Football League clubs with governance issues | Page 3 | Vital Football

Football League clubs with governance issues

markinkent said:
Not how I read it Chris. We can sign up to 23 players. We can have loans but we can't pay loan fees or pay more than their home club wages. I doubt if we did either of those things anyway.
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No Mark but the one year six months thing will limit negotiations and will definitely make competing for a player impossible. Not sure Steve Evans or the players we already have will be impressed weather it is a financial issue or simply a paperwork issue.
 
markinkent said:
Not how I read it Chris. We can sign up to 23 players. We can have loans but we can't pay loan fees or pay more than their home club wages. I doubt if we did either of those things anyway.
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It also ties the hands of Steve Evans when it comes to selling players. If we sell anyone we simply are very unlikely to be able to replace them with anyone anywhere near the same standard in this transfer window. This is almost certainly a major blow to Steve Evans and could even bring about his departure if Scally agrees to sell a player in the next few weeks.
 
The way it's worded doesn't suggest to me the embargo has just started? I read it that we've signed the people we have done whilst under the embargo
 
GillsBluenose said:
I can not say that I am certain about that but it was widely reported that Scally only had to pay £1 for the club, at a time when the supporters club had to find the £5,000 needed to buy Leo Fortune-West.

If £750k was repaid to Tony Smith, I am not sure how it was funded (was he regarded as a secured creditor due to a mortgage over the ground, possibly?), plus this article indicates he actually put in £1.55 million:

Uncertain future turns fans green about the Gills | Football | The Guardian
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Thanks Bluenose.
 
Trashbat said:
Don’t upset the Scally haters. It was £1 and he’s milked the club for millions. That’s the narrative.
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Never seen a report that contradicts that purchase price, and the annual accounts record the amount of directors remuneration each year so not exactly hard to prove. Don't know which independent body decides upon that figure so who knows? There is an argument to say he is worth it, but on the face of it, over 25 years, considering the annual figure has been over £200k in the past, he could well have been remunerated with a higher total figure than the £1.55m Tony Smith actually invested in the club.

Former Watford directors issue writ to Gillingham chairman Paul Scally | Watford Observer

Paul Scally - Wikipedia

So he has effectively been saying to prospective investors "do as I ask, not what I do". I wonder why he has not been successful in that endeavour?
 
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GillsBluenose said:
Never seen a report that contradicts that purchase price, and the annual accounts record the amount of directors remuneration each year so not exactly hard to prove. Don't know which independent body decides upon that figure so who knows? There is an argument to say he is worth it, but on the face of it, over 25 years, considering the annual figure has been over £200k in the past, he could well have been remunerated with a higher total figure than the £1.55m Tony Smith actually invested in the club.

Former Watford directors issue writ to Gillingham chairman Paul Scally | Watford Observer

Paul Scally - Wikipedia

So he has effectively been saying to prospective investors "do as I ask, not what I do". I wonder why he has not been successful in that endeavour?
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£1 is purely ‘consideration’ for there to be a legal contract. You can find the creditors agreement online which shows what debt Scally also bought for his £1. It’s all in the public domain.
 
Trashbat said:
£1 is purely ‘consideration’ for there to be a legal contract. You can find the creditors agreement online which shows what debt Scally also bought for his £1. It’s all in the public domain.
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If it is in the public domain, can you provide a link?

I notice that you call it "debt". So did Scally take on personal loans, and the new club start with no debt whatsoever? Or were the preferred creditors paid from new loans in the name of the reformed club, just secured by Scally's guarantee?

I do not dispute that he took on risk. What requires clarification is whether he has ever invested any of his own cash in the club, while encouraging others to invest.

Logically, just the fact that he takes an annual directors remuneration would make that unlikely as why would he put money in, only to then take it out?

Not a criticism. Just recognising the fact that he is a well paid and hard nosed businessman rather than any kind of benefactor.
 
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GillsBluenose said:
If it is in the public domain, can you provide a link?

I notice that you call it "debt". So did Scally take on personal loans, and the new club start with no debt whatsoever?
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From memory the outstanding liabilities were secured against his personal assets. I don't know how much his mansion was worth in 1995 but presumably enough to cover the liabilities if things went wrong and the club folded within a short period. Once success started and we were selling players for profit I am guessing those liabilities were paid off by the club to clear Scally's personal commitment.

I also have a recollection of it being mentioned in the press that during one of the many financial restructuring agreements with the bank in the 2000s that Scally again put his house up as secured assets. I am guessing by now his property is no longer secured against club liabilities.
 
chris who said:
No Mark but the one year six months thing will limit negotiations and will definitely make competing for a player impossible. Not sure Steve Evans or the players we already have will be impressed weather it is a financial issue or simply a paperwork issue.
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We will offer players 6 months with an agreement that it gets extended to 2 years when we come out of embargo. We are only embargoed due to "getting slightly behind in the paperwoek due to covid" rather than the other clubs who seem to be to various degrees of financially buggared.
 
Baghdad_Rob said:
We will offer players 6 months with an agreement that it gets extended to 2 years when we come out of embargo. We are only embargoed due to "getting slightly behind in the paperwoek due to covid" rather than the other clubs who seem to be to various degrees of financially buggared.
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"Getting behind with Paperwork due to Covid ".Scally is always behind with the accounts. I can't remember a time when the accounts were done on time.This has nothing to do with Covid it is done every year very late .I have no idea why but the reason is not Covid.
 
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Going back to rambole's point about whether Scally has the resources to run the club, I also wonder whether the club could even get an overaft or a loan from the Bank as, in addition to the receivership in the mid 1990s, I think from memory both Barclays and Bank of Scotland have since written off some or all of the club's debt.

If we accept that Mr Chairman does not invest and he has not found other investors, it would seem to make it impossible to get very far in debt by obtaining finance, even if we wanted to, as our Credit Rating would be terrible.

Perhaps that is a good thing.
 
chris who said:
"Getting behind with Paperwork due to Covid "Scally is always behind with the accounts. I can't remember a time when the accounts were done on time.This has nothing to do with Covid it is done every year very late .I have no idea why but the reason is not Covid.
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I concur. Companies have 9 months to file accounts. There’s not excuse for bad planning.
 
Therealwaldo said:
Reading the information on this, the embargo isn’t necessarily new but putting it in the public domain is. We might already have been operating under it for some time.
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I suspect we were last season. No evidence just a hunch. I remember a few times Evans thanking the host clubs for enabling some of the loan arrangements - waiving any fee maybe ?
 
Baghdad_Rob said:
We are only embargoed due to "getting slightly behind in the paperwoek due to covid" rather than the other clubs who seem to be to various degrees of financially buggared.
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Not sure that's the case, is it? Going back to the original post in this thread, Fleetwood also have a transfer embargo, which suggests it's the "Conditions under monitored loan agreement" that's the problem, not (or at least, not only) our late filing of the accounts.
 
chris who said:
"Getting behind with Paperwork due to Covid ".Scally is always behind with the accounts. I can't remember a time when the accounts were done on time.This has nothing to do with Covid it is done every year very late .I have no idea why but the reason is not Covid.
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As fans we might know that the delay is not strictly down to Covid but I somehow doubt any future signings will bother to download our filing history from Companies House and then hire Wayne to give them a full financial analysist. Hence any embargo conditions such as 6 month contracts could be sold to the potential signing as just a covid related delay.
 
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