Thetownend.com

Swindon Town up for sale to avoid administration
     

Swindon Town confirm the club is up for sale in order to avoid administration, with debts thought to be around £13m.
     

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21047858
     

really, that's the first I've heard of it

The bit about the Football League 'may' issue a points deduction if STFC enter administration - I was under the impression it was a certainty.

There is a big difference with us, though, wherein the debt doesn't lie with the banks, the taxman or outside creditors baying for payment. It's just the owner wanting his money back.

I realise any prospective new owner would want the club debt to be £4m rather than £13m, but I cant for the life of me, see how going into admin would benefit the current owners

There isn't a single quote to justify suggesting we'll go into administration. I'm going to get the popcorn out, watch Oxford and Shrewsbury get all excited, and then sit and laugh when it all turns out ok and they have to return to moaning about PDC waving his arms about.

This is what I hope for.

It's what we all hope for Pete. Interesting that Chris Wise keeps adapting the wording of his article slightly. It's now nearer the truth.

The truth? What is that then?

Isn't it more the case the club were caught on the hop by the initial story, got their act together during the course of the morning, contacted the BBC to put their own spin on it and the Beeb have incorporated those corrections. Normal journalism in other words. Where the Beeb can perhaps be criticised is as horlock pointed out in the other thread, in not contacting the club for a quote/viewpoint before running the story.

The club were caught on the hop by the fact that all of a sudden fans wanted answers no doubt. this was as a result of the article and a lot of people not realising we are £13million in debt when a quick look at the accounts could tell anyone that! The only news in the article is that Black is looking to sell. Were/are we ever considering administration? If as we believe the majority of the debt is to the owners then there's no point anyway.

But the point is surely they have ran a story that is not true. How have the club got their act together exactly? They have had to answer national media on a story that said the club were considering admin... which we are not.

BBC are at fault here i do not care what people say

Ooohh go me  :D

I have a bee in my bonnet about this as my employers went into admin last summer and the professional journals were running all manner of stories based upon 'facts' and quotes from an un-named source. We knew who this person was and it was a member of staff who had left the company under a cloud around 18 months previously and set up on his own and thuis had both an axe to grind and a commercial motive!

Just think journalism generally is very poor these days, they just want the story and to make a name for themselves - you know as well as i do that the relevant parties in this case will claim on their CV's that they broke the Swindon administration story.

Incidentally did the initial story actually say administraton or that we were just speaking to accounting administrators as I do wonder if something got lost in translation!

Seems to be getting more and more common in the internet age - shoot first, ask questions later. Worrying that some of the big news corporations are doing it as well, there was a poorly researched and written piece that had little basis on the Wall Street Journal site that sent the Apple share price down a few percentage points this week.

Think a lot of it is caused by articles being rushed to be the first to report the news.

This.

Love it.

What the fuck has Apple got to do with Swindon Town FC? I'm sure the big American multinational can cope with a little hit to their already hugely inflated share price just because of a poor bit of press.

Are you that much of a fanboy that you cry when the share price falters?

Didn't say it had anything to do with Swindon. Just used it as an example of big press printing bullshit stories that they haven't bothered researching or fact checking. And I don't give a fuck about the Apple share price.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply criticism of the club's response. They were "caught on the hop" because the BBC ran the story without checking it - that's where the BBC is at fault. But in terms of the timing/content of the story, and the initial spin on "could go into administration" that comes from whoever put this in front of a BBC journo in the first place. Because Chris Wise sure as shit didn't just wake up this morning and go "I know what'll liven things up today...."

Which is what I've been driving at all day. It's a little simplistic to go shooting the messenger every time there's a media shit-storm around the club. You need to ask how and why it happened. And in the case of boardroom stuff, usually "Why now?" and "Who benefits?"
And that's not news - the club's been very open about looking for new investors since well before the summer and Patey explicitly said Black was looking to sell a month ago.
No.