‘We don’t want to go down that road’
Maidenhead United FC: But Griffin says club would consider loan option
Having worked hard to release the club from the shackles of debt when he first bought the club, chairman Peter Griffin has said he’s keen not to go back down that road by taking on loans to complete the season.
That said, if there are no other options on the table from Government or the National League, and the only alternative is scrapping the season immediately, he says they would consider a loan to guide them through to next season. The club was due to take part in another meeting with the National League this week, to discuss the options once again for moving forward, but it seems the Government intends to stand firm on issuing aid for the remainder of the campaign through loans rather than grants.
Griffin suspects many of the larger clubs will want to continue with the season, but he can’t be sure every club will feel the same way and it would only take one or two to say they won’t carry on for the league to be put in a very difficult situation.
He admitted the season was in limbo at the moment, with matches continuing for the time being but with no assurance the season will be finished.
“We wanted to give the league longer to try and resolve this,” said Griffin. “We’ve asked for the league to continue making representations to the DCMS to get more of the money available as a grant. We’ve also written to our local MP to highlight the issue and the
good that we do.
“It’s not just about the first team. We’ve got schemes which are assets to the community, and we don’t want clubs to go bust because of this, either now or in a year or two because they’ve got loans they can’t service.
“The loans are long term, 10 or 10 years, low interest, with a number of years before the first payment is due. But it’s still loans hanging over you as a club.
“The club was massively in debt when I first took over. The first five or six years we were just paying down a lot of money to pay off tax bills, overdrafts, and bank loans. There were debts to the breweries and to everyone. It was a few years ago now, but we got it done and we don’t want to go back down that road. We managed to get ourselves onto a firm financial footing.”
He added: “But if we need to get through the next few months, we might have to consider that option(loans).
“It’s one of the options, I guess. I don’t know.
“Because I don’t know how many clubs in our division are going to turn around and say, ‘we’re not going to take on a loans, therefore we’re not playing’. We just don’t know at the moment.”
With some of the bigger clubs having invested a huge amount of money on pushing for promotion back into the Football League, Griffin can’t see them giving up on the season without a fight.
He said: “A lot of big clubs will want to carry on. All the clubs are hoping we can get more grant funding, rather than just loans.
“The big clubs have spent a lot of money. Grants or not they’ll not be able to cover their outgoings this season, so they’re not going to give up on the campaign without a fight.”