Fiddling While Wrexham Burns: The Dragons' Off-field Crisis Deepens

The London Gazette has confirmed it: Wrexham Football Club will face a winding-up petition from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs on the eleventh of May. That date falls just three days after the potential second leg of a Blue Square Premier play-off semi-final, a tie the team has an excellent chance of reaching. On the pitch, things look promising; off it, the club is descending into a saga beyond farce.

This latest development was preceded by a bizarre turn of events involving Stephanie Booth, the woman positioning herself as the club’s saviour. Booth had previously announced she had seen a “seven day notice” of a winding-up order, a legal instrument that does not actually exist. The Insolvency Act 1986 provides for a Statutory Demand, which gives a debtor twenty-one days to pay. The club angrily refuted her statement, but the damage was done and the chaos was only just beginning.

A War of Words

In the days that followed, an email leak caused further embarrassment for Booth. She was quick to blame a Wrexham supporter, Wayne Price, who has been asking pointed questions about her intentions and her disqualification from acting as a company director. Booth has since made legal threats against Price, who lives in Spain, though the basis for any such action remains unclear. Any complaint under the Data Protection Act 1998, for example, must first go to the Information Commissioners Office and includes exemptions for publications made in the public interest.

This distraction does little to solve the immediate problem. History shows that clubs of Wrexham’s size rarely go under at the first hearing, provided they oppose the petition. An adjournment is the most likely outcome, buying time for a solution. With former interested party Stephen Cleeve silent on social media since the nineteenth of March, however, it is unclear where that solution might come from.

The club’s own response to the HMRC order was telling. In a statement, it admitted the situation had been “allowed to escalate” before delivering its final flourish. “The HMRC debt is just under £200,000. If the club were able to access a funding pot to clear that debt, then the club’s future could be secured at a stroke.” It felt like a pointed comment aimed directly at the Wrexham Supporters Trust (WST) and its fundraising pot of almost £400,000.

Show Us the Money

If the club’s statement was a clumsy hint, Booth’s was a cudgel. In a public appeal, she declared in block capitals: “THE ONLY WAY OF SAVING WFC IS FOR THE WREXHAM SUPPORTERS TRUSTS TO INVEST THEIR £378,000 NOW.” She offered nothing in return: no shares, no control, no guarantees. Just a demand that the trust hand its money over to a “Wrexham Football Club Donation Account” to solve a problem created by others.

There is a profound moral question here. The current owners, Geoff Moss and Ian Roberts, loaded the club with loans secured against its primary asset, The Racecourse Ground, which they then took for themselves. They have overseen the accumulation of this tax debt while Moss redevelops land adjacent to the stadium for what will surely be a healthy profit. They have already moved their Crusaders Rugby League team into the ground, giving security to the Rugby Football League for a debt that club held. Why should Wrexham supporters, who tirelessly raised their own funds, be expected to bail out the very men who have profited from the club’s situation?

It is an insult to their intelligence.

For the WST to simply give away its members’ money without a vote would be a breach of its constitution. To give it to Booth, a disqualified director who is not the club’s owner and has demonstrated an appalling attitude towards the trust, would be an act of complete surrender. They would be left with no money and no leverage in any future takeover negotiations. As a matter of principle, they must stand firm.

With the Football Conference watching events closely, the potential for sanctions looms. An administration event, for instance, would trigger a points deduction. What would happen if that occurred during the play-offs is a question without precedent. The case of Chester City, who should never have been allowed to start the 2009/10 season, shows that the possibilities are endless. The club’s future is clouded by the behaviour of those who claim they want to save it, and the date at the High Court on May the eleventh draws ever closer.