A fairly open and good update from the Spireites (Ashley Carson, Company Secretary) on all matters relating to the club including the National League season, players, sale of the club and the litigation regarding the CFC Football Development School which involved the illegal payment of players. He seems to blame Chris Turner for duping the club but admits Dave Allen and himself took their eyes off the ball.
National LeagueAs reported, the season 2019/20 has now been cancelled but what happens with the promotions/relegations and play-offs has still not been agreed. Communication from the National League has, in my opinion, been pretty poor.
The results for the ordinary resolution on April 9 to end the playing season, which CFC voted to end, are:
National Division clubs - For: 16 clubs; Against: 5; No response: 3
North Division clubs - For: 20 clubs; Against: 1; No response: 1
South Division clubs - For: 18 clubs; Against: 2; No response: 2
Play-offs ConsultationThe National League board received responses from a total of 65 out of 68 clubs.
The responses included a range of views, many detailed explanations from clubs and a mix of views in each division. A brief overview is that in the National and Southern divisions, most clubs that envisage they may qualify for play-offs would prefer to postpone such play-offs, whilst many other clubs generally prefer cancellation. However, in the North division, there is a clearer picture in favour of cancellation.
The board has not yet proceeded with any decision and are awaiting further guidance from the FA and the EFL. The board has said that they also need to take further legal opinion. So now you are all in the dark with me!
PlayersThe loan players will all have left the club and be off the payroll by the end of May. We will then only have ten players registered with us. As previously reported, we will not be offering any more than one-year contracts this year. By the end of this next season, every player will be out of contract. I cannot remember ever being in this position before, but a great opportunity to re-build if the manager feels it is necessary.
We have officially offered one-year contracts to several players who have all agreed in principle, but the agreements have not been signed-off yet for obvious reasons. We will announce through our media when they have signed, but to kill the speculation, the players involved are Luke Rawson, Regan Hutchinson, Jamie Sharman, Haydn Hollis and Mr Thomas Denton - at least he won’t be playing cricket this summer, so we should be okay!
Club SaleDave Allen and I would prefer the Community Trust to purchase the club, however I have not spoken to Mike Goodwin for over a week as the same record is still being played. I am still receiving interest from other parties, but absolutely nothing worth reporting.
Development School
I try to keep my newsletters light-hearted, but I feel it totally inappropriate to escape or dodge this topic. I have had sight this week of the Liquidator’s Annual Progress Report on CFC Football Development School Limited. Until this was released, we were prevented from disclosing the figures. It mentions under Section 2, 2.3, the sum settled between both parties resulting from the ridiculous sums that they were claiming that Chesterfield FC owed to the Development School. This was in my opinion falsely and grossly exaggerated. In fairness, they had about as much in the way of records to relay on as we did on our side.
The whole arrangement between the Development School and CFC was a total disaster, nightmare and embarrassment for the CFC board and in particular myself and Dave Allen. This was a major contributing factor to the departure of Chris Turner from his position within the club. Sadly, Chris had allowed others to dupe us all.
I knew that we certainly owed them a minimum of nearly £20,000 resulting in illegal wages being made to three of our players, the rest was fiercely fought against and thank you to Howard Freeman of Shorts and Keebles Solicitors, for fighting our corner extremely efficiently. It finally came down to a commercial settlement. It was either this or facing a legal battle with no guarantees. I was also keen to settle this to eliminate any potential purchasers of the club uncovering this as part of any due-diligence with no closure. Considering that their initial claim was in excess of £150,000, we agreed a full and final settlement of £45,000. The payment was to be made at £9,000 a month for five months, which has now been paid off in full. I feel it appropriate to apologise for the fact that this total mess ran out of control over a period of time. The plug should have been pulled on them at a much earlier point in time.
There are absolutely no other skeletons to jump out and absolutely nothing to be found within due-diligence that would have a negative effect on purchasing the club, apart from the running costs!
https://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/news/ ... st-update/