Blood on your hands

If you’ve read pretty much anything that I’ve written, then its more than obvious what my view of the English Football League is.

You know what I’m going to talk about, you’ve seen the photo. What’s going on in League One right now is beyond comprehension, beyond what football is all about and let me make this clear, no football fan should ever have to watch their club be teeter on the edge of expulsion.

Bury FC currently sit in that position, less than 24 hours away from being expelled from the Football League and the likely hood of liquidation growing closer and closer. I cannot imagine for one second what that feels like as a fan, to watch the life and soul of a town be devalued to the point it looks more likely to disappear then ever open its doors again.

As a Bolton fan I know what it’s like to be a club that is laughed at and often swept under the carpet, I’ve seen administration and countless court cases but were not at this point yet. So, I can’t say I know how you feel.

Think about this, there is a man called Steve Dale, who took over a Bury FC, without the full permissions and has watched one of the oldest football club’s in the country fall into administration, stopped paying players, continuingly lied to staff and players and has refused time and time again to let go of his holding of the club. Where is he now? He’s walking scot free answering his phone once a day to reject every offer for the club on the bloody planet.

So, this man has taken over a club without the proper sanctions, driven it into the ground and his tenure will probably end in the loss of hundreds of jobs and a lot of the town’s income will disappear. And he will currently face ZERO sanction? Be that from the law or the league.

And with all this, the question is still there, what has the EFL done to stop this? Quite simply, nothing.

They knew he wasn’t fit to run the club, yet, they still let him. When the club were struggling financially and administration was the only option, what did they do? Gave them -12 points and helped them in no way. When they reached a point where it was do or die, what did they do? Gave them a deadline to meet or it was game over.

I urge you to look through the pictures and reports at what is going at Bury and other clubs alike and think, what if this was my club? Take it in, because this isn’t about football really, this is about the heart of a community, this about people’s jobs, this is about a towns income, something to look forward to at the weekend, this is about the life and sole of a place being stripped from them by one person, who could cost a town all of this due to their wrongs.

EFL get off your sorry little arse and try to fix these things, if you see a problem, go and stop it before it gets worse. Stop letting con men take over football clubs because they slid you a little on the side or it’s the easiest way out. Stop giving clubs points deductions as a deterrent to force an owner to sell or put money into a club, it clearly doesn’t work and you’re only hurting the fans. Stop worrying about a team missing a single fixture and how about you worry about keeping a league together and teams afloat, so that people don’t have to go through this, don’t have to have their jobs at risk, people don’t have to worry about their town’s and people don’t have to worry about losing club they’ve watched every weekend since they were a kid.

Fix up and fix up now EFL, because you’ve got blood on your hands.