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Although they got their first home victory since March yesterday League 1 club Bournemouth continue to be beset by financial troubles. Director Jeff Mostyn commented, 'Over the past ten 10 years, we've been eating hand to mouth and there isn't an infrastructure in place that can provide a stream of income to support the football club. Without that, we'll never have a successful business model, whether we're in charge or someone else is.' The only asset the club have is the East Stand, the rest of the ground having been sold off to deal with an earlier financial crisis. It has not been easy to find investors. Mostyn commented, 'We've been banging our heads against a brick wall and have travelled virtually from Land's End to John O'Groats trying to find investors. We've had people come down and we've travelled to meet people and they have all declined our very kind invitation to remove some money from their wallets on the basis of them saying why would we want them to fund debt when there isn't an income stream in place to remove that debt and take the club forward.' In the 1990s Bournemouth was one of the first clubs to be taken over by a supporters' trust. According to director Steve Sly, one potential group of investors 'thought it was a fans' trust club with golden shares and they ran a mile.'
There do seem to be some potential investors seriously interested, although their identity has not been revealed. Mostyn stated, 'They've now got a far greater insight into the football club, the structure of our organisation and where possible improvements can be made. Also, we are looking at the assets of the club and the feasibility of returning these to club ownership. That includes the ground.' However Mostyn also admitted, 'If I thought administration was the right thing to do to benefit the football club and I had the support of the board, shareholders and everyone who has helped the club financially recently, then that is an option we would have to consider. And we are considering it. The question really is how long can Steve and I a few others keep throwing money into a pit?' The difficulty is that Bournemouth as a town has a substantial elderly population who are either not interested in football or have allegiances elsewhere. Championship football is available in Southampton not so far away while a little further along the coast Premiership games can be watched at Portsmouth.
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