LiviNews is going to be taking a well earned break for the next wee while.
Tomorrow is the start of what must surely be Livingston Football Clubs last chance to ‘get it right’.
Let’s hope they grab it with both hands.
Thanks go to our team of contributors, and also to our many readers!
LiviNews.
Livingston were hauled back from the brink of extinction yesterday when the Scottish Football League approved a deal which will allow the debt-ridden club to survive.
The First Division side looked doomed after Angelo Massone, their chairman, refused to walk away for the £25,000 offered him by interim manager Donald McGruther, of administrator Mazars.
McGruther, appointed by the Court of Session last Friday after West Lothian Council took legal action to reclaim a £330,000 debt, was on the brink of liquidating the club.
However, following a three-hour meeting with the SFL’s management committee, a rescue package led by the former Cowdenbeath owner, Gordon McDougall, and the former Dumbarton chairman, Neil Rankine, was approved.
The pair will team up with the former Livingston director, Ged Nixon, who is currently head of supporters’ group Livi for Life’.
Livingston Football Club’s chairman has been fined £800 and banned from driving for a year after 
admitting being drunk in charge of a car, wites BBC Scotland.
Angelo Massone, 38, from Edinburgh, was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car on 29 November last year. The car was stationary in Edinburgh’s Bonnington Road, but the engine was running.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told a taxi driver was so concerned he called the police and ambulance service. At first the police thought Massone was asleep, but then noticed a strong smell of alcohol. Fiscal depute Lisa Welsh said when Massone was asked to get out of the car he was unsteady on his feet.
Massone was asked to provide a specimen of breath but, said Ms Welsh, he told the police he could not talk or understand English. At St Leonards Police Station, Massone was given a sheet explaining his rights in Italian. He told officers it was not required as he could understand and threw it to the ground. At 0645 GMT, more than three hours after he had been found, he provided two specimens of breath. He had 59 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath when the legal limit is 35.
Defence solicitor, Graeme Clark, said his client spoke English in conversation and his understanding had improved since coming to this country. Massone, he added, had been at a restaurant. He had parked the car intending to take a taxi home and come back for the car late that afternoon. He had felt unwell and sat in the car with the window open to recover and get the taxi.
Mr Clark said Massone was the majority shareholder of a limited company which had severe financial difficulties. His client, he added, was experiencing great professional difficulties at present and had a very hectic schedule. He said Massone derived no income from the football club, but was a qualified lawyer in Italy.
Sheriff Mhairi Stephen told Massone: “Clearly the circumstances indicate you must have consumed a significant amount of alcohol when you decided to get into your car and were seen by the passing taxi driver.”
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Livingston’s administrator has started making redundancies after owner Angelo Massone rejected an offer to sell his shares to prevent liquidation, writes BBC Scotland.
Massone had earlier told BBC Scotland that he did not believe that Donald McGruther would carry out his threat.
But McGruther said: “I am really saddened because obviously the message of the last four or five days has not sunk in. This is the end.
“I am having to dismiss staff, although that does not involve players as yet.”
That would most likely come after Thursday’s meeting between interim manager McGruther, from administrator Mazars, and the Scottish Football League, with the club officially going out of the business later that evening.
The SFL already has a plan in place to re-promote Airdrie United to Division One, with Cowdenbeath moving up to Division Two and Third Division operating with only nine clubs in the coming season because there is not enough time to find a replacement club.
There were angry scenes on Wednesday when Massone arrived at Almondvale Stadium and was confronted by Livingston fans.
McGruther had offered Massone £25,000 for his shareholding saying that this would then allow him to sell the club for a similar amount to investors interested in taking over the club.
“I have the 25 grand to hand here, but Mr Massone is not interested,” said the interim manager.
“Basically, Mr Massone is now talking about introducing money which was not available three weeks ago or I would not be here.
“Frankly, money is not the issue. The supporters will not support the club, the players will not play for it and the local authority that took this decision to put me in are not going to reverse their decision to let Mr Massone or anyone supported by him back into the stadium.”
Massone’s Italian-based consortium bought Livingston last summer from former owner Pearse Flynn for £1.
The Italian businessman has consistently claimed to have invested large sums of his own money to keep the club afloat, but last season Livingston hit the headlines for the late payment of wages and stories of unpaid debts.
And it was landlord West Lothian Council, which is now owed £330,000, that finally took court action to recover its debt.
Massone has held talks with former Cowdenbeath owner Gordon McDougall and former Dumbarton chairman Neil Rankine in recent weeks without an investment or takeover being forthcoming to save the club.
And, just before the deadline passed, Massone told said: “My decision is to continue to work hard for Livingston Football Club and to find a solution.
“Now is the time to try to run the business, not to close the business immediately.”
The club chairman, who said his lawyer had advised him not to accept McGruther’s offer, called on politicians, potential investors and the interim manager to work together with him to save the club.
McGruther had taken action after Mazars concluded that the club was “hopelessly insolvent, without any discernible cash flow, and in need of an immediate cash injection”.
The interim manager said that there were parties interested in investing in Livingston but that they would only do so if Massone was no longer involved.
McDougall last week resigned from the board at Dunfermline Athletic, who said it would leave him free to help their Division One rivals survive, while Rankine told BBC Scotland he will interrupt his holiday and fly back to Scotland for talks with McGruther on Tuesday.
Livingston’s players turned out on Saturday without pay as they lost their Alba Challenge Cup tie away to Queen of the South in the hope that a rescue package could be found.
Angelo Massone, the Livingston chairman, has given Donald McGruther, the interim manager, no indication that he is ready to change his mind and transfer his majority shareholding by today’s noon deadline, writes The Herald.
McGruther, who has been appointed to take over the running of the club by the courts due to debts estimated to be in the region of £1.3m, has warned he will have no option but to initiate liquidation proceedings if Massone does not accept the token fee of £25,000 for his controlling interest.
Gordon McDougall, the former Cowdenbeath chairman, is ready to put together a rescue package in conjunction with the Livi for Life Supporters Trust but Massone must first sign over his stake, something he has said he is not willing to do.
A DEADLINE of noon tomorrow has been set to save Livingston Football Club after their interim manager threatened to put the club into liquidation unless chairman Angelo Massone accepts a token fee of £25,000 for control of his shares – an offer which the Italian has rejected, writes The Scotsman.
Donald McGruther, of accountancy firm Mazars, dramatically raised the stakes yesterday when describing the club as “hopelessly insolvent”. He is due to meet with the Scottish Football League on Thursday.
The worst case scenario will see McGruther inform league officials of the club’s liquidation and inability to fulfil this season’s competitive fixtures, which are due to continue on Saturday in the Co-Operative Insurance Cup against Albion Rovers.
Livingston will go into liquidation unless present owner Angelo Massone sells his shares in the Division One club by Wednesday for just £25,000, writes the BBC.
Interim manager Donald McGruther, from administrator Mazars, was appointed on Friday by the Court of Session.
And he said on Monday that the football club was “hopelessly insolvent, without any discernible cash flow, and in need of an immediate cash injection”.
He said there were potential buyers – but only if Massone left the club.
THE Livi for Life Supporters’ Trust last night claimed they can still save the ailing First Division club along with interested investor Gordon McDougall – if chairman Angelo Massone finally walks away.
The entire future of the cash-strapped club – placed into interim administration by West Lothian Council on Friday – appears to rest with the controversial Italian relinquishing his shareholding.
The Livi for Life Supporters’ Trust last night claimed they can still save the First Division club along with interested investor Gordon McDougall – if chairman Angelo Massone finally walks away, writes The Herald.
The entire future of the cash-strapped club – placed into interim administration by West Lothian Council on Friday – appears to rest with the controversial Italian relinquishing his shareholding. McDougall, who has officially resigned from the Dunfermline board to help Livingston, appears the only saviour.
Massone is understood to want £500,000 back from Livingston for his turbulent year in charge and if he fails to back down the Almondvale outfit could go to the wall later this week.
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Ged Nixon, local businessman and a prominent member of the Trust said: “Massone has to relinquish his shareholding. He has to entertain selling up to the administrator and do the right thing. If he doesn’t relinquish there could be nowhere else to go.”
