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They survived thankfully, and it was thankfully, because with the exception of any franchises the last thing we want to see is a club fold.
Bradford City were next and the whole football world was shocked when they went into administration with debts approaching £30 million. They made all their players redundant and there were thoughts during last summer that at best they would be playing at a lower level.
Reading Chairman John Madejski said at the time that if they were allowed to continue playing in the First Division then he would walk away from football. They did play in the First Division but Madejski remains.
Bury and Bradford though were to be nothing but the tip of an iceberg. Club after club have followed into administration. Some, Leicester and Ipswich, have shamefully used it to their advantage but others remain in perilous positions.
York thought they had a saviour with John Batchelor, so did Barnsley with Peter Doyle the hard up mayor. Both proved to be false dawns. Batchelor is gone now whilst Doyle is desperately trying to sell the club to Peter Ridsdale who had presided over one of the biggest messes of all at Leeds.
There are many other clubs in poor positions and yet that really shouldn’t be the case. Football has never really been better off, it has never really had more committed support, yet so many clubs are hanging on by a thread.
The game sadly is in the hands of too many people ridden by short-sightedness and self-interest. The cause of the problem is power and money with the elite clubs more intent on keeping an ever-increasing proportion of the generated wealth for themselves.
And yet Manchester United’s Chief Exec Peter Kenyon dares to offer his solutions for the game by suggesting that there should only be forty full time clubs. As Mr. Kenyon does everything in his power to grab his club an even bigger share of the money it is surely about time he started to realise that he, and people like him, are football’s problem.
In desperation smaller clubs turn to people who are clearly unfit to run a football club, we’ve already mentioned Batchelor and Doyle. That has never been more highlighted than in the last couple of weeks at Luton where the new owners are one minute telling the fans that the club (whose name they intend to change to London Luton) will be the biggest in Europe and the next threatening to close it down.
One of the game’s most inept bodies The Football League have finally decided to step in and have demanded a meeting with the club’s owners. Once again, too little too late from the League. Maybe they will send board member David Sheepshanks fresh from successfully cheating his own club’s creditors at Ipswich.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse though it has and the worst news of all is very close to home, in fact no more than a half hour drive away from Burnley. There were suggestions earlier this week that Oldham Athletic could be the latest club in trouble, that they could be the next to go into administration.
They had just missed out on promotion, losing to QPR in the 2nd Division play offs, but have been supported by Chairman Chris Moore. Manager Iain Dowie warned a few days ago that things weren’t good but in fact they were far worse than that.
Yesterday Oldham Athletic issued the following statement:
Oldham Athletic are on the verge of going out of business. Payments to all creditors have been suspended and the club’s bank accounts have been frozen.
Last season was the most successful in recent years as Latics manager Iain Dowie built an exciting, vibrant team that just missed out on promotion, with one of the best defensive records in the league and one of the best attacking home records in the 2nd Division.
Attendances increased last season and the club have already sold more season tickets for next season than in any season since the Premiership days.
This is all in imminent danger of being destroyed. All club employees have been informed that it is virtually certain that they will not be paid at the end of the month. This would lead to all the players currently under contract becoming free agents and able to leave the club for nothing, this would be disastrous and it is unlikely the club would survive. The situation is already having a serious detrimental effect on manager Iain Dowie’s efforts to build a squad for next season.
Unless a new investor can be found virtually immediately, any possibility of building on that success will be lost and the club will be faced with the very real possibility of ceasing to exist.
Talks are ongoing but the club would urge any potential investors to come forward.
The word in Oldham is that by this time next week it is very likely that Oldham Athletic will no longer exist. Maybe Peter Kenyon will have a smile on his face realising that he is one step nearer to his forty clubs.
Those of us with any genuine interest in English football will be saddened by such news as we would if any club were to go out of business.
Next week the Football Supporters’ Federation will be proposing the introduction of revenue sharing between all professional clubs where one quarter of all League TV and gate revenue (including executive boxes) is pooled and divided equally.
The figures speak for themselves. There has always been a wealth gap in football. Arsenal has always had more money than Barnet or Leyton Orient. Manchester United have always been better off than Rochdale or Bury. The problem is now that the gap’s a chasm – and it is getting worse.
The gap between the First Division and the Premier League is simply fantastic. The pay out from TV for finishing 18th in the Premiership (a relegation position) is around £17 million. the TV payout to the Football League Champions won’t be a tenth of that.
When the Premier League was established the gap between what the top league got and the rest put together was £2.5 million. Now, eleven years later, it is an astonishing £316 million, an increase of 12,500%.
It is time for financial sanity to return to the game. Supporters want competitive leagues. It doesn’t only make sporting sense it makes business sense too.
Clarets Mad are working alongside CISA in fully and actively supporting the Football Supporters’ Federation and are backing the proposals in their blueprint. Our own chairman Barry Kilby told is he is fully behind many of the initiatives.
Things need to change in the game. It might just be too late to save Oldham but it might not be too late to save the next club.