Liquidation Day?

Today Swansea City Football Club will announce that they are to voluntarily liquidate the club with one and a half million pounds worth of debt. The current financial state of the accounts leave the consortium in control at Swansea with no alternative than to announce a 5 -10 % offer to creditors that will in time bring stability to The Vetch Field. The main creditor is Mel Nurse who as we have documented well on here acquired an eight hundred thousand pound debt late last year, initially outlaying one hundred thousand pounds to buy out Ninth Floor PLC, a move which initially backfired on him and landed the club and then owner Tony Petty in court in November. Many smaller creditors, like The Vale of Glamorgan Hotel will all receive offers to settle their invoices in the next week or so. The alternative will be highlighted to them – If you don’t take this offer, you may get nothing if Swansea City AFC fail to operate as a business thereafter.

This is common business practice, but will alarm many people connected to the club, and indeed strike alarming headlines in the press. None of which will carry this news as early as JACKARMY.NET. However, the long term view is that this agreement will put Swansea City AFC in to a stronger position to function lawfully and correctly when it finally comes out of the agreement. Other creditors are John Hollins, Colin Addison and Peter Nicholas. The management team that left on Thursday will also find their final settlements reduced by up to 95 %.

Players too will want their contracts sorted out with fourteen up for renewal in six weeks time. A slimmer playing staff is expected next season with an agenda of a playing squad of twenty two players maximum. The current staff may have to be well scrutinised in lieu of this news.

Addison and Nicholas who left the club after preserving league football in Swansea for next season will no doubt find this news alarming too, if as we believe they are yet to receive any agreed compensation from the consortium. Their departure has not been taken well by the majority of Swans fans who questioned the consortiums motives in the light of them leaving immediately after the news was announced. We must only assume that all things being done are in the best interests of Swansea City Football Club, considering the people in charge and their continued honesty in the public domain away from the football pitch.

It has also been muted that various sections of the Swansea City support wanted Addison and Nicholas to leave ! As you know we here at JACKARMY.NET have nothing but high praise for the hard work that both Addison and Nicholas have done at Swansea, and would have endorsed a further contract for both of them if that had been offered to them by the Swansea board. The only question ever raised was that of the board at Swansea itself – And that clearly was if they wanted to change managers then they had to do it quickly to bring about stability for the players, and the immediate future of the club itself. Their departure has saved the club one hundred thousand pounds for the coming year starting in September 2002, however that would be a small price to pay if Addison and Nicholas had steered us to success next season.

We are very aware from press contacts that the Sunday papers will bring further news of the bitter departure of Addison and Nicholas, something summed up by a Swans fan, Paul Richards from Bridgend. ” Addo and Peter were a stop gap, everyone knew that, that’s why they had a short term contract, I hope they realise the support we gave them, and look elsewhere to do their finger

pointing, it wasn’t the fans of Swansea City that got them the boot. For Hollins yes, for them no “

We echo that view and endorse the excellent work they have done.

Time will tell if Nick Cusack and Roger Freestone are the answer, and there is still a belief that if they do not perform then another man could be in charge by the summer, and press sources are still talking about John Cornforth. However, Exeter City FC state that they are within striking distance of getting him to sign a new contract at St James Park, but Cornforth must be suffering from all sorts of emotions as his beloved Swans continue to fall from crisis to crisis, and he is touted as the only man to sort the on the pitch matters out.

We really thought it would be a quiet run in to the end of the season, how wrong we were, but if this announcement expected at around about 1 pm today is the final piece in the jigsaw maybe we can look to the future with more hope ? And of course never forget the people who put us in this mess, Talk Sport have muted the vetting of such people in football, football fans in Swansea, if ever there is an expert in this field, should be the first to be consulted.

And more than ever, the lessons learned.

And on Saturday apparently we are playing Carlisle United – How fitting !