York City FC rescued
The long awaited rescue of York City football club has today been completed after creditors approved a company voluntary agreement giving them an amazing 62p to the pound return on their debts.
Link: York City rescue imminent
The CVA was approved by creditors this morning, opening the way for the sale of the business to York City Football Club ltd., a new company created by the York City supporters’ trust. The administrator expects to complete the sale later this afternoon.
The club’s administrator David Willis, from Jacksons Joliffe Cork, told Accountancy Age: ‘It has been a complicated job with lots of different creditors who all had their own requirements. The deal was not as quick as we had originally expected.’
But despite these difficulties, the administrators were able to get 62p to the pound, one of the highest returns for preferential creditors in recent football club insolvency history.
Willis explained that the Inland Revenue had insisted on getting 62p and that football creditors’ money was not part of the CVA but would be taken on by the new company.
The club applied to go into administration in December of last year, after the collapse of the transfer market. Although the club had been loss-making in the past, the failure of the ITV digital contract and the fact they had to sell one player for 25,000 instead of the expected 250,000, as the transfer window closed, were the finals nail in the York City coffin.