Fit’s a farce

10:07am Saturday 29th March 2008

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DISGRACED former York City chairman John Batchelor will not fall foul of the Football League's Fit and Proper Persons Test in his bid to takeover League Two strugglers Mansfield Town.

That was the admission of respected Football League spokesman John Nagle this week as Batchelor signalled his ambitions to become the Stags' new owner.

Furthermore, Nagle was unable to provide the name of a person who has yet to be disqualified as a football club director since the test was introduced as part of the league's regulations in 2004, simply adding: "It's always difficult to say if anybody has fallen foul of the test. All we can say is since it came in people may be aware of the rules and have decided not to get involved with a club."

Former motor sport team owner Batchelor, however, has clearly not been dissuaded from pursuing a return to the football world and Nagle added: "John probably wouldn't fail the test and anything that happened while he was at York was before it came into force."

Such comments appear to make a mockery of the test's existence and, after closer inspection, there appears nothing to prevent Batchelor becoming a director again at any Football League club.

In its current form, after a 2005 update, sex offenders, people given a custodial sentence of 12 months or more and individuals who have been disqualified by a professional body have joined bankrupts and directors who have run two companies into insolvency on the test's blacklist.

There is no protection against individuals such as Batchelor, whose defence of "I did nothing wrong," when asked by the Mansfield Chad newspaper of his York involvement this week, he admitted to walking away with a £120,000 profit from a club he had took into administration.

Should history repeat itself, then the former toilet roll and paper towel salesman may just achieve the seemingly impossible and fail football's version of the Media Studies A'-level but surely Mansfield would be wackier than the man himself to give the Austin Powers impersonator a second chance.

As the disclosure of City's recent financial troubles prove, the KitKat Crescent outfit's very future is still being shaped to a large extent by Batchelor's agreement to tear up the club's 25-year lease agreement with Bootham Crescent Holdings - the holding company set up by former directors Douglas Craig, Barry Swallow and Colin Webb.

That single action precipitated the chain of events that leaves the Minstermen in a position of paying annual loan repayments of £140,000 until they are in a position to move to a new stadium.

Talk of outgoing chairman Keith Haslam's willingness to sell the Field Mill stadium at an agreed price in the next four years to a new owner should fill Mansfield fans with trepidation.

Batchelor's publicity-blazed return should also put into context the continued concerns from detractors of the club's current owners - Jason McGill's Malton-based family business JM Packaging.

McGill's honest appraisal that the Minstermen may have to "limp along as a mid-table Conference outfit" until relocation is achieved, made at this week's Supporters' Trust annual general meeting, might not please the proudest of City fans but it is a realistic assessment of the club's current plight.

Handicapped by their annual £200,000 obligations and with crowds dipping below 2,000, City's need to curb costs, having attempted to maintain a Football League structure during four seasons as a Conference club in the pursuit of promotion, is now paramount and any other approach.

"Our annual income has dropped below £1 million," McGill pointed out on Wednesday night.

"Cambridge's budget this season was £1.2 million but I think there could be a few clubs in significant financial trouble soon."