Statement regarding Don Woodward Article

Can anyone out work out how the journalist at the Business Mag might have got the quotes for his piece from the TalkSPORT interview? Perhaps someone on the trust board might like to try?

From the Business Mag...
http://www.businessmag.co.uk/News/Companies/Wycombe--Deal-to-save-club-from-administration.aspx

DW: "I am dealing with problems like these every day although when the trust first approached me they were merely aware that I was involved in finance in some form or another. I agreed to mediate between them, and Steve Hayes and his team to safeguard the rights of the supporters while acknowledging the contribution to the club that had been made by Mr Hayes and also appreciating the worthiness of the plans he was proposing to take the club forward.

I am pleased to say they have now backed the plans but on the proviso that while they recognise they have lost the right to run their own club; they have retained the right to buy it back, by undertaking negotiations with Steve Hayes on their behalf I secured concessions that they may not have won without me but it did take many weeks to convince previously unconvinced people to accept the proposals for the good of the club."


From the interview with TalkSPORT...
http://www.precision-corpfin.com/docs/wycombe-wanderers.mp3

[Q: How did you come to save Wycombe Wanderers?]
DW: "Steve Hayes has been loaning the club quite a bit of funds over the last few years, he's the MD, and he has been bankrolling the club and allowing it to spend more than it could normally spend despite not being a major shareholder and the club have been allowing that to happen and I think he got to the point were he had enough and wanted to take control and convert his rather large investment into ownership, but that didn't go down too well with supporters.

[Q: Wasn't that against the constitution?]
DW: "Steve Hayes knew that whilst he was putting the funds in, so certainly something had to change and he very quickly put on the table the suggestion that he'd like to convert his loans into capital and take control so he could keep funding the club and go from the promotion that they'd just had and take it to where he'd like to take the club which I don't think was going to be able to happen without a business backer, finance backer."

He [Steve Hayes] had the golden card, or the golden bullet, whichever way you would like to call it, being the chap who wants to put money in, had already put money in, and therefore was also the major creditor, so he had the choice to act either way, if he wasn't going to be able to convert into capital and takeover he had the chance of putting into administration, managing that himself and taking over so really we had to look at the club situation and do the best for the club and for the future, and that's where I got involved.

[Q: What have you done?]
DW: "What can we do here? Where are we? What's the real situation? What can be done and what protection can be put in place? And the role I took was with the supporters trust who were, have enshrined rights, or had enshrined rights to protect the legacies that had been given to the club for the supporters over the years and there was constitutional change five years ago, and at that point there were a thing called enshrined rights and these were to protect the value, investment and the contributions given by many supporters over the years, particularly Frank Adams, who'd actually given a piece of ground, way before me, many years ago."

[Q: Where are we now?]
DW: "The main aim for me was to look at the situation and realise that the club was going to go into administration if these two sides, for want of a better word, weren't got together in some sort of mediation. So, what I was faced with was somebody looking to take over, who was going to put the club into administration. Supporters who didn't want that to happen, or many of them, supporters trust being the main party not wanting that to happen, and the club facing a 10-point deduction and an unsure future, in terms of what funding was going to be available for it. So there was a bit of a juggling act there and I got involved in the mediation, negotiation with Steve Hayes and with the trust to find a solution."

[Q: What has that solution been?]
DW: "Well that solution has actually worked out quite well for everybody, Steve Hayes has been given the right to take over and is now looking for fund the club to move forward. But the supporters have been safeguarded with Steve's offer to put the club back into a good position should he fail. the supporters trust now has the right to first refusal for the club and a gift from Steve that represents the value of the enshrined rights were perceived to have been, should he fail and the club go into administration in the future."

[Q: What does it mean for Wycombe looking forward and will the mis-management be coming to an end?]
DW: "That's part of the unknown and this why it was very careful negotiation, that both sides have something to look forward to. Steve Hayes is claiming that he is going to change the style of management and has overspent and was actually setting the ground work for the future, so is looking to not spend as much money but run a reasonable budget going forward and I trust and hope he will do that.

From the trust point of view also getting this out of the way allowed them to go forward and actually work on football related matters, and actually try to lobby the board and the now limited company to ensure what they want as supporters comes to the top of the list and not just continually worry about money. I think certainly the chances of more money being spent with Steve Hayes and his funding, certainly that was going to be the case rather than if the club had to go on its own and try and fund its way out, certainly first of all being in admin which gives you a major problem of survival in the league they are in but also in the ability to fund what is quite an expensive pastime, running a football club."

[Q: Has Peter Taylor been involved?]
DW: "I don't know, you would have to ask peter about that, I'm sure Steve and Peter have been talking, I'd imagine and looking at the sequence of events, Steve Hayes desire to get this over and done with was to enable Peter to get his funding in place and get the team he wanted in time. I'm sure if you talked to Peter he probably found he'd lost a few players along the line because of the delay."

[Q: How many clubs are in a similar position?]
DW: "I don't have any figures on it but certainly the Supporters Direct organisation seem to be talking to quite a few there are all sorts of interesting things going on with Stockport County but I'm sure as this season unfolds more and more will have difficulties, if not only because the economic climate the guys who have bank rolling clubs and the supporters themselves who contribute won't have the funds available so I'm sure we'll see this sort of things, maybe not the same scenario as Wycombe but certainly some clubs are going to have difficulties this season."

[Q: Has anyone asked to join the club board?]
DW: "That is certainly under discussion, because the supporters trust have quite a few directors and they are reviewing who are going to be their representatives going forward, for me it's something that needed doing, I can't quite see that it is for me, I've done my bit, I'm not sure that I'm your average fan and hopefully these aren't the sorts of things that are going to come up on a monthly basis going forward."

The trust have released a statement on their website which states...

"Following the members meeting on the 6th July when ownership of the Club was given to Steve Hayes, Don Woodward spoke to Talk Sport. This interview seems to have formed the basis for an article in “The Business Magazine“ dated 9th July which was placed on the Gasroom last Thursday. Neither the Trust Board nor Don Woodward were previously aware of this article."

http://www.wycombewandererstrust.com/breaking-news/statement-regarding-don-woodward-article/