 The
Sunday Telegraph this week (29/12/2002) carried an article entitled "Seedy
truth that lies behind the shaming of a football club" explaining some
of what was going on at Boston United, resulting in the FA charges in the close
season.
This article pretty much vindicates every view put
forward by the Daggers and this site since the summer on this subject, right
down to the fact that there was a "cash economy" at the club.
The gist of the story is that Steve Evans was
agreeing contracts with players and they were signing a kosher copy to keep and
two blanks "to save time" and that the blanks would have much smaller
figures for pay and bonuses on them. These copies were then held by the club and
passed to the FA. This explains why the players involved were not charged as
they were receiving the renumeration that was stated on the contract in their
hand. The balance was paid cash into their bank accounts.
The article does leave a number of issues unanswered,
for instance, where was the cash coming from to pay the players more than was
officially going through the club's books. It also seems clear that, while the
full blame was laid at the feet of Steve Evans, he could not possibly have been
working alone on this.
The article states that while Mike Marsh's official
contract stated he was on £100 per week, he was actually getting £1,000 per
week. The difference of £900 per week is the equivalent of under declaring the
gate by over 100 people yet no charges relating to this sort of practice
or any tax evasions have been made.
The article also talks about the charge of impeding the FA enquiry and makes
it clear the Jim Dick is the player involved in this issue. He was passed
£8,000 to keep his mouth shut by a third party on Evans' behalf the day before
being interviewed by the FA Compliance Unit and given a "minder" for
the interview. This tactic failed when Dick realised the scale of the potential
trouble he could be in and when Evans subsequently bad mouthed Dick in typical
fashion.
No doubt there will be more to come on the subject and DiggerDagger will
continue to follow the story to its conclusion. Meanwhile, the apologists at the
Boston
Patter are still trying to make it all out to be a plot. You have to wonder
what these people are smoking.
Evans and Pat Malkinson, former chairman of Boston United, are due to be
sentenced for the offences on the 29th January 2003.
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