Salisbury City press statement Salisbury City club CEO, Paul Smith, has sent the following email to the FA following an undertaking from footballs governing body that chairman Greg Dyke will look into the treatment of the club as a matter of urgency.Far from throwing in the towel the clubs new board of directors will seek to ensure justice prevails by any means at their disposal. Dear Greg, Salisbury City are in a state of crisis and on the brink of complete collapse.24hrs after the opening day of the new season the near 70-year history of this club is about to be extinguished. This may not be Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool but to the many supporters of this football club the passion and emotion remain the same; its the be all and end all. The issues revolve around debt, a scandalous takeover and the football authorities who had a duty of care to help and protect this football club. In May the former owners of this club entered into an agreement with a Moroccan businessman who has managed to deceive everyone into believing he would rescue the club with massive financial investment. He acquired 98 percent of the club for a £1 and to date his sole contribution is to steal £4,000 of supporters advance season ticket money from the clubs bank account. He used fake names and documentation leading a High Court judge, Mr Justice Mann, to surmise last week that it was clear case of theft and fraudulent misrepresentation. Needless to say while the former owners should be held accountable for failing to carry out the proper due diligence, the football authorities, notably the Conference and the FA, were equally guilty of endorsing his appointment to the board with a fit and proper persons test that allowed Medi Outail Touzer to take control without any legal checks whatsoever. As it turns out he used a fake name and was merely required to provide an email address, as we subsequently discovered one of many, to secure approval. The dialogue with the Conference board some weeks later came when we employed the services of sport lawyer Chris Farnall as it became fundamentally clear that Touzer had no money to pay down any debts and conveniently disappeared into the wilderness. Initially the Conference were sympathetic but that sympathy didnt last long as they refused to deal with anyone other than Touzer even though, having passed him as fit to run the club we were now attempting to take steps to remove him which were proving to be very problematic. In an attempt to arrest the situation and address the financial issues a group of businessman agreed to finance the club going forward and pay down all the debts. Yet it didnt prevent the Conference from relegating the club from the Conference Premier to Conference South in the interim period. They set a deadline to pay down debts or threatened to throw the club out of the league completely unless they were addressed. The new group which included David Phillips, Jacqueline Goddard, Graeme Mundy, Jeremy Harewood and Mark Winter agreed to personally meet the financial requirements and deposited the money including a £50,000 bond into the clubs solicitors client account. At this point the the former owners, William Harrison-Allan and Jeff Hooper employed the services of London Lawyers Onside-Law and took out a rescinding notice against Touzer. As we were to discover later this notice merely hindered our attempts to reclaim control. Yet the Conference still engaged in conversation with the new investors but conveniently pulled the plug at the last minute sighting third party representation and non ownership issues. You would have thought, knowing steps were being taken to reclaim ownership, that the Conference would help. Unfortunately the dead opposite applied. They took sanctions to throw the club out forcing us to lodge an official appeal with the FA against their decision. Initially the FA were sympathetic but in a further twist Medi Touzer simultaneously launched an appeal.Scandalously he did this without any legal representation and the FA allowed him to communicate merely through an email address. His lack of transparency in providing anyone with a place of residence was to cause us major problems going forward as we were required to serve him court papers at a place of residence nobody knew! Our legal fees at this point alone had surpassed over £40,000. We were now faced with going to the High Court and paying for an FA appeal hearing that would cost in excess of £60,000. As you would probably agree this is absurd for a club of this size. While we took evasive steps to go to the High Court the state of affairs took a massive twist when 24 hrs before we were due to have our appeal heard the independent chairman refused to allow us to attend, once again sighting ownership issues as the reason. I might also add that some of the conduct of the Conference board was entirely unprofessional: notably the general manager Denis Strudwick who appeared to have a clear agenda against the club because of past history. He entered into communication with several ex-players which was outside his remit while Colin Peake, a board member, took to message boards and fans forums voicing his unwanted opinion about the club. The appeal panels decision to deny hearing our case coupled with hearing that of a fraudulent owner led to Salisbury City being thrown out the Conference Completely. Despite numerous legal correspondence from our advisers the FA have completely gone to ground and refused to acknowledge us. How can this be ethically right? Last Thursday we took our case for ownership to the High Court and while we achieved getting several injunctions against Mr Touzer we have to return again on Thursday to put more evidence in front if the judge to try and reclaim complete ownership of the club. It should be noted that Mr Justice Mann also criticised the football authorities for not helping us and the FA for failing to hear our appeal when we had legitimate grounds for ownership rights. He also in his summing up said that there was no doubt we had a clear case for theft and fraudulent misrepresentation against Mr Touzer. Several avenues are now open to us which we have every intention of exploring to ensure we have a legitimate right to be heard by all concerned. In summing up this is a disastrous state of affairs. Even the local MP, John Glenn, has campaigned for justice for this club bringing the issue up in parliament and personally involving the Minister of Sport and writing to the FA. Good, decent people, have come forward to try and save this club offering to meet all the financial shortfall and provide finances going forward to stabilise the club. We would indeed probably be the only debt free club in the Conference yet instead of helping us achieve our goal both the FA and the Conference would rather turn their back on Salisbury City and leave them in the gutter. If we dont get justice the club will completely fold. The ground is leased and without regular football the owners will sell the land for redevelopment. The supporters are distraught and in an emotional state of turmoil. Mr Dyke lives some 8 miles from Salisbury. This is his local club. He has watched football at the club on several occasions last season. It is with this in mind we are pleading for his intervention. We have no wish to take our case to court and take on the FA and Conference but faced with no alternative thats exactly what we will do. All we ask for is a fair, unbiased review and intervention to help us save this club from the prospect of being completely wiped off the planet. Is that too much to ask? Kind regards - Paul Smith (Salisbury City CEO)
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 21:01:08 +0000
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