Chris Custodiet

When did you last read Iles reporting on the 12m PBP came up with to help keep the club afloat in 2016? When did you last read Iles reporting on the Holdsworth cost to BWFC? When did you last read Iles reporting on the fact that Blumarble lent only 4m and that that was due for repayment within a couple of weeks of it being lent? When did you last read Iles reporting on the fact that 90% of Anderson's 'so-called' fee of 525K went to a combination of Holdsworth, SSBWFC and SSBWFC's liquidators? Iles has actually done a lousy job on reporting BWFC financials whilst mouthing off as if he is some kind of expert?

I'd call it a 'commercial arrangement' not a 'so-called commercial arrangement'. The additional unnecessary words were plainly a gratuitous attempt to denigrate MJ and PBP.

In early 2016, PBP came up with c12m to help keep the club in business; 6.5m for the car parks and a 5.5m loan secured on the hotel lease. The problem was that the existing lease was virtually worthless so the terms of the lease were altered so that it was worth something and the 5.5m loan could go ahead. A fortnight ago, Iles, echoing his dimwitted friends or associates at the ST, decided to have a go at MJ sneeringly describing the new lease as ' a so-called ''commercial arrangement'' '.

I don't think he's changed his spots and don't think he ever will. He's got a new boss now who I hope is exercising a bit more sensible control but it didn't stop Iles coming out with a ludicrous and unnecessary dig at Michael James a couple of weeks ago. Iles has done a lot of damage and any new regime must expect more of the same.

That's partly true. Eddie Davies gave him a wide berth and Garty and Anderson both banned him. But the main problem with Iles lies in his inherent prejudices. He knows how much Holdsworth and Quantuma cost the club but he won't publish it. He never published how much BWFC was costing ED year after year after year and even ten years into the job he was still telling his dumbass following that Gordon Hargreaves funded the Reebok.

I'm as unimpressed by this Appleton/JME business as you are, Sluffy. As for Iles, hell will freeze over before he gets round to telling the whole truth.

Are you trying to turn WW into the Beeno Marc II?

NewsNow are reporting on how Norwich missed out on the bargain, Dennis Politic. That copy and paste merchant' from Liverpool Uni, Mr Magoo or whatever his name is, reckons that Premiership clubs are too generous in the amounts of broadcasting money that goes to Championship and EFL clubs.

Club's auditors actually.

I don't do Twitter (and don't want to do either) but it does mean I don't get to see linked comments.

I know that's what he said but confidential means confidential until the legals have been completed and why should JME be the chosen one to broadcast this?

Has Paul Appleton really given JME the right to be an authorised leaker on Twitter before the legals have been done?

Second question first. The arrangements with Holdsworth were almost certainly the subject of an NDA. ED's objective was to try assist in a solvent hand over after Holdsworth and Anderson. ED would have known that Holdsworth was as good as useless and so, between a rock and a hard place, he supported Anderson. If Anderson hadn't arrived on the scene at the last hour ED had prepared for administration. I cannot see that ED would have had a problem with Anderson making a profit if it achieved the desired outcome but KA walking off with £525k before it had happened was a different ball game altogether. I cannot see ED standing for that then still advancing more money.

Pretty confident about the great bulk of it over the last twenty years. There are one or two areas involving transactions with Holdsworth and Anderson that might have been explained more fully. I suspect these have intentionally been left a bit woolly.

If it were the case that KA had taken £550K (or the £525K mentioned in the BL accounts) for his own use in 2017 when, despite ED writing off £198m, Burnden Leisure still had creditors due in one year of £38m, every ounce of newspaper bile would be more than justified. But is that what really happened? KA remained dependent on ED support until ED's last living breath in September 2018 and its hard to see how the club would get through to Christmas 2017 without ED coming up with substantial cash support between June and December 2017. So would ED have countenanced such a payment to KA? Most unlikely imo but in any case we know from the Inner Circle accounts that KA had to find £472K to gain control from Holdsworth and prevent foreclosure by Blumarble, without which ED's hopes or ambitions of a solvent sale would have been crushed. In due course a solvent sale would prove impossible even with Holdsworth out of the way. Its interesting, albeit not new, that journos have a tendency to grasp dubious simplicities and prone to be easily led.

That article wasn't just plain stupid, it was the product of an attitude and mentality that hasn't changed and frankly never will change, just as Iles will never change. Iles is OK if he sticks to football but you may have noticed that the esteemed and mighty Marc Iles didn't get Bonnar's job when he decided to retire - not a moment too soon.

I think that you will find that I have dealt with the £7.5m on more than one occasion. £2.5m possibly advanced to KA by ED to provide financial support to BWFC. c.Sept-Dec 2017. £5m advanced to pay off BM and provide further financial support Sept 2018. If I am right, the £2.5m should have been entered in the books in the 2017/18 year as a directors loan. The £5m may not have been entered in the books in 2018/19, if it (or most of it) went to BM without the bank accounts of BL or BWFC being affected. In-house accountants frequently deal only with the management accounts whilst the financial accounts are left to the auditors who have more expertise in this area. So transactions like the BM repayment might not have been fully recorded in the books of BWFC but left in abeyance until the auditors arrived.. Similarly the agreement of directors fees, bonuses or other charges are also left until the auditors do their work. They have the expertise to advise fully on such matters. There was £10m of ED's previous loans still standing in the books which were to be repaid only on certain eventualities. Its not known exactly what those eventualities were, maybe the appointment of an administrator was one of them. It might have been helpful if Rubin's had explained all this but they may have had their reasons for not doing. I expect KA also had his reasons for bringing Quantuma into the reckoning but it was probably more defensive than anything else. He couldn't be left having to find £7.5m to repay ED trustees without relying on the security for the money.

Maguire brought the 'mighty Iles' into the conversation and I guess you missed this quote from Maguire (courtesy of Okocha 10) "2017/2018 figures are mysteriously missing, preventing disclosure of how much Ken Anderson paid himself that year". Its a shame there aren't enough vowels to come up with a good acronym to include Maguire and Conn with FIBS (maybe McFibs) but they all seem to share the same attitudes and predispositions.

Because Maguire was referring to the accounts on public record, the audited accounts, the ones that are filed at Companies House, the ones that interested parties will look at. He was trying to make out that the audited accounts had not been filed at CompaniesHouse because Anderson wanted to conceal any fees paid to him or any company or person associated with him. Iles was similarly trying it on on Sunday inferring that there was something suspicious about the renogotiated hotel lease in 2016. No -one in their right mind would have lent £5.5m on the security of the old short-term lease but Iles' habit seems always to try to raise suspicion where none should exist. He can't help it though , its ingrained and predictable as cats chasing mice.

I do think that's odd. Very odd. There are a few things that are odd. As a qualified accountant you will know that its IMPOSSIBLE to produce reliable 2019 management accounts without producing reliable management accounts for 2018. Do you agree?

Did someone say they are not? Probably submitted yonks ago to EFL. Iles, McGuire and Conn all seem to be close to the Fake News business. No prizes for guessing what else they might have in common.

Amos had a pre-existing contract that the club could not afford and that was more than he was worth and he and his agent refused to compromise on it even though it was crippling for the club. Anderson didn't have a contract. He agreed to come in essentially on a payment by results basis. We still cannot be sure whether he put in more than he took out, though it presently looks that way, but we do know that Holdsworth took out a helluva lot for doing next to nothing. The administrators meanwhile are being handsomely rewarded for their efforts to date but wouldn't it have been helpful if they had offered a bit more explanation than they have so far?

Whether KA was legally or morally justified in taking fees in 2018 is entirely different to McGuire's (vexatious) insinuation that that was the reason the accounts had not been filed. In fact when KA 'took' a fee in 2017, not only was it disclosed in the accounts, he called a shareholders AGM where he might well have been asked to explain it. It was one of the most obvious questions and he must have expected it but no-one asked it. One of the more interesting questions at the AGM was the position on the Middlebrook Master Plan. KA said there were four parties involved but no progress had been made. The only party he mentioned was the Council but two others would be the club and PBP. The fourth? Probably Emerson, I would have thought. As for the morality of how much 'football people' take or make out of football we could talk about Lineker G, Taylor J, Allardyce S and Amos B to merely scratch the surface.

Mysteriously missing eh? I suspect KA did pay himself something in 2017/18 as a reward for selling Madine for a small fortune, persuading Blumarble to accept £1m less and the club getting another year's Championship income but that 's not the reason the accounts are missing. Big problem over 'going concern' issues and auditors being unpaid are two rather more significant matters. Could it be that Mr Maguire is another 'pot stirrer' in the Iles, Conn mould?

Esteemed and now 'mighty'. What a load of absolute crap. The big questions have not been answered. For example: Who paid off Blumarble and where is it recorded in the books? How did Borassic Bolton manage to stay in business until someone talked Cardiff into squandering £6m+ on G Madine? Why do ED trustees AND Ken Anderson BOTH dispute Rubin's report?