Palace fans deserve an explanation (From Croydon Guardian)

Palace fans deserve an explanation

5:08pm Friday 29th January 2010

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So it’s here, the moment all Crystal Palace fans knew was coming.

January 26, 2010 will forever live in infamy among Eagles fans as Crystal Palace FC was forced into administration.

How can this be? How can a club that in 1981 was the sixth best supported club in the land and has since been a founder member of the Premiership, been to the final and semi final of the FA Cup, has been to the league cup semi finals three times, has finished third in the old first division, has won the Championship once and gone up via playoffs three times be forced into administration for the second time in just twelve years?

This is the main question, but there are also many others to be answered.

The difference with Palace going into administration compared to a club like Leeds is that relegation wasn’t involved.

Leeds got relegated to the Championship during a time when they had based their budget around Champions League football, making financial meltdown inevitable.

Crystal Palace on the other hand have been a successful Championship club making the playoffs twice in the past five years and seemingly living within their means.

Despite having the image of being a well-run club under the seemingly sensible Simon Jordan, it has emerged that Palace are £30m in debt.

In simple terms, this means that they have spent £30m more than they actually have.

Yet over the past five years Palace have sold numerous players in multi-million pound deals.

Andy Johnson was sold to Everton for a club record £8.6m(a profit of £8m), players who came through the youth academy such as John Bostock, Tom Soares and Ben Watson were sold for a combined £4.25m, Fitz Hall went to Wigan for £3m after being signed for £1.5m, Emmerson Boyce went to the DW Stadium for £2m after being signed on a bosman, Leon Cort went to Stoke for £1.4m, and Jose Fonte has recently been sold to Southampton for £1.5m after being bought for £600,000 from Benfica.

Yet despite all this money coming in Palace haven’t spent more than £800,000 on a player since Shefki Kuqi was bought from Blackburn for £2.5m in August 2006.

Things simply don’t add up. Where has all the money gone?

After a succession of unpopular owners Palace fans thought they had it cracked under Simon Jordan.

A clear thinking, lifelong Palace fan who had legitimate success in the mobile phone business nobody could ever have fathomed that it would come to this.

This is what ultimately makes events of recent days even more confusing, Jordan has always backed his managers but never to the extent where things got out of hand.

He has become somewhat infamous amongst agents for refusing to meet their extortionate financial demands.

One could point to the fact that some of his big money signings such as Akinbiyi and Kuqi haven’t come off, but this is no excuse as this happens at all clubs and is an integral part of the game, no signing is ever a guaranteed hit.

One could also, quite fairly, point to the fact that he doesn’t own the ground.

But why didn’t he make sorting this out his number one priority when he came in rather than paying for Neil Ruddock’s pies?

Despite the events of January 26, Simon Jordan remains a decent man with good principles, a Palace supporter through and through who had his heart in the right place and someone who will always be popular with the vast majority of fans despite his somewhat aloof character.

However, those people who have supported him and stuck by him during some controversial times now deserve a huge explanation as to how he has managed to take their club back to the dungeon from which he rescued it ten years ago.

As hopeless as the current situation may seem there are some rays of light that Palace fans must focus on. First of all the ground is now only worth an estimated £5m due to the troubles that its owners (Royal Bank of Scotland) find themselves in, making the club a much more attractive prospect for any potential buyers.

There is also confirmed interest in buying the club from a consortium of South London businessmen.

A lot will depend on activities in the transfer window over the coming days, but if you look back a mere ten years ago to the previous great escape from administration you will find some striking similarities.

A group of experienced players with real character combined with a crop of hungry youngsters that have genuine quality, along with an experienced, intelligent manager who has a record of getting the best out of his players and who has the full backing of the fans.

If Palace can somehow keep this intact over the coming days you will see sooner rather than later, that the Eagles will fly again.