Ashtead Saint

Nächstes Freundschaftsspiel FC Biel/Bienne - FC Southampton (ENG) Mittwoch, 13. Juli 2011, 18.30 Stadion Gurzelen, Biel/Bienne That'll be local time, so 5.30 pm BST.

I'm in the Lyndhurst Stand. I also 'went home' at Leyton Orient and Brentford. Frustrating when we score, but you do get a good view of the other Saints fans!

For me, building telescopes rivals supporting Saints as a hobby/interest. I wouldn't drop either, though I came close during the era of he who shall not be named.

No jeans, no replica shirts (though latter doesn't seem to apply to kids).

I took the curry club option for the Oldham game. I was very impressed. The whole setup has an 'executive' feel to it, smartly dressed and couteous staff, a relaxed atmosphere, up market seats, a Dean Hammond interview, no queue at the bar, comfortable seating both before the match and at half time, live music and a magician. The curry was adequate rather than memorable but the overall experience was very good value. The only downside was that my season ticket seat was wasted.

No. He has made up his mind and the judgement will follow come what may. He will be delaing with 'housekeeping' matters, in particular the appeal process in view of the exceptionally expedited timetable.

He's probably waiting for it to be typed/printed so that copies are available to provide to the parties. He will be consious that the press are there in force writing down every word he utters, so will want to make sure that he is reading from a clear script.

He said that he would let them have an executive summary decision today, with the full detailed judgement to follow later. Neither party will have been given advance notice of which way the decision is going to go. If it's going to the Court of Appeal tomorrow, he is going to have to burn the midnight oil tonight.

Not quite. He has never had one of his judgements overturned by a (higher) appeal court.

Yes to the first question. Pass on the second!

Spot on up until the last sentence. The Judge will not be considering whether the image rights income is taxable or not. That will be determined by Tribunal if/when PFC's appeal against the assessments comes round to be heard. All the Judge needs to consider is whether the assessments issued by HMRC in May in repsect of the image rights income gave rise to 'liabilities'. Mitchell made the point on Tuesday that, by virtue of Section 55 TMA 1970, assessments do give rise to an immediate liability to pay, even if those assessments are disputed. Although I wasn't in court yesterday, I have not heard any mention of Sheldon having produced any argument against the clear wording of Section 55.

The appeal will be very limited indeed as regards scope. The Court of Appeal will not go through the evidence again and it will certainly not consider any new evidence. It will come down to legal argument as to why the judge erred in making the findings that he did.

There's nothing wrong with that. You often get one major creditor underwriting the Administrator's costs, particularly if the business isn't producing enough income to meet outgoings. Mark Fry didn't have a creditor willing to do that, so he had to run the business out of the income it was producing.

The Sun’s shining, and it’s time to think about some ‘What if’ scenarios if HMRC win the appeal this afternoon (subject to any subsequent appeals to the Court of Appeal/Supreme Court). 1. The first question is whether PFC will go into liquidation more or less immediately. HMRC winning the appeal does not legally affect the continuation of the administration and the administration has the effect of imposing a moratorium on winding up proceedings. Accordingly, HMRC cannot by itself force a liquidation immediately even if it wins today. However, Sheldon told the court yesterday that if HMRC were to win, PFC would “probably be liquidated”, which brings us on to the next question. 2. Will PFC will be able to start the season? This turns on whether AA can give the FL the required undertaking that PFC will be able to complete its fixtures over the course of the season. That in turn depends on whether Chanrai is willing to either (i) buy the club off the Administrators without a CVA, taking the points hit and with a big question mark over what happens to the remaining Parachute Payments or (ii) fund the Administrators to enable PFC to play out the season. 3. Sheldon told the court yesterday that a negative outcome for PFC would prevent Chainrai buying it. He has a duty not to mislead the court so if he said that, then that is what the Administrators will have told him Chanrai has said. Is Chanrai bluffing – who knows? Given that player sales have brought in less than anticipated, that HMRC have their sights firmly set on the remaining PP’s and that he is going to have to dig his hand in his pocket if the Administration continues without a CVA, my guess is that he will press the liquidation button. After all, if HMRC win the appeal, he can always blame it all on the taxman. If PFC does go into liquidation, things start getting complex. There is a whole host of very interesting legal issues which are going to come into the spotlight, but I’ll defer commenting on those for the time being. If the Administrators haven’t got a copper bottomed indemnity from Chanrai, they may be feeling slightly uncomfortable at the moment.

Actually, I was not over impressed with Mitchell yesterday. Having said that, the main point (£13m Tax assessment on Image Rights being a liability which should have been allowed voting rights on the CVA) seems to me so straightforward that it does not need much help from counsel. One of Mann J's first questions to Mitchell yesterday was how much of their disallowed (by AA in the CVA vote) claim HMRC needed to get allowed in order to reach the 25% mark. I am sure that Mann J has this point firmly in mind. Fortunately, the judge decides the case on the facts and law, not on who makes the finest speech.

Not in court today, but I have a few further observations following on from yesterday: 1. There were very few people in court yesterday except for the participants – about 20-25 in the public seating. Court 52 is a small courtroom and that’s all it can take. I estimate about half of those were PFC employees/supporters and some looked like they could be representatives of Chanrai. There were 3 or 4 Saints fans (including me and my daughter) and the rest looked like journalists. Most of the journalists were fairly ‘junior’ and one of them was clearly asleep at one point in the afternoon. Only one of the journalists had the air of a senior reporter. All in all, it’s not surprising that some of the press reporting from yesterday was wide of the mark, the honourable exception being the BBC News website, which homed in on the £13m image rights tax claim as being the key issue. 2. AA won’t be examined, still less cross examined, nor will any other witnesses. All of the evidence in this case is written, by way of affidavit. 3. Section 55 of the Taxes Management Act 1970, referred to yesterday by Mitchell, is very much in point. It states that once an assessment has been raised (which it was in May for the Image Rights tax/NI totalling £13m), the tax remains due and payable notwithstanding any pending appeal. The only exception to that is if a Tribunal rules, following application for postponement by the taxpayer, that payment of some or all of the tax should be postponed pending the appeal. There has been no such Tribunal determination, so AA is in a deep hole on this point. I can’t see how he can dig himself out of it. 4. Don’t read too much into the suggestion from AA’s QC yesterday that HMRC should consider whether it ought to pressing ahead with the appeal. He was making the point that if the result of the appeal is that PFC is liquidated, the Parachute payments won’t be made and HMRC would get less than under the CVA. The answer to that is: (i) HMRC winning the appeal will not necessarily result in PFC liquidation. (ii) Even if it does, HMRC can then, via the liquidator, seek to recover the various ‘dispositions’ (to Chanrai/PP and football creditors) which have been made since the winding up petition under S127 and in addition challenge the PL/FL golden share/insolvency policy/parachute payment/FCR setup as being contrary to public policy/contrary to the insolvency rules. (iii) The 20p in the £1 under the CVA is hardly ‘money in the bank’. (iv) It sends a fairly strong message to other clubs about the consequences of messing with HMRC. HMRC have seen it for what it was.

Just back from court. I missed the last hour or so, but doubt that it will change the main thrust of what follows. Timetable: HMRC submissions today. Administrator’s submission tomorrow morning. Allowing for replies and general overruns, the hearing will finish sometime tomorrow afternoon. Judgement (outline only with detailed judgement to follow later) probably Thursday. 1. The main issue is whether HMRC are entitled to vote on the £13 million of assessments they issued in May re PAYE and NI on “Image Rights” and “EBT’s” (employee benefit trusts). HMRC’s position is that once the assessments are issued there is a statutory liability on PFC’s part to pay which can only be upset/varied by a Tribunal (which hasn’t happened). The £13 million was disallowed by AA. HMRC only need to get an extra £11.1 m of votes to get to the magic 25.0001% needed to block the CVA. If HMRC win on this point, and it’s hard to see on the evidence presented to date how they can not, HMRC will win the appeal irrespective of what happens on the other points. 2. Quite a bit of time spent discussing the FCR. The FCR is being challenged by HMRC under separate court proceedings and Mann J is not being asked to make a decision on that point. However, he is being asked to consider whether there is an arguable case that the FCR is contrary to public policy and/or the insolvency rules since, if so, the failure to address that issue in the CVA proposal could make that proposal unfairly prejudicial. It’s an irrelevant point (save for appeals) if HMRC win on point 1. 3. Quite a bit of time also spent discussing Section 127 of the Insolvency Act (which renders void any transfers of property made after the presentation of a winding-up petition (unless validated by the court)). HMRC got into a bit of a tangle over their position on this and had to backtrack a bit. Their point, in essence, is that the CVA deferred the point at which a liquidator could bring s127 into play by about 9 months during which time ‘the trial might have run cold’. Again, it’s an irrelevant point if HMRC win on point 1. 4. No discussion, at least while I was in court/awake about secured and/or football creditors being ruled out of the CVA vote. Maybe those issues have been ironed out in correspondence and HMRC was satisfied they were not worth arguing. There were various ‘digs’ at AA having failed to take account of the interests of all creditors. Several Pompey supprters in and around court. They were well behaved and came across as genuine supporters. The one I spoke to was a decent bloke.

Numbers in name: Ted B8s

You stupid boy

If we get a dodgy penalty awarded, I think it would be better if Rickie were to take it, as usual

Try The Saints programme Shop in the Chapel Stand concourse.

Maybe total goals for and against columns? I know you can get there by adding HGF and AGF, but it would be nice to see at a glance which season(s) we topped 100 goals. The shirts archive is a nice feature - any chance of the latest strips?

There was one moment in the first half when one of Northampton's pacier players came charging down the flank. Murty first of all positioned himself so as to shepherd him towards the touch line. Then he closed him down. Then he took the ball off him before leaving him in his wake and passing the ball out to start off another Saints attack. It was a masterclass.

I will be watching this match on TV at the Talk of the Town in Corralejo, Fuerteventura. I have already bought two outgoing flight tickets due to this match. The first, when the match was originally scheduled for the Saturday, was a Sunday flight so that I could watch the match live and join the rest of my family the following day. Then a Saturday flight when the the date of the match got switched due to the TV coverage. I did toy with the idea of delaying my departure until Monday, but we are coming back on Wednesday!