Call him controversial, call him maligned, the glue which keeps over-enthusiastic Wanderers’ fans’ feet securely on the tarmac, Aussiemike, brings another guest article
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot the glaring contradictions in the comments Garside’s came out with during his recent interview with BBC Radio Manchester
1) he issued a strong defence of the clubs business operations when every reputable financial adviser will tell you the business model adopted by Gartside has failed badly over recent years
2) he claimed the club is in a much stronger financial position than it might appear, in view of the clubs assets and the lending afforded the club by E Davies.
3) he consistently claims our debt is money lent to the club by our benefactor, it is not BANK DEBT
4) he concedes that technically it is debt but not debt construed as bank debt, as for true bank debt we owe the banks £8 million taken as an overdraft
5) he claims other clubs would be envious of our level of real bank debt
6) he claims FFP restrictions means club owners cannot give their clubs money
7) he claimed Eddie Davies has agreed not to charge any interest on the debt/ money directly owed to himself – this is a telling point
8) to recover the debt owed to E Davies his assets would be sold off or he would seek refinancing
9) the reality is Eddie Davies has invested in the club and you can call that equity, its not real debt its equity,
10) he claims the club owns all its assets, all its land , including development land, the hotel, the stadium, training ground, etc.
11) he claimed ” there are no borrowings against the assets the club owns, these are substantial assets, these are Eddies assets ” – the last few words are another telling point.
I now refer to the Swizz Ramble article issued November 2010, titled ” why Bolton Wanderers have so much debt “
quotes: ” OC has embarked on an evolutionary change to the playing style”, faced with a huge loss of £35 million the clubs best players may be sold, Gartside claimed ” as per Elmander & Cahill teams interested in January will offer the best price “
How bad is our debt, the author says its terrible – from £29 million in 2006 it has trebled, doubling in the last year alone,” by any standards the business model is simply not working” ” there are fundamental flaws in the model”
the author states E.Davies has not ‘given` the club money as they repay interest at 5% annually. In 2009 the club paid Davies 10% interest on a £29 million loan. It is equally clear E Davies has made a commercial investment that pays him handsome returns each year.
A Duckworth, club Chief Executive admits the club pays ‘premium` interest rates to Davies. By comparison the only other club similar to ours is Fulham, Al Fayed has lent the club £200 million and has never charged the club a penny in interest. Davies effectively bought BWFC in 2003 for a total outlay of £14 million.
The De Veres White Hotel is seen as an asset, yet it has made continuous losses over the last 6 years and gives not a penny back to the club. Gartside claimed the 118 BET sponsorship deal was ” a fantastic and lucrative deal ” yet at £750,000 a year it was considerably less than the £950,000 a year REEBOK paid and the smallest deal in the premiership.
The author states you would expect the club directors to have the ability to address the spiralling financial difficulties, particularly given Gartside and Duckworth are handsomely paid for their efforts earning £584,000 & £483,000 respectively that year, including bonuses of circa £170,000, in a year the club made record losses of £35 million. Gartside claimed ” up and coming young players will be acquired as rough diamonds, to be polished and cut ” ” securing the backbone of the team with other youngsters sold on to finance further investment” ” the clubs primary objective is simply to retain premiership status at all costs “
to underpin net liabilities of £56 million the club has placed a value on the playing squad at £24 million, Gartside however estimates the true market value of the squad at £64 million.
According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2009 E Davies was estimated to be worth £65 million, since then this figure has reportedly fallen below £50 million.
In conclusion I fear Gartside is a professional liar, he cites the valuable assets the clubs owns, yet in reality all of the assets mentioned appear to be owned by E Davies, the club itself therefore actually owns nothing. He admits Davies could sell off the assets if he so chooses. By stating Davies will no longer charge interest on the money directly owed to him as an individual, he deliberately failed to explain if interest will continue to be charged against money owed to Moonshift Investments, this is a crucial detail as it is feared the vast majority of the debt now standing at £156 million is owed to this enterprise not E Davies directly, of course the beauty of operating an offshore trust is these details will not be made available. Quite clearly E Davies is not the clubs saviour or benefactor, he has earned extremely high returns on his investment in the club and to ensure the cartel can continue infinitum, he rewards Gartside and others handsomely to maintain the masquerade of lies and deceit in the public domain, all the while taking what where the clubs assets as his own in order to continually borrow and built up the debt that he feeds off each year.
If you review every single opinion and prediction made above by Gartside on footballing matters, it clearly illustrates the man has not got a clue !! far worse, in stating the clubs primary objective is premiership survival at all costs, which is the only statement he made that I would be forced to agree with, he now feels that rather than attaining promotion to the premiership at all costs, he feels it more important that he personally likes our current manager and that he is a good young British manager, these now carry greater importance than the clubs own priorities of very survival , or the actual dire performance of our manager. For a man who informed all the supporters a few years back to behold the beauty of the football Owen Coyle would bestow upon our club, he cannot really insult our intelligence any further, or can he ?