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A spokesman for the National Hockey Foundation today issued the following statetement:
"The National Hockey Foundation have announced today that they have, with immediate effect, discontinued any further discussions with Wimbledon Football Club, the joint administrators or the Milton Keynes Consortium who are seeking to resolve the Wimbledon Football Club relocation.
"Since the appointment of the joint administrators, NHF has endeavoured to maintain an opportunity for the Milton Keynes Consortium to identify and secure sufficient funds that would enable the conversion works at the National Hockey Stadium to take place.
"NHF now feel that they can no longer delay in the important action they must take in progressing and developing the future use of the Stadium for its primary purpose."
The simple answer is that there is no money available to carry out the necessary work at the Hockey Stadium to bring it up to The Football League’s minimum standards and as such it is almost certain now that league football will never be played at this particular venue.
Apparently there are 3,500 season ticket holders waiting to watch football there but don’t believe these figures, they are Koppel’s figures.
But where does this leave the franchised club, they are talking about going back to Selhurst Park. Surely this cannot be allowed now, this clearly would be franchising.
Sir Brian Mawhinney stated that as far as the League were concerned Milton Keynes was their conurbation. That being the case it would without doubt be setting a very dangerous precedent indeed if they were now to allow a Milton Keynes based club to play home matches in London.
Football fans united against these Pariahs of the game and in doing so reduced attendances at last season’s games to an incredibly low figure. Koppel should now realise that English football will not stand for it and he could well pay the ultimate price with the club having to close down.
There will be no sympathy, that went to the genuine Wimbledon supporters who fought and lost as he won the battle to move the club some seventy miles away. But he won’t have the last laugh and The Football League can start now by telling him to get stuffed when he tries to continue playing in London.
They won’t though, they haven’t got much right have they? Led by a failed politician in Mawhinney and with Sheep Dip from cheating Ipswich on its board we can have little faith.
Even so the end must be near for Franchise FC.