Tax Man To Wind Up GTFC?

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 23/09/2004

ON information received from a number of sources, it appears possible, that Grimsby Town Football Club could cease to exist after October this year, if it is correct that the club have not paid, or are unable to pay, an outstanding debt to the Inland Revenue.

Rumours of GTFC having substantial commitments to the taxman have been around since the summer but more recent information suggests that the Inland Revenue already have a winding up order on the Club or will apply for one in October.

The amount of the outstanding debt is claimed to be close to £500,000.

The information we have is that earlier this year, the board did have discussions to determine whether an administration order should be applied for.

If the club do apply for an administration order it will most likely be granted but that in itself will present even more problems.

An administrator would be appointed. The board members would lose their powers to control the future of the club although they will still have to fulfil their statutory obligations.

The administrators responsibility would be to find ways to secure the funds to pay off all the clubs outstanding liabilities, not just the Inland Revenue's and that would be expected to increase the total cash requirement to be a great deal more than that outstanding to the tax man.

That would make it exceedingly difficult for the administrator to find the necessary funds to bring the club out of administration, which means he would have to sell off all the club assets, which would almost certainly place the club in a position where they could not continue very long even if they came out of administration.

If the club did go into administration, the connection with John Fenty, whose personal financial commitments to the club are already around £2,000,000, would be broken and, it would be a very hard task to find someone else to take his place. The other directors too are understood to have injected £50,000 each.

But all is not quite lost.

The club have a number of options.