Our dastardly ex-chairman Scam - any change to spare!?

By: Martyn | July 13th, 2008

On a more serious note, Cardiff City is a club that has never exactly been financially steady. The latter half of last season was marred with the shadow of a court case launched by a shady organisation located in Switzerland called Langstone. Despite being based in this neutral and passive tax haven most associated with chocolate, efficient and discreet banking, watches, and inept European Championships hosts, this organisation with links to Crazy Gang destroyer and our former chairman Sam Hammam wanted immediate repayment on a loan worth £20-something million. According to our chairman and former Leeds United head honcho (our club clearly ignores the Previous Experience bit on CV’s, although it may well be very soon that the board are poring over humdrum ‘Hobbies and Interests’ columns again), Peter Ridsdale, this payment was not due until 2016. So basically, you have someone who has lent another pupil an X-Box 360 game in the primary school playground whining to the hapless teacher that they weally, weally want it back right now, despite promising the recipient it is their’s to enjoy until next week. The major exceptions being that our scenario is very real, very non-trivial, and dressed in adult and courtroom clothing. But some things really never progress from beyond the schoolyard.

Whilst of course not knowing the full in’s and out’s of the case (I don’t think the fans will ever get the full and true story), the threat posed to Cardiff City FC by Langstone trying to paint themselves as the James Bond to the megalomaniac supervillian that we supposedly are, means a dark cloud will hang over the club for the far-too-distant future. The sooner an amicable or favourable conclusion is reached, very, very much so the better.

Once again, I won’t bore you by launching into a huge history of our financial troubles because there are a large amount of sites and stories on the Internet that have covered it before, and they understand and articulate the matters better than I can. Naturally, if new light is shed and becomes relevant to the 2008/09 season in terms of affecting transfer budgets/embargos/personnel, then I shall cover the issues with the magnitude of importance and relevance that they richly deserve.