Friday, February 10, 2012

Stop me if you've heard this one before

I decided that I didn't have a particularly conclusive case without a look at the relevant BCF accounts. After all, where exactly had the money come from, and who had authorised it? ....

...Thereafter I spent some time trying to get to see a copy of the BCF accounts for the relevant event, but they proved particularly hard to obtain.
[From (as I'm sure you knew)]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ECF accounts are now published on the ECF website. Oddly enough they may be alone on this, as if you want to see how other European federations raise and spend money, it doesn't seem possible to find them, even with the help of Google translate.

I doubt if it's been officially confirmed, but the ECF accounts for 2011-12 are unlikely to give the full picture as to the income raised and spent at, or on behalf, of the 2011 Congress. This is because not all the payments went through the ECF's books. I have no particular problem with payments to players being confidential, but if there's no way an amount can be verified, even on a need to know basis, it would be better to remain silent. Even if publicity is required, shouldn't the amounts reported as spent be consistent from one month to the next?

Otherwise, bloggers, particularly those who refuse comments are free to make all sorts of accusations.

ejh said...

I doubt if it's been officially confirmed, but the ECF accounts for 2011-12 are unlikely to give the full picture as to the income raised and spent at, or on behalf, of the 2011 Congress.

Which is the problem, because it's the 2011 Congress, of course, which is the source of the present controversy (and was, in truth, before the current round of blog postings).

I have no particular problem with payments to players being confidential

Me neither, but it still ought to be possible to give an overall picture of what sums were spent on fees, accommodation etc for players. But the more important issue is that the ECF are able to state confidently that they know the source, destination and quantity of all the sums involved. If they can't do so, we have a serious issue.

it would be better to remain silent.

You're not the late Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Anonymous said...

In reply to ejh, I don't think the full picture will be known unless CJ discloses either his personal books or those of the vehicle (if there was one) which paid the Sheffield conditions. I don't think the ECF will know any more than that it received a payment from Darwin and then paid most of it to CJ or a CJ nominated vehicle. How much CJ added to this as his own sponsorship and from various fund raising is unknown and is likely to remain so.

A leak from a player in receipt of conditions as to how they were paid and by whom would clarify how the money was distributed, if not the total amounts. In the past it's been one of the Congress managers and the payments are made in the name of the ECF. Although not confirmed by the ECF, it appears that CJ did it all this year. I think the Congress managers had two main worries over the accounting. One was whether they had correctly accounted and paid the VAT, given the ECF can reclaim VAT under some circumstances. The other issue was that there are HMRC rules about the maximum amounts that can be paid as prizes, fees and conditions without deduction of tax. Without a breakdown of who got what and who was deemed to have paid it, they couldn't check that the ECF was within the rules.

Jonathan B said...

RE: the last comment, the ECF position is that the congress managers knew who got what. Alex McF has said, in our very own comments box and elsewhere, that he *didn't* know.

That in itself is a problem.

And - of course - putting some payments through 'off the books' means that there's no real point in keeping any books at all.

If that's what happened, it was a very poor decision to allow it (and a very poor decision to do it).

Anonymous said...

Anon 1 & 3 again

It isn't confirmed by the ECF, but it seems plausible that all the non-prize payments were made by CJ. The comments coming from the managers appear to indicate that the ECF has not received any itemisation as to either the totals or the individual amounts.

I'm assuming the questions at the ECF AGM suggested by your blog were just fishing without any knowledge or rumour as to what happened. All the same, they can now be seen to be evasive, presuming the claim about the invoice in the Gidders blog is correct.

In terms of who sanctioned it, presumably it was at Board or director level, rather than the Congress managers.