Ivo den Bieman

totally agree with that. Knowing the SFL, they'll probably respond to the clamour for sensible rule changes by changing a semi colon to a comma in a paragraph no one cares about anyway, and unveil it as a "radical new blueprint for the twenty first century".

Have you considered the possibility that the programmes are printed to tight deadlines and are likely to have been ordered on Tuesday or thereabouts, long before the SFL's decision? I know Montrose's programme deadlines are something of that order. Still, carry on calling people "fucking liars" if it makes you feel any better. in any case, he's talking about hospitality here- hospitality which would have been booked on the premise of a first division game taking place against either "Livi" or Airdrie United. So why you're bumping your gums about programmes is anyone's guess. Assuming prgrammes were printed, the chairman has a load of useless Livingston prgrammes heading straight to the recycling facility.

Anyway, the SFL are meeting (again) this afternoon to discuss Saturday's fixtures. Ross County have threatened to sue for compensation if Saturday's fixtures are called off. Livingston have said nothing yet but I don't think MacDougall in particular will walk away quietly. Ross County set to demand compensation

Well, I don't agree. technically yes you are right with the SFA / SFL distinction but that would have been enough for me if I were a member of the SFL to intervene at that point. I suspect we're just not going to agree on this one though. There was nothing in the rules, either, to stop the SFL and the SFA working together to probe Livingston's accounts and put Massone under pressure- that they chose not to do so has led directly to today's situation. I can't really see what dangerous precedent is being set. Submit your accounts in time and nothing happens. It's not hard.

I've absolutely no idea why he's become so obsessed with Livingston in the last month or so. I have the feeling he'll cling on and try and run the club in the third division just to stick the blazers one in the eye.

Yes, I can. A club which lives within tis means and can be relied on to fulfil its fixtures. a second team for the Aberdeen area playing in a new purpose built stadium which is currently being planned. a club committed to playing tis way through the leagues within the rules. can you suggest why they wouldn't be decent members of the league? Is it just because you think they're a diddy team compared to the mighty "Livi"?

I can't find a link to it, no, but Massone failed to submit annual accounts to the SFL and the club was fined £5000 suspended until September, at the end of 2008-9. It happened at the same meeting that the SFL fell for his blandishments about the club's future. I think Flash's post above answers all your other questions about the SFL "being unable" to take action unless a club is in administration. There was a lack of political will to tackle the problem in reasonable time. I would agree that the SFL were in a very tight spot, but stick to the view that they should have acted- and taken this decision- much sooner than they chose to. Edit- found a link- it's mentioned in this old Tit & Bum article. The club had to submit accounts to the SFA, not the SFL, and it was them who fined them. To what purpose, you'll have to write and ask the SFA, I can only assume it's something to do with club licensing. Fine for Failing to Submit Accounts

on the grounds that Livingston had been "on the point of bankruptcy" for a while, on the basis that the club were haemorrhaging money on court cases brought about by Massone's incompetence, on the basis that players and staff were going for months without pay, on the basis that Livingston failed to submit annual accounts as required on the deadline set. Your analogy about coming round my house hardly works- I'm not obliged to follow any rules as set out by you, however Livingston FC were obliged to follow the laws and reasonable requests of the SFL. Fair enough about keithgy, I guess time will tell.

Fair enough Skyline Drifter. I don't know "keithgy" but if he's not a wind up merchant then there may be truth in it- just don;t see how he could know for sure, even if he is a friend of one of the "triumvirate", as they don't appear to know themselves what the next move is. I don't agree with your point about the SFL. In my view they should have demanded sight of the accounts from Massone and a bond from him by a July 1 deadline, penalty for non compliance being the relegation that happened yesterday. That way we would all have known where we stood much earlier. Instead they believed his crap and hid away hoping that all this trouble would somehow disappear on the tip of a fairy's wand, which was never a bright strategy to take. Time for the "triumvirate" to put up or shut up. If they really were in it to save the club then there should be no problem with a Livingston side paying its way and living within its means in the Third, hoping to put together a successful team within a very tight budget like the rest of us. If this thread and Livi Lions is to be believed then the club will be able to count on a 600+ home support every week, which will put them at an advantage compared to all other clubs bar Annan who have that kind of regular following, too. If they walk away then the dark suspicions of some of the more cynical posters on this thread will have been vindicated. that said, if the new consortium's interests were merely about land and property, surely the league status of the football club is irrelevant? If this is true, then the only real blow to their hopes would have been league expulsion and reposession of Almondvale by WLC.

whoever claimed that yesterday was definitely jumping the gun. Apparently there is a player's meeting this morning and then a statement will be posted on the club website indicating what they plan to do next. FWIW I think "Livi" will get on with it and try and start the season in Div 3, if none of the triumvirate cut and run. An appeal will be costly and almost certainly doomed to fail.

I'm a type 1 diabetic and sometimes a Mars Bar is absolutely essential kit in order to avoid slipping into a coma during hypoglycaemia (which is the only thing likely to kill you in the short term). So, your analogy doesn't really work. More broadly, you seem to be chewing the carpet with rage at this, but your team is set to "Other". Who do you actually follow, or are you a generalist? I must admit to being absolutely gobsmacked at the decision but I welcome it. IOt shows that corrupt behind the scenes practices won't be tolerated, such as Livingston's oft-documented practice of spending money they didn;t have and then entering an insolvency process to avoid paying it back. It's not a pretty situation, however, and the SFL must take the blame for a summer's worth of dithering over the issue, for that. Even to have made this ruling last week- when it was perfectly within their right to do so- would have been better than this. I will be absolutely *fascinated* to see what the triumvirate's response is. They will be coddled in a meeting at present establishing two things; 1. does an appeal stand any chance of success (the answer, legally, is no) and 2. can the club feasibly be run at third division level- the answer is probably yes, given wages of £20 a week, voluntary backroom/office staff, and a complete re calibration of the relationship with the community. As others have pointed out, both here and in the third division forum, if they are really in it to save the club, then starting again in the third division shouldn't be a problem. If, as others suspect, the aim all along was to make a quick buck and leave this perennially insolvent franchise high and dry, they will indeed cut their respective losses and Livingston will shortly be joining the list of defunct Scottish clubs. I agree with Edinburgh Livi on one thing- the dancing shoes merchants are still far too premature. This has a bit more mileage in it yet.

Well lunch will just about be finished by now, cigars will have been stubbed out/stuck behind the ear for later, so the wise men will now, having suitably loosened their belts a notch, sat down to grasp the nettle at hand. This will take the form of an ill-tempered ninety minute debate concerning a rumour of dandelions growing in the penalty box at Shielfield Park, and whether a penalty should be levied as a result. After that, Jim Leishman will read out some bad poetry, that he's written specially for the occasion, whilst every one else looks at their watch, and nothing will be done about Livingston, as it's already a bitty tight for the 1842 from Queen Street for a few of the blazers to be back home in time for the evening's bowls on the telly.

Jim Leishman should *not* be party to any discussion on this let alone be in a position to influence a decision either way.

How many from here sent him angry emails on the subject? (I would have done but I was moving house ) One other thing that's bothered me, under what auspices did MacDougall, Rankine, Nixon and Peter Johnson address the SFL meeting last week? The only one who *technically* had anything to do with the football club- as interim manager- was McGruther. Why did the meeting not throw the other shysters out on their ear? that's another nasty precedent set. Any businessman can now pitch up to meetings like these and claim to be the saviour of whichever club is breathing their last, simply to convince the slow witted SFL membership that nothing should be done. Massone was complaining about it outside the meeting last week and it was one of two things he got right- the other was to judge that he could hold out for more money from the ruling triumvirate. In saying that, with the club in an insolvency process, Massone simply became a creditor and had no right to be there either.

Maybe worth a separate thread then sometime next week, would have to try and make it a sticky or something so that other fans from other divisions/forums could take part. By that time this thread should be sinking fast on p.3 after "Livi's" inevitable reprieve today, and thinking on rule changes and how football is governed/ how the leagues are composed should take place on another thread I think....

In the *extremely* unlikely event of that happening then Livingston FC will not exist come the weekend as MacDougall and Rankine will make good their threat to pull out. I have to say it's more likely that I'll sign for Real Madrid before the weekend than "Livi" are to face that kind of penalty today.

got it in one

If this is true then the member clubs can't really complain if the SFL stick to form and let Livingston off the hook. I imagine that a wide range of club chairman opinions will have been canvassed in advance of the meeting though- both by Longmuir for the SFL, and MacDougall/Rankine twisting arms and calling in favours from their fellow blazers.

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.

I'm 99% certain they will get away with it though.

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.

wasn't that meant to happen last week? no chance now. It's a high wire act for the SFL. Too harsh, and the risk of the blackmailers throwing a strop and taking the SFL to appeals/ threatening legal action (although on what basis that would be, I'm not sure. "Livi's" indignation at the mere thought of any sanction being applied really gives me the boak). Too lenient, and other clubs up in arms about the manifest unfairness of the whole thing. for that reason, whilst relegation would be the most appropriate punishment, I'm going to bet that the moist severe thing the SFL do is deduct 15 points. I still don't rule out them doing nothing at all about it.