Karl Henry wants paying

Sluffy wrote:
I'm sure those who are so self-righteous about Anderson, would much rather we hadn't committed to buying Magennis and Doidge and gone into the season with no hope of staying up (and losing the £6 million benefit of being in the Championship) and settled up instead with the couple or so of millionaire players who don't even play for us anymore such as Amos and Henry?

They'll get their money eventually (we all know that) and we will stop up, or would you have preferred they got their money when it was due and we went through the season with just 34 year old Clayton Donaldson up front?

Totally irrelevant. We wouldn't even be in this division and enjoying the benefits you mention if it wasn't for the players. Ironically, Henry earned the money that is being diverted elsewhere.
And you haven't addressed the concern that the Andersons are jeopardising our future prospects of recruitment and investment by acting  like cowboys.

That said, I reckon Toadface would rather have his little fiefdom to himself than bring in wealthy investors to grow the club so it's probably not an issue for him.

DEANO82 wrote:Out of interest how do you know Henry and Amos are millionaires?

Amos has been on a four year contract of £16,000 per week with us, which will total £3.3 million. Henry has been a professional footballer who has made over 500 appearance over a 16 year career including four seasons in the Premier League.

If either of them have not managed to have assets of a million or more by now then they've certainly pissed an awful lot of money up the wall!

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:
I'm sure those who are so self-righteous about Anderson, would much rather we hadn't committed to buying Magennis and Doidge and gone into the season with no hope of staying up (and losing the £6 million benefit of being in the Championship) and settled up instead with the couple or so of millionaire players who don't even play for us anymore such as Amos and Henry?

They'll get their money eventually (we all know that) and we will stop up, or would you have preferred they got their money when it was due and we went through the season with just 34 year old Clayton Donaldson up front?

Totally irrelevant. We wouldn't even be in this division and enjoying the benefits you mention if it wasn't for the players. Ironically, Henry earned the money that is being diverted elsewhere.
And you haven't addressed the concern that the Andersons are jeopardising our future prospects of recruitment and investment by acting  like cowboys.

That said, I reckon Toadface would rather have his little fiefdom to himself than bring in wealthy investors to grow the club so it's probably not an issue for him.

I see you're back to being abusive to Anderson yet again.

The fact that we've brought in some 17 or so players into the club over the summer (several even after the strike) and we've taken on a number of loans from other clubs, shows that recruitment is not an issue?

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Henry certainly was one of those players that kept us up last season - but he's no longer with us and we need the likes of Magennis and Doidge to keep us up this season, so is the money best spent on our past or on our future - knowing full well that Henry will be paid up in due course anyway?

If our future is to be in the Championship next season rather than have no strikers and be doomed to relegation for the whole of the season, then isn't that in itself maximising the chance of future investment, rather than your presumably preferred method of getting relegated once again and losing the £6 million for being in the Championship?

Is your agenda against Anderson such that you would rather see the club fail rather than him succeed?

Sluffy wrote:Actually I have - a number of times in fact.

I've done work for a business going through a hard time and waived my fees until a time they got back on their feet again (a bit like BWFC I guess).  The business did, paid me up and I've done numerous work for them in the years since.

I'm fortunate that I'm in a financial position to do this and never thought once about calling them out in public, as seems to be what people seem to do all the time, even over the least little thing.

I knew as soon as I clicked 'send' you'd come back with that reply. Silly me.

You seem to be falling into the same trap you accuse others of, you've decided to jump into the pro-Anderson camp so the guy walks on water.

I'm definitely pro-Anderson, he's been great (so far) for BWFC. That doesn't mean he's right on this one. If he hasn't paid Henry on time he is in the wrong.

Look, I generally support KA and what he's doing but in this case I feel he's not helping himself or the club at all. Whether or not Karl Henry is a millionaire is irrelevant. He should be paid moneys owed on the date they're promised to him or at least be given an explanation and a new date if that turns out to be impossible. I know it's easy to say footballers are on huge money and so they can wait but that's unfair to them. I appreciate where sluffy's coming from about the priorities and I agree with him to a point but if Ken couldn't pay Karl Henry today then he should have told Karl that and reached agreement with him about when he would be paid. Karl doesn't strike me as an unreasonable person so I feel he probably would have been fine with it if Ken had called him and said something like "Look Karl, we can't get the money to you on the sixth because too much other money's going out this week and with the break we've no game and no money coming in so is it OK if we pay you on (eg) the 13th instead?"

I don't know if there's been any contact between KA and KH of course so I don't know what if anything has been said between the two men so I won't judge the situation based solely on tweets but it does seem fairly straightforward on the face of it. This is more or less a repeat of the Amos situation in that Ken's delayed payment to a player who's not here or not part of the long term plan in order to keep the ones who are here and our other creditors onside. I understand that from a business point of view but it's still not right. Karl did his job and kept his side of the bargain. Now it's time for Ken to keep his.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Sluffy wrote:Actually I have - a number of times in fact.

I've done work for a business going through a hard time and waived my fees until a time they got back on their feet again (a bit like BWFC I guess).  The business did, paid me up and I've done numerous work for them in the years since.

I'm fortunate that I'm in a financial position to do this and never thought once about calling them out in public, as seems to be what people seem to do all the time, even over the least little thing.

I knew as soon as I clicked 'send' you'd come back with that reply. Silly me.

You seem to be falling into the same trap you accuse others of, you've decided to jump into the pro-Anderson camp so the guy walks on water.

I'm definitely pro-Anderson, he's been great (so far) for BWFC. That doesn't mean he's right on this one. If he hasn't paid Henry on time he is in the wrong.

Believe what you want.

It's true about what I've said about myself and I don't believe Anderson can walk on water.

I've had the opportunity in my career to work at high levels in the public services and also to have run my own business, so I do have some experience in life to back up what I say, if anybody chooses to believe me.

At end of the day you don't really have much choice but to go for the survival of the business as your number one priority as you simply can't please everyone all of the time.

Council's such as Northamptonshire are required to make cuts to services that will effect people in need in the community - and other council's will soon be facing the similar dilemma, this isn't simply blanking a few millionaires for a couple months until you've got the odd several hundred thousands or so to settle up with them - these are people through no fault of their own will not be having their needs met as they have had up to now.

Anderson has simply used a common sense approach of keeping the wages (apart from Amos that one time) up to date since Holdsworth left, paid of all the creditors to date - including HMRC and Heathcote (even if he had to apply to the courts before his £2,500 or so iirc was eventually paid to him in settlement of the money he owed to the club), been dealing with the BluMarble loan that was due at the end of last month, brought in the players to keep us competitive in the Championship by spending at least £200k already, plus more for the loan players and Doidge, then looking at what he had left to settle up with Henry.

It's fine and dandy to say he should have sorted out Henry first but clearly he didn't have enough in the kitty at the end of last month/start of this, so what should he have not paid instead, the players (strike), BluMarble (foreclosure) , not bought Magennis and Doidge (relegation)?

He went instead to make a millionaire wait a while longer for his money and faced a twitter storm and the wrath of the anti-Anderson's instead.

Hardly a decision that you needed the brain of Einstein to have worked out what's best to do, is it?

Just because I support his common sense and pragmatism doesn't make me a worshiper at his feet or anything - he's doing what all of us would do if we found ourselves in that position, I know because I've been one of them that has made similar types of decisions in the past.

I seem to recall that there was at least one of Parky's top targets that refused to come purely because of the perception of financial mismanagement. Sure we got a lot of players (some of whom are questionable) but perhaps we could have got better ones if Anderson played with a straight bat?
Then there's the investors Anderson made such a big deal about attracting. That went well didn't it?
I remain skeptical.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Look, I generally support KA and what he's doing but in this case I feel he's not helping himself or the club at all. Whether or not Karl Henry is a millionaire is irrelevant. He should be paid moneys owed on the date they're promised to him or at least be given an explanation and a new date if that turns out to be impossible. I know it's easy to say footballers are on huge money and so they can wait but that's unfair to them. I appreciate where sluffy's coming from about the priorities and I agree with him to a point but if Ken couldn't pay Karl Henry today then he should have told Karl that and reached agreement with him about when he would be paid. Karl doesn't strike me as an unreasonable person so I feel he probably would have been fine with it if Ken had called him and said something like "Look Karl, we can't get the money to you on the sixth because too much other money's going out this week and with the break we've no game and no money coming in so is it OK if we pay you on (eg) the 13th instead?"

I don't know if there's been any contact between KA and KH of course so I don't know what if anything has been said between the two men so I won't judge the situation based solely on tweets but it does seem fairly straightforward on the face of it. This is more or less a repeat of the Amos situation in that Ken's delayed payment to a player who's not here or not part of the long term plan in order to keep the ones who are here and our other creditors onside. I understand that from a business point of view but it's still not right. Karl did his job and kept his side of the bargain. Now it's time for Ken to keep his.

So Peter, if paying Henry meant not having the money to buy Magennis and Doidge and meant playing Donaldson on his own for the rest of the season (and almost certain relegation) would you still pay him (being a millionaire and not needing to go to the food bank, etc).

I know what I would do!

wanderlust wrote:I seem to recall that there was at least one of Parky's top targets that refused to come purely because of the perception of financial mismanagement. Sure we got a lot of players (some of whom are questionable) but perhaps we could have got better ones if Anderson played with a straight bat?
Then there's the investors Anderson made such a big deal about attracting. That went well didn't it?
I remain skeptical.

Which one/s would that/they be and please provide the source/s.

Thank you.

How much would we even owe Henry. Can't be that much in the grand scheme of things. A months wages for a player at the end of his career. £15-20K? Wouldn't have affected the transfers surely. That's only 10% of the Magennis fee.

Sluffy I agree you can't please all the people all the time but in this particular case I think Ken's dropped the ball a bit. You know as well as I do that he didn't wake up this morning and think "Oh heck, we can't pay Karl today after all."

He must have known payment was going to be late at least a few days ago so why not simply contact Karl and say "Look, cashflow's been a nightmare so I'm afraid your money's going to be a bit late. We will pay you but it won't be on the 6th, it'll be on (earliest possible date) instead. I'm sorrry it's been delayed but we had to pay off HMRC, BluMarble and the rest and there's just not enough left in the bank to cover you as well because there's no game that weekend so no income."

Speaking as someone who has run a business and been on the receiving end of late payments I was never overly annoyed about being paid late so long as I knew it was going to happen and when I'd actually get my money. What really annoyed me was when I didn't get paid on time and there'd been no word or warning from my debtor to tell me that was going to happen. In this day and age there's simply no excuse for not communicating with a creditor. If Ken has failed to speak to Karl on this issue (and I'm not saying that's the case because we don't know everything that's happened) then that's just plain wrong. A simple phone call or even an e-mail either to Karl or his agent wouldn't have taken long and in ensuring everyone knew where they stood this latest 'spat' on Twitter would have been avoided.

However if Ken has made that call and Karl's neglected to mention it then I think diving on Twitter and neglecting to mention that fact is poor from Karl. Since we don't know all the facts in this case it might be wise to wait and see what comes out next. One thing I will say is I find this habit of people 'washing their dirty linen in public' via Twitter to be extremely distasteful whether it's a late paid footballer or the President of the United States doing it. If you have a problem surely it's better to discuss it with the person directly rather than jumping onto Social Media in what can look like a rather childish bid to get other people worked up.

Promotion, Survival and a Good start to the season.

Where would we be without KA?

Cajunboy wrote:Promotion, Survival and a Good start to the season.

Where would we be without KA?

I agree cajun but that doesn't buy him a 'blank cheque' nor should it. I'm a solid supporter of Ken and what he's done for the most part but sometimes he doesn't help himself. I don't know the whole story here because none of us do but if Karl Henry hasn't been paid and hasn't been contacted to let him know when to expect his money then Ken's in the wrong this time.

However, if Ken's actually done that and Karl's neglecting to mention it then I think he's being unfair. Personally I find this whole business of airing complaints via social media that should be handled in private to be distasteful but that may be a function of my age. It seems to me that Twitter and Facebook are little more than 'mobs' who can be stirred up far too easily and while in possession of little or no facts. It's NOT the place where business matters should be aired imo.

What strikes me as odd about this incident is that like the "Amos" situation Ken appears to have been caught off guard and that makes me wonder if he had any reason to think this was coming. For example we don't know if he's been in touch with Karl or his agent. Perhaps Ken had already given Karl a heads up and felt he'd solved the problem (eg with a promise of payment next week) and Karl's then simply decided to have a go at him anyway, possibly in retaliation for being released.

I won't judge this either way based on what we've seen so far. All I will say is that if Karl is still owed money then Ken needs to pay it as soon as practically possible.

I think the bigger picture is more important.

Cajunboy wrote:I think the bigger picture is more important.

Why does it have to be one or the other? You can criticise Ken for this while appreciating the work he’s done so far.

Sluffy wrote:I know because I've been one of them that has made similar types of decisions in the past.

So you've agreed a contract and then reneged?

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:I seem to recall that there was at least one of Parky's top targets that refused to come purely because of the perception of financial mismanagement. Sure we got a lot of players (some of whom are questionable) but perhaps we could have got better ones if Anderson played with a straight bat?
Then there's the investors Anderson made such a big deal about attracting. That went well didn't it?
I remain skeptical.

Which one/s would that/they be and please provide the source/s.

Thank you.

No idea Sluffy, but you told us that you thought a few deals had gone south thanks to the players strike over pay - so do let us know.

Thanks

I haven't seen a single comment anywhere on any reputable media site that says any player refused to come here because of a perception of financial mismanagement. It may be that such a thing happened but I think lusty can't say that because there's no evidence to back it up.

Nor do I recall any player or a player's agent, rep or spokesman saying they wouldn't come because of the strike. It may be that some players were put off by it but no one actually made a public comment to that effect as far as I know.

What annoys me about this whole business is not who's pro or anti Anderson. What annoys me is that too many people are making statements that at least imply they've confused opinion with fact.

Here's a suggestion. If you believe a player refused to come here because the club's been badly run then give us all a source such as BBC or Sky Sports News that says he stated that or that a source from within the club has told them that. If you think a deal's gone south because a player was put off by the strike then show me where he or one of his people say that.

As to the Karl Henry business I'll say this again. If Ken owes him the money he needs to pay it as soon as possible. If he did NOT contact Karl to say it was going to be late then he's in the wrong because he should have. But so far the only thing anyone seems to know is that Karl Henry tweeted his money was late. We haven't heard a word on this from the club so we do not know what if anything Ken said to Karl or his agent. Personally I think until both sides have been heard it's impossible to make an informed judgement.

IN the main Ken has done an excellent job of keeping the club afloat and even better seeing it progress. However some of his decisions have been unpopular and some have been controversial which is always going to be the case when discussing a businessman in almost any field and even more so in football where everyone thinks they know it all, me included.

I think perhaps it's time for all of us to step back, take a breath and get our information from sources other than Twitter and Facebook. Certainly if Ken's done something wrong call him out, I certainly will but this mad rush to judgement on both sides when there aren't any concrete verifiable facts to go on is silly. And before anyone quotes Karl's tweets I will only say that's all they are, tweets. We do NOT know how much he's left out of them or what the full facts are. Until and unless we do it's not possible for us to make a genuinely intelligent response.

T.R.O.Y wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:I seem to recall that there was at least one of Parky's top targets that refused to come purely because of the perception of financial mismanagement. Sure we got a lot of players (some of whom are questionable) but perhaps we could have got better ones if Anderson played with a straight bat?
Then there's the investors Anderson made such a big deal about attracting. That went well didn't it?
I remain skeptical.

Which one/s would that/they be and please provide the source/s.

Thank you.

No idea Sluffy, but you told us that you thought a few deals had gone south thanks to the players strike over pay - so do let us know.

Thanks

No, I've never said that.

This is the only thing I've ever mentioned about the possible impact on signings after the strike, which was clearly my own opinion and which I never said or even implied that it made players not want to join us because of the financial running of the club.

Sluffy wrote:Fwiw I believe that it did affect a number of potential signings we had set up at the time but I obviously am unable to prove that.

Indeed Olkowski was signed immediately AFTER the strike, so clearly he and his representatives had no issues over signing for the club and the EFL had no problem officially sanctioning the transfer.

I know of no player, let alone our managers 'top targets' refusing to sign for us because of a perception of the clubs financial mismanagement - so who are these 'specific' players Wanderlust is referring to and on what basis does he know it to be true?

Or is he just making things up?

Anyway thank you for actively involving yourself in yet another argument, whilst clearly managing to post absolutely nothing else on the forum since the last argument you deliberately involved yourself in a week ago.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:I haven't seen a single comment anywhere on any reputable media site that says any player refused to come here because of a perception of financial mismanagement. 

Link has expired now but it was Australian captain Mark Milligan who Parky tried to sign last year. He couldn't at the time because Australia had slipped out of the FIFA top 50 World Rankings but after Oz's (and Milligan's) excellent performances at the World Cup they went back up the rankings. At which point Parky renewed his interest only to be told (eventually) that Milligan had been advised to stay away from Bolton by his agent on the grounds that the finances wouldn't be forthcoming.
The previous year he had described it as his "dream move".