Peterborough United chief addresses the level of club debt, his relationship with the co-owners and the saga of a suspended chief executive

Dr Neale was responding to rumours among the Posh fanbase that the club have hit financial trouble and that Administration was a possibility in the future.

Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony described the scare-mongering suggestions as ‘salacious gossip and defamatory rumours’ on Monday. The club ownership believe potential purchasers could be behind the rumours in an attempt to lower the market value of the club. MacAnthony revealed a multi-million pound bid for Posh had been recently rejected.

Salacious gossip

Dr Neale addressed the level of debt, his relationship with his fellow co-owners MacAnthony and Stewart ‘Randy’ Thompson and the immediate future of suspended chief executive David Paton in a statement to the Peterborough Telegraph.

It read…

‘The club borrowed funds form Old Kent Road Financial (OKR), which has a range of debt products, during the covid pandemic. This is not new news and has been widely reported, both in PUFC financial statements (club accounts) and the Tifosy Bond offering.

‘Not sure where all of these rumours are coming from, but Darragh and I suspect it is people trying to deflate the value of the business in an effort to purchase the club at a lower than market valuation.

‘Randy and I no longer work together, but both maintain an interest in the club and are both committed to its success. This is not new news. I have taken a more active role in the leadership of the club with Darragh.

‘When the 2022 financial statements (club accounts) are released, it will show the club was profitable in the last financial year and has substantially reduced debt.

‘Since the 2021 financial results we have further reduced debt to OKR which on November 30th, 2022, will stand at £1.823 million of secured and £0.306 million of unsecured debt.

‘We plan to settle the balance of the aforementioned debt in January-March 2022 out of new financing that we have access to and club profits as they occur. At that time there will be no OKR debt on PUFC.

‘We expect to have the issues around David Paton resolved before the Christmas holidays.’

Posh have until March, 2023 to publish their accounts for the year ending June, 2022. 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.