Text at top (next game etc)

Next Game: Brentwood In The FA Trophy At Edgar Street On Saturday 16th November At 3.00pm

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Vaughan Quits Chester

Chester owner and chairman Stephen Vaughan has quit the club according to reports.

The controversial owner, who is responsible for the largest security operation on Merseyside, quit as a Director and Chairman prior to Saturday's match, and cancelled a planned press conference for Tuesday to announce new investment.

Vaughan's companies are the club's biggest creditor, with a whopping £5million believed to be owed. It is, so far, uncertain the status of either his shareholding or the debt that is owed. A brief statement on the official Chester site followed reports on local radio, but only confirmed his departure.

He failed to attend todays match with Peterboro, and has refused to speak to the press until after the weekend. He has been critical of the low attendances at the Deva Stadium for some time, with only 2,291 attending the clash of two top six sides. The club is believed to be heavily losing money, with commercial opportunities at the stadium limited by a restrictive lease.

Vaughan had held talks with Spanish based businessman Richard Downes about investing in the club, but the trail apparently had gone cold after word of the talks surfaced three months ago.

The club had narrowly avoided breaching the wage capping rules during the last two League seasons, and openly admitted to losing £65,000 a month in clinching promotion from the Conference with rumours that the club were operating a £1million player budget - twice that of any of it's rivals. Vaughan ploughed £2.5million into the club to get them back into the League, but has seen little return.