Ownership of Bescot (Banks's) Stadium & 2011 Criticism of Jeff Bonser
For many years since Walsall F.C moved to the Bescot Stadium (now known as the Banks's Stadium), there has been a bone of contention between fans and majority shareholder Jeff Bonser over who is the beneficiary of the rent that Walsall F.C pay to use Bescot Stadium, a ground they paid to build.
In December 2009, Jeff Bonser gave an interview to the Birmingham Mail in which he is quoted as saying "I can say quite categorically that Walsall FC has never paid a penny into my pension fund".
In March 2011, the official Walsall F.C website announced that it had been "informed by its landlord Suffolk Life Annuities Limited of their intention to sell their freehold interest in the Banks's Stadium site". However, following an article in the Express & Star by Nick Mashiter, Matt Scott, an investigative football journalist at the Guardian picked up the story and began to investigate. On 18 March, Scott questioned the accuracy of the statement made by Walsall F.C and then confirmed the misleading nature of the club's statement on 22 March, saying "Walsall do indeed pay rent to Bonser's pension, as is consistent with the arrangements for self-invested personal pensions. So in fact, the landlord in all but title is none other than Bonser himself. One mystery solved, then (if a mystery it ever was).".
On 30 March, leading football finance journalist David Conn of the Guardian Newspaper investigated the story still further after he was granted an interview by Bonser. In the article, Bonser contradicts his previous December 2009 statement in which he claimed "Walsall FC has never paid a penny into my pension fund" by admitting that Walsall F.C does indeed pay rent to a Self Invested Pension Fund owned by him and his brother Robert Bonser. Bonser claims that the Pension Fund invested large amounts of money in Bescot Stadium, however some, if not all, of this investment was in the form of interest free loans which the club have been paying back as well as the annual rent.
Between 2008 and 2011, there were murmurings of Council ownership of the Bescot Stadium site. It was reported in the Express and Star Newspaper on 6 June 2008, that Walsall were attempting to sell the stadium to Walsall Council, and renting it back off them to secure the club's financial future. The Council, however, stated they did not have the funds to purchase the ground.
During the Spring of 2011, former Britney Spears record producer, Steve Jenkins, tried to drum up support for the council to buy the land
On 11 July 2011, at a full Council meeting, the motion to investigate the possibility of Council ownership of Bescot Stadium was defeated by 28 votes to 24. Mike Bird spoke against the proposal, stating that the cost of simply investigating the purchase would run to "£50,000 or £60,000", and that repayments would be greater than the rent Walsall F.C currently pay, and thus wasn't a viable proposition. This formally ended the Council's interest in buying the Stadium from Jeff Bonser's Pension Fund.
Read more about this topic: Walsall F.C.
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