Source: Bournemouth_Echo
Cherries: Baker makes claim for '£25k payment'
FORMER Cherries owner Paul Baker has threatened legal action over money he claims he is owed by the club.[LNB] Baker says he is due more than £25,000 after he was forced to pay out to finance company Lombard North Central for the purchase of IT equipment when Sport-6 took over the football club in 2008.[LNB] Baker says he agreed to act as a personal guarantor for the finance due to the club's perilous financial position at the time.[LNB] But when Baker moved to sell the club in 2009, a clause was inserted into the sale agreement stating that buyers the Murry Group would take on the payments to Lombard North Central and release Baker from his personal guarantee.[LNB] Baker claims Lombard North Central were not paid by the club as agreed and that he was forced to settle the sum of £25,264 as guarantor earlier this year.[LNB] Baker said: When we took over the club, we couldn't get any credit rating because we had just come out of administration. The club was badly in need of new IT hardware and software because what was there was a joke.[LNB] We spent money getting it done but the club couldn't get finance so it was agreed between myself and the other directors that my company at the time, UK Sameday, would purchase the equipment for the club and the club would pay UK Sameday monthly.[LNB] If they couldn't pay UK Sameday, they had to pay me. It was all agreed.[LNB] When the club was sold, the two main points of the sale were that John Piper got his money back, which I'm pleased to hear he now has, and that the IT was paid for by the new owners and I was released from my personal guarantee.[LNB] A month or so ago, it got to the point where Lombard lost patience and so I paid the debt. They placed a charge on my property and so, when I came to sell it, I had no choice but to pay the debt.[LNB] I gave the club every chance to pay and sat patiently, but nothing happened.[LNB] In the end, Lombard lost patience with me and I ended up paying. I have now instructed my lawyers.[LNB] Chairman Eddie Mitchell claims Sport-6 left the club with debts of around £1.8m when the Murry Group took over in 2009.[LNB] But in an interview with the Echo earlier this week, Mitchell claimed the club was debt-free apart from money loaned by himself and vice-chairman Jeff Mostyn.[LNB] When contacted yesterday, Cherries chief executive Neill Blake claimed the club had paid £3,000 to representatives of Lombard North Central for the IT equipment last year and that, they believed, had released Baker from his personal guarantee.[LNB]
