Post by JeffPost by AnthonyL"Leeds United filed for administration with only a few days remaining in th=
e 2006-07 season, which automatically triggered a 10-point penalty. This pl=
aced Leeds at the bottom of the table and relegated the club, but they were=
extremely likely to have been relegated anyway.=20
By entering administration during the 2006-07 season, they hoped to avoid s=
tarting the 2007-08 season on -10 points. The Football League saw this as a=
club trying to exploit a loophole and changed the rules.
From 2007-08, any=
club entering administration after the fourth Thursday in March would have=
their 10-point deduction suspended until the following season.=20
The above statement appears to read at odds with the following
statement.
If the club is relegated the points will be deducted from their tally at th=
e start of next season. If the club stays up the 10 points will be taken of=
f their final total."
The last sentence implies that the by taking the administration route
when safe means they could remain safe if they are over 10 points from
the relegation zone.
I'm still just as confused.
You are correct, if a club goes into administration and are more than 10
point above the relegation zone then they stay where they are and the
deduction is NOT carried over to the next season.
If they are in the relegation zone at the end of the season then the 10
point deduction is carried over to the next season in the lower league.
This was introduced to prevent what Leeds did, but is does seem harsh.
Does it?
In a competition where "throwing loads of money at it" usually gets you a
much better result that "playing smarter" can ever get you, IMHO no penalty
for achieving a better result by "throwing loads of money at it" that was
never yours because you went bankrupt before you needed to pay it back, can
be too harsh.
In most worlds of business going bankrupt half-way through the season sees
you relegated to the "applying for membership from the bottom rung" stage,
and any punishment at all that is less severe than that cannot ever be too
harsh (even if a quirk of the rules means that sometimes it is harsher than
others)
(You can ignore Leicester City in the above scenario)
tim