Town chairman’s firm Pure Legal in administration

PHIL Hodgkinson’s primary business, Pure Legal Limited, has gone into administration along with several associated companies, but Town will not be affected.

The message from the club is that as a business they are not legally or financially affected by the news and nor will they be.

Huddersfield Town are 75 per cent owned by Pure Sports Consultancy Limited, a completely separate company owned by Hodgkinson which has not gone into administration. The remaining 25pc of Huddersfield Town is owned by Dean Hoyle.

The main thing for Town fans to know is that this means there is no risk that the club will also be put into administration as a result of Pure Legal’s current situation.

On top of that, the club assure us that they are fine financially and have no reason to believe that will change in the short, medium or long term.

The Examiner understands that former chairman and current 25pc owner of the club, Dean Hoyle, is willing and able to resume putting money into the club if and when required.

We understand Hoyle has already begun that process and financed the club’s wage bill for October.

On top of that, Town are helped by being in a more self-sustainable position than many of their Championship rivals.

Their accounts for 2019/20 show they were spending just 57pc of their revenues on player wages – the lowest in the Championship at the time the figures were reported, and less than half the divisional average of 121pc.

Their wage bill has only fallen in both the 2020/21 season and the current campaign as their well-paid Premier League stars have gradually departed.

Town now have just one senior player in the squad who was also present during their Premier League days, that being captain Jonathan Hogg, who arrived four years before their promotion from the Championship.

The club’s largest outstanding debt is to Hoyle and the next repayment of £4m is due to be made in February.

However, Hoyle has previously been willing to defer payments when the need has arisen, and significantly restructured the payment plan before the last set of accounts were published.

It is therefore likely that he would do so again, with sources indicating he has no interest in putting the club into financial difficulty going into the January transfer window.

Because Hoyle remains a 25pc shareholder in the club, it is both his interest and his responsibility for the club not only to remain a going concern but to be successful – even if he were not a fan of the club.

There are still questions to be answered over where Phil Hodgkinson now fits in with Huddersfield Town, and what comes next as far as their ownership structure is concerned. That should become clearer in the coming weeks and months.

It is difficult to imagine that his position as chairman is tenable in the longer term if he is not in a position to finance the club himself.

There will also be questions over the ongoing talks to take effective control of the John Smith’s Stadium and whether or not they may be affected given Hodgkinson has been a key figure in negotiating the deal with Kirklees Council and the Huddersfield Giants.

In the here and now, the important thing as far as the football club is concerned is that they have not been put in any immediate peril by Pure Legal going into administration, and nor do they expect that situation to change.