> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:leedslist- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Abbott > Sent: 15 June 2007 23:32 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [LU] The inevitable does happen > > On Fri, 2007-06-15 at 20:27, Mark Humphries wrote: > > The administrators job was to know all the facts and then choose the > best > > buyer for everyone concerned, that includes the creditors. > > Errr.. no. The administrator's responsibility is to achieve the best > result for the creditors. Full stop. End of story. Selling the company > as a going concern is a priority, but there is no responsibility to > employees or other stakeholders.
Agreed, I assumed that as the business was a football club then liquidation was never really a serious consideration and therefore the wellbeing of the ongoing business was a consideration for KPMG. In other words they wouldn't have just accepted the highest bid for the creditors if that jeopardised the club going forward would they? > Not necessarily "inventing" debt, but don't you find it remotely > interesting that in April 2005 Bates said that the club had 13 million > of debt to be repaid over the next 2 years, and despite the fact that > the sales of Hulse and Kilgallon meant that we had a net profit on > transfers, and despite the fact that Chelsea's illegal poaching netted > us another 4 million quid, that - courtesy of some enormous loans for > an > unspecified purpose by companies with which Bates was previously > connected but with which he severed connections (for an unspecified > reason) a few months ago, those self-same companies were in a unique > position to force all the other creditors to accept whatever terms > Bates > put on the table? Wake up and smell the offshore coffee Mark! I do find it 'interesting' and have been around long enough to see some clever/naughty (depending on your moral compass) manipulation. However, when any company does their accounts they will manipulate the figures with the sole purpose of trying to minimise profit and therefore avoid paying tax. Is that wrong? That is all I am saying, if it is not illegal then it is not wrong, in a business sense. Accountants get paid lots of money precisely because they find and exploit loopholes and they make accounts as tax efficient as humanly possible. Defence lawyers who find some technical loophole get celebrities off speeding fines. It is not wrong in a legal sense. Bates isn't a multi-millionaire for no reason. He doesn't live in Monaco for no reason. He is not a stupid man. It seems to me there are a lot of frustrated people on the list because they expected him to play by the queensbury rules or be commercially incompetent? Yes he uses offshore companies, but the law says he can and it offers advantages so why shouldn't he? This kind of thing goes on all the time in business. If it is that 'wrong' or pseudo illegal then the relevant regulatory bodies need to deal with it. If it is illegal then the courts will deal with it. Until then individuals are free to run their businesses in that way if they so choose. To bring this back to football I will us the 'professionalism' in football argument. Didn't Don and our great Leeds team get pilloried for using such ungentlemanly tactics like taking the football into the corners of the pitch to waste time? Others seemed to think it was 'wrong' and we got lambasted for using such tactics, but it was not against the rules. Was Don right in doing whatever he could within the rules to gain an advantage? These days everyone does it. I also remember vividly Paul Allen being cynically tripped from behind in the FA Cup final by Willie Young. Young only got a yellow card because it was 'just' a foul, albeit a 'professional foul'. Was Young 'wrong' to do it? In a football sense, no - he probably won the FA Cup for Arsenal. However football then decided they needed to stop all that and introduced the straight red card for the 'professional foul' if it stopped a goalscoring opportunity. My point is that whilst Young was perhaps morally wrong to be so cynical and not get sent off for it, he used the rules as they were to his advantage and therefore was perfectly entitled to do what he did. I cannot blame him personally for doing what he did - he did everything in his power to win the cup for Arsenal, which was his job. So Don is a great example of someone who used every rule in the book to his advantage, and sometimes rules outside the book. Do those Leeds supporters who are morally indignant about a bit of business done by a LUFC chairman feel the same about Don Revie's management of our club? And Jabba, should my pension fund disappear everyone's concern and sympathy might be fantastic, but it wont feed me will it. I will concentrate on trying to look after myself I think. If you have a problem with hard nosed business then fair enough, but football is a hard nosed business so don't single out Bates for criticism here. Of course on the macro level there are tragic stories of people losing houses because their businesses go bust, but going into business to the level you put your house on the line was their personal choice. They would reap the benefits if it took off, they suffer if it goes wrong, and it can go wrong for all sorts of reasons. _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist Join The Leeds United Supporters Trust at www.lufctrust.org
