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Bolton / Bury On The Brink (Merged)


Judda

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24 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

Good let them all **** off to play one another week in week out. Leave the rest of us to play in a proper competitive league.

In the long term that might be for the best, but in the short term it would destroy many of the existing clubs. 

Not much money seems to filter down, but clubs absolutely rely on the little that does.

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1 minute ago, exAtyeoMax said:

That Steve Dale character is should never been allowed to take over Bury. I really hope he doesn’t profit in anyway from this fiasco.

 Is there anyway back for Bury? Will that numpty be able to sell their ground? Can the fans sue him/Stewart Day? It makes me so angry 

Sounds like Dale is a professional asset stripper. Buying companies in distress, reorganisation the debt and then selling the debt on at a profit.

I would imagine the 7mil sold to his son in law for 70k and now valued at 1.2mil is a 'secured' figure, so after the administrator is paid, that amount will be realised from the sale of the stadium. 

I am guessing by the way, but I will be surprised if they are out of pocket.

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7 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

20 years ago in August- and on this date in fact having looked it up we played Bury.

Remember it vaguely as it was my first full season but Bristol City 1-1 Bury, 28th August 1999. Pulis v Warnock.

That Bury statement I fear could have been a harbinger- they put out a statement coming up to 5pm about CCTV, not entering the ground without permission- already posted about it but I wonder...

Who owns Gigg Lane?

Remember this game if I’m not mistaken - Matt Hill’s debut and Soren Anderson scoring our equaliser, I believe.

Unbelievable to think that two decades later Bury (a Division One/Championship team at the time) would be in this situation.

The scenario surrounding their demise stinks of the kind of disaster capitalism that many ‘businessmen’ engage in, and for me is a lasting stain on the EFL, as they ultimately proved useless as arbiters of who should be allowed to manage what are community institutions at their heart.

A sad, sad day and I hope we don’t see another soon with Bolton.

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8 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Sad, sad day.

Don't ask me why but given his laisse faire/useless approach to governance I have a slight suspicion that Shaun Harvey would have let Bury start the season and after that who knows- may have unravelled really quickly but it's a suspicion that I can't fully shake.

12 hours ago it looked all good- the fans were there including Bolton fan helping to clean the ground- that guy in his 70s was there, the one who was turning up to the ground each day.

Dark day for English football, first such situation like this since "the modern era" began- sad times. Wise words from JL.

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EC-fRrDWsAYYE2T.jpg

 

Just look at that, all you disgraceful parents who let your kids support Man U. YOU are partly responsible for this debacle. 

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2 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Sounds like Dale is a professional asset stripper. Buying companies in distress, reorganisation the debt and then selling the debt on at a profit.

I would imagine the 7mil sold to his son in law for 70k and now valued at 1.2mil is a 'secured' figure, so after the administrator is paid, that amount will be realised from the sale of the stadium. 

I am guessing by the way, but I will be surprised if they are out of pocket.

Anchors

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34 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

The EFL really need to admit/take some responsibility for this.

How it ever got to the point where this could be allowed to happen needs investigating.

The FA and the EFL need to look into this as a matter of urgency.

There should be an independent audit of clubs accounts at the end of every season. If the audit raises concerns / queries then the owner(s) should have to explain and prove how the club will run for the next season. 

There should be a removal of undisclosed fees, payments. Payments to third parties should be more transparent. Basically every penny a club receives should be recorded and disclosed where it has gone. 

It will remove the option of clubs selling the ground for an inflated price as well. 

This should take place for ALL professional football clubs.

Hopefully it will remove the dark arts of the finances of the game. Slightly concerning to hear ‘Big’ Sam on talksport other day talking about club finances 

It would also be ideal if the greed of the premier league was removed, whilst I appreciate for many it is the ambition, personally I couldn’t care less if we never reached the overhyped, egotistical premier league.

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9 minutes ago, daored said:

The FA and the EFL need to look into this as a matter of urgency.

There should be an independent audit of clubs accounts at the end of every season. If the audit raises concerns / queries then the owner(s) should have to explain and prove how the club will run for the next season. 

There should be a removal of undisclosed fees, payments. Payments to third parties should be more transparent. Basically every penny a club receives should be recorded and disclosed where it has gone. 

It will remove the option of clubs selling the ground for an inflated price as well. 

This should take place for ALL professional football clubs.

Hopefully it will remove the dark arts of the finances of the game. Slightly concerning to hear ‘Big’ Sam on talksport other day talking about club finances 

It would also be ideal if the greed of the premier league was removed, whilst I appreciate for many it is the ambition, personally I couldn’t care less if we never reached the overhyped, egotistical premier league.

Forget the FA and EFL, as I've said before get the NAO in. The state of football finances needs an independent review. When it comes to football finance and business due diligence I wouldn't trust the FA and EFL to run a bath. 

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One of the guys who helped save them some years back, Ian Harrup ,  a lifelong (50+ years) Bury fan was in a state on radio last night Poor bloke

He claimed that the going ons at Bury were being looked at by the Serious Fraud Office 

Was this Just him emotional or , (hopefully) is there some truth in this ?

Hes also vowed to finance forensic accountants to expose what’s gone on 

I hope he does 

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31 minutes ago, samo II said:

Remember this game if I’m not mistaken - Matt Hill’s debut and Soren Anderson scoring our equaliser, I believe.

Unbelievable to think that two decades later Bury (a Division One/Championship team at the time) would be in this situation.

The scenario surrounding their demise stinks of the kind of disaster capitalism that many ‘businessmen’ engage in, and for me is a lasting stain on the EFL, as they ultimately proved useless as arbiters of who should be allowed to manage what are community institutions at their heart.

A sad, sad day and I hope we don’t see another soon with Bolton.

Always assumed Anderson left in the summer, but you could well be right.

I remember in fact two 1-1 draws with them, one in March 1999 on a night game and the aforementioned August 1999 one. I also remember "Boring Boring Bury!" rang around the ground at varied intervals.

Agreed- would've been inconceivable.

Agreed- think it's a number of factors too- disaster capitalism, upward flow of cash to PL, allowing any old idiot/asset stripper/fantasist to buy a club subject to a very straight forward "Test". Not that it was even in his interest of course given what we know about his past, but did Dale even have the cash available to him to pay off debt had he been so inclined? Doubt it! EFL considered him fit and proper though...need a serious inquiry into EFL.

I fear it could be Bolton and then a domino effect with a number of clubs who are close to the line- hope I am wholly wrong.

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26 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

One of the guys who helped save them some years back, Ian Harrup ,  a lifelong (50+ years) Bury fan was in a state on radio last night Poor bloke

He claimed that the going ons at Bury were being looked at by the Serious Fraud Office 

Was this Just him emotional or , (hopefully) is there some truth in this ?

Hes also vowed to finance forensic accountants to expose what’s gone on 

I hope he does 

Something needs to be done…and quickly. I don't want the club to be bulldozed because of some lazy, incompetent bureaucracy :ranting::redcard:

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7 minutes ago, daored said:

Can add Huddersfield to the list as well, if what I’ve been told is correct 

Blimey didn’t realise their was any problems there

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I had a pretty bad feeling looking from the outside about their new owner who brought them this summer, once Hoyle sold up- due to ill health or whatever.

I Missed that too

 

If I had a hunch on a bigger club it would be Stoke

When you see the wages they were dishing out - crazy

And they gave Bauer and Joe Allen new 5 year contracts when they were relegated from the prem

Theres an interesting piece by Kevin Phillips where he explains that Stoke gave some players Bauer and Allen incl new contracts on relegation to stop them pushing to leave , as said players were very unhappy that their wages were due to drop due to relegation clauses !

Phillips indicated that immediately you had a mix of relegated players many of whom were unhappy that some had been given a pay boost with them left on reduced wages

 

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I am just gutted about this whole situation and feel so sorry for Bury fans. 

Colin Bell started his career at Bury and other prominent players such as Stan Bowles, Neville Southall and Lee Dixon also learned their trade at Gigg Lane before going on to have very successful careers at the bigger clubs.

A significant piece of football history has been taken away from our game and having gone through the 1982 stuff I just feel so bad for all Shakers fans ...

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6 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

Something needs to be done…and quickly. I don't want the club to be bulldozed because of some lazy, incompetent bureaucracy :ranting::redcard:

I have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of company business , CVAs , Liquidation , purchasing debt etc 

But reading those who do , on here , and listening to pieces on radio and in press etc I would say if some criminal conduct has not gone on it must run very close

Also , The fact that the EFL are obliged to check funding of new owner within 10 days of taking ownership and yet still havnt done so with Dale 8/9 months later is incredible 

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Ever since the news of Bury's potential demise broke, I've seen so many tweets and FB posts around how we're lucky to have Steve Lansdown, because he cares and would never do this to us.

Obviously, that much is true, but to put on my overly cynical hat, I don't believe any owner buys a football club with the sole intention of stripping it for its assets, mostly because any idiot knows that the second Steve Dale tries that land will go up in flames and be vandalised to the point of it being worthless.

IMO, this problem runs deeper than the EFL failing to implement a "proper" fit and proper persons test on the characters that have ruined these clubs. Current legislation allows owners to strip assets from clubs, as they would do with any asset-rich company, in order to raise capital. Bristol City are one such club that no longer owns its own stadium, and probably won't own its own training ground after redevelopment. I'm not suggesting that Lansdown would ever allow us to fail, but as Sunderland have shown you can drop through the divisions like a stone, and an owner that once cared can be disillusioned by the situation, and sell up to anyone.

The reason I brought up Lansdown is to demonstrate that, IMO, we're past the point of no return. By allowing clubs to separate their assets into limited companies, we can't go back and say "sorry Lansdown, you need to give back the stadium you spent millions on because some owners can't be trusted". It's also unfair (and probably) illegal to force a fan ownership/presidency model on clubs when the reason the Premier League and modern football is thriving is because of foreign investment.

You'd be very interested in the tax figures for football as a whole. Across the Premier League there are players on every team earning millions a year. All of those players are being taxed, so all of that money is then flowing into our economy, so imagine telling the government that they need to kick an industry that gives so much and happily allows them to give it a kicking for societies issues?

Anyway, my main point is that this will be the new norm, and if Dale gets off reasonably scot-free for allowing this to happen I can see more owners stripping assets and selling them after expulsion in the lower leagues - especially in areas where land is expensive. Why the **** would you spend millions to build up a football team that hates you when you can rack up debt, not pay people for months, and sell that land for millions?

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Apparently Bolton only needed one signatory of one of the parties to finalise the takeover deal as of last Friday.

Then, over the weekend that signatory asked for £250k just to put their name to the deal.

Where does this greed come from? I really despair sometimes at what our society has become. 

For those asking why Bolton are getting 14 days, I assume it's because they are very close to a deal and also because in the meantime they are at least fulfilling their fixtures. Bury had missed six fixtures and it was becoming unrealistic for them to fit those rearranged fixtures into a condensed season. 

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6 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Blimey didn’t realise their was any problems there

I Missed that too

 

If I had a hunch on a bigger club it would be Stoke

When you see the wages they were dishing out - crazy

And they gave Bauer and Joe Allen new 5 year contracts when they were relegated from the prem

Theres an interesting piece by Kevin Phillips where he explains that Stoke gave some players Bauer and Allen incl new contracts on relegation to stop them pushing to leave , as said players were very unhappy that their wages were due to drop due to relegation clauses !

Phillips indicated that immediately you had a mix of relegated players many of whom were unhappy that some had been given a pay boost with them left on reduced wages

 

It's extremely unlikely a club will go bust whilst still receiving parachute payments.  They will always have some attraction to a potential buyer.  The problem is when they run out and clubs haven't cut their cloth accordingly. If what you say is true, they could be in problems down the line.  Whoever chose to hand out new contracts is a complete fool.  

 

 

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2 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Blimey didn’t realise their was any problems there

I Missed that too

 

If I had a hunch on a bigger club it would be Stoke

When you see the wages they were dishing out - crazy

And they gave Bauer and Joe Allen new 5 year contracts when they were relegated from the prem

Theres an interesting piece by Kevin Phillips where he explains that Stoke gave some players Bauer and Allen incl new contracts on relegation to stop them pushing to leave , as said players were very unhappy that their wages were due to drop due to relegation clauses !

Phillips indicated that immediately you had a mix of relegated players many of whom were unhappy that some had been given a pay boost with them left on reduced wages

 

Didn't realise myself either- would have assumed they have a reasonable wage policy, parachute payments, surely wrote in wage reductions a club of their size/relative expectations! All seems a bit of a puzzle...

Solvency wise, unsure about Stoke facing problems- Coates owner of Bet365 and from Stoke, pretty sure he is a Stoke fan too and has been chairman through worse times- FFP wise 100% problems.  Yes some poor decisions last few seasons but he seems one of the best owners around overall IMO- for as long as the Coates family retain an interest (financial and actual) in Stoke, I don't see them having insolvency issues.

Agree on the crazy wages , clearly a gamble to go straight back up? Will look into that article later, sounds interesting- I remember reading that Allen didn't get a cut, wasn't aware of anyone else.  Would help to explain some of their current travails, seen Stoke described as 'toxic' right now quite a few times and this is probably a large part of the reason why?

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1 minute ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Apparently Bolton only needed one signatory of one of the parties to finalise the takeover deal as of last Friday.

Then, over the weekend that signatory asked for £250k just to put their name to the deal.

Where does this greed come from? I really despair sometimes at what our society has become. 

For those asking why Bolton are getting 14 days, I assume it's because they are very close to a deal and also because in the meantime they are at least fulfilling their fixtures. Bury had missed six fixtures and it was becoming unrealistic for them to fit those rearranged fixtures into a condensed season. 

That will be Anderson then as his solicitors were the only ones they were waiting for on Friday

******* Snake

Him and that piece of **** Dale should be burnt at the stake

Criminals in a businessman’s guise

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1 minute ago, EnderMB said:

Ever since the news of Bury's potential demise broke, I've seen so many tweets and FB posts around how we're lucky to have Steve Lansdown, because he cares and would never do this to us.

Obviously, that much is true, but to put on my overly cynical hat, I don't believe any owner buys a football club with the sole intention of stripping it for its assets, mostly because any idiot knows that the second Steve Dale tries that land will go up in flames and be vandalised to the point of it being worthless.

IMO, this problem runs deeper than the EFL failing to implement a "proper" fit and proper persons test on the characters that have ruined these clubs. Current legislation allows owners to strip assets from clubs, as they would do with any asset-rich company, in order to raise capital. Bristol City are one such club that no longer owns its own stadium, and probably won't own its own training ground after redevelopment. I'm not suggesting that Lansdown would ever allow us to fail, but as Sunderland have shown you can drop through the divisions like a stone, and an owner that once cared can be disillusioned by the situation, and sell up to anyone.

The reason I brought up Lansdown is to demonstrate that, IMO, we're past the point of no return. By allowing clubs to separate their assets into limited companies, we can't go back and say "sorry Lansdown, you need to give back the stadium you spent millions on because some owners can't be trusted". It's also unfair (and probably) illegal to force a fan ownership/presidency model on clubs when the reason the Premier League and modern football is thriving is because of foreign investment.

You'd be very interested in the tax figures for football as a whole. Across the Premier League there are players on every team earning millions a year. All of those players are being taxed, so all of that money is then flowing into our economy, so imagine telling the government that they need to kick an industry that gives so much and happily allows them to give it a kicking for societies issues?

Anyway, my main point is that this will be the new norm, and if Dale gets off reasonably scot-free for allowing this to happen I can see more owners stripping assets and selling them after expulsion in the lower leagues - especially in areas where land is expensive. Why the **** would you spend millions to build up a football team that hates you when you can rack up debt, not pay people for months, and sell that land for millions?

I don't know…there was a programme on about 10 years ago (Bryan Robson was on it) and it was discussing that exactly. Usually foreign, buying lower league clubs and basically stripping them of all their assets. 

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8 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Didn't realise myself either- would have assumed they have a reasonable wage policy, parachute payments, surely wrote in wage reductions a club of their size/relative expectations! All seems a bit of a puzzle...

Solvency wise, unsure about Stoke facing problems- Coates owner of Bet365 and from Stoke, pretty sure he is a Stoke fan too and has been chairman through worse times- FFP wise 100% problems.  Yes some poor decisions last few seasons but he seems one of the best owners around overall IMO- for as long as the Coates family retain an interest (financial and actual) in Stoke, I don't see them having insolvency issues.

Agree on the crazy wages , clearly a gamble to go straight back up? Will look into that article later, sounds interesting- I remember reading that Allen didn't get a cut, wasn't aware of anyone else.  Would help to explain some of their current travails, seen Stoke described as 'toxic' right now quite a few times and this is probably a large part of the reason why?

 

:thumbsup:

Former Stoke City coach Kevin Phillips has claimed some players retained their Premier League wages after relegation, a decision which he believes damaged morale at the club. 

Phillips , the former Sunderland, Southampton and West Brom striker, was part of Gary Rowett’s backroom team at Stoke until the manager was sacked in January following a difficult eight months at the club. 

But during a discussion on BBC Radio 5 Live about the problems facing team when they are relegated, Phillips said it was something he had seen at Stoke City last summer

He explained: “In terms of pay when teams come down, where players are having 40 per cent to 50 per cent cuts in their wages, we experienced this at Stoke.

“Straight away there was a rift within the squad because three or four players were put straight back on their Premier League contracts just to keep them at the club for this season.

“But there were other players who were not given their Premier League money, so straight away you’re fighting battles behind the scenes. And it doesn’t help the squad, it doesn’t you as a manager or a coaching staff to get that cohesion on the pitch, that camaraderie, that togetherness you need to be a success.”

In the weeks after Stoke dropped out of the top-flight, both Joe Allen and Moritz Bauer signed new deals, although it is unknown whether the contracts restored their top-flight terms. 

When asked to repeat his claim about player wages at Stoke, Philips said: “From what I believe that is the case, but you’ve got to be very careful about the way you structure deals for these players.

“From our point of view, if you are going to do it with three or four players then you have to do it with the majority of the squad to keep that morale and cohesion you need in the squad.”

Stoke finished a troubled first season back in the Championship after a decade as a top-flight club in 16th place.”

 

Here’s some of their (alleged) wages last season 

 

 

8D94395B-5667-4532-9C13-C1740DE7A240.png

2E9AF821-2F0C-4EB8-BCE1-66F7F99AF7DC.png

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8 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

I don't know…there was a programme on about 10 years ago (Bryan Robson was on it) and it was discussing that exactly. Usually foreign, buying lower league clubs and basically stripping them of all their assets. 

Did it mention people from Jordan, specifically..?

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14 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Apparently Bolton only needed one signatory of one of the parties to finalise the takeover deal as of last Friday.

Then, over the weekend that signatory asked for £250k just to put their name to the deal.

Where does this greed come from? I really despair sometimes at what our society has become. 

For those asking why Bolton are getting 14 days, I assume it's because they are very close to a deal and also because in the meantime they are at least fulfilling their fixtures. Bury had missed six fixtures and it was becoming unrealistic for them to fit those rearranged fixtures into a condensed season. 

Bolton are calling off games due to player fatigue, how is that fulfilling fixtures when they have only 5 pros.

Bury weren’t given a chance by the league to play a game, kept calling them off whilst Bolton keep losing money and players but can carry on. Been at least 6 months to sort this deal but keeps getting called off. Just think Bolton and Bury which can we let go and the EFL decide Bury for not ex Prem.

Why didn’t the EFL let Bury play and get some money in. Instead just left them to die, personally think it’s double standards by the league.

if Bury had 3 buyers last night why not let them try to buy the club.

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2 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Many people would scream No

But Simon Jordan is the man the EFL should employ as their head

Thing is, it's a members club and I'm afraid Jon Lansdown tweeting about how gutted he is Bury have gone under rings a bit hollow with me. Let's see if him and his Dad via Mark Ashton lobby for more scrutiny over how owners run their clubs in the EFL. I don't think that's going to happen somehow...

Simon Jordan isn't a bad shout btw, I'm just not convinced he'd be able to get the members to change their ways.

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36 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I had a pretty bad feeling looking from the outside about their new owner who brought them this summer, once Hoyle sold up- due to ill health or whatever.

 

26 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Blimey didn’t realise their was any problems there

I Missed that too

 

This may be idle chat , but a bloke in the pub is a season ticket holder at ‘Uddersfield. We were talking about the problems at Bury & Bolton and he mentioned about his club.

As this well know Hoyle has had health problems and sold the club. The new guy has a reputation for failed businesses and the view from his guy is that the owner is using Huddersfield to prop up his failing businesses.

May be complete bullshit

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