I appreciated the length of the email as it's valuable for us all to have access to this information. I have to admit, though, that I found it difficult to suss out exactly what I was being asked.
One question I have is about the back-dated rent the club has been asked to pay. How is it possible that Meadow can continually shift the goalposts in this way? Does the club not have a written rental agreement drawn up with Meadow which makes it clear what the rent situation is? Surely the club either has to pay rent, and would be aware of this, or it doesn't?
Since the stadium was purchased by Greendale Property/Hadley/Meadow there was always an agreement, signed by Nick McCormack as the majority shareholder, for Dulwich Hamlet to play at the stadium. The assurance was that the club would not pay this sum and it was never requested via invoice until recently when the planning application was withdrawn. Even when Meadow controlled all the club finances this amount was not deducted from income received and distributed by them to the club.
Also is part of this debt due to the fact that Meadow were previously funding the club but are now asking for this money to be paid back? Was the football club previously aware, while Meadow were spending this money, that it was in fact building up debt that would be passed to the club? Or did Meadow previously state that the club would not be responsible for this money?
Meadow/Hadley/Greendale Property had always promised to hand over a debt free club once their development was agreed. In addition, we as a Football Committee were never given any financial information. There was one meeting with Meadow where I was shown a budget but after being talked through it I was not allowed to keep a copy. The Football Committee have never had any meetings with Meadow about future operation of the club as it was always their sole option to hand the club to the Supporters' Trust. As part of this both Hadley & Meadow have had a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Trust about handing over the club. As a result, the Committee merely fulfilled the administration of the football side of the club and commercial income raising until Meadow withdrew their involvement.
From the financial returns that are supplied to the League, it became clear that the club's indebtedness was rising, although we were not privy to any financial detail until a couple of weeks before they withdrew any involvement and even then it took many weeks to get this information and it was supplied to allow the Trust to plan for their eventual takeover. None of us could have no influence on the model that they created. We also received no credible replies to questions about it. What is clear is that to show the need for a new stadium there was a concerted effort to create/show unsustainable losses and there was not a thing any of us could do to control it.
The reason we had no influence is that ,until recently, the club has had one Director, Nick McCormack, who allowed Meadow to act as his agents and who signed an agreement with them that continues to give an option over all his shares (which is around 98% of them) and currently prevents us from seeking any new investment that isn't a gift. The club now has 3 Directors as both me and Tom Cullen have been added to prevent us acting as Quasi Directors in dealing with the club's affairs. We have been in talks with all parties over the club's future and continue to be on an almost daily basis.
Upon the withdrawal of their Meadow involvement, we as a football committee suddenly had to take over the finances of the club with no handover of information. It has taken months to work out all that we pay and try to balance the books. Because we have been playing catch up all the time, it means there has not been much time to plan forward. On the figures that we prepared after a few weeks of finding out what we paid and when, we believed that there would be a very small shortfall of income based on gate income and the potential bar profits that were promised. However, as we have stated, the costs of a matchday are out of our control and they actually amount to about 25% of gate income which are charged including stewards, turnstile staff, security, stewards, rent (now being paid game to game), cleaning, light & heat. Then add in the fact that when Bar Profits were requested that they were withdrawn without any previous advice and I am sure you can see the issue.
Also the whole thing about the extra £1 gate entry being required for VAT - was that extra money being put towards VAT or was it not? If it was, how can it be that the club is now being hit with the VAT bill?
The extra money was meant to create additional income to cover VAT. The current bill was created by somebody not declaring gate income properly and this was subject to an HMRC investigation. There is also an allegation of theft of a similar amount that represents some of the losses. It is our accountant who has dealt with this matter and agreed a figure with HMRC that we now have to pay.
I'm no legal expert by any stretch but it seems to me as if Meadow are just making up a lot of this stuff as they go along and I'd have thought that a decent lawyer could surely pick a lot of this stuff apart. What exactly were the original terms of the club's relationship with Meadow and, if those terms are now being changed, has the club sought legal advice over this?
