Bolton continue to rack up the impressive results as they chase promotion out of Sky Bet League One and into the Championship. Yesterday it was a 4-1 walloping of Walsall that saw them consolidate third place in the table.
In recent seasons the story of Bolton Wanderers has been one of relegation and stagnation, the Trotters initially dropping out of the Premier League, struggling in the Sky Bet Championship before eventual relegation to League One.
This season, at least on the footballing front, things are looking a little better for Phil Parkinson’s side, the Walsall win leaving them only four points behind Scunthorpe in second place, meaning that the automatic promotion places are within sniffing distance for the Trotters.
Off the field though, behind the closed boardroom doors, there is still the darkened spectre of finance and losses rearing its ugly head. This comes as the financial stability of the club is again called into question with the financial reports up to 30 June 2015 are readied for publication by Companies House – the availability of which could be public in the coming days.
Whilst Companies House are readying the reports for public dissemination, Bolton co-owners Dean Holdsworth and Ken Anderson are involved in a bit of a tête-à-tête of such seriousness that both parties are threatening to bring in their respective legal teams. It comes about with Holdsworth unhappy, according to a statement given to The Bolton News, at fellow co-owner Anderson using “club’s website as his private mouthpiece to publish false and defamatory allegations about me.”
In the interests of openness and transparency Anderson made the current accounts, still processing through Companies House, available for fans (and thus the wider public) to peruse. This report confirms that current losses for this season are projected to be £11 million and that “the Directors assess that this may well be the level of annual losses that the Group may face in the coming 12 months.”
Last week, Anderson came under criticism from Holdsworth for taking “funds out of the club without prior approval from board members,” something that Anderson answered in an interview with BBC Radio Manchester (foot of page).
Speaking in the interview, Anderson said: “Comments have been made that I have put in £700,000 in five different occasions. The total is correct – £3.5million. It hasn’t been £700,000 on each occasion – on one occasion it has been over £1.5million, on other occasions it’s been £350,000.”
Continuing, and with a distinct barb aimed in the direction of certain others involved in the boardroom situation that is brewing, Anderson says: “The situation is whenever I put money in, unlike anybody else, I’m the only one who puts money in unsecured. Every other person who’s put money into the club is secured either by first charge debenture or mortgage, in some shape or form.”
Speaking of his desire to continue putting money into the club on an ‘unsecured’ basis, Anderson says that this is dependent on fellow co-owner Dean Holdsworth sorting out the finance issue between BluMarble, who funded the takeover of Bolton with a high interest loan to SportShield, Dean Holdsworth’s company.
Anderson said of this situation: “I would invest money now if we could resolve the issues with BluMarble. The only reason I haven’t done that to date is that we have been unable to resolve the issue with BluMarble, which is not my problem in actual fact because I’m part of the club and it’s between Sports Shield and BluMarble. Until Dean resolves that issue with them, it’s not something I’d put money in and not take it back.”
