More has emerged over the past few days about the financial problems ay Weymouth Football Club. In particular former chairman Ian Ridley has been talking about the current position. (the quotes below come from the excellent Altrincham website - a must for anyone interested in the Conference)
"Weymouth FC owes Hollybush Hotels (owed by Weymouth chairman Martyn Harrison) £2.5 million and Barclays around £400,000, though it has a debenture on the club for £800,000. In addition, there are creditors of around £70,000, with only around £30,000 owed to the club. This after Mr Harrison (current chairman) told a press conference that the club was debt-free. The club is losing around £70,000 a month, still saddled with exorbitant contracts.
"After last year's losses of £886,000, the loss for the next set of financial figures... will be more than £1 million. Even with recent changes, it is heading for around the same this season, given the pay-offs for Messrs Hill and Hales. That is £3 million in three seasons. The deficit was £348,000 when I left the club at the start of the Harrison era, me having inherited a debt of £300,000. And he told everyone that I was the one who was going to bankrupt the club!"
Ridley wanted to bring in Steve Claridge.
"Steve would have known how to find new clubs for players, and get cheaper ones in, very quickly, as well as maintaining gate revenue by being on the pitch... After the one-hour meeting, Martyn rang me back a few hours later and agreed to all the criteria. Then he rang me again to say he needed to speak to his solicitor first... We duly met for two hours, but his mood had changed, shown by him bringing along a Hollybush director... At 8.30pm on Monday night he finally rang again to say he had more meetings with legal and financial people and could not make a decision... He stated - at an AGM, no less - that his money was not loans. Then he changed that, with the club receiving a letter from Hollybush saying that all their money is indeed in loans... My fear is that the land is sold along with the club to some asset-stripper. I suspect that with Messrs Harrison and Calder unable to get enough players off the wage bill, administration looms, and possibly re-forming in a lower league... In Conference circles, I am afraid to say that a reputation for arrogance over the last couple of years has taken hold when it comes to Weymouth Football Club".
Meanwhile Harrison had spoken about his 'investment' in Weymouth.
"What went in was my personal money. It is nobody else's money. It's not creditors or anyone else's... Two-and-a-half million pounds has been put into the football club to achieve a certain amount of success and ongoing it was costing around £100,000 a month. It is impossible to carry that on. New contracts for the players and the staff would have had to have been negotiated for next season and there was no way this club could move forward with the way we were going... It is not of interest to me to sell this ground to anybody and under the agreement I have with the club there is no way anyone would want to come in and buy it... I got involved because I was asked on to the board... At the time I envisaged that. I would be putting in £500,000 to secure the future of the club. The fact that I then got carried away with it all and lifted that up to £2.5million or thereabouts is my problem really."
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