Supporters Trust off to a good start
Sean Jarvis outlined what has happened since Chris Moore withdrew his support. Basically the club is in limbo as it has no chief executive, no chairman and two inactive directors. An investor did come in with an offer but Moore rejected it and they decided against upping the bid. Sean Jarvis and Neil Joy decided to do something positive and asked for the help of John Stockwell (Business Link North Manchester) and Adrian Stores (Acrobat Consulting ) to help them draw up a survival bid. Adrian will be working with the Trust over the next 12 months free of charge and will be doing everything to prevent this club ever getting into the position where one major shareholder rules the club.
£250,000 will come from the Trust and a similar amount from the Advisory Group. Any deals on players leaving the club would have to be in consultation with Iain Dowie. They hope to raise another £500,000-£750,000 before December and also hope to get someone to invest a six figure fee. The deal with Pete Ridsdale fell through but a property developer then stepped into the fray. Chris Moore agreed to loan Jarvis and Joy £150,000 for players wages. The deal with the property developer was that he would loan the club £4 million to buy back the ground and then buy it off the Latics for £5 million, the £1 million surplus going to the Supporters Trust. A clause would be that the ground could never be knocked down and developed.
Some of the land could be sold off with 50% of the profits going to the Latics and eventually the Trust would be able to buy the ground back. With all the pieces in place, Chris Moore changed his mind on a part of the deal and never turned up to the meeting.
The staff had a meeting and decided to go down to Oxford to confront Moore through a protest. When they reached Birmingham they were told to turn the bus around as a new bid had just come in from a Norwegian group and any protest could ruin the chances of the deal. The group are not thought to be multi-millionaires, but have sufficient clout to sort the club out. It is hoped that this latest offer will be concluded on Wednesday. If not Sean and Neil's deal may be revived. It is not known if Moore is selling the players off just to spite Iain Dowie or not.
Simon Binns from Supporters Direct explained that it's up to the fans to get the Latics out of this situation because it is them who will follow the club through thick and thin. Chairman, directors, managers, players come and go but the fans go on forever and will have some power with a majority shareholding. Andy Ritchie agreed with Simon and commended Dowie for staying at the club and said that his speech on Saturday was a real tear jerker.
It was stated that the club owe £2 million and need another £1.5 million for running costs and it could take two years to get back on an even keel. It is rumoured that Chris Moore’s company, Torex, is in the process of making 50+ staff redundant "to keep company profits in line with city expectations".