Paying Our Bills

I have heard a two whispers regarding Brent's honouring of financial commitments. Not exactly direct accusations more weary grumbling concerning our illustrious chairman.

The first, which reached me from a person living in North Devon, being that Mr Brent is notorious locally (he lives near Saunton and Saltrock is HQed in a Braunton industrial estate) for being extraordinarily reluctant to pay bills. I'm not for a moment suggesting that they do not get paid merely that they don't get settled until the very, very last possible moment.

The second is concern for the club's repayment policy for the PAST&DT loan. Again no exact details here and the person who I talked to about it clammed up after letting a small, relatively innocent comment slip and wouldn't be pressed further but their demeanour and the subsequent clamming up spoke volumes about their concern.

Now it could easily be that Brent simply gets off on exercising his financial muscle and, like the way a dog that licks its own bollocks, does it simply because he can and the second concern may merely be a manifestation of the first.

But given what we know from past experience a club that is in debt already, a club that is losing money, a club that is being supported by loans from its shareholders, a club gambling everything on an unfunded and ambitious building project, a club that is struggling on the pitch with little prospect of things getting better any time soon, a club that serves up what amounts to slop to the cash paying corporate guests, a club that has been stripped of every means available against which to raise further finance, a club with no players left worth selling and which is worryingly reluctant to settle even small bills to local suppliers is heading for the rocks.

But maybe my fears are ungrounded. It could be that my North Devon contact is talking out of his hat and that the person clammed up about PAST&DT because they shouldn't have said anything at all in the first place but given what we have seen of Brent's relish for playing financial and corporate chicken with both P&A and the council and issuing other ultimata all over the place, especially to those in no position to quibble, it all seems all too believable.

The first thing is atypical of alot of businesses I would have thought.

The second thing could be interesting. The repaying of PAST&DT is symbolic as much as anything. Brent didn't have to pay it back but undertook to do so with a small amount of interest attached. It's oft been highlighted to prove and support Brent's altrusitic side by REAL superfans. Any retreat from the repayment terms would be damaging to Brent and those Brent supporters.

With my moderator hat on I would suggest that posters are very careful about what they put in black and white about this subject and our illustrious owner. If its hearsay make that point clearly (as SFD has) if you haven't heard anything keep your guesses to yourselves.

I used to work for a major insurance company whose yearly profits were in the 100's of millions. They were regularly late paying their bills, to the point that some major companies started to threaten not to deal with them any more. There wasn't a lack of money, just a bit of incompetence and a policy of not paying until the last possible moment.