Peter Ridsdale: Chairman Turned Repeat Offender >From www.twohudredpercent.net
Cardiff City are due in court in a couple of weeks fighting off a winding up order, and the man in charge is a rather familiar one to supporters of Leeds United and Barnsley. Mark Murphy reports on Peter Ridsdales repeated misdemeanours and finds a predictable and depressing set of themes. Of all of footballs recent winding-up petition sagas, Cardiff Citys has had the most soap-operatic plot twists. And at its centre, where he likes to be, is chairman Peter Ridsdale. Ridsdale had reinvented himself as the good guy during his first two years in Cardiff, some achievement after his reputational suicides at Leeds United and Barnsley, even if made a little easier by Sam Hammam, the Wimbledon ex-supremo, being his predecessor and combatant. His third year should have seen all his hard work come to fruition with a new stadium and all its attendant financial benefits. But hes blown it. He has misled Cardiff supporters about the clubs finances. And this has now crossed over into outright mendacity, according to those fans, as Cardiff have until February 10th to pay their taxes and save their soul. When Ken Bates blamed Ridsdale for the financial woes which forced Leeds into administration in May 2007, he had a willing audience. And even those of us with no time for Bates had to think twice before seeing through the diversionary tactic it so clearly was. Ridsdale had, of course, personified everything that was wrong with the football boom which straddled the millennia on the back of various club share flotations and exponentially increasing broadcast deals. Living the dream, Ridsdales play it again, Sam, entered footballs lexicon, and it didnt mean anything remotely dreamy, being more like the six weeks of madness which Bradford City chairman Geoffrey Richmond cited as beginning their long financial descent, and if Ridsdale was the personification of this, his goldfish were also a monument to ruinous success. GBP20-per-month. Hired yes HIRED. Bates took Leeds into administration without taking any of the blame. Leeds former legend and current director Peter Lorimer even lauded Bates, twelve months before Leeds went into administration, for overcoming all the Ridsdale-era problems and being twelve months ahead of schedule in terms of his plans for the club. It mattered not a jot that Ridsdale was right, later in 2007, to say: I suggest you examine the creditors list when they went into administration in the summer and tell me how many of those creditors were there when I was, and you will find it was very, very few. Yes, the very, very few included very, very expensive ones like Danny Mills and his GBP217,000, even though he hadnt kicked a ball in anger for Leeds for years (ever, some would say). But Leeds owed GBP35m when Bates took them in and out of administration in his own inimitable way. And very, very few of those millions were Ridsdales. There was only GBP1m, but precious little mitigation, at the end of Ridsdales ill-starred year as Barnsley owner and chairman. His successor chairman, Gordon Shepherd, was quick to praise Ridsdales great job, just before noting that there are areas where we have spent too much and also areas where we have not raised enough, yet, by 2007, Ridsdale was embarking on a chairmanship of Championship club Cardiff which would turn them from the financial basket case created by Hammam into FA Cup finalists and promotion challengers in a potentially lucrative new stadium. Thanks to Hammam, this journey was an exacting one. And Ridsdale emerged as something of a hero for fighting off the claims both monetary and political of Langston Corporation, an international organisation of mystery, represented by, but otherwise nothing whatsoever to do with Hammam. Hammam turned from hero to candidate for the freedom of Swansea as the Bluebirds rise from English footballs third-tier to the cusp of the Premier League left GBP30m debts. Administration and near-certain relegation back to the third-tier was only averted by a GBP500,000 loan from the players trade union, the PFA. So desperate were Cardiff that Hammam recruited Ridsdale to obtain alternative funding and drive a new stadium project that, as in so many of these tales, was seen as the solution, if the club could survive that long. Ridsdales legacy (i.e. Ken Bates at Leeds) was still fresh in many minds. But he was still able to (obtain) significant local authority financial backing, which had been previously withheld because Hammam wouldnt reveal any important detail of Langston, to whom Cardiff owed GBP24m of their debt. By January 2007, with Hammam off the board and Ridsdale on it, Cardiff problems seemed to be dissolving. Eight months later, they werent. Langston, still cloaked in near-anonymity (Hammam bizarrely claimed he didnt know who he was actually representing) demanded immediate repayment of their loans, or Ridsdales resignation. Administration loomed as this repayment was miles beyond Cardiffs capabilities. Ridsdale insisted the money was due, but not until 2016 and after a lengthy, painstaking, mind-numbingly detailed legal proceeding, Ridsdales view prevailed, to a heros welcome. The repayment schedule was agreed last autumn, with the whole thing outed as a clumsy power grab by Hammam, who even had the nerve to ask for a board place back, said Ridsdale in November. By then, however, few people could be sure that was true, as Ridsdale had, allegedly, spent as much of 2009 battling with the truth as hed ever spent battling Langston/ Hammam. The hero has turned villain again for some, as Cardiffs, and Ridsdales own, finances have been shrouded in murk, and Ridsdales reactions have ranged from the childish to the churlish to, for some, the downright mendacious. Cardiffs financial results for 2007/08, the year they reached the FA Cup Final, were published in May and revealed GBP1m+ trading losses. But Ridsdale side-stepped criticism by embarking upon a worldwide hunt for investment, for which, he hoped, the new stadium would be a springboard. In June, the News of the World ran a story saying that Ridsdales consultancy firm, WH Sports Ltd, had gone bust owing GBP374,000 to the taxman. Ridsdale technically worked for the firm when Hammam brought him to Cardiff. And the accounts revealed that the club paid them GBP1.3m until Ridsdale became a direct Cardiff employee in 2007/8. Ridsdale called the story misleading as the firm had closed down when the Cardiff consultancy ended. He didnt deny the debt, though, claiming all creditors will be paid. So, the following week, the paper ran the story again. Ridsdale this time claimed the firms liquidation was only because the Cardiff consultancy had ended and that it was a Member Voluntary Liquidation, i.e. the company was solvent, just no longer needed. However, Ridsdale had signed a sworn affidavit that a Statement of Affairs for the Company, which showed it to be heavily insolvent, was a full, true and complete statement. Just like, as it turned out, the News of the Worlds story. This had no direct impact on the club but, as Ridsdale continued discussions on new investment and the Langston repayment schedule throughout the summer, so his credibility came under increasing question. There had been slow progress on investment talks reported interest from lifelong Bluebirds fan David Sullivan had to be furiously denied, in the absence of tangible news. By the time the (considerable) shock of that had subsided, Ridsdale was on BBC2, at half-time during Cardiffs early-November fixture with Notts Forest, telling the watching dozens of imminent Malaysian investment, as he stood alongside one Dato Chan Tien Ghee, a Malaysian property tycoon who was to be its source. With the Langston negotiations nearing conclusion, Ridsdale was painting a rosy financial picture, which was somewhat undermined by the South Wales Echos 26th November headline: Taxman takes Cardiff City to court. The Echo told the story in a standard manner. HMRC were serving the club with a winding-up petition over unpaid tax and were giving Cardiff 70 days to come up with the cash. They outlined the doomsday scenario of official receivership in about three-dozen words. They quoted Ridsdale at length (speaking from Malaysia) claiming that HMRC were just rattling our cage and, descending into legalese, that he expected the judge to say Cardiff City have been good boys. And they quoted a financial expert agreeing with Ridsdale over the cage thing, noting that the Football League, with their trademark drive and initiative, were monitoring the situation. Ridsdale sniffed: You can ask all you want but Im not going to tell you how much. And the following day declared: What you have published is despicable and I wont be talking to anyone at the South Wales Echo again. Ridsdales ego had clearly been punctured by the clearly non-despicable story coming out on the day that Dato Chen joined the board and invested a reported GBP200,000 into the club, and he announced in mid-December that agreement had been reached over Langston debt repayments, while the winding-up petition was dismissed by the High Court on December 16th, which led him to comment triumphantly: This puts any doubts that anybody had about the future of the club behind us. It didnt. Reports suggested the tax bill had been paid. But a tax repayment schedule had merely been agreed, Ridsdale not so quick to accuse the papers of despicability this time. And the News of the World helped see in the New Year with the headline: Cardiff must pay tax bill or face going bust. The story claimed unpaid tax ran to GBP2.7m and that Cardiff had missed the first repayment date, 22nd December, less than a week after Ridsdales triumphalism. His response was to claim that some of the information could only have come from stolen documents, an effort to discredit the paper and/or its source which inadvertently confirmed that the story was true. Fans began to demand answers. The Supporters Trust called for an EGM of shareholders, confident that disaffection was general enough to get the shareholder support required. The BBC confirmed Cardiff would return to the High Court on February 10th under a threat of being wound-up. And the Echo detailed Cardiffs financially grim reality, noting for the first time that the costs of fitting out the new stadium had spiralled from a forecast and budgeted GBP3.5m to GBP7-8m. The solution had become the problem. Ridsdale maintained his superficial confidence with stories of potential buyers for the club sprinkled around the local press, about which new board member Dato Chen will have had a view. An innovative- looking season-ticket scheme, persuading fans to renew early specifically to fund January transfer window expenditure, had raised GBP3m, with the enticement of a refund if promotion was won. Then, this week, the bombshell. There was no investment. The stadium did cost millions more than forecast and, were awfully sorry, but investing in new players in the transfer window will not be possible in the absence of new investment. Whilst we apologise for this, we do not apologise for ensuring that the viability and financial health of the club is the ultimate priority. A mea-not-very-culpa, as a friend of mine described it. Fans reactions have varied between Ridsdale out and Ridsdale must go, with words like betrayal and lied to in common usage. The BBC website illustrated its story with a picture of Ridsdale, holding his head in his hands which was about right. Little credibility now attaches itself to Ridsdale, just like when he left Leeds and Barnsley his early promise buried in debt and alleged deceit. Fans money might save the day on February 10th, and many would not have objected to them being used in that manner per se. But they feel duped, with numerous Ridsdale quotes from the schemes launch confirming that view. Ridsdales days as the good guy are over. Hes never recoiled from suggestions that the stadium was his project so he cant credibly distance himself now. He has failed to bring in long-promised investment. And he didnt. He may not resign over this. But if he does, he will remain a fit and proper person to run another club. And if he could get two football jobs after Leeds hired goldfish and all theres surely others waiting for his magic touch. Clubs would, of course, be advised to avoid him. He would be advised to avoid them, too. The transfer window closes on Monday, so if Andy Bond is to be transferred to, well, pick one from Leicester City, Bolton Wanderers or Preston North End, or perhaps even someone else, as Barrow joint manager Dave Bayliss says in the Mail: And a few more as well. Bayliss adds: Championship clubs are interested in Andy Bond and theres been a few approaches, if a Championship club comes in for him and makes an offer, we wont stand in Bondys way because hes a good player and deserves a chance at a higher level. But they have to make an offer first, and no-one has made an offer. The next move for him has got to be a big move and a good one. The teams were talking to at the minute are really big Championship clubs, so if it does come off its great for Bondy and great for the club because it shows that were putting players in that window. We dont want to lose him, but, its one of those things, we dont want to stand in his way either. Theres been no official offers, but we are talking to clubs. The Mail adds this on why Walker didnt play against Southport: Jason went for a scan last (Tuesday) night. The physios seem to think it might be a bit of nerve damage. Hes not trained all week, so he is doubtful for Saturday. Were now waiting for the scans to come back. It should also be noted that a number of clubs have been sniffing around Walker, but this seems to have gone quiet of late, whether this means a deals been done and no-ones telling, Walker doesnt want to move or another third reason I havent had the time to make up yet, I dont know. Did someone mention Doncaster Rovers then? So, who else was missing from the Southport game which caused the Barrow substitute bench to be as empty as Steven Vaughan the Dishonests wallet. Well, the Mail has the answer to that as well: Also missing in midweek were newly-signed duo Nick Chadwick and Simon Wiles, plus triallist striker Luke Powell. All three were set to play until tea-time on Tuesday when the club discovered that the Lancashire FAs long-standing interpretation of the rule regarding the deadline for players eligibility had changed. It meant none of the three new additions could feature. Bayliss, who was in the north east spying on Saturdays opponents Gateshead in their 2-0 home defeat against Kettering Town, said: It threw a spanner in the works. We only had a couple of fit substitutes to bring on, so some lads played more of the game than what we wanted. Win, lose, or draw, I wasnt particularly bothered. What I was bothered about was lads getting game-time, though some got more than we wanted. ------------------------------------------------ This message was sent using InSPire Net Webmail. http://www.inspire.net.nz
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