From STV


Livingston have been found guilty of breaching Scottish FA rules over their owner Neil Rankine's dual interest in East Fife.

The Championship side were accused of concealing information of their biggest shareholder's involvement in the Methil side, with Rankine influencing affairs through a relationship with their owners.

The Scottish FA have ruled that four breaches of its rules have occurred. A hearing will take place on February 13 to determine what punishment, if any, will be handed down.

A previous charge relating to a £200,000 loan to Dumbarton was dropped late last year.

Livingston now potentially face action from the Scottish Professional Football League on similar grounds now the Scottish FA case has concluded.

The SPFL docked the club five points and fined £10,000 earlier this season after an admission they had defaulted on tax obligations in relation to bonuses, something they had failed to declare to the league in time.

A registration embargo imposed on the club has since been lifted after Livingston settled the outstanding amounts to HM Revenue and Customs.

Rankine claims to be owed £500,000 from loans given to Livingston and previously stated he would sell his shares in the club if a guilty verdict is delivered.

While the SFA and SPFL may not punish East Fife, this ruling WILL impact the club.

It could be a good thing in that it forces the owners hand to sell. Or it could be the end of the club altogether ..... in its present form. I'd be 100% behind a Phoneix club should that be the way ahead.

I agree with you CCG. It's with sadness tho. I'd agree 100% had you spelled Phoenix correctly. 😋

Ha!

The word is "spelt"

East Fife FC has seen many changes with Danskin running the club back in 1996, the club moving to methil docks to a boring, wasteful one stand stadium danskin sold his shares to mr. black and with the club going out of business nearly in 2000s is when Rankine put some money to help the club stay afloat and got mother and daughter involved in running the football club but they remain a mystery behind the scene and we haven't seen any shareholders at bayview than the present directors that are at east fife. Club then saw brown who was incharge and ran the club to its knee's before Gray and collumbine got involved after a season in leauge one/second division back then gray decided to leave and it was like who's next in line. Rankine said on an article i read online he wanted Gary Bollan as east fife manager but the club opted to appoint a Taxi driver, he was seen at a house of Twigg on STV News so if your still involved with East Fife and want to make bussiness why go to other clubs? like Livingstone i find this very hard and frustrating on behalf of our club.

Have you told the board and Stevenson not to depart with Naysmith because his leaving fee would run east fife to the ground and the only way to do bussiness is to have Naysmith and move him on to bigger clubs like Gary Bollan leaving livingstone you thought he was unfairly treated by your club and we went for a taxi driver at the start of last season when you gave lee murray advice.
Now murray has left we are left with the bunch of directors that have followed the club and interterm chairman who like pervious chairman's that have been hired at bayview doesn't hold a say for the club as we are taking orders from behind the scene's as we see and wanting to buy shares from the shareholding and we aren't any further forward. Rankine still has contact with east fife shareholders or his office won't be at the Twigg's current home address and we are going round circles and he's got three clubs he has interest in, if rankine was so keen about east fife he would join our board than run off to Dumbarton or Livingstone but he won't do that. So far the football club's board at all scottish teams remain like a shuffler your either in or out like ibrox and money in the scottish clubs remains like its slowly fading away before we know it and its how the clubs are run, we are like a mystery no one knows and no one knows our future and we need investment on our board but thats unlikely to happen.

Rankine guilty of holding interest in EF on Bbc sport.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/30749965

Well well well who would have thought it?
The name we were never to mention, because he had nothing to do with East Five. This is the guy who the Gang of Four are willing to line his pockets to the tune of 300K!!
No one in their right mind would give 3K for East Five at the moment A fool could tell you his shares are worth Jack Shit.
Please guys see sense and don't dance to his tune.

Another thing to ponder in all of this.

If Rankine now sells his shares in Livingston and has no interest any more in Dumbarton, that only leaves East Fife as his footballing interest.

As such, how keen will he still be to actually sell up here as well? Might be in no rush to offload the club at all or hold out for the maximum return possible.

Why does he have to offload his interest in Livingston? I mean, specifically, Livingston. Why didn't the SFA just tell him to get it sorted so he was only in one club, and leave it up to him?

And why hasn't Lorraine Johnston and Miss Twigg been hit with exactly the same proceedings?

Because he was deemed to have a controlling interest in East Fife before Livingston appointed him as a Director.

Thankyou.

Daily record reporting that rankine has until April 9th to dispose of his interest in one of the clubs.

I hope the EFSS have a crisp pound note ready.

Perhaps sensible pricing opens the door for lee Murray to pick things up again.

Hope not

Aye Lee Murray.
He has the business acumen of a fudge doughnut.

No thanks

Anyone who was at either AGM this last week would know that Lee Murray will never be allowed to have any control of East Fife again.

Thank gawd for that.

Only a mad man would want Lee Murray to have control of the club. He, potentially, could be the death our once proud club. #waltermitty

Allowed? What a funny thing to say. If Lee Murray comes back to East Fife, I doubt if he will need to ask anyone's permission.

You mean Lee Murray, the successful local businessman who runs some of the best pubs in the area? If he has the business acumen of a fudge doughnut, what does that say about the four pensioners who are in charge of East Fife? They must have the business acumen of fudge doughnut that has been eaten by a scabby dug and then shat in the street.

Murray may not need permission but he won't be welcomed by the fans.

It's the mismanagement under his helm that has us in the particular shit we now find ourselves in.

Worst thing in recent years was him coming in, as this week's meetings have clearly demonstrated.

I take it you're more a Lee Murray fan than a fan of East Fife then.

I suspect rankine will have to write off his East Fife investment - terminating the Gang of 4's rental. The original valuation touted by Bruce black was never going to be met. And now with the debt and the pending fire sale, the valuation can be nothing more than nominal. Whatever "return" he's got to date is all there is.

Perhaps this is what lee Murray planned - time will tell.

The mess that the next owners inherit will be a massive challenge to overcome. Whoever is brave enough to take this on would be wise to work with the EFSS. The present board made a big mistake by going against the supporters so let's hope this error is not repeated.

Interesting times ahead.

You think after 15 years of deceit under Neil Rankine, who put Derrick Brown in charge and various other puppets while pulling the strings in the name of young Samantha, that Lee Murray is the worst thing that has happened to the club in recent years?
Care to explain what this week's meetings have clearly demonstrated? I saw the board of directors blaming the former chairman for everything they chose to go public with, while hiding behind confidentiality in every other area they were questioned about. Who will they blame next year? Neil Rankine, of course!

what businesses does Murray have then? Think you'll find most of them are leased bar maybe one.
He had around a dozen on the go when he was at East Fife. Needless to say majority of these have now been offloaded due to running at a loss.

He runs a business. He is not a brewery or a landlord. His business leases pubs. If those pubs don't make money, they are off-loaded. That is what running a business is about.
What businesses do the current directors run?

Hm. Good job East Fife isn't a business. It certainly will never make money or even wash its face! And that's the nub of the problem. The Directors may not be businessmen but at least they are - somehow - keeping a team on the pitch.

WHIT????
Surely the purpose of running a business is to make money or at least break even i.e. not run at a loss?
Any "businessman" worth his salt would prepare a business plan before taking on a lease. Banks require this.

You my friend are talking pish.

Murray leases pubs/hotels, doesn't make any money from them so offloads them and this makes him the ideal choice for Chairman of East Fife?

Jesus Christ, talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Think I`d rather the club went into administration than stick with the status quo or Murray coming back.

What a feckin mess to get into.

I'm thinking Rankin will offload Livingston rather than East Fife.
In fact I'd put money on it.

Go ahead. What a pity that your inside knowledge does not extend to being able to spell his name correctly.

As you know Observer, business experience in the boardroom and the contacts that come with it help to raise revenue beyond just selling the land. But you choose to make a pointless remark about East Fife not being a business. It is a company. It has bills to pay. It can go out of 'business'. You know that too.
If our directors' big achievement is just to keep a team on the pitch, they need help. Desperately. Four points off rock bottom in Scottish football, and Elgin have played two games less. Whatever the directors are doing is not sustainable.

Totally agree with you fan.
The club clearly needs a cash injection to pay off its immediate debts and to ward off administration.
Some fans may see administration as "a way out" .
I attended the Trust AGM where it was stated that the directors have put money into the club to hopefully see us through to the end of the season and again , hopefully, maintain our league status. The feeling expressed by 1 Associate Director was that in his opinion,if the club was relegated to the Lowland League, the club would never recover its league status.
Administration would not only incur a points deduction which would almost assure us of a play-off to maintain our league status,but would cheat our creditors of payment in full for debts incurred in the clubs name,at a time when efforts are being made for the club to be involved within the community.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
To me the clubs survival is more important than any club buy-out.How can you buy a club which does not exist!!!
The club needs immediate investment to survive.
The East Fife board MUST tell the fans , sponsors ,community what they require to enable a concerted effort to be made for the club to survive.

Yeah, like missing out an E makes a big difference to the sorry state of affairs.
Really glad you're not on the board mate.

Serious question here. I certainly don't want to see East Fife relegated, but why is it considered such a big disaster compared to the mess we are currently in?

You could argue that days out at grounds in and around Edinburgh every fortnight, with a healthy travelling support and competing at the top of the league would be much better than a miserable existence of playing Elgin for the 9th time this season as we make a bold charge for 8th place, in the most miserable, depressing league in British football.

If the directors reckon we would be unable to get back out of the lowland league, what do they base this on?

What's so good about the current situation that means it is the be all and end all to stay here?

I'm not meaning to glorify relegation for one minute, I just think there's probably worse things than existing forevermore in purgatory.

I wonder where the board see the club in five years time.

Deid - like them.

If the same people are still on the board they won't give a monkey's where we are so long as the blazer fits. The limit of their ambition such as it is appears to be to turn the club into another Montrose or Shire, perennial 4th tier no hopers playing to 300 punters every two weeks. A pointless miserable existence if ever there was one.

So there is merit in what you are saying about the Lowland league. However it would be shocking for a club with East Fife's history and contribution to Scottish football to be the first to be demoted out of the league. The board would have to live with the shame of that for the rest of their lives. Yet they could take an immediate step to ensure that doesn't happen by removing Naysmith as manager and replacing him with a hard-nosed old school experienced bruiser and to give him one aim - ensure we are a still a league club come May. Because if Gary remains at the helm for the rest of the season then I fear the worst.

Have to agree with TN 100%