Post by Croc on Mar 15, 2010 14:41:46 GMT
Saw this on another NL forum - interesting reading
For those BSS fans who don't lower themselves to look at the BSP or BSN part of the site I have copied this across ...
Advance warning (and I am a little surprised that none of the Salisbury fans on here has raised this on the BSP part of the site) ...
Those who've read to the end of last Saturday's BSP matchday thread and/or those who've read the Northwich related item on the BSN part of here will know all about Appendix E by now, but some won't.
If the NLP front page report is correct, and that is admittedly a big "if" knowing the NLP, there is an imminent danger that any club chairmen who experience cash-flow problems in the Conference (probably 60-odd at the last count) will be doing an impression of turkeys voting for Christmas if they vote in favour of any Conference Board proposed changes to the Conference Rule Book, specifically the infamous Appendix E.
IF the report is true (and it has not been corroborated by any other source), it will technically mean that any club which owes any money at all to any outside business/person/body on a fixed date in May will be in breach of Conference rules and liable to be thrown out. I know that this is only "liable to be", but do you want your club to run that risk?
I don't want to be a doom merchant, but as I've said elsewhere I can imagine things getting extremely messy if any of this gets to the courts, with lawyers able to make a pretty good case for saying "if it applies to club X because they owe Y, then it must apply to clubs ABC because they owe DEF"
I'm a placid sort, but this is really one of the most iniquitous proposals I have ever heard of in the world of business and/or football. And yes, I agree, clubs should never get themselves into such a finacial mess in the first place, and these financial messes leave in their wake a lot of innocent victims in the form of local businesses who don't get what they are owed, but in most cases it is a previous owner who has run up the debt and then left someone else (and the fans) to sort it out. And what thanks do they get in this league for trying their best to sort it out within the means at their disposal - in the Conference they get Appendix E waved at them.
Sorry if you've read the following before, but can you see the logic in the following ...
Go into admin because you can't pay your debts in full = get a ten point penalty and then when the next May arrives get thrown out of the league if you have not paid your debts in full, even if you have settled your debts with creditors to their 'satisfaction' with a x% CVA. The only way to avoid this is to come out of admin with 100% payback of debts. But is this not technically against football rules? - as I understand it, you are only allowed to exit admin as a football club by the CVA route. If you exit by another route there are penalties, including demotion and/or another points deduction. Isn't this something like the Catch 22 which Luton got caught up in?
Why do they think the club(s) went into admin in the first place? If they could pay 100% of debts they wouldn't choose admin! The same with any other business.
Simple solution for any club faced with these rules: Don't go into admin. Don't get -10. Go into liquidation. All creditors get zero percent. Start a new club with zero debt. Not morally or ethically defensible, but what choice are such clubs left with? Does liquidation make the creditors any happier? No, but it saves a club throwing away 40p or whatever in the pound on a CVA which isn't going to rescue them - in Salisbury's case it will lead to a two division demotion. Glad to note from down here that they are prepared to fight such iniquity. Given last year, I expect us to do so too (after all, not much else to lose). And no doubt Farsley will join in. It will be interesting to see what happens in relation to a few other Conf clubs reportedly teetering currently on the brink of administration.
Still don't see why this doesn't affect Chester (other than for reasons of football politics to keep the FL happy). Again, I don't think that "special dispensation" would stand up to a courtroom full of lawyers. Knock-on effect, apart from keeping Chester in the BSN next season if they by some miracle still have a club ... could be that the FL get annoyed by the Conf reneging on their close-season deal over Chester and try to close the automatic up/down door.
Football generally is in a financial mess in this country, and maybe the Conf deserve a tiny bit of credit for recognising this and trying to think of ways to sort it out, but this rule does little to address the problems or help those people at any football club to keep it going. There are decent owners and directors in NL circles, alongside the players, coaching staff, management and of course the fans, who could at some unspecified future date find themselves the victims of this rule if it gets passed. They should think twice 200 times before voting in favour of it, and remember the saying "There but for the grace of God ...". If they want a new rule it should be a life ban on any owner who doesn't maintain some vestige of financial regularity at their club. If nothing else, that would clear the decks at Chester so that they can start again.
I urge everyone to raise awareness at your own clubs about the nature of this little-understood Appendix, in the hope that powers that be at your club are not tempted to vote for it if the Board propose it. The decision is ultimately in the hands of the individual members of the Conf. As I said, turkeys shouldn't vote for Christmas.
If you've got this far, thanks!
Advance warning (and I am a little surprised that none of the Salisbury fans on here has raised this on the BSP part of the site) ...
Those who've read to the end of last Saturday's BSP matchday thread and/or those who've read the Northwich related item on the BSN part of here will know all about Appendix E by now, but some won't.
If the NLP front page report is correct, and that is admittedly a big "if" knowing the NLP, there is an imminent danger that any club chairmen who experience cash-flow problems in the Conference (probably 60-odd at the last count) will be doing an impression of turkeys voting for Christmas if they vote in favour of any Conference Board proposed changes to the Conference Rule Book, specifically the infamous Appendix E.
IF the report is true (and it has not been corroborated by any other source), it will technically mean that any club which owes any money at all to any outside business/person/body on a fixed date in May will be in breach of Conference rules and liable to be thrown out. I know that this is only "liable to be", but do you want your club to run that risk?
I don't want to be a doom merchant, but as I've said elsewhere I can imagine things getting extremely messy if any of this gets to the courts, with lawyers able to make a pretty good case for saying "if it applies to club X because they owe Y, then it must apply to clubs ABC because they owe DEF"
I'm a placid sort, but this is really one of the most iniquitous proposals I have ever heard of in the world of business and/or football. And yes, I agree, clubs should never get themselves into such a finacial mess in the first place, and these financial messes leave in their wake a lot of innocent victims in the form of local businesses who don't get what they are owed, but in most cases it is a previous owner who has run up the debt and then left someone else (and the fans) to sort it out. And what thanks do they get in this league for trying their best to sort it out within the means at their disposal - in the Conference they get Appendix E waved at them.
Sorry if you've read the following before, but can you see the logic in the following ...
Go into admin because you can't pay your debts in full = get a ten point penalty and then when the next May arrives get thrown out of the league if you have not paid your debts in full, even if you have settled your debts with creditors to their 'satisfaction' with a x% CVA. The only way to avoid this is to come out of admin with 100% payback of debts. But is this not technically against football rules? - as I understand it, you are only allowed to exit admin as a football club by the CVA route. If you exit by another route there are penalties, including demotion and/or another points deduction. Isn't this something like the Catch 22 which Luton got caught up in?
Why do they think the club(s) went into admin in the first place? If they could pay 100% of debts they wouldn't choose admin! The same with any other business.
Simple solution for any club faced with these rules: Don't go into admin. Don't get -10. Go into liquidation. All creditors get zero percent. Start a new club with zero debt. Not morally or ethically defensible, but what choice are such clubs left with? Does liquidation make the creditors any happier? No, but it saves a club throwing away 40p or whatever in the pound on a CVA which isn't going to rescue them - in Salisbury's case it will lead to a two division demotion. Glad to note from down here that they are prepared to fight such iniquity. Given last year, I expect us to do so too (after all, not much else to lose). And no doubt Farsley will join in. It will be interesting to see what happens in relation to a few other Conf clubs reportedly teetering currently on the brink of administration.
Still don't see why this doesn't affect Chester (other than for reasons of football politics to keep the FL happy). Again, I don't think that "special dispensation" would stand up to a courtroom full of lawyers. Knock-on effect, apart from keeping Chester in the BSN next season if they by some miracle still have a club ... could be that the FL get annoyed by the Conf reneging on their close-season deal over Chester and try to close the automatic up/down door.
Football generally is in a financial mess in this country, and maybe the Conf deserve a tiny bit of credit for recognising this and trying to think of ways to sort it out, but this rule does little to address the problems or help those people at any football club to keep it going. There are decent owners and directors in NL circles, alongside the players, coaching staff, management and of course the fans, who could at some unspecified future date find themselves the victims of this rule if it gets passed. They should think twice 200 times before voting in favour of it, and remember the saying "There but for the grace of God ...". If they want a new rule it should be a life ban on any owner who doesn't maintain some vestige of financial regularity at their club. If nothing else, that would clear the decks at Chester so that they can start again.
I urge everyone to raise awareness at your own clubs about the nature of this little-understood Appendix, in the hope that powers that be at your club are not tempted to vote for it if the Board propose it. The decision is ultimately in the hands of the individual members of the Conf. As I said, turkeys shouldn't vote for Christmas.
If you've got this far, thanks!