Murry Group Response

Last updated : 19 April 2009 By Bournemouth Co-Ordinator
In a statement released by the Murry Group, here is what they have to say on the current state of affairs:

Paul Baker issued a statement last evening in respect of the negotiations with The Murry group.

We are responding in order to provide our supporters with the facts behind the delay in completing a deal with Paul Baker and Sport-6.

For the past few weeks we have been in a position to establish first hand the dire financial position the club finds itself in, whilst effectively running the club on a caretaker basis on behalf of the current owners.

As all of our supporters are aware, the owners have to all extent abandoned any contribution to the day to day running of the club. The chief executive resigned and Paul Baker resides in Chester. We have done our utmost to ensure that football continued to be staged at Dean Court, despite having to deal with winding up notices, judgements, and threats of legal action from creditors. We have between us have spent practically every day at the club supporting the staff, players and on match days showing a respect to visiting directors, to ensure the club continues to have the right profile, all this as ministers without portfolio, nobody can question our commitment to try and conclude a deal.

As the truth of the clubs financial predicament became evident, we had no choice but to review any agreements made in principle with Paul Baker and make an offer that reflects the liability going forward and the huge amount of funding the club requires. In our opinion any money the Murry Group has at its disposal should go into the football club to ensure it has a reasonable chance of survival, and not to the current owners.

As Paul Baker has chosen to break a confidence in revealing the terms of our offer, perhaps it would be prudent to reveal the full extent of his demands together with the facts behind, what can only be described as a generous offer in all the circumstances. Paul Baker initially wanted £250,000 from Murry for his shares in AFCB in addition to Jeff Mostyn tearing up his legal agreement. The important thing to remember is, Paul Baker is trying to sell his shares in circumstances where he hasn't paid Jeff Mostyn for the original agreement. How can you demand money when you haven't paid for the goods you are trying to sell?

Prior to our current offer, Paul Baker agreed to reduce his demands, he said he would settle for £60,000 and dividends from any possible future sale of club assets. This was in addition to Jeff Mostyn and Murry writing off the entire debt in order to facilitate a swift deal. We agreed in principle to his new demands and awaited a draft agreement from his lawyers. Since that agreement was received, and prior to our final offer, the club is now faced with a new judgement for a significant amount of money that had apparently already been paid by the club last August, a further winding up petition plus costs from the failed cricket match at Dean Court. The immediate threat of HMRC issuing a winding up notice, and other previously unknown liabilities. We are no longer interested in what may or may not have been offered in the past, any offer was made subject to contract and the completion of due diligence.

We were only interested in receiving an answer to our final current offer.

A final offer was made on the 10th April 2009. This offer took into account the current state of the clubs finances. We have made it clear to all our supporters that we would still need your support to take the club forward.

As of this moment in time we have not had an answer to our offer. We are not interested in counter proposals, we expect our offer to be accepted or rejected, we can then all move on.

The offer made was as follows.

Jeff Mostyn would give up any entitlement to any monies owing to him under the agreements made between Jeff, Sport-6, Paul Baker and AFCB dated the 15th July 2008.Murry would give up any right to any refund of monies paid under his land lock out agreement.All Debentures lodged by any party must be cancelled prior to completion of any deal.

When you take into account there is a huge current debt and funding shortfall of circa £1m, the above offer is substantial. For Jeff Mostyn alone to give up his entitlement is a substantial payment in itself to Paul Baker, especially as he hasn`t paid for the shares in the club. The money paid by Murry was supposed to be held in trust and put towards an Academy for Children and young adults!

We do not believe anyone associated with AFCB would support a payment of any kind to Paul Baker for his shares given the level of current liability and our precarious league position. If you add to the above, the recent winding up petition paid by ourselves, with the help of three VPs, which in itself saved the club from closure over a month ago, you begin to get a totally different picture from the one painted by Paul Baker yesterday.

The delay has been caused by our desire to find out the true position of the club and a desire on the part of Paul Baker to receive as much as he could for his shares. The offer that has been made to Paul Baker is in the interest of giving AFC Bournemouth a potential lifeline.

As stated earlier, we have not received an answer to our offer of the 10th April 2009, just a counter proposal, and found it very insulting to the Club, and the players to be talking about a deal based on relegation on the eve of our important game against Chester City. For the reasons stated above, we are obviously not prepared to accept it.

Having paid the recent winding up petition, together with our very fair offer to Paul Baker. I believe we have demonstrated our desire to give the club a lifeline and a chance of survival.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone associated with the club for their fantastic support, our thanks to everyone who has pledged their financial support to help us take the club forward, and to Eddie and the lads we wish you every success in the remaining games of the season.

Finally, we would like to wish Paul Baker every success in his negotiations with his other interested parties. We will continue to monitor the developments with interest.