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It upset Gjelsten but surely will have upset the now almost reclusive Koppel – as if there was anyone involved in football who didn’t know that the South African Koppel was Chairman.
Apparently though Koppel’s days look over, his bid to continue control of the club appears to have faltered with Watford’s snub following an attempt to share Vicarage Road. Football will be eternally grateful to Watford Football Club if this is the case.
We cannot rest easily though and Mr. Milton Keynes himself Peter Winkelman is fronting a bid for the club which is backed by the Walmart-Asda supermarket group and property developers Abbeygate Developments.
Does everyone remember when we were told that the move to Milton Keynes was purely for football reasons? Does the presence of Walmart-Asda and Abbeygate really suggest this? I know one place I won’t be doing my shopping in future.
There is one condition to the offer and that is the stricken club, if we can really still call it a club, MUST move to Milton Keynes. It would also mean starting the season at Selhurst Park and apparently Crystal Palace are powerless to stop it.
Winkelman has said, "One of the questions we have is will the club be moving to Milton Keynes and, if so, where will they play and when will it happen? Obviously we would only be interested if we knew the club was moving to Milton Keynes." And they dare to tell us it is not a franchise.
Apparently 3,500 have bought season tickets for the club at Milton Keynes and despite all the goings on only 54 have asked for their money back. Those figures have been released by Winkelman. Either he isn’t telling the truth or there are some complete idiots living in the Milton Keynes area.
I have long thought that the administration and decision making at The Football League was a complete waste of time and every decision made on this shabby affair has done nothing to change my mind.
But now they still have a chance to bring this sorry episode to a sensible conclusion and stop pussy footing around. This disgusting move to Milton Keynes can still be stopped and for the sake of football must still be stopped.
For the game’s sake this property development must not be allowed to pick up a club and move it. But for now there is at least hope that we might have finally seen the back of Chairman Koppel. No matter what happens now, he has destroyed a football club.