May 30 2010

Crystal Palace

Jamesey finds it difficult to interpret what exactly is going on regarding the sale of CPFC.

I even had a spring (well a springette, at least) in my step as I sauntered down Chancery Lane after the creditors' meeting on May 17.

As far as anything could look good this disastrous season, things were looking, at the very least, encouraging.

Administrator Brendan Guilfoyle had told us that the club had that very morning been sold to CPFC 2010 and that the consortium had agreed to meet the wages bill in the immediate future.

A CVA was about to be voted upon although it was obvious from ex-czar Simon Jordan's statements and attitude that a penny in the £ to the creditors was in no way enough, in his view.

When it comes to voting, his own £7.8m claim (which is disputed by Mr Guilfoyle and estimated at only £1.8m) plus the Inland Revenue, who vote against CVA's as a matter of policy, could effectively scupper a deal because 75% of the vote would not be achieved.

As far as I can see, this would mean CPFC 2010 withdrawing from the deal and, due to the lack of any other serious contenders, our beloved club going swiftly down the U-bend into liquidation.

Apologies if I have got any of that wrong but that appears to be the situation in the eyes of an innocent in the world of corporate law.

I am also mystified why we have had apparently had to sell Darren Ambrose to QPR to pay the employees when we were told that CPFC 2010 would provide the wages.

The recent announcement of a raft of CPFC redundancies adds an even darker hue to the encircling gloom.

It's all becoming rather like UK plc - massive debts and over-borrowing resulting in another Sword of Damocles hanging above our heads.

Just like the national situation, we knew that deep and stringent cuts would have to come, and come in a massive way they have and will, to club and country.

Maybe a trained economist could also explain why the Brown/Darling solution of printing billions of extra banknotes has never worked anywhere else and brings to mind the stark image of those wheelbarrows full of worthless marks after the First World War?

So unless there is some sort of a deal in the next few weeks, the future looks like selling a top player a month (or two players after Speroni and Clyne) to meet the club's wages.

Then, at the start of the season, assuming our advance season tickets sales are honoured, the match revenues look like being decimated by the former chairman's policy of selling season tickets for years ahead. That money will presumably have disappeared into the morass of debt.

Incidentally I have just heard that our friends from Bermondsey have secured a place in the CCC next season by defeating Swindon 1-0 in the League 1 play-offs.

You can look at that in two ways; either as a bunch of unpleasant and destructive morons rampaging around the CCC, or the thrilling prospect of two extra vibrant and passionate south London derbies next season (assuming there is a next season for us).

In view of the gloomy tone of most of the above column, I had better opt for the latter view.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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