Pars bag an early handout

[ian1964 10,720]

HARD-UP Dunfermline have been advanced a chunk of next seasonâ??s cash to stay afloat.

 

Pars players reported the club to the SFL on Friday after only 20 per cent of their February wages was paid last week.

 

It has now emerged the club were given a large part of next seasonâ??s parachute payment earlier this year.

 

Dunfermline received £250,000 at the beginning of the season for being relegated last summer.

 

They are entitled to a second parachute payment of £125,000 on August 1 â?? but decided to request this amount early. SPL chiefs agreed to hand over some of the money.

 

The club will announce widespread changes today, which will include Gavin Masterton stepping down from the board.

 

Masterton masterminded a share issue in a bid to raise cash â?? but it was postponed, leaving the club on the brink of administration.

 

Masterton said: â??If the share issue does not go ahead, then there will be no club.â?

 

Read more: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/leaguedivision1/4826631/Pars-bag-an-early-handout.html#ixzz2MkbGaPQC

[JTP 0]

Did the SPL chiefs dip into the Rangers kitty for that?

[Guest DietofWorms]

The thing is... a wedge of this will go to pay Hamilton Accies. The Pars are in real danger of going under, possibly more acutely than Hearts.

It's a tragedy for them and I take no pleasure in seeing these clubs suffer.

[BlueMazza 0]

Seems HMRC are after a share as well.

 

I have no axe to grind with DAFC at all, but the differing reactions to them & Hearts vs the one to us is galling to say the least.

[Guest sergi]

Jonathan Sutherland ‏@BBCjsutherland

Dunfermline need to pay £134,000 to HMRC. Leishman will meet supporters groups tonight.

Expand

 

17 mins Jonathan Sutherland ‏@BBCjsutherland

Dunfermline Athletic could go out of business in the next 2-3 weeks. Jim Leishman leading steering group to save the Pars. More to follow.

Expand

[Guest sergi]

Taken from the stv web site.

 

Dunfermline Athletic could be out of business within "two to three weeks", according to Jim Leishman.

 

The Pars owe £134,000 to HM Revenue and Customs in unpaid taxes. It is understood this amount is not due in one full payment.

 

"It is a very real threat that the Pars could go under," Leishman said at a news conference on Wednesday.

 

Former player, manager and latterly director of football Leishman is to lead a group set up to try and save the First Division club. Gavin Masterton, the majority shareholder, is to stand down from the club's board.

 

Players have been paid 60% of their February wages, with no promise of when the full amounts will be settled. £35,000 is owed in total to employees.

 

Following their relegation from the Scottish Premier League in the summer, the club were paid £250,000 as part of a two-stage parachute payment.

 

The second installment of £125,000 wasn't due until next year but the league agreed to pay an undisclosed part of that to the club earlier this year.

 

More to follow...

[ian1964 10,720]

Fuck them:

 

 

Dunfermline chief John Yorkston: Rangers can't be given same punishment we got for admin error

2 Jun 2012

 

DUNFERMLINE chief John Yorkston says the SFA have no choice but to boot Rangers out of the game because a Scottish Cup ban is too soft.

 

DUNFERMLINE chief John Yorkston says the SFA have no choice but to boot Rangers out of the game because a Scottish Cup ban is too soft.

 

The Pars chairman saw his club kicked out of the cup in 2010 for clerical mistakes that saw them field the suspended Calum Woods as a sub in a 7-1 win over Stenhousemuir.

 

They are far from the only ones with Spartans, Brechin City and East Stirling all having been expelled from thecompetition for fielding ineligible players through honest mistakes.

 

So Yorkston insists it would beludicrous to deal Rangers the same punishment for dodging taxes and putting the nation’s football future in jeopardy by pursuing the SFA through civil courts.

 

While he doesn’t want to see Rangers die, Yorkston believes that in a stark choice between terminating the club’s SFA membership or letting them off with a cup ban, there really is no alternative for the game’s bosses.

 

Because the lesser punishment simply does not fit the crime.

 

Yorkston said: “Most of us feel that because they are who they are, Rangers would get away with the lesser sentence but a cup suspension is not enough. This is more than a small administrative error that saw us and other clubs expelled from the Scottish Cup.

 

“None of us want to see Rangers go out of business but given the choice between the options available to the SFA, there is only one decision.

 

“I always thought relegation was the appropriate measure but I don’t know if they can find a middle ground any more because they tried that already with the transfer embargo.

 

“That’s what makes Rangers’ decision to go to the courts so foolish. They were badly advised because everyone knows you don’t go to court. People will blame the administrators for that but there are still folk at Rangers who should have known you just don’t do that. You don’t go to court unless you know all the facts and not enough research was done to check what the consequences would be.”

 

If Rangers were to pay the ultimate sanction, the additional place in the SPL could see either Dunfermline spared relegation or Dundee promoted as last season’s Division One runners-up.

 

Either way would be less than ideal, Yorkston argues, as both sides have signed and released players based on the assumption they’ll be playing in the lower league.

 

A sudden rise into the top flight – with all the additional costs involved and uncertainty over the TV deal they would need to fund it – would pose a massive headache. Yorkston added: “There are so many ifs, buts and maybes that there’s no sense in speculating too much.

 

“But safe to say it’s not as straight-forward as just getting back into the SPL and everything will be rosy.

 

“Whether it was us or Dundee, it would throw plans into turmoil because both clubs have beenbudgeting for the First Division.

 

“All of our players’ contracts have wages agreed for when they play in the SPL and a lower wage for the FirstDivision, so those still with us have taken a cut and others have moved on.

 

“My fear is that the new season will probably have started by the time this comes to a conclusion, which will bring even more chaos to a situation that has already dragged on for too long.”

 

Rangers hopes of getting away with a Scottish Cup ban seem even more remote when you consider that one of the men due to sit in judgment was the last club chairman to suffer the same sanction.

 

Spartans’ chief Craig Graham was dismayed when the East of Scotland League side were thrown out for the crime of using a player whose new contract had only been dated once.

 

The SFA demand contracts are dated twice and therefore ruled that striker Keith McLeod had been ineligible to play in Spartans’ 2-0 win over Culter.

 

That cost the Edinburgh club alucrative third-round tie with Partick Thistle plus a £4000 fine – a heavy price for such a small administrative error.

 

Graham oversaw Gers’ original appeal against the 18-month transfer embargo along with Lord Carloway and former Partick Thistle chairman Allan Cowan.

 

Their decision to uphold the embargo meted out by the SFA’s judicial tribunal (comprising Gary Allan QC, Raith Rovers director Eric Drysdale and journalist Alastair Murning) led to Gers ill-advised approach to the Court of Session.

 

Now they’ll have the whole sorry mess dropped back in their laps again and are expected to sit within the next two weeks to assess what little options remain at their disposal.

 

If Yorkston represents the majority view in Scottish football then there is no decision to be made. And if Spartans chief Graham felt his club were harshly treated to be kicked out of the Scottish Cup for an honest administrative slip-up, there seems little chance of him approving the same sanction for blatant, pre-meditated deceit.

[Zappa 0]

I'm glad you posted that Ian because the Pars acted disgracefully towards us last year.

 

When we went into administration we owed the Pars some cash. It was a small amount in Ibrox terms, but a large amount to the Pars (about 30 grand or something).

 

Straight away I saw Rangers fans rallying to suggest ways we could help pay the Pars back and it was quickly decided that the RFFF would pay them the cash owed with cash donated by Rangers fans.

 

The Pars then (very shortly after our kindness to them) went on to join the witch hunt for us to be hammered by the SPL & SFA so that they could plead there case for remaining in the SPL rather than getting demoted.

 

They'll get no sympathy from me.