Peterborough United chairman hits back at 'salacious gossip and defamatory rumours' regarding club's financial health

MacAnthony has described suggestions made on a Posh fans’ website the club could be heading for Administration as ‘nonsense.’

There has been concern expressed at the level of debt the club has carried for many seasons. In the last published accounts for the year ending June 2021 Posh registered a loss of £1.087 million. The loss was £3.5 million in the previous year.

MacAnthony recently expressed a wish to leave Posh at the end of the current season, although he has since insisted he would not leave the club in the lurch. The falling out of Candian co-owners Dr Jason Neale and Stewart Thompson has also added to a feeling of uncertainty among Posh fans.

But MacAnthony came out fighting on Monday morning by posting a video message on his personal instogram account.

MacAnthony, who is due in the UK this week, said: "I’m posting this video after receiving messages from friends of mine who are talking about salacious stuff and defamatory rumours on message boards.

"They are being put out there by people close to me, not at the club, but from fans’ groups. And I don’t understand it as they’ve never come to me about any of it, but they’re posting nonsense.

"This club will never go into Administration while I’m here, not a chance in Hell.

"We turned down a bid of millions and milions for the club two months ago. Does that sound like a club that’s struggling for money? Maybe those who wanted to buy put these rumours out there? I don’t know.

"When I say we’re in the shape we want to be for the rest of the season you can believe me or not believe me, but I’ve been here for 17 years and I’m proud of how I’ve run the club financially.

"Could we do with reducing the debt like a lot of clubs? Yes. Will we reduce it? Yes. It’s a challenging time for League One clubs every season. We had coped for some cup fun, but I’ll leave the manager to talk about football stuff.

"There’s a lot of work gone on in the last 5/6 weeks to ensure we are a set up for a strong second-half of the season.

"We won’t be signing multi-million pound players, but there will be business done in January. The manager will want new players and some will potentially leave. That’s what we’ve always done at this club.

"So stop all the rumours. It’s exhausting reading them and I hate reading them.”