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Livi put the boot in..


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Livingston have written to the Scottish Football Association warning they may take legal action if the governing body fails to act upon Rangers' financial woes appropriately.

 

STV understands the First Division club have outlined they would pursue up to £1.2m in lost revenue for their relegation to the Third Division in 2009 if the SPL side are not dealt with in a similar manner.

 

The decision to demote Livingston, who were in administration but in the hands of prospective buyers, was made by the Scottish Football League prior to the start of the 2009/10 season.

 

A failed appeal to the SFL was followed up by a submission to the Scottish FA, who ruled the punishment was fair and reasonable.

 

The governing bodyâ??s judicial protocol was given a complete overhaul last year and insolvent clubs, as well as any appeals processes, are now handled in a different manner.

 

Nonetheless, Livingston believe a precedent was set in the judgement and have now stated they are monitoring how the Scottish FA are handling the Rangers situation, as uncertainty over the future of the club continues.

 

If prospective buyer Charles Green is unable to strike a deal with creditors to take the club forward via a CVA, it is possible the businessman will pursue a â??newcoâ?? route to ensure the club continues as part of a new company.

 

The move, which would be unprecedented in Scottish football, would require Scottish FA approval to go through if the new company wished to inherit Rangersâ?? membership of the body and could be subject to further sanctions.

 

Rangers have already been punished by both the Scottish Premier League and Scottish FA for being in administration, with the latter recently administering a 12-month registration embargo and fines reaching £160,000.

 

Rangersâ?? appeal against the Scottish FAâ??s sanctions, which were described as to have â??struck a balance which was relevant to the mischief and proportionate to the breachâ? will be held on Wednesday.

 

The independent panel set up to consider the initial case against the club stated in their deliberations that "only match fixing in its various forms might be a more serious breachâ? than Rangersâ?? failure to pay tax contributions for employees, amongst other discrepancies.

 

Termination of Rangersâ?? membership to play football in Scotland was also considered at the time, something which was ruled to be â??too severeâ? a punishment.

 

Both the Scottish FA and Livingston declined to comment on the letter.

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Livingston got off scot free when they went into administration as an SPL club in 2004. When they went into administration the rules had been changed so that a team going into administration gets a 10 point deduction. Motherwell and Dundee who were already in administration at the time of the rule change were threatened with the 10 point deduction if they didn't come out of administration by the end of the season. Livingston went into administration in the February about a month after the rule changes, spent the rest of the season and practically the whole of the following season in administration without any points deduction or any form of punishment whatsoever.

 

The SFL & SFA will have taken all of that into account when they hit them with the relegation from Division 1 to 3 for going into administration in July '09.

 

Despite it being a pretty harsh punishment, Livi didn't do themselves any favours either by throwing the dummy out and refusing to play the opening fixtures of the 09/10 season.

 

They're lucky to still have their league membership to be honest.

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Ah ha! I just figured out why Livingston would be trying to stick the boot into Rangers. In mid February they hired John Collins as their new director of football and John Hughes as their new manager. The pair of them will have sat in the pub rubbing their tattie heeds together trying to figure out where they were going to get money to buy players this summer and came up with this cunning Baldrickesque plan of trying to get compensation out of the SFA. No doubt the plan is fully detailed on a fag packet.

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