Clarke Osborne: Ex-Torquay United owner set to lose millions with club to go into administration
- Published
Clarke Osborne rarely attended Torquay United matches
Former Torquay United owner Clarke Osborne is unlikely to get back much of the money he has loaned to the club, says a leading football finance expert.
Torquay are to go into administration after Osborne had money problems.
Accounts show Osborne's company Riviera Stadium Limited lent the club almost £4.3m up to June 2022, with the figure expected to be close to £5m now.
"He's going to have to take a significant haircut," the University of Liverpool's Kieran Maguire said.
"There's no way that somebody's going to want to inherit those debts.
"So it then comes down to what do we sell the club for? That gets allocated to the creditors, of which one will be Clarke Osborne and his companies."
The Gulls, who were relegated to National League South last season, are set to be docked 10 points for going into administration.
It will drop them from 11th to 18th place in the division and four points off the relegation places, ending any outside hopes of a return to the National League at the first attempt.
Manager Gary Johnson left the club a few hours after Osborne's announcement of his intention to appoint administrators,, external with assistant manager Aaron Downes placed in temporary charge.
The club were one of a handful of fully professional sides in the sixth tier, but Maguire said that is unlikely to continue.
"It's not really sustainable to be full time in National League South," he told BBC Sport.
"I think a new owner would come up with a budget, will look at the cost of running the team on a full-time basis and compare that to part-time basis.
"Certainly, as far as National League South is concerned, I know some directors of other clubs, and they say the numbers don't add up unless you have a benefactor who wants to rocket boost the club through the divisions.
"So that then comes down to personal circumstances, so is somebody willing to do it? Are they able to do it?
"But also, as we see with Clarke Osborne, what happens if their circumstances change? We've seen this at clubs like Bury and Macclesfield in the past, where the owners either lose interest or run out of money, that you become over-dependent upon one person."
Trust urges fans to get to matches
Torquay United ended a five-game losing streak with a 0-0 draw at Farnborough on Saturday
Torquay United Supporters' Trust (Tust) chairman Nick Brodrick has met with the club's administrators.
He said Tust does not want to take over the club, but will help to raise money and facilitate anything needed by any potential new owners.
"There are possibly some people in the background who may well be interested, and we will find out as the days go on," he told BBC Sport.
"I think the immediate message is for as many people who are Torquay United supporters who may well have stopped attending matches, for whatever reason, now is the time to come back.
"We want as many people to come to the match against Aveley as possible to have a bumper crowd.
"It's really important that we get more people through the turnstiles, buy some drinks in the bars, buy programmes, because at the moment the key thing is to see that the players, the management that's left and the admin staff are paid because that's obviously their livelihoods."
Tust has had more than 200 new applications for membership in the time since the Gulls' plan to go into administration was announced.
Brodrick said the trust's main objective was to help raise funds to keep Torquay running in the short term while administrators search for a new owner.
"We are the independent supporters' trust of the club, and we are the ones that will hopefully find a solution and point the way forward to saving our football club that we all support so much," he added.
"We're looking at various options as to how we can raise money. We've already had quite a number of people who have been offering funds to Tust to help, which is very kind and very generous of them.
"We are aware that one or two fans have been trying to set up their own pages, that's obviously well intentioned.
"But it's important that there is only one way in which money is going to be raised, and that's through Tust, and that's what we're now planning to set up as quickly as possible."