OTD - Chelsea 2 Wimbledon 5 (Wise 2, Gibson 2, Cork) 👍

DO - looks totally corrupt… Presumably Northampton get away without any further consequences such as a points deduction? The least they could do would be to declare our away game null and void and award a 3-0 win to us, no…? 🤷🏻‍♂️🤪

£400k - small beer. They do things properly up in Northampton [Link]

Trigs - in Denmark when you are pregnant, you are given a parenting test (FKU). if you fail, your child is taken into care as soon as it is born.

Just sell the fucking club.

£400k is not in the past as it affects us today and into the future. When the person in charge of PLC finances is also DTB Treasurer and maybe in charge of our Finance Committee then there is no oversight. There is clear conflict of interest and there is £400,000 of fans’ money which has disappeared without explanation or action.

The galling thing about the missing money is the fact that we were specifically warned about that company and the decision maker(s) were too arrogant to listen. Same with caterers and tickets. All in the past admittedly , but the loss of volunteers is ongoing, and the disregard for debenture holders is a clear sign that no lessons are being learnt.

The DTB should be in oversight mode on finances as in other things. Just setting the framework for reporting etc. Do any of the DTB, having lost Ian and Simon, possess experience of being an owner or a main board director of a medium sized company? I know we have some such experience on the plc board but the DTB needs to have the skillset to oversee effectively.

I personally doubt that there is anything particularly nefarious about our finances or controls - I think that it is more a matter of people trying their best but being out of their depth in terms of the complexities of what is going on with a complex (albeit not that large) business which is in financial difficulties, perhaps that's just me being naiive. In any case if there is anything being hidden it will come to light when we have a change of control, either voluntarily or post-administration, assuming that any buyer will do proper due diligence.

Quite right about corporate manslaughter in the Post Office scandal - those people were bullied into their suicides by the management, and by the top brass at Fujitsu - Paula Vennells didn’t come out of it too well, having her CBE revoked…. 😯

This would have been high on my priority list if elected. Makes me wonder whether this is the real reason I have been blocked from standing for two years running.

Scary, NickW. With that amount and the unjustified increase in wages it does raise concerns about our financial controls and transparency.

Agreed. The silence on this matter compared with the amount if money involved is of major concern.

Trigger - I suspect that the legal costs are being accounted for, they will just be hidden somewhere within the £5.6M of "Administrative Expenses", for which no proper breakdown or analysis is provided (which is just one aspect of the way in which the accounts are treated as a compliance document rather than as a communication tool)

Somebody at the sgm knew a LOT about the £400k but was very restrained and didn’t give away the details. Seems a bit unfair that some members know the story behind the missing money but not others

But as of Monday 15th December you and I won’t be able to raise resolutions anymore.

If you state the truth then there’s no legal come back on anything. The “legal reasons” excuse is weak. There’s no update on it. No legal costs accounted for. No action at all. Just the traditional DTB silence.

Sir Ed too?

Yes, Trig, saw that, Excellent news. (For a change)

In a subject shift I see that the police are said to be considering corporate manslaughter charges in the Post Office scandal case.

Aideen (from 11:33, apologies for the slow response!). All of those are fair points and definitely weigh in the "is the club well run?" question - I suppose that i was basing it on the fact that the standard match day operation feels pretty well organised - but undoubtedly we have made some big errors of judgment (in particular, I suspect that the fact that the mystery £400k loss can't be talked about for legal reasons also has the dual benefit of sparing the blushes of several people in the club hierarchy)

OI - exactly, I knew kids who went on to go to prison, to commit suicide, to run companies, to go to Oxford/Cambridge, etc etc - not all the same person/people, to be clear 🤪 and not always the ones you might have expected to do either/any of those things…. 🤷🏻‍♂️

It also feels like knuckling down and doing a modestly-waged job day in day out is no longer a route to being able to afford even a modest life.

It’s society not the kids. One day they’ll be parents too and how are they supposed to raise decent human beings based on their own life experience?

Kids are badly behaved but it used to be catapults and ball bearings or pea shooters they (we?) had as well as eggs (maybe they still do). Thinking this generation is particularly dreadful is generally wrong. At least two of the people in my class at Holly Mount primary (very middle class) were in trouble with the police by age 11.