Northampton...what was you lot expecting it to be about! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44223738 How the hell do you lose £10 MILLION QUID?
Give it to you to bet on football predictions...................... I have worked in local government and have to say my eyebrows raised more than a little bit when I first heard about this public money going missing. I cannot believe that Northampton Council have not been held to account for any of this as far as I can see and Northampton FC have not been forced to repay it by a Court. As a local authority you simply cannot just give away money without being accountable for it. Waste it on white elephant projects yes but give to a local football team definately no.
OK - I've had my bit of usual 'mischief.' ............. now for something a little more serious; The fact that a local authority is involved - and that ( presumably ), public taxpayer funds, totalling £10.25 MILLION has been used, won't do anything to placate those of us who are concerned about the so called, 'no financial burden ' to Medway council tax payers, in the upcoming MDC sponsorship of The Gills. I am still not convinced that there will not be any financial burden to Medway council tax payers - and, as I don't live in Medway, I do not have a personal agenda ! ANY service provided by a supplier, especially a publicly-funded local authority, surely must have a financial implication -whether it be direct cost of the service, or loss of revenue through any form of discount ! It doesn't matter if it is £10.25 Million or £ 1. The money belongs to the public - not politicians who think that they can do what they like with our money - and we're left to pay for the consequences of their profligacy.
I argued at the time that there has to be a financial implication on the tax payer in some form, unless the people involved in the sponsorship deal donated their time on it unpaid. Which leads me to ask another question, during any meetings, if there were any meetings, were expenses claimed, ie for travel or food?...What our club provides is not an issue, but what is provided by MDC is a financial implication on the tax payer and as you have rightly pointed out alwaysright, it does not matter if it is 10.25 Million or £1, it is public money. Also anyone noticed the silence of the local media, it seems our local journalists seem a bit shy from posing some challenging questions to our local authority apart from printing the obvious, in fact i probably provided more info than our local journos.
If, as a local government officer, I sat at my desk and contemplated a plan for something that wasn't eventually taken up, that still constituted a cost to my employer. I was paid X per hour and used council equipment to put down in writing my thoughts on the matter in hand. If I "thought" about the proposal or feasibility of something for 2 hours and it was scraped then it's money spent. Absolutely nothing was for nothing. If it was for a Council Committee to consider the finding before it was scraped then again there was a cost of expenses for Councillors to sit and consider it. If it was agreed then the costs really take off for people to put the proposal into effect. If in your case and in the case of Nottingham it was the transfer of money from the Council to another account then the people involved in doing it would have been on a fairly hefty grade and there would have been more than one. This includes the City Solicitor to draw up the agreement in legal speak for everyone to sign.
Roll on the new season. People have nothing better to do than look for some way to attack the club, I think it is being some what pedantic to argue the cost of people who would other wise be occupied on important business such as twinning Chatham with a town in outer Mongolia, or maybe deciding where to erect a couple of ugly metal obelises in Medway. For years we have heard criticism of Scally for winding up the local authority, now he is working with them it's still wrong.
grumpygit, think of it like this...next season, your season ticket never cost you anything. There was no financial exchange between you and the club. Scally donated your seat for free, why, two reasons; 1. There was no money parted hands between the season of 2018-19...., for you to say otherwise is pedantics. 2. When you turn up for your seat next season, it will already be occupied. The club in its sponsorship deal with MDC have kindly donated your seat to the local community. I think this is going to be an amusing pre season.
