The Premier League determined Owen Oyston was not a "fit and proper person."GETTY IMAGES
The Premier League "failed to enforce an official ban" on Owen Oyston being the owner and a director of Blackpool following the club's promotion in '10, according to David Conn of the London GUARDIAN. The Premier League took the view that Oyston's '96 conviction for rape, which can never be legally "spent," meant that he was not a "fit and proper person" and that he was disqualified from being an owner or director of a club. EPL Exec Chair Richard Scudamore "insisted that Oyston dispose of his majority shareholding in Blackpool -- and thought he had done so -- but Oyston never complied with the disqualification." He remained the club's owner and a director during the '10-11 Premier League season and throughout Blackpool's subsequent years in the English Football League. During this time, he and his son Karl transferred £26.77M out of Blackpool to Oyston companies. Following a legal action brought against the Oystons by Valeri Belokon, a Latvian banker who had invested alongside them, those payments were found by a high court judge in November to have been an "illegitimate stripping" of the club (GUARDIAN, 3/13).
'NATURAL JUSTICE': The BBC reported former Blackpool Dir Belokon said that he is working with the EFL to reverse the decision to disqualify him because it ignores "basic principles of natural justice." Belokon was given a 20-year jail term in Kyrgyzstan for "money laundering, tax evasion and dishonesty" last May. He subsequently failed the Owners' and Directors' Test in September. The Latvian, 58, said that he had "the club's best interests at heart" and was a "good football citizen." In a statement, he added, "I certainly understand the need for the EFL to have a fit-and-proper-person test. That said, the regulations cannot always deal adequately with every scenario in life. I believe that this has happened in my case" (BBC, 3/13).
