THE controversial former owner of York City FC has been banned from acting as a company director for the next seven years.

Officials at the Government’s Insolvency Service said John Batchelor had allowed two of his companies to enter transactions to the benefit of connected companies and himself and to the detriment of their creditors.

Mr Batchelor, who was in charge at Bootham Crescent in 2002, has signed a disqualification undertaking after an investigation by the service’s Disqualification Investigation Team in Manchester into his conduct while he was a director of Moornate Chemists Limited and The Besglos Polish Company Limited.

In a statement, the service said: “He and the connected companies benefited from the transfer of funds between these companies at the expense of their creditors.”

The two hygiene and cleaning products firms both started trading in the 1960s. Mr Batchelor was not formally appointed as a director of Moornate, and was a formally appointed director of Besglos for three days, but he directed the overall strategy of those firms in early 2007 when he took control of them.

Both companies entered administration in summer 2007, owing more than £750,000.

In the disqualification undertaking signed by him and accepted by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Mr Batchelor did not dispute that he caused the companies to enter transactions which were to the detriment of the companies’ creditors.

The misconduct is mainly concerned with payments to Mr Batchelor personally. The payments totalling about £50,000 were made between June 12 and August 6, 2007, when he knew the companies were insolvent.

Mr Batchelor, who last year admitted making £120,000 from his reign at York City FC, also took control of each company by using their funds to buy their own shares.

Although not illegal, the structure of the deals was detrimental to the companies’ creditors, but beneficial to Mr Batchelor.

The ban followed an eight-month investigation, based on various sources. If Mr Batchelor breaches the ban, he can be prosecuted.