Just want to clarify a few things here. The rules on administration were changed a number of years ago to make going into admin a far more serious penalty for football clubs. Rather than just a 10 point loss you suffered - automatic 12 point loss, 2 year transfer embargo and much stricter rules on the payments required to football creditors as well as the standard insolvency rules around the rest of your creditors.pie_on_a_barmjoe wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:37 pm It's a joke that Bolton have funded the transfer fee by shafting their suppliers.Other clubs can now go into administration and clear their debts by paying 10p in the pound to Carrs pasties and use the money saved to spend on their football team.
This was all changed following Leicester's administration which was in essence a sham - wipe their debts clear then shoot up through the divisions again ultimately winning the premiership. But other teams also effectively abused the chance to clear debts.
We suffered our administration because Ken Anderson effectively tricked and deceived his way into owning the club, sold the assets he could then spent money that didn't exist - whilst refusing to pay anyone. But lets be clear the Bolton fans were powerless to stop him. When finally the previous owners used their power to force Anderson into putting the business into admin - Anderson performed one last trick - refusing to do so himself, forcing the trust representing the previous owner to place the club into admin - and Anderson put the hotel in. Effectively separating what was one business into 2. Which made for the most complex administration process in history that cost us a season and almost cost us a club as 3 times Ken Anderson agreed to the deal (he of course made himself a secured creditor) before reneging at the last minute - one of those times about 2 hours before the season was due to kick off. The deal collapsed more times than than a straw house in a tornado. This is only 1% of the saga but I won't bore you with the rest.
I want to point out that Bolton fans were protesting against Anderson and his regime - for a very long time before he finally played his last trick. But my point is that football finance is perilous - clubs, any club can very easily end up in hard times - and then can find an unscrupulous owner getting involved. The club and fans are not at fault for this. And are ultimately the ones that suffer. We came within a day of ending up in the same boat as Bury. Bury - a complete tragedy. So it is wrong to suggest the insolvency or administration process is a) easy b) a cop out or c) cheating the system. The fans never wanted to be in that position - and we were because of one man. Any club in the next few years can end up there - and some will. Just hope it isn't you and that you get lucky. But if you do end up in admin remember when you said it was 'easy' - you'll probably regret that.
