Irresponsible and Irregular

Yes Peter, the title of the article would be referring to you.

I’ve watched with increasing concern over the last week or two as yet another Cardiff City drama has played out. This time, in addition to some slightly ropey performances on the pitch involving a total inability to hold onto a lead, it’s been revealed that City owe nearly £3m to the taxman.

Now I have a simple question. Did you not realise you had to pay tax? We all have to pay tax. Everyone, unless you’ve got some seriously good accountants. Surely there’s an army of accountants ensuring that the club’s finances are in shape? Did they not realise that you needed to pay tax? If not, sack them now as they’re incompetent.

Whoever made the call to deliberately avoid paying our tax bill (and this is what appears to have occurred) deserves to be hauled over the coals by their bollocks for their sheer stupidity. I fail to see the justification for going down this route. It was not an honest mistake, an organisation of the size of Cardiff City does not make an honest mistake like that.

I just can’t see what City would gain. So you hold onto the couple of million that you need to pay. How much interest do you get from it? What, a £100k, maybe £200k at the most? And if you have held onto it for the interest, then why not, as soon as a query came in, just pay it off. Otherwise, where has the money gone that should have been paid in tax gone? What have we spent it on, and is the business model for the club so ridiculous that it does not accounted for paying tax? And you say you’re running a multi-million pound business without being able to pay your taxes or figuring that in?

Now consider the court costs we’ve had to pay, any possible fines, and the reputational damage done to the club. Also consider the damage done to the fans in terms of their trust in the club. All those people (including some of my friends) who have paid for their season tickets in the hope that it would provide some capital for buying new players, with an eye on pushing for the Prem. Now all that money is being blown on paying back HMRC. Also, what sort of image does this present to potential investors? Basically that we’re a tinpot outfit that can’t manage itself. That’s not exactly a sound investment opportunity now is it? Frankly the club’s management deserves all it gets, including the ire of the fans for being so irresponsible.

This all brings me to man in charge, Peter Ridsdale. Ridsdale has a distinctly dodgy reputation courtesy of his incredibly stupid and incompetent dealings at Leeds Utd. I must admit when he first turned up City I was perturbed, I didn’t want this dodgy bloke having anything to do with the club. But he made the right noises about learning lessons and more transparency. Clearly he still hasn’t learnt his lesson, and the transparency is becoming increasingly opaque every day. So, Peter, was all this dodgy dealing really worth it?

This all highlights how murky and corrupt (financially and ethically) the world of football can be. But I don’t think any one of us is naïve enough to not believe that the football business (and it is a business) is dodgy as fuck.