Spare a thought for Luton Town

[EastleighSoulBoy]

Well I'm absolutely delighted. No mark nothing club, I hope they never come back.

 

Hmmmm, I wonder if any fans of other teams are thinking and hoping that the same happens to us because we are 'a no mark, nothing club' ?

[Belgiansaint]

30 points deducted was always going to kill them. I feel for their fans and I hope LTFC will be back soon. Credit to them for winning a trophy at such a difficult moment.

 

While I can understand the principle of docking points for mismanagement, giving a club an "unclimbable" mountain to climb is beyond me. It's putting someone in no position to compete, which is what sports is all about. Is this totally lawful?

[SaintDonkey]

I think it's disgraceful what the administrators have done to Luton. However my sympathy is tempered by the number of Luton fans on 606 last night who were saying that Saints should be hit by as harsh a penalty as they were.

[Frank's cousin]

I think the points penalties are teh only real way a club can be punished for wrong doing. Afterall, this is sport and you need to play by the rule. If you are attempting to gain a competitive advantage by gambling on success through unsustainakle borrowings to buy better playesr and pay to keep them, then if the result of the failed gamble is administration then you should pay the consequences as we sawe at Leeds... and there were plenty on here calling for spending what we did not have after the cup final....

 

In the case of pure financial irregularities eg illegal agent payents (although the FA, Football league and Premiership seem happiest to ignore the problem _See Tom Bower's Broken Dreams) its again pretty clear cut.

 

Where I have sympathy and perhaps part of our problem can be covered by this, is for clubs relegated from the prem with player contracts that they cant get out of, and even with the parachute paymen (designed to cover this - altough it provides a seriously unfair competitive advantage), suddenly find revenues well in excess of their contractual obligations, - players are sold as much as possible or loaned out, but this leaves the squad in many cases uncompetitive and its no surprise that this effects relegated clubs who have been in the top flight for a long time far more, than those who bounce up and down, and dont over stretch to stay in the top flight.

 

So should a club be penalised when its is simply forced to honor contracts that were established when in the prem and the club was operating WITHIN its means - not gambling money it did not have, and running the finances properly?

 

In addition in our case, we did not gamble recklessly on success through over expensive signings and wages , but the lions shre of Debt is simply a 'mortgage' for infrastructure - having to pay for a new stadium - whereas some clubs such as Man City were 'gifted' theirs or at least will be... and in other countries such facilities are buit by local tax payers... yet in this one we run the risk of potentially being punished for improving the the safety and facilities for fans... done at a time when again it was well within our means?

 

Whilst the rules have to be easy to enforce, surely this sort of thing needs to be taken into consideration when looking at punishments for administration. Indeed the last two season fighting relegation, surely indicates we have not exactly had any competitive advantage these last two seasons! - the only trouble is that it could be argueed we attempted to get one when we spent that 7.5 mil under Wilde, which Crouch should have vetoed, the risky approach to get promotion when we really could not afford it. That was the rainy day money.

Edited 14 April, 2009 by Frank's cousin

[JRM]

there could be an interesting collection of clubs in the conference next year, could have Luton Town (league cup winners '88), Oxford United (league cup winners '86?) and AFC Wimbledon (born from the FA Cup winners '88), all team capable of good support and relatively recent history of top flight football.