Cheshire clubs battle through insolvency
TWO struggling Cheshire football clubs that went into administration last month will play on next season.
Chester City has been bought out of administration and Northwich Victoria FC has successfully appealed to the Football Association against a decision to drop it from the Football Conference.
Northwich will now start next season in the sixth tier of English football, the Blue Square North league, while Chester hope to play in the league above, the Blue Square Premier.
The club must wait until tomorrow’s AGM of the Football Conference, which runs the league, to discover if it will be accepted. Northwich will start with a 10-point deduction and the same penalty is likely to be imposed on Chester.
The company behind Chester, Chester City Football Club Ltd, went into administration last month after the club was relegated from the Football League’s lowest tier, League Two.
It had debts of around £7m, with more than half owed to major shareholder Stephen Vaughan. Yesterday creditors agreed to a Company Voluntary Arrangement which will will see them receive 15p in the £1 on their debts.
As part of the deal Mr Vaughan has waived any claim to his debts and bought the club back for £290,000 through a new vehicle, Chester City Football Club 2004 Ltd.
Administrators from Refresh Recovery handled the deal, advised by lawyers from Turner Parkinson in Manchester.
Northwich secured their future earlier in the week after the Football Association reversed a decision by the Football Conference to throw the club out of its league.
An FA panel upheld Northwich Vics’ appeal at the FA’s headquarters in London. The club can now begin the next Blue Square season but must shoulder a 10-point penalty.
The Football Conference decided to throw the Vics out of the sixth tier of English football because the club went into administration after a set deadline of May 9.
If the appeal had failed the club would have faced relegation to the UniBond Premier.
Richard Cramer, managing partner at the Leeds law firm Cohen Cramer which represented the Vics, said: “The decision from the FA Appeals board was a brave one, but in my view a correct decision, given the fact that the sporting sanction of 10 points deduction is very much the modern way of imposing sporting sanctions on professional clubs.”
The Vics went into administration owing around £500,000 in unpaid bills and to creditors. The club was relegated from the Blue Square Premier League last season after finishing third from bottom in the table.
