Relegation 'death knell' for troubled Livingston

In a meeting which lasted almost three hours at Hampden yesterday afternoon, the SFL's management committee found Livingston to be in breach of the organisation's Rule 76.2 relating to insolvency.

The move came less than a week after the same committee had accepted proposals from a consortium called Livingston 5 Limited, formed by former Cowdenbeath chairman Gordon McDougall, ex-Dumbarton chairman Neil Rankine and Ged Nixon of the Livi Supporters Trust, to allow the club to continue in the First Division this season.

McGruther, of administrators Mazars who had been appointed by the Court of Session to run the club's affairs after West Lothian Council attempted to recover a 330,000 debt, had accepted an undisclosed offer from the consortium to buy Livingston. Rankine also succeeded in persuading the previously reluctant former owner, Italian businessman Angelo Massone, to sell his shares in the club.

But following last week's SFL decision, which was dependent on agreement from their members to change their rules on clubs becoming insolvent, there was a backlash from several chairman unhappy at what they saw as leniency being afforded towards Livingston.

The outcome was yesterday's decision to impose the same punishment on Livingston as was dealt to Gretna last year following their slide into administration.

McGruther emerged from yesterday's meeting, to which he and McDougall were denied access, to express his dismay at the change in approach from the SFL.

"I'm extremely disappointed, especially after the help they gave us last week," said McGruther. "In my view, this represents the death knell for Livingston Football Club. I don't really know why there has been this change from last week. Maybe they think they have created a precedent with Gretna last year and that they have to follow it. But no-one has sat down, in my view, and said, 'What happened to Gretna?'.

"Almost inevitably, that is what will happen to Livingston. If that's how it is going to be, because there are precedents set, there is nothing we can do about it."

McGruther is deeply pessimistic about the prospects of Livingston 5 Limited being prepared to go ahead with the takeover as a Third Division club.

"All of the business plans presented to me by the consortium were based on survival in the First Division," he added. "They are based round the fact that all the players had to be paid, all of the wages out of the club had to be paid and the football debt had to be paid. That is a very significant sum of money approaching 200,000.

"In my personal opinion, although I hope the consortium don't share that, to put 200,000 down on the table in order to play in the Third Division, with the anticipated losses of playing out of a stadium like the one at Livingston, makes no economic sense whatsoever, to actually go forward on that basis.

"Unless I'm extremely lucky and the consortium are prepared to take a view that they can survive in the Third Division, playing out of Almondvale, I don't think it makes economic sense."

Livingston's relegation means Airdrie United and Cowdenbeath, losing play-off finalists last season, are promoted to the First and Second Divisions respectively.

In this weekend's opening SFL fixtures, Airdrie are now scheduled to inherit Livingston's First Division game at Ross County, Cowdenbeath will host Arbroath in the Second Division and Livingston are now slated to face East Stirling in the Third Division. But if Livingston appeal yesterday's decision, as they have the right to within ten days, then all fixtures involving themselves, Airdrie and Cowdenbeath would be postponed until the appeals process is completed.

A disconsolate McDougall was unsure about his next move as he left Hampden last night. "I'm taking an appeal under consideration," said McDougall. "We obviously have to go back and speak about this with the rest of the consortium. There is nothing else we can say on that front at this stage. I wouldn't say that we will walk away from our plans, we have to consider all the options open to us. It makes it very, very difficult, but let's see. We will go back and discuss it with an open mind.

"We will speak to Mr McGruther tomorrow and see what decisions we come to. I've been in the Third Division before (with Cowdenbeath), that doesn't frighten me at all, but we have to go back, look at figures and look at all the possibilities and eventualities then come to a decision.

"I think, undoubtedly, that the reaction of other clubs to last week's decision has something to do with what happened today. I'm also disappointed not to have been invited into the meeting today. I came through here thinking I had something to offer, but was never invited in. We sat outside."

SFL chief executive David Longmuir insisted Livingston had been treated fairly after taking the opinions of the other member clubs on board.

"The management committee takes decisions on behalf of the organisation and of course you take into account the feeling of members," said Longmuir. "Without needing to go through a formal process, we know how our members feel about the situation. There had to be a sanction imposed on Livingston as a result of being found in breach of that rule for the second time in recent years. That was always going to happen.

"Up until a week past Friday, Livingston were not in administration. The process we had to go through was governed by the legal process we had to go through.

"Last week's decision was to consider a rule, give Livingston an opportunity to see if there was a plan there that could help them through a situation to acquire the shares.

"We took that decision in the best interests of trying to protect our clubs, which is what this organisation is here to do. Freedom to succeed is what we are all about.

"We have done everything we possibly could to give Livingston that opportunity. Even today, with this decision, we are still giving Livingston the opportunity to continue within the Scottish Football League, albeit from a lower base. Nothing had really changed, just the fact we had given Livingston as much time as possible to come up with a plan. Certain aspects of the plan came to fruition, certain aspects didn't. The risk to us was the integrity of our league, in terms of the fulfilment of fixtures in the First Division. We can't take the risk of further disruption.

"This may incur some disruption in the short term, but it is short-term disruption for the long-term benefit of the league.

"The short-term pain that we may well have to live with is for the greater good of the season ahead. The fixtures of the clubs impacted by this decision will be postponed until such time as the appeals process is exhausted.

"We have given Livingston an opportunity to survive within the SFL and we will give them every support to operate within the Third Division."

If Livingston do fold, then the Third Division will operate with just nine clubs this season.

The SFL refused to disclose if yesterday's management committee decision was unanimous.

"We never say if it is or isn't, so read nothing into that," said SFL president Brown McMaster. "We have tried to be completely fair about it. We can't pre-empt the consortium's decision as to what they do now. We hope they don't walk away.

"They have ten days to appeal, but we have asked them if they would appeal sooner rather than later if they do appeal in order to help everyone involved."