[LU] To Be Fair:...........

[Michael ALCOCK]

Michael,

I'm sorry but the Guardian article is garbage. It make's no mention of
the role of the HMRC, KPMG, and implies that we recieved a 15 pt
deduction, when of course we received 25pts for administration.

Rotherham, Luton, Bournemouth (to my knowledge) have met the same
difficulties as us in securing a CVA, but haven't incurred the
additional 15pt penalty.



2008/5/1 Dr Michael Benjamin <mib at myray.com>:
> Hi
> An article from the Guardian. It is not easy to find fault in it
> Michael
> =====================================================
>
> And so after a year of acrimony, arbitration and appeal, Leeds United
> have failed
> to reclaim their missing 15
> points<http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/may/01/leedsunited.leagueonefootball>.
> The arbitration panel has spoken: there will be no recourse to the high
> court, no giddy ascent to the European justice system. It all stops here.
>
> The reinstatement of the docked points would have lifted Leeds above
> Doncaster and into an automatic promotion place. Instead, Gary McAllister's
> men will submit to the rigours of the play-offs.
>
> And quite right, too. The decision of the panel to uphold the Football
> League's censure of the club's financial management should be heartily
> applauded. Not just by the chairmen of the other 71 Football League clubs
> who have already voted overwhelmingly to sanction Leeds and then again to
> uphold the original punishment. But also by anybody concerned with how
> football is conducted in the leagues below the Premier, where financial
> management is as much a part of success on the field as tactics and
> training.
>
> First, a recap. For anybody confused by the labyrinthine legal process,
> here's how we arrived at today's verdict:
>
> On May 4 last year Leeds called in the administrators and announced that the
> club would be sold to a group of companies headed by Ken Bates. They were
> immediately docked 10 points, ensuring relegation to League One, where they
> were headed in any case.
>
> After a summer of financial turmoil, the Football League granted Leeds
> permission to play in League One this season, but only with an additional
> 15-point deduction. The penalty was a result of the club operating other
> than under the Football League's well-established rules on insolvency while
> a transfer of League membership was made to the legal entity (owner: Ken
> Bates) to which the club now belonged.
>
> Leeds immediately appealed. They lost. They appealed again, requesting the
> high court arbitrate rather than the Football League. The basis of the
> appeal was that a 15-point penalty was disproportionate to the offence.
>
> In February this year they forced the issue by serving a high court writ on
> the League. The League duly gave in to the request for an arbitration panel,
> which would be composed of a representative from each side plus one
> independent.
>
> In April the panel confirmed it would make its decision by May 1, in order
> to avoid complications with the League One play-offs. The issue at stake was
> whether the club stood to gain unfairly from the way its administration was
> managed; and also whether any divergence, however minor, from the League's
> rules should be worthy of such heavy punishment. By inference, the answer is
> yes on both accounts.
>
> Still, some will conclude that this is all a rather shaggy legal issue:
> bound up with due process and insolvency rules; and possibly with punishing
> an occasionally unpopular club and a consistently unpopular owner.
>
> This is far from the case. Above all this is a football issue. The rules on
> going into administration are strict for a reason. This is much more than
> just a balls-up by the bean counters. To clubs operating in the same league
> going into administration amounts to a kind of betrayal, a queering of the
> pitch, almost an act of sabotage.
>
> On the morning that League Two Rotherham went into administration in March
> this year, Brentford manager Andy Scott voiced the feelings of many when he
> called for the club to be banned outright from promotion this season. "The
> punishment for going into administration should be much more severe than
> just 10 points," Scott said. "We drew 1-1 with Rotherham earlier in the
> season and dropped two points against a team paying higher wages than they
> can afford."
>
> It's not just the points dropped either: it's what might have been in terms
> of playing personnel in a division where budgets are worked out minutely.
> Scott added: "They've signed players in the last year that we were after by
> paying them higher wages - wages they couldn't actually afford. Those
> players might be worth a lot more than 10 points. And they might have been
> worth more to us. But they've still got them. It's the fault of the people
> in charge, not Mark Robins and he'll be feeling just as cheated."
>
> Leeds may have been a special case in some ways, what with the club's
> extraordinary levels of debt, but the rules must be the same for all.
> Competing in the Football League is as much about balancing a budget as
> picking the right team and booting the ball into the net. And going into
> administration is as much cheating - or incompetence - at an institutional
> level as a handball or a foul are on the pitch.
>
> Leeds may still go up this season. It's to their credit - and to the relief
> of football as a whole - that if they do it will be through endeavour on the
> field, not argument off it.
>
>
> --
> Dr Michael Benjamin,
> Psychiatrist
> myRay: For peace of mind,
>
> Free Online Self-Help CBT: http://www.myray.com
> Fact Sheet: Emotional Stress: http://www.MyDoctorExplains.com
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