Our opponents tonight are yet another club who have hit hard times of late financially having gone into administration in late November. The obvious consequences of that being the ten point penalty and subsequent player sales in the January transfer window that have seen the Hatters drop down from a mid-table slot to a seeming three-way fight for the League One wooden spoon with fellow ten point victims Bournemouth and Port Vale. A deal with The Luton Town Football Club 2020 Limited has recently been accepted by administrators The P&A Partnership though and the Kenilworth Road club look likely to come out of administration within the next few weeks, the two recent FA cup ties with Liverpool no doubt helping matters. The Hatters, according to TV presenter Nick Owen who is fronting the consortium, still won't be able to sign players on loan ahead of the traditional Football League deadline Thursday near the end of March however. That makes it seem even more obvious that the end of this season will simply be a case of tidying up the books and getting things back on an even keel for the 2020 consortium. One of the first jobs for the new owners being an effort to push through plans for a new ground on green belt land near Junction 12 of the M1. The potential stadium, near the Bedfordshire village of Harlington, being a suggested 20,000 all-seater that would cost around the £30 million mark. Like many clubs have found recently though, especially Brighton in their efforts to leave the Withdean Stadium, opposition comes from all quarters with mid-Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries actually presenting a 3,100 strong name petition to parliament to try to stop Luton Town in their tracks. Dorries commenting on the potential new ground : "Once the application has been submitted I will be encouraging local residents to make their representations to the planners opposing this development. This is the wrong development in the wrong place and would severely undermine the quality of life for residents in Toddington and Harlington." The 2020 consortium say that they are ahead of target though, as they hope to submit their planning application in July after initially expecting to be setting the wheels in motion later in the year. It looks like being a long fight between the Hatters, the planners and local residents however, with villagers from the area desperate to retain a strip of treasured green belt land which provides a natural barrier between Harlington and the M1. Bournemouth are another club under severe financial pressure in the bottom reaches of League One that we still have to play at Brunton Park this season. After many years of continuing struggles to pay the bills the Cherries finally went into administration at the start of last month with debts at around the £4 million mark. The appointed administrator to the club being the infamous Gerald Krasner of Leeds United fame. The Dorset side having little option but to hit the ten point penalty buffers after being issued with a winding-up petition from HM Revenue and Customs. Chairman Jeff Mostyn commenting : "We are extremely disappointed at the stance taken by the Revenue in issuing the petition without any consultation or negotiation to reach a reduced settlement. We understand the stance taken by the Revenue applies to all football clubs in as much as they will not negotiate unless they receive preferred status." The Cherries were forced to take their medicine though with Krasner actually revealing that the club could have gone into liquidation without the recent injection of a six-figure sum from Mostyn to keep the wolves at the door. All this despite their Dean Court ground being sold to London-based property company Structadene in December 2005 in a desperate attempt to keep AFC Bournemouth afloat and pay off some of their reported £6.5 million worth of debts at the time. Gillingham are a side we travel to play at the end of this month who are also down at the wrong end of the table, and they are another side whose ground has recently changed hands. Chairman Paul Scally selling the Priestfield Stadium to a company of which he is the sole owner, for £9.8 million - and then leasing it back to the club. The deal seeing just under 74% of the football club's £13.3m debt transferred to Priestfield Developments Limited. That will now reduce the club's running debt to no more than £3.5m, with interest payments also falling from £800,000 a year to £200,000, the lease of the stadium back to the Gills being for an initial ten years. Scally planning to stabilise debts at the Kent outfit before making some progress towards planning and building a new ground, with the Priestfield Stadium then presumably being sold for housing. |