It's true that Krasner and co. got rid of about £60m of debt when they took over in 2004, but weren't we still hemorrhaging cash once they took over because some of the Ridsdale era contracts didn't expire till 2006 or 2007? Weren't we still having to pay huge amounts to Danny Mills, Robbie Fowler, Gary Kelly and Seth Johnson, and possibly others? In the Bates era we had to pay Johnson £1million to cancel his contract, but I'm sure we were still committed to paying huge sums to several others under contracts we couldn't get out of, in several cases for some years after they had left the club.
And at the time Krasner sold to Bates at the start of 2005 there was a substantial and growing debt to the Inland Revenue, who were threatening to wind us up. None of the above means that I'm a Bates apologist, as I know he went on to do a lot of damage himself, but there was certainly still a big problem to be dealt with at the time he took over. Tim W. ________________________________ From: Rick Duniec <ri...@ntlworld.com> To: Leedslist@gn.apc.org Sent: Thursday, 20 March 2014, 8:54 Subject: Re: [LU] Bates You have identified one of the great Bates myths where you say "our allegedly enormous ongoing debts". The Truth is that the vast bulk of the debt had been dealt with by the actions of the Krasner group. Bates actually said this himself when he originally arrived but that has been swept under the carpet in the convenient mythology. The bulk of ongoing debt was in fact football creditors and that debt eroded over time as it was paid off. There were some overhanging issues (contingent liabilities) but the overhanging debt problem had been largely overcome. That is the tragedy of Bates' involvement. He kept the club needlessly mired in the pit when it should have been emerging from the darkness. He shifted the blame onto Ridsdale and partly in the fans eyes onto Krasner just as he did onto Mahwhinney and the FL. It's all lies. That's also why our recovery has been much slower than at other clubs. Think about it. How can we wipe out the debt through administration, have much bigger income streams than our rivals and yet still continue wallowing in a financial mess ? That is why a whole new set of creditors was created, as a tool for Bates to use to take the club into administration. Nobody has ever explained what the money from these new creditors was used for and it is to easy for people to assume that it was a carry forward of the Ridsdale debt without thinking about it. That is what most of the media do today. The truth is that there is very little real connection between the Ridsdale debt and the club going into administration under Bates several years later. You could even view the debt under Bates as the physical manifestation of his milking the club. What else was the money (the new debt) used for ? It a similar picture the the Plc shares. Your loss of shares when the Plc was wound up was nothing to do with the subsequent Krasner or Bates tenures, as you rightly say. There is no real connection. _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
