Stadium ownership

Staines Town FC have suspended all of their operations after accusing their landlords of financing criminal acts and they're not talking about minor ones either:
- bribery and corruption
- money laundering
- environmental crimes
- price fixing
- deforestation
- forced evictions
- human rights abuses
- child labour
- slavery
- gender discrimination
- murder
and maybe breaching Russia sanctions.

They don't mention anything about the hand dryers not working in the bogs so maybe they're not all bad...

https://stainestownfootballclub.co.uk/urgent-club-statement/

 

Hopefully, it's better than most of the stuff that's normally in my twitter feed!

 

A bit of context from @AgainstLeague3 on twitter:

Today, we saw arguably the most incredible 'club statement' from a football club in living memory. It was long, full of legal jargon, and made no sense to anyone. So what's really going on at Staines? A thread:

In April 2009, Staines Town were promoted to the Conference South (Tier 6 or Step 2 – whatever you prefer). Everything was going well. It would not last.

However, in September 2011, long time owner Alan Boon passed away. He was well-liked and transferred ownership of the club to his son before he died.

But for Matt Boon, the financial burden of Staines Town was a heavy one. Requests for financial assistance came first, but the club was eventually put up for sale in 2018, relegated from the Conference South after six years.

The club was purchased by a "consortium" headed up by a guy named Joe Dixon. We're going to be hearing a lot about Joe. Oh boy.

Now, the ground. If you’ve never been to Staines, it’s important in our story to note that the ground is attached to a health club called The Thames Club. So whoever owns The Thames Club owns the stadium. The Thames Club was acquired by Downing LLP shortly before Boon died.

Downing LLP, you remember them? They were accused of being connected with murderers a few hours ago. Yep, those ones.

Now it appears that Downing LLP weren't bothered about the football club, and it remains to be seen how bothered they were by the stadium. Maybe they want to build houses on it, maybe they don't.

Back to Joe. You will be shocked to know that the first thing Joe did when taking over the club was promise to reach the Football League within 10 years.

Despite the usual lofty ambitions. Staines plummeted like a stone. The club was relegated and looks set to be relegated again. Manager Anthony Gayle departed the club after it was revealed he assaulted a woman three times.

In 2020, Dixon began to allege that Downing were affecting the club’s operations as their landlord. The club produced a pair of videos and launched a “Save Staines” campaign. The exact allegations are unclear because the videos have been removed.

What *is* clear is that Dixon wanted to purchase the land and was unable to. And thus begins a period of extreme animosity between Dixon and Downing.

Fast forward to January this year. The team continues to crumble, and matters come to a head when Staines are battered 12-0 at home by a team no-one has ever heard of. Tweets of the game are removed. Fans take to the message board to lament the death of the club.

Last month, Staines announced a “Travellers Tournament”. Members of the travelling community were to be invited to Staines in a series of games to reach out to the wider local area. EVERY DAY. FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER.

Laudable as reaching out to the community is, more than a couple of Staines fans took to the message board to suggest that this was more to create an issue for Downing. Local residents also raised significant concerns.

Then we arrive at today, the craziest club statement published by any club ever. Again, Staines fans don’t exactly have Joe’s back here, and are (probably correctly) claiming that the move has killed the club.

I’m not actually going to get into the detail of the statement, who’s right and who’s wrong. Forgive me for not barging into allegations of murder. It’s there for all to read. To evaluate Staine’s allegations isn’t my point.

In reacting in this overly dramatic way, Dixon has almost certainly killed Staines. To fail to finish the season likely means to be ejected from the league. I’m not sure what the lease situation is but fat chance of renewing that again.

Dixon inherited a team pushing for promotion once more to the Conference South. Currently, the team is a shadow of what it was, regularly failing to attract a hundred at home.

Maybe it’s Dixon’s fault, maybe it’s Downing LLP’s, maybe both. But it’s the supporters, as always, who are left behind again.

https://twitter.com/AgainstLeague3