It seems that Southend's crisis is deeper than people thought.
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King denies cash crisis
10:40am Wednesday 2nd September 2009
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By Chris Phillips »
CP: Spencer Prior hasn’t been paid for his benefit match in May yet. Why is this?
GK: “We had arranged the match for the year before but we had to postpone it when we got into the play-offs.
“He [Prior] didn’t help us at all and we didn’t even know who the match was against until a week and a half before the game.
“We found ourselves short of time and because of that it was quite a poor crowd on the night.
“Spencer turned up not even dressed for the match five minutes before kick-off.”
CP: But that doesn’t explain why he hasn’t been paid.
GK: “He hasn’t been paid yet but he will be because it’s a a contractual obligation.”
CP: You must understand why it is a worry for the fans though?
GK: “No, I don’t understand the concern.”
CP: And what about the players not being paid on time as has been suggested by Spencer and other sources?
GK: That isn’t true. There was one player who didn’t get paid on time one month but he had left and was accidently deleted from the payroll too soon.”
CP: Does this not hint towards a cash-flow problem?
GK: “No.”
CP: But Spencer Prior hasn’t been paid, the players are reported to have been paid late too, there’s the winding up order, the fact we only seem to sign players on loan and now we are sending our own players out on loan who we can’t afford to keep.
GK: “Who is that?”
CP: Alex Revell.
GK: “He went out on loan because we didn’t think he had done well enough.”
CP: So there aren’t any fears that the club may go into administration?
GK: “No. It seems some people don’t have anything better to do than to start these rumours.
“It’s all well and good moaning from the outside but these people want to be in our seats and then they would realise how hard it is to run a football club.”
> SOUTHEND United were given three months to pay an unpaid £660,000 debt to HM Revenue & Customs in July. The decision was made by London’s High Court and the case was part of a winding-up order issued by HMRC. Blues have to repay the money by October 28
