North Yorks Mackem
Winger
I think all that is pretty much irrelevant tbh. They paid 37 million for the club. The bulk was with the clubs parachute money.The write off was legal - end of story. The balance should never actually have come about in the first time. The contract could and should have been better drafted to place the loan element of Short's payment in the club's court in the first case, In substance over form terms it was club money being used to pay a club debt - the last £25m of the SBC loan, which Short had moved into Drumaville to give the appearance of us being debt free, which was not the case. That would have left Madrox's cost of investment as £12.7m, and a much more realistic valuation.
There were other bids on the table lower than 37 million which were not using this cash. WMS suggests there was an alternative bid which had been agreed to. The only way they got the club was to use the parachute money and put the valuation at the price they did.
This wasn't some mistake drafting the contract. This was all thought out.