Luton docked 10 points after being found guilty of 15 misconduct charges

Appeals for leniency by the club's administrators and their soon-to-be owners fell on deaf ears at a hearing held by the Football Association Regulatory Commission yesterday. So the club will face a fight to survive in League Two after just being relegated from League One.

Luton: Grounds for concern

Matters could get even worse if the Football League opt to impose a further 15-point penalty for breaking rules on coming out of administration.

LTFC2020 Ltd are due to meet the League on Monday to ratify the transfer of ownership from administrators. Like Leeds United, Luton are planning to exit administration without a Creditors Voluntary Agreement (CVA). The lack of a CVA was instrumental in Leeds' failure to overturn their own 15-point deduction recently.

Luton went into administration in November, leading to a 10-point cut which saw them relegated from League One just one season after dropping out of the Championship.

In all, they were found guilty of 15 charges of misconduct, and former chairman Bill Tomlins was fined £15,000 and banned from all football activities for five years over 13 charges of misconduct.

Former financial director Derek Peter was also banned from the game for a year and fined £3,750 over seven charges, and ex-directors Richard Bagehot and John Mitchell were fined £750 and £250 respectively and reprimanded for 'failing to immediately report the relevant wrongdoing to the Football League'.

The six agents involved - Andrew Mills, Sky Andrew, Steven Denos, Mike Berry, David Manasseh and Mark Curtis - were warned as to their future conduct over a charge of 'failing to have in place a written representation contract' with the club.

Luton were found guilty of making payments of £160,000 to the agents through holding company Jayten rather than via the club's books and the FA as the rules stipulate.

The charges were brought last November after an investigation by the FA prompted by allegations of wrongdoing made by former manager Mike Newell in January 2006 and irregularites highlighted by club secretary Cherry Newbery.

Sportsmail revealed the extent of the wrongdoing in an exclusive probe in May 2007.

Although Peter Griffiths QC insisted there was no evidence of any 'bungs or backhanders passed on to agents' in his judgment, he did accuse the club's former directors of 'a flagrant disregard for the regulations laid down to protect the game'.

Luton administrator Brendan Guilfoyle said an appeal was being considered by the club and their purchasers.

Tomlins' representative Graham Bean, the former FA bung buster, accused the FA of a botched investigation costing up to £250,000.

He said: 'The FA can window-dress this up as much as they like to try to give it some credibility, but the reality is they simply have no powers to impose any penalty on any of the former directors, so it is quite a hollow result for them. Their time would have been better spent investigating people involved in the game, not out of it.'