Football League clubs will no longer be able to "evade all but a tiny fraction of their debts to unsecured creditors under new rules being voted on at their annual conference" on Friday, according to Matt Scott of the LONDON TIMES. Any club flouting the new rules "would face a total 15-point deduction" in the season after it enters the insolvency process. It would mean "two seasons' pain," since the League is also moving to introduce a "hardened, 12-point automatic penalty for any club going into administration," up from the present 10 points. Faced with the threat of a "renewed legal or parliamentary challenge" to the Football Creditors Rule, Football League CEO Shaun Harvey has been the "architect of a new insolvency policy." The new rules will leave the FCR -- "which aims to protect the integrity of competitions -- untouched." However, alongside it the League proposes a measure guaranteeing that a minimum 25p in the pound is paid to all unsecured creditors. A third measure the new regulations would introduce is "for the removal of the requirement" to reach a satisfactory Company Voluntary Arrangement with creditors (LONDON TIMES, 6/7).
