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The English Football League 2019-20


7-2

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23 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/bury-historic-club-football-league-financial-ruins?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

“In particular, alongside the insolvency which resulted in a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) denying suppliers, HMRC and other creditors 75% of the money Bury owed them, and the still outstanding wages due to players who won promotion last season, was a mortgage on Gigg Lane which Campbell and Newman appear to have found repellent.

The mortgage was taken out in stages by the previous owner, Stewart Day, who in December, as his own property empire was about to collapse into insolvency, sold the club to Steve Dale for £1.

The lender, a firm based in Crosby called Capital Bridging Finance Solutions (“Capital”), is now owed £3.7m. Capital in turn mortgaged Gigg Lane, most homely of football grounds, to a company based in Malta whose own lenders were eight companies registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. As revealed in the Guardian, large portions of the borrowed money never came to Bury at all, because 40% was paid as “introduction fees” to unnamed third parties.”

Sound familiar ?

What I found quite interesting about the Bury situation is that they weren't actually being run by administrators. They managed to get a CVA and then didn't account for any operational costs in it - all very suspicious.

I'm very interested to see the aftermath of this. With the overseas territories, we've in effect got some of the weakest financial secrecy laws in the world. It seems like they've maneuvered a cheap deal for real estate.

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37 minutes ago, 7-2 said:

Chester were put in level 7 I think after City went fully tits up. They were originally placed a bit lower but successfully appealed. I expect the 'bigger' the name the higher a club will go.

Bury are going to have to change their name, then.

I suggest 1885 Bury GreatestwinningmargininanFACupFinaltillManchesterCityequalledit FC

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9 hours ago, RossBFaeDundee said:

Regardless of all the pathetic English "patter" about Scottish football, make no mistake that August 27 2019 is a black day for football as a whole. No football fan should have to wake up and have his club gone. We came close to that twice, and I couldn't imagine enjoying football anymore if Dundee no longer existed. I'm sure there will be a phoenix club made and Bury will have a football club, but it won't ever truly be their football club. And Bolton fans look likely to face the same fate in 2 weeks. I take no joy in seeing any club die.

 

Except Rangers, that was funny.

Agreed, including and especially the last sentence, but I think it will be their club.

What is a football club? Is it a piece of paper in Companies House? Is it a registration form at the league headquarters? You can change the name, badge, stadium, colours, owners, all the players, all the coaching staff, all the other staff and a football club is still the same club. The one constant is the fans. It's the fans who decide what their club is. Airdrie aren't Clydebank. Clyde are Clyde. MK Dons aren't Wimbledon. Chester FC are Chester City.

Disappointingly, this line of argument forces me to see Rangers as Rangers, but given the successor bought the intellectual property of the previous club they're a stronger case than any other pheonix club. 

Bury's problem will be continuity, as it's too late to launch a pheonix club this season. But I'm sure they won't go the way of Third Lanark and disappear from football entirely, there are too many fans and they have too much commitment for that to happen. 

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26 minutes ago, Ross. said:

 

Going by the above, there are 8 companies in BVI who essentially hold control of the ground. Which does sound somewhat familiar...

On the news this morning they said there was a protection over the ground which meant that planning permission on it would only be granted if a new stadium was built.

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18 minutes ago, harry94 said:

What I found quite interesting about the Bury situation is that they weren't actually being run by administrators. They managed to get a CVA and then didn't account for any operational costs in it - all very suspicious.

I'm very interested to see the aftermath of this. With the overseas territories, we've in effect got some of the weakest financial secrecy laws in the world. It seems like they've maneuvered a cheap deal for real estate.

 

Just now, craigkillie said:

On the news this morning they said there was a protection over the ground which meant that planning permission on it would only be granted if a new stadium was built.

I was in the process of replying to the above comment when you quoted me and added this. It may appear a cheap property deal but it is definitely high risk as the council could block any development initially, and you imagine any escalation of the application would require greater disclosure of those involved, which they might not want to happen. Cheap, yes, but very high risk also

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2 hours ago, Ross. said:

 

I was in the process of replying to the above comment when you quoted me and added this. It may appear a cheap property deal but it is definitely high risk as the council could block any development initially, and you imagine any escalation of the application would require greater disclosure of those involved, which they might not want to happen. Cheap, yes, but very high risk also

Whatever happens, Bury supporters should definitely be looking at getting forensics all over this.

It's so rare for football clubs to actually go to the wall in this way as it's just not in the creditors interests, they need the club operating with money going in so they can salvage anything at all. If the creditors want the stadium value, they can usually force this out of the club anyway in a much cleaner way with transfer of ownership to a third party. The only real exception that you see is when HMRC is owed more than 25% and out of principle, will reject any pay off and damage a CVA (and in this case, they weren't).

There's some analysis that claims that Dale has already taken the stadium and car park out of the club already and profited £6.2 million from this and this is where the difficulty in getting new owners has come from as he was essentially asking for £2 million, just for the club to exist at all. Maybe it was just a late gamble to see if he could get any extra value out of it.

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12 hours ago, RossBFaeDundee said:

Regardless of all the pathetic English "patter" about Scottish football, make no mistake that August 27 2019 is a black day for football as a whole. No football fan should have to wake up and have his club gone. We came close to that twice, and I couldn't imagine enjoying football anymore if Dundee no longer existed. I'm sure there will be a phoenix club made and Bury will have a football club, but it won't ever truly be their football club. And Bolton fans look likely to face the same fate in 2 weeks. I take no joy in seeing any club die.

Erm, Bury haven't actually been liquidated yet champ; they've just been kicked out of the league. Despite the Ayrshire Juniors level attachment to the grade that exists in English football, a club does not automatically shrivel up and die when it is no longer in the EFL. If the doe-eyed fanbase of Bury and all their current sympathisers really want to save the club then they can still do so:  they can raise funds off the back of this high profile moment; the regulars can put in what they would have spent in tickets and Saturday expenses towards a CVA fund; they can organise to run the club themselves rather than wait on the whim of some Walter Mitty owner. 

If they succeed in doing that then Bury are saved but will start at a far lower level in the English pyramid, which is a just punishment for cheating their way into the third tier and then not fulfilling any fixtures in the space of five months. 

Edited by vikingTON
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3 hours ago, Ross. said:

English football is a tinpot setup that my nan could fiscally manage better than their lower league clubs seem to, etc etc.

New club, fan ownership, find a level and get on with it. Will be the future of a great many more teams over the next few years. The Swiss Ramble blog has covered lower league finances in England on a few occasions. The mismanagement would be unbelievable if it wasn't so fucking blatantly obvious and accepted.

Pretty sure I read last week on a BBC article that the average wage:turnover rate in League One is >70% and fully 92% in the Championship. It's a house of cards that with even the slightest dip in revenue or a general recession (hello hard Brexit) will make the ITV Digital collapse look like a teddy bear's picnic.

3 hours ago, Ross. said:

 

I was in the process of replying to the above comment when you quoted me and added this. It may appear a cheap property deal but it is definitely high risk as the council could block any development initially, and you imagine any escalation of the application would require greater disclosure of those involved, which they might not want to happen. Cheap, yes, but very high risk also

The major risk is that the stand-off goes the way of Alan Mackin and Firs Park where the ground can't be developed but is left to rot. 

Edited by vikingTON
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6 minutes ago, virginton said:

Pretty sure I read last week on a BBC article that the average wage:turnover rate in League One is >70% and fully 92% in the Championship. It's a house of cards that with even the slightest dip in revenue or a general recession (hello hard Brexit) will make the ITV Digital collapse look like a teddy bear's picnic.

The major risk is that the stand-off goes the way of Alan Mackin and Firs Park where the ground can't be developed but is left to rot. 

I'm sure around the start of last season over half the Championship were sitting at over 100% wage to turnover ratio, which is clearly just plain bonkers. Quite how it was allowed to end up as it is, especially given the fall out from the ITV Digital collapse is so recent, it's a fairly damning indictment of the football authorities down there. Even now you know that everything they say is paying no more than lip service to actually putting in place safeguards that prevent teams from being a plaything reliant on one backer or a becoming victims to obvious vultures only in it to rip what they can from the team and to hell with the consequences.

There is a very real possibility of what you say happening. From a personal point of view, I reckon if I was in that position I would rather watch the place collapse on itself than see the guy who wants to profit from it end up making that profit. Petty, yes, but I'm not sure I would care.

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Any sympathy for Bury evaporated when I read this sanctionious shite from Phil Neville - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49495920

"It's ripped the heart out of our town, out of our club and out of my mum and the family," added Phil.

"There's a stand named after my dad who worked for the club for 26 years - my nanna, my grandad, my auntie, my uncle all worked behind the scenes and me and my brother supported the club.

 

So how did the Neville family contribute to Bury's problems? What did they do to solve them?

You and your spivvy brother put your money into Salford City. You did not invest in the club that you supported from childhood.

The hypocrisy is nauseating. So STFU you odious little shitebag!

Edited by Bishop Briggs
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One of them could easily have sold their 10% of Salford back to Peter Lim or whoever wants it and helped Bury.

Actually, there probably wouldn't have been be enough time to do that.

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Why would he want to throw endless money at a club that has (by all accounts) a massive fucking unpluggable black hole?

His mother worked there for however many years - he should be getting slaughtered for his mother still having to work and him and his brother not sending them off to a life of luxury. He shouldn't be getting hounded for not throwing his money down a well. 

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I really feel sorry for the Bury fans but am sure they will manage to regroup at some level in the non league envioronment. I'm not up on lower league English football but reading David Conn's reporting it sounds like Bury and Bolton are the tip of the iceberg and a few clubs could end up in the same predicament. 

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1 hour ago, Dele said:

Why would he want to throw endless money at a club that has (by all accounts) a massive fucking unpluggable black hole?

His mother worked there for however many years - he should be getting slaughtered for his mother still having to work and him and his brother not sending them off to a life of luxury. He shouldn't be getting hounded for not throwing his money down a well. 

I doubt she actually needed to work there.

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