The Neal Ackroyd Column
Sunday 30 June, 2002
A Whole Lot of Suffering For No Good Reason?
When the Official Centenary History of Bradford City is written next year, the events of the past couple of months will probably be brushed under the carpet as an embarrassing and unseemly affair, not worthy of much comment. The Unofficial history might just look back at this as the most absurd period in that 100 years.
Just what has the Administration period achieve? An awful lot of panic, hysteria, and bad feeling. Can anybody, no matter what they think of the Chairman and the board, say that anything good or positive for either the short or long term future of the club? Certainly I can't.
What has changed since the Administration process has commenced?
Well, a couple of shops have shut. It will be interesting to see whether Up Front stores re-open, bearing in mind comments made about the performance of these stores...
39 members of staff have been made redundant - from shop assistants to coaching staff. Well, some of the shop assistants won't be re-joining the club I would imagine, but that is hardly going to change the financial situation of the club. But coaching staff will need reappointing or replacing, and pretty soon at that.
Season ticket holders have been told their investment is going to be honoured in full. So again, no financial savings there.
And some players may decide that they want to take the opportunity of a free transfer to join another club - but the PFA have managed to get agreement that their contracts are also to be honoured in full. So no savings their either, or at least no savings that couldn't have been achieved without the club resorting to administration.
And thus is the one single, most important question - what was the reason for the Administration?
I personally cannot believe that ITV-Digital's collapse and Beni not signing for Middlesbrough are the absolute reasons. The fact that no other club has followed the same path suggests this was a much more localised issue. I can think of two plausible scenarios:
- It was decided that this was a way to get 16 players off the pay-roll. However, during the Administration process it has been made perfectly clear that the Football League would not accept this course of action. Therefore, the Administration period has been a gamble that has backfired.
- There was a major disagreement between board members which resulted in a withdrawal of guarantees over club loans. However, during Administration neither party could afford to buy out the other, whilst no one could afford the club to go under. Therefore, have both parties been forced back together - potentially creating future problems for the club in the future.
I just cannot see how the club can be in a better position now than it was two months ago. What has been achieved that couldn't have been achieved without going into Administration? We can only hope this embarrassing affair is not rued come the start of Centenary celebrations in 2003.
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