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Articles about football clubs facing or going into administration.
Despite having the contracts of all players and staff terminated by the administrator, Darlington FC are still alive – just. It is believed that it would be possible within Blue Square Premiership rules to re-hire them for Saturday’s match.
Joseph Cala, a little known Sicilian businessman who also has business interests in the United States, has emerged as the front runner to take over Portsmouth. He was introduced to the club by former owner Balram Chainrai.
Cala has said that he would invest £20m before floating the club on the New York stock exchange. The logic of this move is unclear as the recent trend has been for clubs to go private and it is unlikely that there would be much appetite for buying shares in a Championship football club in the United States.
There is a glimmer of hope that troubled Darlington FC may yet survive. The administrator is to hold talks tomorrow with a mystery consortium from outside the area to see if they could be valid bidders. Adam Pearson, the owner of Hull rugby league club, has denied that he is involved.
The former owner of Portsmouth, Hong Kong-based businessman Balram Chainrai, has put almost £1m into Portsmouth to ensure that the players’ wages are paid this month. This brings the total he has loaned to the club to around £19m.
Convers Sports Initiative (CSI) to whom Chainrai sold the club went into administration in November. The administrator has been in talks to sell Portsmouth over the past few weeks but if a deal cannot be reached soon is likely to try and find other buyers. A new owner is likely to roll over rather than pay off the debts.
The financial situation at Darlington has been described as ‘dire’ and joint administrator Harvey Madden fears that it will not be easy to find a buyer for the club given the amount of debt that has to be paid off including football debts which have to be given priority.
Brendan Guilfoyle of P & A Partnerships has been involved in the administration of a number of football clubs including Crystal Palace, Luton Town and most recently Plymouth Argyle. Here he reflects on his experiences.
This year my firm helped another historic football club, Plymouth Argyle, to survive. At times I thought we would have to admit defeat. Without doubt it was the most challenging rescue of my career.
Conference side Darlington look as if they could go into administration for the third time in nine years. Owner Raj Singh returned from a break in Dubai only to tell players not to bother turning up for training on Friday.
Darlington chairman, millionaire property developer Raj Singh, has issued an ultimatum to his former manager and players demanding they accept a 25 per cut in wages, otherwise the club could go into oblivion.
Grimsby Town FC think that a move away from Blundell Park to a multi-purpose community stadium is the best way forward for the former Football League club who were at one time in the second division. At an average of around 3,000 Grimsby’s attendances are the fourth best in the non-league, but some fans argue that a better standard of football would attract even more to attend.
Plymouth Argyle have made a full return to the Football League with the return of their ‘golden share’ by the League. While praising the efforts of James Brent to save the club, and also the contribution made by Plymouth City Council, the League authorities made it clear that the takeover represented ‘a leap of faith’ by the new board. They would be closely scrutinising the club’s finances in the years to come.