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***Official*** English Football Season 2019-20

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Haha, it's an important distinction though. Non-enforcement of a rule does not (necessarily) equate to the rule itself being bad. Occasionally a rule might not be enforced because it is bad, but it does not hold to reason that non-enforcement of rule = the rule is bad.

Anyway, my original point is that it's not true to suggest there are no rules regarding football club ownership. As above, there are more rules in place regarding ownership restrictions than there are for almost any other kind of private company. Evidently, however, there are some severe reservations to be had re: application and enforcement.
 

Uppercut

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To quote myself:

They just need to let these clubs die. Allowing football clubs to be freely bought and sold with no ownership restrictions was an obscene act of negligence, but it's the path they've chosen and failure is a part of it.
They could have allowed it by having inadequate rules, by not enforcing their rules, or some combination of both. In all three cases their oversight was still negligent and obscene.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Hmm, perhaps I misread your initial post. As above, my point was that the suggestion that, in a general sense, there are no ownership restrictions that exist re: the buying and selling of football clubs is false.

Having read your post again, however, I rather suspect this was not the point you were making, and were instead referring to the non-application of rules regarding Bolton and similar specifically. If this is the case, I agree with you.
 

Uppercut

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Haha I was actually interested to learn that there are unenforced rules. It’s a different type of institutional failure.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Yeah there are actually quite a few instances of the rules being used to prohibit takeovers over the last few years I think. IIRC the Rangers owner was declared unfit to run the club and booted out a few years back, Furball can probably tell us more about that. I can recall Sledger Snr ranting about some Rotherham director being disqualified under them a while back as well. And there was also some business regarding Leeds' dodgy Italian owner as well.

It does rather seem that the application of these rules seems haphazard and inconsistent though, as evidenced by the recent cases. I think perhaps they're only engaged when a new takeover is mooted, so owners who were installed before the rules were put in place (from memory this happened in the early 2000s) probably manage to dodge them.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
lol just did some quick research, and apparently one of the most recent instances of the rules being used was to block that knacker from One Direction taking over Doncaster Rovers. :laugh:
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Yeah there are actually quite a few instances of the rules being used to prohibit takeovers over the last few years I think. IIRC the Rangers owner was declared unfit to run the club and booted out a few years back, Furball can probably tell us more about that. I can recall Sledger Snr ranting about some Rotherham director being disqualified under them a while back as well. And there was also some business regarding Leeds' dodgy Italian owner as well.

It does rather seem that the application of these rules seems haphazard and inconsistent though, as evidenced by the recent cases. I think perhaps they're only engaged when a new takeover is mooted, so owners who were installed before the rules were put in place (from memory this happened in the early 2000s) probably manage to dodge them.
Nope. Craig Whyte passed his fit and proper person test despite essentially being a massive tax fraudster.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Er... Well, he definitely didn't on this occasion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/17302801

Overturned on appeal or something perhaps?
That article is 3 weeks AFTER we were put into administration because it turned out Craig Whyte hadn't bothered paying any PAYE to HMRC since he took over the club 9 months previously.

The SFA hadn't raised any objections when he initially took over the club.
 
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