Bill Power court case

[herthab]

i cannot help thinking that had fitton not come on the scene,eventually the previous board would have had to hand the club over to bill power.
 i would take power over fitton given a choice.

I wouldn't. I've seen what Fitton's done at the Club and in many things he's been hands on. BP was an unknown quantity, yes he put some money in and may have been a great chairman, but we'll never know.

Fitton was willing to take us over lock stock and barrel and had to deal with the previous fuckwits in order to do so. BP wanted to buy in.

[Phil_S]

i cannot help thinking that had fitton not come on the scene,eventually the previous board would have had to hand the club over to bill power.
 i would take power over fitton given a choice.

I would too, but there was no choice & the new owners do have a lot more money behind them. 

Bill P & Phil Emmel would have given fans more of a stake in the club, & thats what swings it for me. However, AF may well give us the opportunity to do the same in the future too.

[herthab]

Why would you prefer Power to Fitton?

[Phil_S]

Why would you prefer Power to Fitton?

I've just modified my post above to answer that. The way I see it if we the fans could get a significant stake (influence) in the club we can prevent the likes of Diamandis wrecking the club. The beauty about the fans consortium was that we could have acheived that but still had the backing of some money.

Having said that I myself don't doubt the new boards intentions & as I say they do have more financial clout.

[herthab]

I've just modified my post above to answer that. The way I see it if we the fans could get a significant stake (influence) in the club we can prevent the likes of Diamandis wrecking the club. The beauty about the fans consortium was that we could have acheived that but still had the backing of some money.

Having said that I myself don't doubt the new boards intentions & as I say they do have more financial clout.

I'd rather leave the running of the club to successful businessmen. Stockport are run by the supporters, it doesn't always work out.
Out of interest, how many of the clubs in the top two divisions have significant fan representation at board level?

[Batch]

Fitton or Power? Now some of the figures are known about the debt levels I don't think Bill P had the financial resources to keep the club going forward. I may be wrong.

For that alone I think Fitton was ultimately the best choice for the clubs long term well being.

However I am pretty sure Power would have handled the football side of things better. He'd be on much less of a learning curve given he'd done it all before.
--
Ultimately, I'm just glad we are an ongoing concern with a seemingly open and honest board. I say seemingly only becauseI can't accept good things happening at STFC!

[Phil_S]

I'd rather leave the running of the club to successful businessmen. Stockport are run by the supporters, it doesn't always work out.
Out of interest, how many of the clubs in the top two divisions have significant fan representation at board level?

I'm not sure how many, but one thing is for sure just as turkeys wouldn't vote for Xmas fans wouldn't countenance some of the tricks that Diamandis & co got up to.  I do however take the point about the running of the club being best done by successful business men, but would point out that BillP & Phil E have been pretty successful to make the money in the first place. Having said that I pretty much afgree with Batch's view.

I am though ashamed at the reaction of some so called supporters of STFC on thisis. I'd like to think that their type of "support" was purely for the likes of Franchise FC supporters.
http://forum.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=80436#80436

[santasdead]

I'd rather leave the running of the club to successful businessmen. Stockport are run by the supporters, it doesn't always work out.

I agree, its a couple of successful businessmen, or alot of fans pitching in. There will be more arguements caused by what happens on and off the pitch if more people are involved. A small board = less problems, and less hassle for the club and fans. Fans are there to be fans, owners are there to be owners.

[Phil_S]

I agree, its a couple of successful businessmen, or alot of fans pitching in. There will be more arguements caused by what happens on and off the pitch if more people are involved. A small board = less problems, and less hassle for the club and fans. Fans are there to be fans, owners are there to be owners.

It can also lead to problems if the owners don't have the clubs best interests at heart. Fans do !
Look at how the Pox were stitched up by Kassam, look at Southhampton, but more so look at what Diamandis did to US.

I don't advocate a fans forum for every decision etc, or even fan ownership neccesarily. More I DO advocate a fans representative on the board to give our view point on things. (like S/T renewal deadlines for example). That rep would also need to be suitably qualified to ADD value to the board.

I'll only mention one club which is (in one way) run by fans - Barcelona ?

[pauld]

I'd rather leave the running of the club to successful businessmen. Stockport are run by the supporters, it doesn't always work out.

Stockport are in the same position as Rotherham - they were run into the ground by "successful businessmen" to the extent that no-one wanted to take them on except the Supporters' Trust. By which time, the Trust were left to take over a club drowning in debt, with it's major asset and source of revenue (the ground) sold off from out under them and having to pay high rents to even use that asset. What is surprising is not that the weight of that eventually became too much to bear but the fact they actually managed to keep things going for as long as they did, for much of that time running close to break even

[thepeoplesgame]

An open, honest board consisting of successful businessmen who have their own vision for the club but are open to the idea of being accountable in some small way to the fanbase - and open to offering that fanbase an opportunity to safeguard against future Diamandises (Diamandii?) - would be ideal. And thanks to a lot of hard work from a lot of people (including Bill Power and TrustSTFC, but mostly Andrew Fitton and Jeremy Wray) that's what we've got. Let's make the most of it.

[pauld]

It said the claim had failed. I take that to mean Power & Emmell claimed the money was only a loan but the judge ruled it was shares.

No, just the opposite in fact. I understand the judge ruled, as Bill and Phil have always maintained and Diamanis vehemently denied ("We welcome the opportunity to prove our cast iron case in court" or words to that effect), that the money was indeed a loan, not a shareholding. But the case failed because the judge ruled the loan was to the holding co not the club. In other words, the "folding the holding" scam worked

[Phil_S]

The rulings out :

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/4337204.Town_success_in_Power_s_High_Court_bid/

Basically the judge has ruled that it WAS a loan, as Pail says

[Batch]

So  in other words Bill and Phil were actually right,  but suffer the consequences of trusting the Wills, Diamandis and co.

[Summerof69]

And now they have to go to the supervisor of the administration of the Holding Co., who I believe is a certain Andy Andronikou !!!

I wouldn't be holding my breath for any money.