We need £50,000
By Adam Summers
Monday 8th June 2009
DIRECTOR Ian Winsor has revealed that Weymouth Football Club
requires a short-term investment of £50,000 to ensure
its survival through the summer months.
The club secretary has also moved to explain why Barclays
Bank has made the decision to end the non-League outfit’s
overdraft facility.
In a statement made by the club on Sunday it was announced
that Barclays had foreclosed on the Terras but Winsor today
sought to clarify the position.
He said: “That statement was not wholly accurate. The
bank has not foreclosed on us, they have just withdrawn their
overdraft facility which they want to do in stages.”
When quizzed about the overdraft facility chairman Ian Ridley
admitted to Echosport that the club had reached its £25,000
limit and that the personal guarantor is ex-chairman Malcolm
Curtis, who said yesterday that he notified Barclays that
he no longer wanted to be named on the account back in December.
Winsor added: “The overdraft is secured by a personal
guarantor. That guarantor has decided he does not want to
be guarantor anymore, so another person has been put forward,
who is quite an acceptable option.
“However, the bank has decided it is not interested
in football clubs and the fact is they simply do not want
our custom anymore. That is why I am now looking into alternative
banking arrangements.”
Winsor went on to add: “We are all working very hard,
day and night, to secure the future of the club and believe
me we will not go down without one hell of a fight.
“We have worked hard on producing a sustainable budget
for next season but what we are still struggling with is the
existing debt.
“At the moment it is a difficult time as we are in the
off season.
“We have used the season ticket sales as deferred income
so the club has very little money coming in at present and
that is why we need a short-term investment to get us through
to the start of next season. “And the amount of money
that is needed is not substantial. We need £50,000 to
get through the next couple of months and it is no secret
that if we do not find that then someone will seek to wind
us up.”
The board did launch a share sale in April in a bid to raise
funds but the initiative proved unsuccessful, leaving Winsor
still holding the majority shareholding in the Terras on behalf
of the board via Make It So Ltd.
He said: “Make It So was supposed to be a temporary
measure. Initially the directors of that company were Gary
Calder, Mark Golsby and myself.
Control “But when Gary and Mark resigned as directors
they signed their shares over to me with the idea being that
I would hold those shares on behalf of the board to sell either
in terms of a share issue or to someone else.
“Unfortunately, people have not come forward to buy
them so Make It So still owns 76 per cent, which means economically
I do have control but as I said I am doing it on behalf of
the board.
“I could transfer the shares over to the other directors
but that would just make more paperwork because ideally in
the future we would like to transfer them to the Terras Trust,
the fans and the people of Weymouth.
“The fact is that we are still trading and our debt
is very minimal compared to some other clubs of the same standard.
“We just need to find a short-term investment to get
us through to the start of next season when gate receipts
and other revenue will begin to come in again.”
It is believed that club officials were due to hold talks
with former AFC Bourne-mouth chairman and sports lawyer Trevor
Watkins yesterday.
Ridley, who did not deny or confirm that a meeting had taken
place, said: “The club is exploring all avenues.”
