Source: Bournemouth_Echo
Cherries: Smith loan signing was in danger
EDDIE Mitchell has today revealed how Cherries came close to losing out on the signing of Adam Smith due to the curse of the transfer embargo. Football League officials initially blocked Cherries' attempts to draft in the Spurs defender due to issues surrounding the club's finances. The deal together with any future transfers was in danger of falling through after the Dean Court outfit had failed to submit its annual accounts on time. However, the decision was subsequently overturned yesterday afternoon when Cherries were given the green light to sign Smith on a month's loan. As a condition of the club exiting administration in August 2008, the Football League must sanction all transfers for a period of three years. Chairman Mitchell gained a controlling interest in Cherries in June 2009 when a deal was brokered between the Murry Group and previous owner Paul Baker. Speaking to the Daily Echo last night, Mitchell said: We were again put to the test by the Football League because we had to submit our accounts by a certain time. Some of the information that went into those accounts was historic to us and had to come from the receiver and that's why they weren't submitted in time. I think they are the first set of fully audited accounts that the club has sent in for a while. Once they were finalised, we then had the embarrassment of sending them to the Football League showing losses in excess of £1.5m for the year up to before we came in and £1.7m in total. That is the enormity of what we have had to work our way through to the situation we now find ourselves in, which is a lot healthier. Hopefully, our next set of accounts will show how we have nibbled away at that debt to get it to where it is now. When you get an audited figure which shows something like that it just brings back how appallingly the club was run before we got here. Mitchell added: I was told on Tuesday that there was no way we would be able to bring in a loan player because the Football League would not sanction it. I said we had to find a way and it just shows what determination can do. You can't accept anything until you have exhausted all avenues and, at the time, we hadn't done that. It's a learning curve for everybody because we have all got to push this club to get it to a level where it should be.