Time to own up
FANS DESERVE BETTER GUARDIANS
THE number of arrests at football games is on the rise again.
And so is the number of people incapable of owning or running clubs, it seems.
Earlier this week, Scunthorpe United owner David Hilton stuck the club up for sale and withdrew his funding.
Hilton, who only took control in January, deemed his own position untenable due to rising debts and his ongoing court case with former owner Peter Swann.
Scunthorpe’s long-suffering supporters have little to laugh about.
But it was impossible not to chuckle at the irony of what Hilton said when revealing he wanted to bail out.
In a statement he revealed the club was “available to purchase to the right people”.
Hilton became an unpopular figure at Glanford Park, not least because he attempted to ban dissenting fans from the stadium.
A stadium still owned by the former owner, who is locked in legalities with the current owner, who wants to “seek a way out” after eight months while the team are forced to play their home games in National League North at Gainsborough Trinity almost 20 miles away. You couldn’t make it up.
Over in Spain, meanwhile, police have raided the offices of the referees’ committee as part of an investigation into Barcelona’s alleged corrupt payments to an official.
Barcelona face charges of corruption over payments made to Jose
Maria
Negreira, a former vicepresident of the committee, in return f o r favourable decisions.
UEFA is also investigating the club’s behaviour. You wouldn’t think Scunthorpe and Barca had much in common really, but maybe I’m wrong.
Down at Chelsea, meanwhile, American billionaire Todd Boehly continues to blunder on. Chelsea have made their worst start to a season since 1978.
Back then Boehly was just five years old, and while he might have just turned 50, he continues to operate like a kid in a sweet shop.
And to think Boehly, who has ploughed through a billion quid, actually went to the London School of Economics.
In order to take control of a club in the Premier League, certain boxes have to be ticked by interested parties.
Technically, this procedure is know as the ‘Owners and Directors Test.’
Most people know it as the ‘Fit and Proper Person Test.’
The kind of folk a certain David Hilton is now looking for.
Football clubs have stood strong for more than 100 years but can be dismantled in no time. Just ask Bury supporters.
And it will continue to happen until the guardians of the game have stricter rules in
place to protect it.