Paying the bills is for the Little People

[E10 Rifle]

So, you're a football league administrator. One of your member clubs, for whom you have nominal responsibility, is run into the ground by an outrageously irresponsible and unaccountable owner, who ceases funding the club, allowing bills, debts and wages to go unpaid.

Your response to this: tell that club's staff to get their fans to start paying bills.

The English Football League, ladies and gentlemen

LOFT's response on this Twitter timeline

[Bored Of Education]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Hold on, LOFT own, what, 5000 shares and the EFL think they should pay medical fees instead of them? What percentage of shares is that?

[Ray de Galles]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

The EFL have issued a statement denying approaching LOFT :

"A statement from the EFL regarding Leyton Orient
An EFL Spokesman said: “The EFL has been in regular dialogue with officials at the Club throughout the course of today, encouraging them to find a practical and sensible solution that will ensure the safety of all supporters attending Monday’s fixture with Hartlepool United.

“The Club has this evening advised the EFL that they have an agreement in place that satisfies the requirements of the Safety Certificate.

“At no stage during today’s discussions did the EFL contact the Leyton Orient Supporters' Trust to ask for financial assistance nor would it be appropriate to do so."

[Toby Gymshorts]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

I'll go with this:

Wow.

[HORN]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Yeah, that's a really disingenuous statement. I suppose I can understand the passage of play during the "who's paying for this?" brainstorming session, but then to spin it? Really?

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

That EFL statement denies a claim that no one made. We never said they approached LOFT; we said they told someone at the club to ask us. A claim they haven't denied.

Our reps are meeting the EFL next week, to congratulate them on the success of the Checkatrade Trophy.

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

A dignified and concerned statement, by dignified and concerned people.

None of this apparently merits a bringing football into disrepute charge against the cunt in charge. Extraordinary.

[Mr Beast]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Seeing how the arsehole nominally in charge at the Football League is Sean Harvey, former Smithers-like lickspittle to uber cunt Ken Bates, I'm sorry to say it is hardly surprising.

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Yeah Harvey worked for someone who, in a properly regulated industry, would never have passed the owners and directors' test. Hardly surprising that the organisation that he now heads is so useless.

I'm sure he'll be delighted to get shot of us. Only a couple more weeks now.

[Satchmo Distel]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Will Leyton Orient be allowed/able to play in the fifth tier next season, and, if so, what are their prospects?

[johnr]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Such a dreadful story all round.

As you know E10, we met when I was an O's supporter many moons ago. Heartfelt commiserations for what has happened to the club.

[Benjm]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Was that The Internet's E10 Rifle on the BBC local news just now?

As goes without saying, more power to the fans' elbows in getting the club back.

[Gangster Octopus]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

It was indeed he. How did he come across?

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

That'll be for others to judge. Have done so many of these now I'm almost on autopilot, and already prompting people to channel Father Jack: "Is that gobshite never off the air?"

Meanwhile, the EFL really aren't doing themselves any favours with statements like this..

Particularly like the patronising "supporters need to understand" bit before delivering the killer admission that their own rules are useless (my emphasis, in bold):

It is important that supporters understand that the Test governs the eligibility of who is able to own a club - it does not also ensure that those individuals have the capability to manage it properly.

[Benjm]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Don't worry, E10: you, and everyone from the O's side that I've seen on coverage of the story, come across as very committed and deeply worried but entirely reasonable, which further serves to underline how useless a system which allows this situation to arise and continue must be.

[Snake Plissken]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

30 years since Burnley played the Orient Game, and it is astonishing - and more than a little grounding - to see how far the the paths of the two clubs have diverged. I wish you and the rest of the supporters the best of luck in your fight.

[Sean of the Shed]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

E10 Rifle wrote: That'll be for others to judge. Have done so many of these now I'm almost on autopilot, and already prompting people to channel Father Jack: "Is that gobshite never off the air?"

Meanwhile, the EFL really aren't doing themselves any favours with statements like this..

Particularly like the patronising "supporters need to understand" bit before delivering the killer admission that their own rules are useless (my emphasis, in bold):

It is important that supporters understand that the Test governs the eligibility of who is able to own a club - it does not also ensure that those individuals have the capability to manage it properly.

I thought this part of the EFL statement was particularly telling:
"The role of the EFL is one of a competition organiser and the management of clubs is a matter for their Directors, as long as their conduct is not in breach of any of our Regulations. There are any number of actions the EFL might wish to take, but it can only ever act in accordance with those Regulations."
I find it deeply troubling that they are not taking the club to task over their failure to pay wages on time, as I can't believe that they haven't got any regulation in place regarding such a situation.

Would they be getting more involved if they knew that LOFC were still going to be an EFL club next season? You can bet your sweet ass they would. They've looked at their position in the table and decided that if they can just ride it out until May then it's somebody else's problem, i.e. The National League.
Without wanting to deflate E10 and other LOFC fans even further, there are previous situations, i.e. Boston United, where the club were dropped straight into the second tier of non-league.

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

We're aware of all the possibilities and will be contacting the Conference (because there is little likelihood that anyone from Becchetti's side will be), though there is also a fair amount of scaremongering around.

[Satchmo Distel]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

What are the National League's rules on such matters? Or indeed the FA's? It's not in the NL's interests to accept a club that may fold mid-season, is likely to breach its rules, or likely to finish bottom by a long way.

Aside: Is it still OK to call it the Conference?

[Ray de Galles]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

It should be compulsory.

[Gangster Octopus]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Wealdstone fans still call it the Alliance...

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

So, in the end, the last six minutes of league football at Brisbane Road for the foreseeable get to be seen by no one, after the EFL lies about the game against Colchester having been abandoned following the 84th-minute pitch invasion.

No further comment necessary, really. An emotional day.

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

And now the EFL, and Blackpool, want to ban us.

That the squalid custodians of the 'integrity of the competition' line up behind the 'legitimate concerns' of Karl fucking Oyston says everything.

Not fit for purpose. Any of them. Disgusting people.

[laverte]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Leyton Orient's women have won promotion into the Women's Premier League structure (the fourth tier) and, today, their first London/South East cup. But will they still be around to play in the WPL and defend their trophy?

The team is an extraordinary grassroots success: it was set up by Swedish postgraduates as Kikks United, with an overtly cosmopolitan outreach. A couple of years ago it chose to affiliate with Leyton, with a view to reaching the WPL. It would be very sad if yet another successful women's team was cast adrift (or doomed to fold altogether) by attaching itself to a men's team with a terrible owner whose money they have barely even sniffed.

[E10 Rifle]

Paying the bills is for the Little People

Ironically, the links are probably loose enough for them to thrive if the football club goes belly up (though they did – at last! - get to play at Brisbane Road last weekend, though at a time when many of us were still coming back from a weekend in the north-west after the game at Blackpool).

Of course, it we get any sort of enlightened new ownership, then we can push for women's matches and the women's team to be given more of a push by the club.

At the moment, mind, we don't seem to have anyone running the club. There has been no information about season tickets (which will be boycotted in large numbers anyway if wasteman's still around), and the long-suffering PR people have both left.