The Jonathan Jackson Column

Tuesday 14 May, 2002

Financial Crisis- Trust In The Big Man

I have a feeling (nothing more) that the "Financial Crisis" at BCC has a little more to do with the unexpected return of a certain Mr Carbone to the wage bill than the loss of the Monkey Digital money.

My guess is that this could be a move by the board to consider a creative way of "sacking" Carbons whilst leaving Bradford City Holdings free from any potential comeback in terms of unfair dismissals/law suits etc.

Lets face it, shares in BCC Holdings were possibly the least traded share on the Affix anyway ! They may as well have been suspended months ago for all the activity in them.

Don't bet against an announcement shortly that Beni has been "released" from his contract, followed by business as usual, and I certainly don't expect Nicky Law to be too hamstrung in his summer signs (unless I am reading the situation completely wrong).

The personal guarantees put up by the Directors (of which if based on share holding alone Geoffrey Richmond's must be in the region of £4million), must now negate any argument by the people who insisted that the dividend money should have been spent on even more expensive straight jackets, these guarantees far outweigh the dividends, therefore without the dividends there may be no guarantees and may be no BCFC, and JJ's release of Pet Rescue, Hopkin and Colleymore looks good sense.

Based on the experiences of Ipswich Town, I don't think even Rivaldo could have kept us in the Premier League. The fact is that the "elite" is now at maximum 8 clubs.(Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Newcastle, Chelsea, Leeds, Villa & Spurs).

Anyone else can and probably in the long term will, be relegated at some point. Sunderland get gates of 48,000 and can't break into the elite. What hope did we have.

This club is as safe in the hand of Sir Geoff as it could be. If he feels we need to go into administration to safeguard the future, then trust him.

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