Once again a rogue football club owner playing a game of chicken with the future of a corner stone of a community’s life. Unfortunately it looks increasingly likely that Morecambe will be going the way of Bury and Macclesfield Town due to owners with seemingly equal measures of incompetence and indifference. The track record of the owner Jason Whittingham doesn’t inspire confidence, his role at Worcester Warriors rugby club should have been enough of a red flag to the Football League but the “fit and proper persons” test yet again lets in another dubious character.
The independent football regulator really cannot come in soon enough to allow clubs to rid themselves of shysters who only see football clubs as an asset stripping opportunity.
This is a very sad situation. Even starting t feel sorry for Derek Adams - not a sentence I ever expected to write. Feels Sheffield Wednesday are not that far behind. Really not convinced the “football regulator” is more than a government “look guys, we are doing something” smokescreen in truth. But for the ongoing good will of Lomtadze, could be us next - its never the debts but cash flow to pay the next bill that kills organisations. Not sure what if anything realistically can be done.
The bit the regulator/ government needs to help with is somehow removing failed / proven bad owners.
I appreciate it’s not easily quantifiable, and there would need to be thresholds and observers….and people won’t be comfortable with government bodies removing privately held assets from those who started out with good intentions and maybe already lost a huge amount of cash…..but I believe in both of these cases and many more there are people (mugs maybe) who are willing to come in and can help and then the problem becomes the previous owner desperate to keep control, borrowing against assets and chasing losses with unrealistic valuations.
If you’re truly considering clubs as community assets that’s what it means.
Yeah, not easy, would only be where someone else who can be verified is prepared to take it on and the club is basically bankrupt anyway.
I think the league are moving towards this with the concept of the golden share, so you aren’t seizing the assets, just the ability to use the league position, name , badge etc, all a lot easier when the club doesn’t own the ground.
In Morecambes case a sale was agreed but then the owner is trying to go back on that and, one suggestion was that he has loans secured against the assets that he can’t pay back which if true may be illegal in it’s own right but would take years to go through the courts.
The Morecambe situation is far from simple and difficult to see how it can be resolved with Morecambe FC remaining in its current state without Whittingham suddenly giving up holding the club hostage in order to extract more money from a prospective buyer, or a buyer caving into his demands.
A potential Bury situation with a zombie club without a league to play in is a possibility if the company itself isn’t liquidated.
I thought the regulator could now force the sale ? What a farce. Some owners dont realise football clubs might be businesses but they were community assets first long before investment came along
If they do need to sit a year out, and are made to reform in a much lower league then tbh they will probably need to let players go and find more affordable ones when the time is right. If they can secure a stadium to play at and someone wants to fund them then you wonder how much of the old company they need. Badges and trophies should be held in trust of some kind for all clubs but the main thing is to be able to continue in some form.
Tragic for players, staff and fans but utterly preventable and it’s difficult to see how the current owner gets anything from hanging on.
@chris well the politicians all spent enough time posturing. While fans of Morecambe may see their beloved football club cease to exist as they know it