Into Administration

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Wednesday May 9
Do Cheats Prosper?

The conclusion of the English football season has been severely tarnished by the goings on at Leeds United and Boston United.

Both clubs chose to go into administration when relegation from their respective leagues became a virtual certainty so as to incur the automatic 10 point deduction this season rather than at the start of next.

Boston did so with about five minutes of their final game at Wrexham remaining.

This in itself is not cheating, it is bending the rules to their own advantage, and therefore there can be no surprise that the clubs' took this option. Especially as the clubs had been cheating in the first place to get themselves into such a position. Why expect any scruples or sense of honour from people who spend their lives lying and cheating to everyone they come into contact with?

It is likely that the authorities will now move to prevent other clubs pulling such a trick again but even if they do it will probably be a case of too little, too late.

The story of these two clubs is a truly disgusting one and the feeling that they have basically got away scot free with their mis-management (if we're being charitable we can call it that) leaves a terribly hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Let's look at Leeds first.

Everyone has known about their financial problems for several years and the reasons for them. Under a wildly ambitious, or just plain stupid, chairman (Peter Ridsdale) and a kid in a sweet shop manager (David O'Leary) the club went on a ridiculous spending spree in an attempt to become an established force not only in England but on the continent as well.

Massive fees were paid for players and massive wages paid to them. O'Leary sent in his wish list and Father Christmas Ridsdale signed the cheques.

Only the money was never there to sanction these deals. Only the theory that if Leeds qualified for the Champions League every season then the money would appear.

This was a dangerous theory especially when the players being signed began to look of dubious calibre.

If you were being kind you could call this gambling. Ridsdale saw a potential opportunity but did not have the money to take advantage of it. So he borrowed the money thinking that if everything went well he would be able to pay it all back and still be in the gravy.

Of course everything didn't go well. After a couple of seasons' living the life of Riley the club slipped down the league table, stopped qualifying for Europe and were suddenly left facing up to the reality that they were massively in debt, with no realistic way of getting out of it.

Ridsdale and O'Leary went and a new owner Ken Bates came in.

The club had to sell any decent players they had and were also left having to pay wages to many of those players even after they had gone because the clubs they went to were unable to match the inflated wages handed them by Leeds. Of course they couldn't. They were being run honestly and efficiently.

The club suffered relegation from the Premier League and now, after three seasons, have also been relegated from the Championship.

Of course much is still made of the Ridsdale era and blame is still attached there. Bates has made sure everyone was reminded of his predecessor again last week when he entered the club into administration and then instantly took over again as the head of a "new" company.

This is not the complete story though. Leeds under Bates have done exactly the same as Leeds under Ridsdale. They have simply done it on a smaller scale.

Since dropping into the Championship the club have paid money for many players. For instance they have signed three players from Preston North End, another Championship club.

They paid money for two of them and will no doubt have offered all three significantly better contracts than they were on at Deepdale.

They have played their "we're a big club" card to the full but once again, as last weeks' events display, they did not have the money to back up their dealings.

In signing Healy, Cresswell and Lewis, not to mention the players they have snared from other clubs, they have looked to strengthen themselves and weaken their opponents with nothing but fantasy money to back them up.

Whether they were budgeting on a return to the Premier League or simply continued existence in the Championship they were obviously not budgeting on life in League One but that is where they now find themselves.

Bates also sacked one manager and lured one from another club to replace him. I would imagine he had to pay off Kevin Blackwell's contract, compensate Swindon for Dennis Wise and will have paid Wise more than he was on at Swindon.

All this again with money he and his club didn't have.

If you've no money you should just have to make do with what you've got. If you continue to throw other peoples' good money after bad then you should be prepared to end up paying the ultimate price.

As it is Leeds appear to have paid no price at all. They have, in effect, dodged the points penalty and now find themselves in a position where they don't have to pay back millions of pounds they have borrowed from various sources.

Lovely club.

To understand just how unpleasant this club and its' actions are it is worthwhile looking at Preston North End.

Preston are, in effect, a much smaller club than Leeds. One look at the average attendances of each club will show you that.

Like virtually every other club in existence they operate by selling their best players and scouring around for basement bargains or free transfers to replace them.

They do not go out and spend seven million quid on Seth Johnson and pay him forty grand a week.

Like most lower league clubs their directors are viewed with suspicion at best and resentment at worst by the fans who obviously don't like seeing the best players leave all the time and would like their team to play in a higher standard.

They take little credit and put up with plenty of abuse because they try to run their club properly.

Now, normally you would look at it from the outside and say that the Preston board, and all the others in the league that operate on the principles of financial viability, are right to run their clubs that way.

After all it is better to have a club in the Championship, or League One or Two for that matter, than to have no club at all.

Leeds United seem to suggest that is complete nonsense, however. They continue to splash cash that they do not have around like it is going out of fashion and are able to carry on as if nothing has happened when everything starts hitting the fan.

Where is the incentive to run your club properly?

It is about time the authorities made sure there is a proper deterrent that would really make clubs serious about running themselves properly.

This might sound excessive but I think any club going into administration should be relegated four divisions.

This might have been tough on the likes of Wrexham and Rotherham who might have found some difficulty in getting back to the level they were at but it would not greatly affect a club like Leeds.

Four relegations would have left Leeds playing in the Conference North next season. They would have found no problem getting back into the Championship. What such a punishment would have done was offer the club a genuine chance to re-establish itself financially, to budget itself sensibly and effectively and given it a real determination not to put itself in such a position again.

This is something that is badly needed in football. The money piling into the Premier League is coveted by everyone and makes the possibility of clubs' gambling in the same manner as Leeds all the greater.

Everyone needs to know that it is not worth the risk.

As for Boston. This might surprise you but their story is even more unpleasant than that of Leeds.

Boston stormed through the non league structure and claimed promotion into the Football League on the back of basic fraud.

They paid players far more than they declared thereby getting top players, for that level, without having to pay the required amounts of tax.

Had they declared the correct wages they would not have been able to pay the tax. Therefore they were again, in effect, spending money they did not have.

This gave them a massive and completely unfair advantage over everyone they were in competition with and was obviously cheating.

The Football League bizarrely allowed them entry into the league and walloped them with a four point deduction at the start of their first season.

Steve Evans, manager then and now, and the former Chairman Pat Malkinson were both spared jail only because they pleaded guilty to their crimes. Although in the first instance, like true criminals, they had pleaded their innocence.

Like many penitents they only became contrite when it was obvious they had been found out.

The sight of Evans emerging triumphant from court despite being a proven criminal was a truly offensive one.

Despite the advantages the club have gained from their dishonesty, tv monies and better cup opportunities, they have conspired to bankrupt themselves once again it would appear and they too wasted no time in getting their points deducted ahead of next season.

Both Leeds and Boston, therefore, will start next season without the handicap their actions deserve and, most probably, actually in a stronger position financially because of their impropriety.

As is always the case with the smaller club, however, Boston might have several tricky obstacles to overcome yet and their future remains precarious.

They will have to satisfy all their football related debts to remain in business and as they have not even been paying their players for a while this might prove problematic.

Also the clubs waiting for them in the Conference, not surprisingly, are hardly doing so with open arms. They are the ones Boston really cheated last time and they are unhappy that the Pilgrims have dodged punishment by having their points docked this season.

They are apparently planning action and you can't blame them.

Basically both these clubs have cheated to gain an unfair advantage and have done everything in their power to escape punishment.

They are as morally bankrupt as they are financially.

The football authorities need to put in place clearly defined, effective punishments as soon as possible to bully clubs into running themselves properly and in the meantime they could also find other ways of enforcing the punishment that should be these clubs' due.

After all if the clubs can bend the rules to their own advantage so too can the authorities.

In the case of Leeds I would suggest a ten point penalty for the start of next season.

What, you want a reason?

How about the pitch invasion their delightful fans staged at the end of the Ipswich game when it first became really apparent that the club was going down.

After all, this is hardly the first crowd trouble involving their fans is it?