The most severe points deduction for going into administration, 20 points, has recently been given to Luton Town who we visit for a friendly this week and when added to the 10 points deduction for issues around transfers, the club has little chance of staying in League Two this season. Yet those responsible for the issues are no longer at the club, resulting in the new owners and fans paying the price.
With further 15 point deductions expected to be issued to other clubs soon, the time when each club starts on a level playing field at the beginning of a season seems to have gone.
Recently more sensible alternatives have been put forward firstly by Gerald Krasner who floated the idea earlier this year that Club owners should be made to post a bond with the Football League. If they take the club into administration then they immediately lose this bond.
Then rather than punishing the fans, surely those responsible for administration should be brought to task making the Fit and Proper Person Test more meaningful, so any Chairman or director of a football club who goes into administration must be immediately disqualified as a fit and proper person. This would mean that they would be unable to bring that club out of insolvency.
The puzzle remains as to why football clubs voted for these sanctions and indeed many of those who are suffering the consequences now voted for the proposals, a situation predicted in April 2003 when the Foxes Trust and the Notts County Supporters Trust issued the following statement….
Foxes Trust today condemned the decision on Thursday by the Football League to move towards imposing sporting sanctions on clubs that go into administration. A decision that could put the existence of a number of clubs at risk.
The Foxes Trust feels the decision taken by 71 Football Club representatives to pursue penalties in the form of points deduction or relegation will come back to haunt them as several of those clubs will cease to exist.
Ian Bason the Press Officer for the Foxes Trust explained 'If a club is in financial trouble and is forced into administration, how will the club attract any new investors to take over the club if it is known they have no chance of promotion or even worse certain relegation'
'The further loss of revenue from reduced crowds, in particular if relegation is guaranteed rendering all matches to be played of no consequence will further harm the club financially and make extinction of the club even more of a certainty."
These views were echoed by Richard Stanton, Press Officer for thenewly formed Notts County Supporters Trust who said, "Whilst we are for any new measures that promote financial prudence, we believe the threat of expulsion is a crude and heavy handed measure to take. The only people to suffer from such decisions are the fans. But yet again we appear to be at the bottom of the list of priorities"
The fans will suffer, but so to will the creditors who would lose all their money if clubs fold. If a club is forced into bankruptcy as a result of the proposed new rules, a question the Football League needs to consider is whether a creditor is likely to look for compensation from the Football League. Football would become a unique industry in using the proposed penalties that in other industries would trigger investigations from the Office of Fair Trading.
Ian Bason also expressed the Trust's anger at Leicester City being singled out as the guilty party in recent press coverage fuelled by Neil Warnock's comments. "Leicester City were put into administration when Eric Hall sought to wind up the company in the Courts. This season has seen 7 clubs in administration and yet all the accusations are thrown at our club.'
'We are surprised that Ipswich hasn't received more criticism as they opted for voluntary administration and their proposals to creditors pays out far less than the agreement reached by Leicester. We can only assume our club are in the spotlight through achieving promotion, however to imply this is due to being in administration is a gross insult to Micky Adams fine management skills which is the reason we have achieved promotion"
The Foxes Trust feels that the Football Leagues proposals fail to address any of the real causes of clubs getting into financial difficulty such as the ever-growing gap between small and large clubs. The proposals also do nothing to ease the burden of clubs that are under the threat of going into administration.
Wendy Bennett Chair of the Foxes Trust urged all Football League clubs to consult with their fans before making any final decisions "The fans are the paying customer and our views must be taken into account. Every fan will hold the existence of their club to be their highest priority, it has to be questioned whether those representatives who attended the Football League meeting and voted in favour of the proposal realised that they may have just consigned their club to the history books"
Five years on, will the Football authorities finally start listening to fans on this issue and recognise they are punishing the wrong people?