----- Original Message ----- And are the Football League in essence aiding and abetting these unknown owner (owners). Surely the rules must be altered at some point sooner rather than later.
This whole area is still under development. It is a slow process. The FL have always said (so it isn't a surprise) that they view the information supplied to them by FL clubs to be subject to the requirements of the data protection act. It was known for quite some time that Leeds passing the F&PP test would not mean that the FL would reveal details of the ownership of the club. To change this position would require legislation (which is dangerous ground because of strong FIFA objections to political involvement in football) OR for a voluntary rule change to be passed at a FL AGM. This would require a majority of the clubs (I think it may be two-thirds) to self-impose the requirement for ownership disclosure upon themselves. Even thornier is the subject of appropriate sanctions if any club fails to comply with such a requirement. Would it apply to existing owners or only come into effect upon transfer of ownership in future ? Perhaps the clubs could self-impose a golden-share requirement so that when a club is sold to new owners the GS cannot be obtained by any new owner without full declaration of ownership but at present the GS is nor forfeit on a normal sale of a club between two parties so this would be a drastic change. It could have enormous implications (detrimental) or the value of football clubs. Also just for example, the shares in an offshore company which owned a club could be sold to a new person which in effect would be a change of club ownership which would not be visible. Nobody need know anything about it - a la Teak Commercial Ltd and Elland Road. Perhaps a better way forward would be for the FA to outlaw certain forms of ownership, or more likely, specify permitted forms of ownership of football clubs. The problem being that if the law of the land allows it then the FL for example are not comfortable with taking the law into their own hands in such matters. Also clubs would inevitably try to find loopholes in the "permitted ownership types" just as Spurs did when floating the shares in a holding company on the stock exchange. When it comes to the F&PP test ,TWO words get used. One word is OWNERSHIP and the other is CONTROL. It is unclear which of these two is subject to the test and if it is always the same in every instance that the test is applied. As it appears that Peter Boatman has passed the test as applied to Leeds, this indicates that the test was applied to CONTROL rather than to to ownership. This could imply that actual OWNERSHIP was not in fact an issue at the FL at this time and that they still know no more about the ownership of the club than is known by the general public. Who CONTROLS Leeds ? It is the current chairman and current board and whoever has day to day control of FSF. All of these people pass the current F&PP test without the issue of ownership ever arising. A perfectly possible scenario is that one day Mr Bates simply resigns from his unpaid position as chairman of the club and that a new chairman arrives on the scene. No more need be announced in public but the ownership of shares in FSF might have changed hands and nobody would ever know- unless the new owners wanted them to know. _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist and the hardest time in a sailor's day is to watch the sun as it sails away
