Conference News: Halifax Drown In Sea Of Debt

Last updated : 11 May 2008 By Stray Shots Team
Local Halifax newspaper the Halifax Courier has reported that shock new figures put to a reconvened creditors meeting showed the cash-strapped Shaymen owed over £800,000 to the Inland Revenue.

The Revenue refused any deal and that effectively finished the club - already over £2 million in the red.

Administrators had been trying to broker a rescue package but speaking after five hours of talks that left liquidation near inevitable, administrator Rob Sadler said, "Halifax Town will probably perish."

It was originally thought the club - which narrowly clung on to its Blue Square Premier League status on the last day of the season last month - owed the taxman around £500,000. That was thought to leave scope for a deal.

But the news that it owed £814,000 meant that even if all the other creditors had accepted the 2.5p-in-the-pound offer originally on the table it would not have been enough.

Mr Sadler said it would have made no difference because creditors owed 75 per cent of the total debt needed to vote in favour of the offer.
As the club owed £2.1 million it meant the Revenue's share of the debt was too great.

"The cleanest way forward is to start from the bottom and build up debt free," he said. "If there is the appetite for it, that's up to the people of Calderdale."

Mr Sadler said the club could only now exist as long as the consortium was prepared to throw money into it.

"There is no chance of the club playing Blue Square Premiership next season," he said.

"There is next to no chance of Blue Square North and a slim chance of Unibond League."

It is now only a matter of time before the club starts laying people off.

Any new club formed in the wake of Town's demise might have to start five divisions lower under a new name in North Counties East Division One. That would put a new-look Halifax on the same level as Brighouse Town.

The decision means that Altrincham are saved from Relegation from the Blue Square Premier.