87
Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019elite for demise of
fall is their business
part of the problem. Folk emoting
wildly, thinking quite shallowly.
Premier League emergency funds,
a pot of insurance money in case
the worst happens. And, yes, this
seems a benign idea: the rich
helping those who have fallen on
hard times.Y
et what might Mansfield
town say about that,
given they finished a
place outside automatic
promotion to League One last
season and didn’t go up through
the play-offs?
Mansfield paid their players, met
their bills, managed their finances
successfully, within the limitations
of League two football.
Bury did not. And now Bury, hav-
ing taken the berth of a better run
and more responsible club, are to
get another handout from the Pre-
mier League to perpetuate that
extravagance? And another
if they do it again, or is it just
the once a club will be allowed to
win promotion with money it
doesn’t have?
Karl evans, Bury’s CeO under
former owner Day, talked of the
profligate nature of the regime.
‘Stewart put out a statement
that Bury was going to be a Cham-
pionship club in five years’ time
and it ate away at him,’ evans said.
‘I would say, “this is our budget”,but the managers knew which of
his buttons to press, even though
the club could not afford it. We had
nine strikers at one stage.’
And this is what a Premier
League emergency fund would
subsidise? the right of Bury to
have nine strikers to back up a
chairman’s ego-driven promise?
And what would that say to the
rest of the lower leagues? Spend
what you like, do what you like —
we’ll pay.
there is no finer way to guaran-
tee extreme financial exposure
than a Premier League safety net.
Neville Southall, an ex-Bury man
and understandably looking for
answers, said that Premier League
clubs in the area could donate
young players for free. And going
to a club so impoverished it had
its water supply cut off would help
them how?
Young players are to be devel-
oped. they are placed at clubs
that will facilitate their progress,
where coaches embrace shared
philosophies. Will that happen atBury, are their coaches of a like
mind to Pep Guardiola, will they
prepare the youngsters for life in
the Premier League?
And, once again, where are
Mansfield in this? So Bury’s
reward for a season of reckless
abandon is to end up with an
amalgam of Manchester United
and Manchester City’s youth
squads? Well, why don’t we try
that? Chuck the lot of it up the
wall, see who we get? It could be
the next Phil Foden.
It may seem brutal to keep
talking harsh economic realities
and logistical possibilities when
clubs are part of the local soul.
Yet no one is going to City,
United, or the Premier League in
search of extra soul. It’s money
they want. the cash to support a
business model that, for whatever
reason, has failed.
Maidstone spent significantly
and swiftly to get into the Football
League, meaning their ground was
not of sufficient standard and they
ended up playing in Dartford. theclub then spent £400,000 on a
parcel of land to build a facility
without obtaining planning
permission, which was refused.
this placed an intolerable strain
on their finances.
Aldershot’s debts had been
mounting for years. On July 31,
1990, the club was wound up and
the official receiver condemned
them as financially insolvent with
debts of £495,000.
In came a typical false messiah,
in this case a 19-year-old property
developer, Spencer trethewy, who
paid £200,000 to save the club but
didn’t have the funds to run it and
was dismissed the following
November. He later went to prison
for unrelated fraud. By the time
Aldershot went under in 1992, the
club had liabilities of £1.2m.
As for Accrington Stanley, they
got into financial difficulties due
to the expensive purchase of a new
stand. So three clubs, three
different sets of problems — but
all with the common denominator
of poor business management.
Ipswich town won the League
the year Accrington went under;
Leeds won it the year Aldershot
and Maidstone went. Did that
matter? Yet somehow, in 2019, it is
the fault of english football’s elite
that Bury’s owner took a gamble
with money he did not have and
ended up destroying the club.
Now, we are hearing much ofdomino theory: that Bury will
tumble and others will follow.
Macclesfield and Morecambe
have been cited; Oldham, too. But
Macclesfield have been on the
brink financially for years under
the stewardship of Amar Alkadhi,
while Morecambe are still recover-
ing from the reign of Diego Lemos,
a mysterious Brazilian, who
arrived from nowhere and disap-
peared just as quickly to Qatar.
Both clubs invested to get into
the Football League but, once
there, have not been well
supported. Morecambe had
League two’s lowest average gate
last season, with Macclesfield two
places above them.
It will be hard for clubs like this
at any time in football’s history.
As for Oldham, 30 managers,
including caretakers and several
of the same names twice, since
November 1994 tells its own story.
that does not happen with any
semblance of strategy, nor should
it necessitate funding from above.
the Premier League gives £400m
annually to the Football League
and while the bulk of that, £243m,
goes in parachute payments to
relegated clubs, £105m is the
solidarity share, while more than
£50m goes towards everything
from community work and acade-
mies, to health insurance, pen-
sions and stadium improvements.I
t can always be argued the
Premier League can do more
— but it remains the most
far-reaching system of its
kind in europe. And no other
country seeks to support 92
professional clubs, minimum.
Attendances in the third and
fourth tier of english football are
way ahead of their equivalents in
other countries.
So where from here? Well, plainly,
the eFL needs to apply its fit
and proper persons test more
stringently, particularly when it
appears Dale was allowed to buy
Bury with many questions about
his funds and plans unanswered.
Yet that would not solve any
problem if he was still the only
interested party. Worryingly,
though, events of this nature
tend to lead to calls for greater
restrictions on investment as if,
because Bury handled it badly, the
same would be true of all owners.
the eFL’s executive chair,
Debbie Jevans, said she would not
be averse to a salary cap. Yet why
should Mansfield, and others, not
be able to run a financially healthy
business and then, within reason,
have a little go? Not like Bury or
even Bolton, just the sort of invest-
ment good business people make
across all industries, when they
decide it is the right moment to
look upwards. the sort that gave
us Bournemouth.
And, yes, investments cannot be
guaranteed. But in business, and
football, it has always been that
way. Bury, we are constantly
reminded, entered the league 125
years ago. But what happened in
season 1893-94 to facilitate this?
Northwich Victoria finished
bottom and resigned but, also,
Middlesbrough Ironopolis folded.
Aston Villa won the League that
year, though. So maybe it was
their fault.‘The managers knew which of
his buttons to press. We had
nine strikers at one stage’
Shattered:
a Bury fan
outside
Gigg Lane
this week
GUZELIAN