Leeds United lose appeal

English Leeds United have failed in their appeal to overturn the 15-point penalty.

The independent tribunal has reached to a conclusion yesterday (Thursday), after a three-day hearing where the club failed to convince a three-man panel that the League acted unfairly when docking the points as punishment for breaking competition rules on insolvency.

Leeds were deducted 15 points for failing to exit administration via a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

The decision raise concerns by fellow League One clubs Bournemouth and Luton Town, both recently failed to exit administration via a CVA.

"Very simply they have rejected our appeal. the decison of the tribunal is that we will not get our points back," Leeds chairman Ken Bates told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

"In many ways, I think we've had overall a moral victory because some of the points the tribunal made are I think unfair and unjust towards Leeds. But we'll live with that and get on with our lives."

"It's significant that the tribunal also criticised the Football League's procedures. They basically said it's wrong that a dispute with a football club should be decided by their fellow clubs, because there's self-interest.

"That's obvious to everyone but the Football League board, headed by Lord Mawhinney.

"They've recommended that clubs should have the right to appeal, and they should not ban you from appealing as part of any condition being imposed.

"They also acknowledged that the CVA which caused all this trouble couldn't be exited in the normal way because of the Inland Revenue. So basically we have been penalised by the Football League for adhering to their policy of paying all football creditors.

"On reflection the whole board and particularly Lord Mawhinney should consider their position and perhaps resign because the way they've handled this matter has been totally disgraceful."

"The FA dragged their feet and took a long time to deal with any point we raised and then we appealed against the original decision and they said there was no case to answer.

"So we issued a writ against the Football League and they said they were going to get a stay of execution in the high court because it should go to arbitration under rule K of the FA.

"I said 'we've been asking for that for six months. Why's it taken the threat of legal action in court to bring it?' I think they thought we were just going to go away.

"Secondly, they (the tribunal) said we had under duress signed an undertaking not to challenge the decision and we thought by them later proposing that we should go to arbitration that they had waived that clause.

"If they said 'you don't have any right to appeal' why did they then propose we have an appeal under the rules of the FA. That seems like a dog's breakfast.

"The last board meeting of the Football Association resolved to have a thorough investigation and review of their disciplinary procedures. Quite right too. There should be an independent right of appeal.

"The Premier League do have a clause where if a club is in dispute with the Premier League, it goes to arbitration - over serious matters - and it works very well. Even if you don't like the decision, you know it's been decided by an independent tribunal."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.