Success... for now

By now it's old news that Cardiff won their hearing versus the shady Langston company, though Cardiff's lawyers did their part to light up the cockroach-ridden tenement flat that is Cardiff's front-office situation, naming former chairman and Wimbledon-succubus Sam Hammam as the power behind the "throne" of Langston. The basics are this: Langston loaned the club 24 million pounds while Hammam was chairman, and are now claiming that the entire amount is immediately payable. The club contends that it has made various arrangements that mean the debt doesn't need to be repaid until 2016 or so. If it sounds like a cynical power play by an ousted chaiman, that's because that's probably what it is.

The hearing was for summary judgment, which in the legal world means the judge was required to view all the facts in the best possible light for Cardiff and then determine whether, having done that, Langston would still obviously be in the right. It's an early gambit by Langston, and there is still the specter of a full trial on the disputed facts. Still, the gambit failed, and with this victory, which forces Langston (who moved for summary judgment in the first place) to pay a healthy chunk of Cardiff's recent legal bills, Cardiff has shown the world and, perhaps more importantly, the local council, that they have a strong case going forward and are in this thing to win it, notwithstanding threats of administration and its ten-point-penalty bogeyman. They can also now seriously look into a much-needed loan signing for depth.

There had been some debate about whether the man who began the dismantling of Wimbledon or the man who began the dismantling of Leeds was the worse chairman, but now I think most Bluebirds supporters will echo the sentiments of one messageboard partisan: "Do the ayatollah now, you piece of shit." Here here. Long live the overspending corporate shill; down with the false-fan hypocrite. One thing I do know is that if there ever were any karmic debt to pay for the dark days of hooliganism, the Cardiff fans' ledger should be more than balanced by now -- Barnsley and Pompey/West Brom, beware.