"If you want some accessible but informative insight into football then I suggest you couldn't do better than the Political Economy of Football website, which is not only intelligible but comes with the added bonus of being written by Addicks fan Wyn Grant." Ben Hayes - Charlton Athletic programme
QPR have reported substantially reduced losses for the last financial year. They are down to £9.8m in contrast to a massive £65.4m in the year ending May 2013. Expenditure is down £22m, largely due to lower player costs. Shareholders have also written off £60m in loans.
The club has faced difficulties over compliance with financial fair play rules, but these results should help their position.
I am sometimes surprised by what it is possible to do from a prison cell if you have the right connections, although, of course, the fact that someone is imprisoned does not deprive them of recourse to the courts, at least not in Hong Kong.
A major obstacle to Tottenham Hotspur’s plans to redevelop White Hart Lane into a 21st century stadium has been removed. A family firm lost an attempt in the High Court to quash a compulsory purchase order issued against them.
Coventry City’s owners Sisu have suffered further setbacks in their battle in the courts over the Ricoh Arena. Their appeal against a refusal of a judicial review of a loan by Coventry City Council to the stadium’s operators, Arena Coventry Limited, has been rejected and, what is more, the judge ticked off their laywers over the nature of their application.
What has been described as the ‘soap opera’ at Birmingham City has taken a new twist. The club has revealed that £2.55m may have been misappropriated by a former employee from the parent company Birmingham International Holdings Limited. Shares in the Hong Kong based company were suspended six weeks ago and trading will not be resumed until further notice.
Sports lawyer Daniel Geey takes an interesting and in depth look at the transfer window. He argues against the conventional wisdom by making a defence of football agents.
Birmingham City majority shareholder Carson Yeung has been refused bail ahead of an appeal against his conviction for money laundering to be held in March. He does have some hopes of success in the appeal.
In another twist, a mystery individual has bought a large stake in the club and it could be Yeung’s common law wife.
The winding up order against Hereford United has been adjourned once again. This is the ninth adjournment. They have until Friday to prove that they have £1m to pay creditors.
Owner Andy Lonsdale has said that it will be ‘sorted’ by Friday afternoon when the hearing resumes. That remains to be seen.
The Football League is now examining the accounts submitted by Championship clubs to see if they exceeded the allowable loss limit of £8m (some expenditure is excluded such as youth development). The League is expected to announce its findings in the next few weeks to ensure that any appeals can be held before the transfer window opens on January 1st.
The long drawn out saga of Hereford United continues with the hearing of the winding up petition against the club in the High Court deferred again until December 15th. The petition was originally brought in June by the Inland Revenue in relation to a debt of £116,000. The legal bills for all these hearings must be mounting.