that. Granted, they could have pulled out subsequently but it's very difficult for people to write something off once they've already made an initial investment. I suspect they've also misestimated the support they'llget from the Livingston public, in either division but especially in the first. It's already pretty clear that the promised policy of living within their means is unsustainable based on their current plan, and their behaviour during the appeals process doesn't smack of great judgement either. I may have misassessed all that, the SFA might prove me wrong on the last point very soon and maybe they do have some brilliant business plan that will pull full-time levels of income from somewhere without them having to subsidise it. But like I say, if it were me, warning bells would be going off all over the place already for the new regime.

Okay. I'll wait to see.

First game of the season, with new ownership and a siege mentality brought on by perceived injustices, I'd have expected something of a rallying round.

There's no way the administrator would be allowing them to take on more debt at this stage, soft or otherwise. (Edit: surely?)

Let's get back to the serious business of calling Livingston c***s. Are they seriously going to be running a full-time squad in division three with crowds of maybe a thousand if they're lucky, even while similtaneously offering creditors some derisory number of pence in the pound for a CVA? It's almost breathtakingly brass-necked, and I'll have nothing but ill-will for them if that is the road they go down after all thse promises of turning over a new leaf and living within their means from now on. Look what Clyde are having to do to their playing squad in order not to default on debts.

Are we still flogging this one? We're not going to convince each other now. Which isn't going to stop me chipping in my tuppence-worth again. I don't agree with SCM, it's more natural and more in tune with convention in other areas of life to interpret an appeal as being lodged when the written submission to that effect is put in by the club. And his position there on the ten days thing doesn't work - constitutionally it should take 21 days for an SGM to be organised, there was no guarantee that it would be held within ten days so that only works if the initial submission is to be considered as the act of appeal. In any case, as I've already said earlier in the thread, I think all this argument about rule 76.3 is by-the-by because I don't see any reason to interpret 76.4 which follows it - "The appeal shall, however, be deemed to have succeeded unless the decision of the Management Committee is supported by a majority of the votes cast at the said Special General Meeting" - as applying until such time as the vote comes to be taken. All that clause says is that a majority have to support the decision, ie a split decision will mean the appeal would be upheld. It does not say that the appeal is therefore considered to be successful throughout until such time as the vote takes place, which is how Livingston seem to be reading it. Any chance we can drop this one now?

Well yeah, you're all right there obviously. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on their current motivation anyway, just because I'm soft that way.

"The new board have discussed the matter at length and have taken the decision to cooperate fully with the member clubs and the SFL. Although we intend to pursue our appeal through all the channels open to us the time constraint in so doing are not conducive to the better interests of the game. The fact that the game of football and the fans of several clubs are the ones being affected by this lengthy uncertainty has led us to make this decision." That's fair enough actually, I'll take them at their word on that. Ignore my earlier comments on their motivation.

I would also hate to think that Montrose's current injury and suspension problems were any kind of a consideration. WJR - it's not obvious to me why anyone would need to see the paperwork relating to a specific appeal in order to interpret, or at least to have an opinion on interpretation of, the SFL rulebook.

The decision to play tomorrow is a slightly odd one, because this time they'd actually be right. Unlike the SFL, the SFA's rules do indeed explicitly state that the decision would be set aside pending the appeal being heard. And why is it going to prejudice such an appeal any less than it did last week? It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that they simply care less about another club's home fixture than they do about their own. But maybe I'm imputing motive where none exists.

Anyway, my article on the recent developments at Livi can be read here, if anyone's interested: http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=1810

I'm not sure what you mean by self-interest, the interest of the league? Of course that's what the rules are there for. As far as set penalties go, that's tricky, the various leagues down south have a set penalty of a ten point deduction but have found that circumstances vary so much that they've had to vary from it on at least five occasions I can think of in the past three seasons. They're also hamstrung by hard and fast rules such as not allowing teams to start the season without an agreed CVA in place, which they've then had to back down on. You end up with tha absurd situation that also happened yesterday, where Chester are initially not allowed to start the season because the rules don't allow it, then realise the rules don't work so break them anyway, and then the FA have to fine the Conference for breaching their rules. It's something that should be looked at but there's a lot to be said for flexibility. Something like a bond, in aprticular, is going to vary wildly down to circumstances, you can't put in a fixed rule or sum for that. There's general agreement and a fair amount of discussion during the course of the thread that some such measures are needed. I don't see how that's relevant to where we are now. More can and should be done in future to try and stop teams getting into such trouble, but that's unrelated to the fact that Livingston have already done so and bear 100% responsibility for it. I think the SFL were fairly explicit that the relegation was not intended as a punitive measure, either in the case of Gretna or Livingston. In Livi's case at least they openly said they would allow them to start in the first division *if* they could provide the necessary guarantees. They were placed in the third division because, like Gretna, they were unable to do so, and a midseason withdrawal at that level would cause least damage or disruption (the third division teams might not see it that way but I think the league as a whole has to). If that's the logic they're applying then no, there'd be no reason to expel or demote a third division club in a simialr scenario, though I like to think they'd at least get a hefty points deduction. Yes. I'm not sure if you have a point there - if you're suggesting the SFL are applying different rules then there's no evidence to back it up, unless and until such a scenario happens. Ungrounded speculation that they might treat Raith or Ayr differently doesn't have any bearing on our discussion of the rights and wrongs of the current situation. There are two separate issues there though, there's the issue of any punishment for going through administration (or other such insolvency procedure) - I agree a mandatory points penalty should be applied, as in England and the SPL. There's a second issue of clubs being able to guarantee that they're on a legally sound footing and able to complete the season. Points penalties don't come into it there, and England are far stricter here as well - in theory at least. As I said above, clubs in Livingston's position down south who are under insolvency proceedings but yet to agree a CVA are not supposed to be allowed to start the season *at all*. As they've discovered themselves this is far too strict, and they've had to break those rules again for Chester as they did for Leeds a couple of years ago. The SFL have a different tack, clearly. They have more flexible rules,a dn they prfer to allow teams to play, even with no guarantee they can complete the season, but put them int he division where it will do elast damage in terms of overall fiancial cost or the image / reputation of the league. Whether or not you agree (I'm not sure I agree myself) I don't think that's such an unreasonable position as to justify calling the SFL for being useless or incompetent. (Still less for claiming the stance is illegal and likely to be overturned by the court.) It's not even a particularly strict position - the English rules are much harsher.

I know we disagree on much of this and that's fair enough but I can't understand where you're coming from there at all, on any count.

Have they said that? So all that pish about turning over a new leaf and they will be living within their income now is out the window already?

I agree. Unlike HibeeJibee and others, I didn't necessarily take it as read that today's appeal would fail, the clubs would make their own judgement on whether they thought it was fair and wouldn't necessarily approach it from a legalistic standpoint. The SFA will play it by the book, however, and I can't see that Livi will have a leg to stand on from here. I'm also curious to know what changed McGruther's mind about taking it further, it's difficult to acvoid the conclusion that it's the new owners who have done so. McGruther's job remains to act in the best interest of creditors, not Livi 5.

Radio Scotland are reporting that Livingston will indeed appeal to the SFA, and this weekend's game won't go ahead.

"scab" is uncalled for, KtfS, it was their club not yours - they were entitled to make their own decision and aren't obliged to agree with you.

The SFL indicated last week that they would have postponed Livington's game if the appeal had been received in time for them to do so. So there's every chance they might postpone this week's themselves if Livi submit an appeal promptly (and it might affect Cowdenbeath and Airdrie too). If, on the other hand, the appeal goes in last thing on Friday afternoon again then sympathy is going to start to wear very thin indeed.

I had thought maybe the delay in the SFL putting up a statement might mean they were carefully working one which would give us a bit more information. I was mistaken. http://www.scottishfootballleague.com/news...amp;newsid=2859

No statement on the SFL site yet.

The analogy with player suspensions doesn't work because, like the death penalty analogies used earlier in the thread, the sentence is obviously irreversible once carried out. The same is not true of whichever division Livingston are regarded to be in until the appeal is heard. At any rate we've covered that topic more than to death now and it's not getting us anywhere. Let's see what the SFL decide tomorrow. (Has it been confirmed anywhere that they've got authority from all thirty clubs to go ahead tomorrow? I'm assuming that'll be a formality, but you never know.)

Blimey. Pisstaking aside I genuinely can't see a single thing in that post that's actually correct.