If this is true then the council are making a lot of trouble for themselves. They'll have a queue of companies in the town asking for a bail out if they ever hit problems too, after all they all employ local people and are important to the economy of the town.

It's so bad it's in "dire straights".

Surely not, who would have authorised such an action, because if true you're leaving yourself open to claims from all sorts of directions?
We have to remember that a lot of people in the town don't bother with Pools, so they're not exactly going to be dancing in the streets,

Not many businesses bring as much to the Hartlepool economy as Pools though, not saying I agree with it.

They could buy the club n move it to jacksons landing.

I'm shocked at the revelation of these 'consultancy' fees. When Pam said there were bigger liabilities than they knew about when they took over, these consultancy fees sound like the culprits. Were Sage stupid and didn't ask the right questions or were they defrauded. If the latter then where is the fraud squad in all of this. Where is the legal action against Coxhall and Goldberg. If any creditors don't get paid then Goldberg and crew should be at the top of the list closely followed by Sage and the management team. Not a penny of publicly raised money should go to these villains.

I was hoping that administration might be a good option but it seems to me that the only way to stop this madness might well be liquidation and the setting up of a phoenix club. If Sage don't pull the plug then HMRC might just be the ones to do so and put us out of our misery. The Trust needs funds to be in the best position to save something if it is savable or to be the ones to put the phoenix club into place.

Well done Mr I once again for the detective work and for being the sanest voice around.

My bet is Mr I will already be getting pelters elsewhere.

Just say we do go into administration which seem likely to me if there are local buisiness Turing up with invoices and we can't even pay them what will happen with the ground? I meen I know the council own it but I can't imagine the council funding everything ground wise, What if worse comes to worse and we can't even afford to play there on match day? What then?

Can you not prove that these consultancy fees are exorbitant or not the going rate for people with the relative experience? or at least contest them in some way?

There must be contracts in place so it's not a matter of whether they are fair or not, are they legal? How long do they run for? Why were we told the break with Goldberg was a clean break and he had no involvement? Serial asset strippers will know how to extract the last penny and write waterproof contracts.

What's the going rate for a conartist's consultancy fee?

If I own a business and as chairman sign off a purchase order for a product or service then subsequently sell the business including all assets and liabilities, my purchase order is still valid unless it can be proven otherwise.

Well that's a legal loophole that needs addressing.

But thankfully that won't of happened at Pools otherwise a chartered accountant would of spotted it before getting involved, no?

Bingo!!!! The last 2 posts nail it. Either there are existing agreements/purchase orders which Pam won't show whoever wants to buy the club......or it is gross negligence to pay people without such agreement.

Decide which is most likely and the reasons for it

She may be guilty of many things but these invoices are entirely the work of Coxberg and his cohorts.

So she just lied when she spoke at the trust meeting and said that Coxhall and Goldberg had no ongoing involvement in the club. Her stock falls lower with each revelation.

Mr I who are all these people? I've only heard of Goldberg before. Can you shed any light on them?

People who have submitted consultancy / introductory invoices. All seem to operate from linked offices. Offices which also linked Harris and Murrell to Patel. Patel is a Birmingham based solicitor and company formations agent. Foxx was previously known as Fraser which links back to the bad lads Arber was previously involved in.

She was talking about involvement going forward. I have no reason to disbelieve her on that.

I’m a good troll and I had her Sussed within minutes of her opening her pie gob. I got pelters for it. Even had someone say what I was saying was right but I was saying it in the wrong way !

If you want to have a go at me again can you please do it now as I’m drinking very cold lager in a bar in very warm Dembulla, Sri Lanka.

I won’t get upset !!

I don't go along with the 'she's the same as Coxall' theory. I don't believe she started out with bad intentions either but I do believe she got out of her depth very quickly and tried to blag her way through it. We should have been much more aggressive in demanding the books early on. I did take this position in the Trust meetings but was outnumbered. Some were too close and took her word as gospel.

The last 3 sentences say everything i said to a Trust chap. I think he agreed but may have been in a position that precluded him from saying so !!

Please enlighten me. In what way would someone on the Football Trust Board get too close the owner of the foottball club? How on earth would that happen? If that is the case then someone on the Trust Board needs removing.

Have to agree with you Mr Afar. Would be very bad news for the Trust if it turned out somebody on the Board was overly close to the owner. There is no need to be hostile towards each other but a Trust has to be, and be seen to be, independent.

When you purchase a business you get a guarantee to the effect that the seller has revealed all liabilities and contracts (well any competent business man would). On that basis when invoices for undisclosed consultancy contracts come in you go after Coxhall for the payment. Coxhall then goes bankrupt and you're left holding the baby. Given the close association of all of these dodgepots it just smells of collusion and fraud.

There's many places I'd choose to be rather than Hartlepool but Sri Lanka is not one of them.

You obviously haven’t been then it’s an amazing place.

I don't like Sri Lankans though.

I think you got pelters for shit stirring and talking in riddles. I was the one who said you have went the wrong way about being right, I think this latest post highlights that perfectly. You have done the Trust and the side of common sense no favours throughout this by baiting people, clearly for enjoyment and acting in an incredibly smug manner. You got pelters for that as well.

They are even very hard to dislike unless you dislike smiley, welcoming warm people. Arjuna Ranatungu was a bit of a twat mind.

Right, lets get right down to it NOW.
The Trust needs to get itself crawling back to Mr I, apologise profusely and beg him to return. Hopefully he will forgive them and once again spearhead operations. They should allow him to form whatever team he thinks is needed to get us into the best possible position available to us.
GET THIS DONE AND GET IT DONE NOW.

Seconded

You've just described exactly what I don't like about them.

I'd ask the question, would Mr I want to? But he clearly still cares deeply about me and the club, probably more about me though.

Mr I is invaluable to the Trust and I don't know what's gone on, nor do I care to know, but fact is Hartlepool United, in whatever form it takes, will be poorer for not having him part of it.

guess who made these two statements in may 2017 and it wasnt gary...

1."i want this to be a transparent ownership with good governance and accountability"

2." i can personally assure all of you that money received into the club will be kept in the club and used for normal club operations and is fully under my control"

.....soooooooooooo ................wheres the money gone then ??

PJ. Shut up

You don’t like me. Fair enough. You agree with me though. Accept that rather than trying to justify why you don’t like agreeing with me

I don’t know you at all so to suggest I don’t like you is ridiculous your online persona has been massively divisive over the last few months especially though. You are on holiday in Sri Lanka now for example trying to spoil for a fight whilst being incredibly full of yourself. I’m not playing tonight, sorry.

Only Mr I can answer your question but I am clinging to the best straw I can get hold of right now, which is............once a Poolie, always a Poolie.
We need his drive, positivity and mental stamina, we really do.

I agree.

Mostly the Trust needs his massive ego and single minded drive to become chairman

He’s got too much off for the Trust to lose, sometimes you need somebody in a room who sees things slightly differently.

PJ. I’ll pop to the local market tomorrow. See if I can get you a kilo of self-awareness. Can’t promise like !!!

No you don't: you might manage to negotiate warranties, you might not. And guarantees are only worth the fight for if the guarantor has funds.

And they weren't undisclosed if they were recorded in the books.

I'd not make your last statement without a fuller understanding of both the facts and the law.

Mr I is totally correct - and it is not a legal loophole. You just can't moralise after the fact.

And as for the chartered accountant comment:
What was she to do? They were in the books - she had to accept them or, possibly, negotiate them away
And there are good chartered accountants and bad ones. There are ones who specialise in turnarounds and some who are corporate financiers; some write up books and some run businesses. Was she out of her depth - or was she given a really bad hand of cards and has played them badly?

They had no involvement - other than being creditors?

The most relevant questions are...why after nearly a year has gone by hasn't she been able to present the financial condition of the club????
Why are interested parties falling by the wayside one by one??????
Why does a competent businessman turn round and say that he is unable to project how much it is going to cost him going forward?????
She is allegedly an accountant for Christ's sake.
My wife looks after accounts and she knows where every penny has been, is going, the date on it and how many teeth the guy had who minted it.

I'm just wondering about a post that Mr Kint made about money laundering.

We know football clubs can be used for this purpose because there is a decent flow of cash, some from the turnstiles, some from bar and food sales. Less than there was before season tickets and card payments but still a fair bit.

We know there is a list of people who get consultancy fees from Pools but appear to do nothing. Some of them are allegedly linked to bad lads of one sort or another.

If I was a bad lad, which I'm not, I could have got Pools for nowt and milked it to pay myself. I could have also taken dodgy cash from my naughty associates and then paid them clean money back as consultancy fees. Only problem would be if somebody who knows business very well and was interested in taking over saw my books. They'd probably spot this and run a mile. Course that wouldn't bother me if I'd already passed the club on to somebody else, maybe in exchange for money they'd already loaned me. They'd probably try to cover it up specially if there was an overlap between them being employed at the club and me paying cash to my associates.

I didn't do any of that but it is possible that somebody could have? I don't know but maybe the police should be checking.

I can't believe its not illegal. The 'lovely lovely person' could walk in to any small business and do exactly the same.

Them not nice people more accurate

I guess neither of us know what was in the books but Pam clearly stated at the Trust meeting that they had discovered liabilities that they knew nothing about so I'm guessing they weren't in the books.

You are correct that I don't know the facts which is why I only suggested it doesn't smell right. Fraud was the wrong word, but there do appear to be close associations between some of these people that warrant further investigation by people who are aware of the facts.

well said