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As potential local rivals Yeovil have at last been promoted to the Football League, Exeter City have been relegated to the Conference. Yeovil can attract big attendances even for Conference matches. However, it is more of a football area than the cathedral city of Exeter and the small resorts and country towns that also form part of the catchment area. Some of the catchment area is part of the so-called 'Costa Geriatrica', dominated by retired incomers. I have to admit that I lived in Exeter for two years and never went to see the Grecians.
Moreover, the Football Association's Financial Advisory Unit issued a report which was critical of accounting practices and declared that the club was insolvent. The report declared that the club had made a net loss of £312,000 for the nine months to the end of March, owes £120,000 in PAYE and still owes construction company Mowlem half a million pounds, although £100,000 of that has been paid off. The report also said that the club has problems accurately recording its attendances. As David Conn commented in The Independent , this is 'an accounting worry as old as the game itself.' Six directors resigned after the publication of the report, including fork bender Uri Geller, supposedly the co-chairman although he had never been officially registered as a director. The club was then left in the charge of Mike Lewis and John Russell. Russell was formerly the chairman of Scarborough and took them into a Company Voluntary Arrangement with debts of £1.25m. In March 1999 he received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to obtaining £180,000 finance by deception. Lewis was formerly at Swansea City as commercial director and passed the club on for £1 to a Brisbane-based businessman. Subsequently the club went into administration. In May both Russell and Lewis and Russell's wife Gillian were arrested by poilice and questioned in connection with a fraud squad investigation into alleged financial irregularities at Exeter City when they were running the club. No charges have yet been preferred. Is there not a case for having some regulation of football clubs which ensures that those that run them have impeccable financial histories?
Grecians to be docked points
The Grecians are almost certain to be the first football club to be docked points under new rules designed to prevent clubs benefitting from going into administration. They should be deducted twelve points, although there is a right of appeal to the FA. It would almost certainly end their hopes of returning to the Football League after one season. At the end of 2003. however, the matter had not been resolved one way or the other and some of the club's backers saw this as a hopeful sign.
The club is now being run by a Supporters' Trust. It has become the sixth club to adopt this government backed format. The others are Chesterfield, Lincoln City and York City in the Football League and non-league clubs Enfield and AFC Wimbledon. The club entered into a Compulsory Voluntary Arrangement with its creditors. They would receive 10p in the pound and the club's debts would be slashed from £5m to a still substantial £480,000. However, both the Conference and the Inland Revenue have refused to accept the terms of the CVA. The Conference would like the matter to be dealt with by arbitration, but it may eventually end up in court in April 2004. The club is still losing money with at least one player still on a £100,000 a year contract.
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