Not sure what I think about this. If it was fair to slam Leeds then I suppose its fair to slam Luton, but starting the season with -30 points just seems to make the season unworkable to me. It is unfair to the fans, who really have no reason to turn up every week and its unfair to the new owners.
I wonder if it would be better to accept the inevitable, resign from the Football League and join the Conference and at least have a decent start to the season.
Luton woe
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There has to be some consistency in the way bankrupt/insolvent clubs are treated and those are the rules. Fortunately those who ran LUFC into the ground are gone and the club is under new management, but having new owners doesn't mean that old debts and penalties can be ignored.
Just one of those things BFR? Pull the ladder up, I'm all right Jack... LOL
Poor old Eric Morecambe must be spinning in his grave!
This season they got penalised 10 points for making irregular payments to agents. Again fair enough.
However they also appear to have been penalised 20 points for not lodging papers correctly regarding their coming out of administration.
That punishment seems way over the top for what is effectively a clerical error when you consider Tevez at West Ham and AFC Wimbledon rightly having their 18 point penalty last season reduced to 1 (or was it 2?) points. In my view a maximum of 5 points for the incorrect filing would be reasonable.
Luton would then start from - 15 which would more fairly reflect the transgressions committed.
Luton so far have 12 REGISTERED PLAYERS on the books due to the circumstances.
Chester City And Bournemouth could also end up in the same position, relegated to the conference and then going out of business.
This is not Bloody good enough under the circumstances, what would happen if the National opera house was in trouble and was about to be closed down.
Sack Brian Mawhiney or whatever his name is.
It's more than "incorrect filling"
LEAGUE BOARD CONSIDERS CLUBS IN ADMINISTRATION
The Board of The Football League, at its meeting today, considered the current circumstances of three of its member clubs – Luton Town, Rotherham United and AFC Bournemouth.
• LUTON TOWN
In the case of Luton Town, the Board considered an application from a new company, called Luton Town 2020, which has applied to join League 2 in place of the existing club, which is in administration.
Luton Town was unable to agree a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) with its creditors and as a consequence is unable to satisfy the normal conditions of The League’s insolvency policy for exiting administration. The Board decided, however, that it was prepared to exercise its absolute discretion under its ‘exceptional circumstances’ provisions in order to accommodate the new entity.
In accordance with recent precedent, the Board decided to include the following principle conditions of entry as a pre-requisite to the exercise of that discretion: -
1. The new company (Luton Town 2020) should pay the unsecured creditors the amount offered at the time of the CVA hearing (16 pence in the pound).
2. A 20 point deduction should apply in the 2008/09 season, which also takes into account the fact that this is the club’s third insolvency event in the last ten years.
• ROTHERHAM UNITED
Preliminary information was received from a new company that wishes to take Rotherham United’s place in League 2.
The new company has not yet submitted a complete application to The League, although it has indicated that it would wish to play the club’s matches at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield.
To assist the new company in completing its application, the Board decided to remind it that a club is ordinarily required to play its matches in its existing town. Clubs can be permitted to play in other locations on a temporary basis while a new ground is being built or developed.
In Rotherham United’s case, if the new company were to confirm an application to play elsewhere on a temporary basis then before giving permission the Board would require it to agree to return to Rotherham within a period of four years and also to lodge an irrevocable bond of £750,000.
The new company is also reminded that all football creditors must be paid in full. In Rotherham’s case, the Board was told that this includes an outstanding debt to the Football Stadia Improvement Fund.
The new company would also be required to determine its proposed course of action before the start of the coming season. In the event that the Board receives a complete application from the new company it reserves the right to impose further conditions.
• AFC BOURNEMOUTH
The Board decided to defer discussion of issues surrounding the administration of AFC Bournemouth until all the necessary paperwork had been submitted.
Football League Chairman, Lord Mawhinney, said: “The Board’s primary responsibility is to protect the integrity of its competitions. This often means making difficult decisions which require balancing the interests of fans, the club’s creditors and the other teams in The League. We will continue to take that responsibility very seriously.”
They are two points behind Kidderminster who they play Saturday but Luton do have a game in hand .Who would have really believed that a club of their size would be down for three now possibly four years . They still attract over five thousand to most home matches and they brought a respectable following when we played them in the FA Cup last season .
It makes me even more pleased we are back in the second tier as it shows how far some clubs can fall as I am sure that the thirty point deduction was at the root of their current demise.
Liked them ever since although the area is a shithole!
if they do get into the playoffs, with the likes of wrexham and mansfield there i cant see them going up.
Might be worth looking at.
Hope we never play them again.
I remember coming out of the ground after the Cup replay last year and there fans spitting, swearing, and being really aggressively in my face, just because we had won. Yes, there was a little bit of banter within the ground during the match as with most matches, but nothing which warranted or justified their behaviour outside.
It's also the only place I've needed a police escort back to the station for my own safety, as a result of which I missed the train I was planning to get home and ended up stuck in their horrible town for even longer.
I'm usually quick to jump in with the standard defence of 'every club has its idiots', but in this case I have to say it seemed pretty pervasive. No doubt there are some decent Luton fans, but there is clearly a BIG problem with a sizeable group of fans which I think the club really should get a grip on. As far as I'm concerned, there is no place for it in modern football. Never said this about any other club before, but I hope they rot in the conference.
I saw their position as being similar to us albiet two divisions further down . They should be far too big for the BSP and have sustained a bigger support three years on than I would have imagined which is even four times bigger than many of their competitors .It does show history , reputation and even bigger support can count for very little .
Not even to make the play offs would be a disaster for them and if they are not careful they could end up like Cambridge United who now seem to have settled for the BSP as their level. Conversely if they do manage to get back into the League I would fancy them to make it to League One fairly quickly.
The 'migs' do like a ruck, but going by some posts on here they are not the only ones still into all that
Still they often played great football and developed some excellent footballers, such as John Hartson, Matt Taylor, Emerson Boyce, Kevin Foley and they had that extremely strange Lars Elstrup. Not sure they've don't much recently youth wise since their last implosion, but they put us to shame past our '96 crop.
They won their crucial game against Kidderminster yesterday so they now look like getting in the play offs where they will play another ex league team Wrexham , Mansfield or York.
A Wembley play off final date against York City awaits after squezing through against Wrexham today winning 3-2 on aggregate although they lost 2-1 at the Racecourse Ground this afternoon.