Spencer Day
advertisement
Football: Day reluctantly seizes control at Boro
By Jon CouchJanuary 19, 2012
SPENCER DAY insists he wants rid of the ownership of Farnborough Football Club by the beginning of next season after reluctantly taking the reins this week.
The Boro manager revealed last weekend that had taken control of the club after takeover talks with a consortium fronted by former club captain Tim O’Shea broke down.
But he made it clear the move was only meant as a desperate, short-term measure to prevent the club from going bust for a second time in four years and insists he wants out at the earliest opportunity.
Day took over at the club on Monday and immediately paid off a heavy five-figure sum to HMRC, an amount due on the rent of the Rushmoor Stadium as well as several other bills.
Having paid off the taxman, the Conference has now lifted the transfer embargo imposed on the club and Day is now free to scour the transfer market to strengthen his squad and save the club from relegation.
Day said: “The bottom line is I’m not happy. I reiterate, I’ve not come to the club to own it. But what can you do? Farnborough is a great club, it’s got good incomes and fantastic people, if we didn’t do this now
it would have folded.
“There is certainly no white knight in me, in fact this is a terrible time for me personally to be doing this, so papers have now been signed with [selling agents] Turner Butler and the club is up for sale.
“This is not a distress call. My company can fund the club for a reasonable amount of time so a sale is not urgent, but I would like to get this agreed by pre-season, but it has to be to the right person.
“This week we have cleared off 100 per cent of the debt owed to HMRC and the club is now up-to-date on its payments with a zero balance. That makes it an attractive proposition.”
Day also revealed that talks the consortium led by O'Shea and his business partner Justin Barnes broke down over the running of the football side of the club, fuelling speculation that both men wanted to manage the side.
He added: “Tim O’Shea’s consortium did make a new bid recently, the financial bid was acceptable, but it has
fallen down in legals due to the football contract that I would require. I’ve come here to be a football manager and sadly we couldn’t agree terms.
“I thank them for their bid but it’s not longer acceptable and now because the club is in such desperate need to get sorted there has to be some cash injected into the football club to get us on a sound footing, so
that’s what we’ve done.
Asked if there was any room for negotiation, Day added: “I’d never say never but the legal emails exchanged this week suggest the deal is dead.”
Browse Sections
