Bolton Wanderers (not) hit by Icelandic banking collapse
Tuesday October 14th, 2008
The story you won’t have read in The Bolton News or on the official club website…
*Several parts of this story were altered as the story evolved. In the interests of transparency, all changes have been recorded for posterity, hence crossings out, brackets and UPDATES (sorry if this is confusing)*
**UPDATE 5 (19.10.2008): (not) added to headline. Original headline read ‘Bolton Wanderers hit by Icelandic banking collapse’. See new post here for explanation.**
Much has been made in the press of West Ham’s connections to the Icelandic banking collapse, but it appears Bolton could lose money in the crisis too.
The Guardian today (October 14) reported that several Premier League clubs are facing financial headaches following the virtual nationalisation of high street banks in the UK. But Bolton’s connections to Iceland apparently leave them in an particularly vulnerable position. The paper’s Digger column said:
Bolton Wanderers have most to fear. Singer & Friedlander, the operation belonging to the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing, is in administration. Bolton would now appear to be debtors to a huge list of creditors who are clamouring for their funds.
Of course, being a national newspaper, The Guardian gives Bolton’s woes only one paragraph in an article that is more concerned with the potential problems at Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.
So naturally, after reading this, I turned to The Bolton News website and bwfc.co.uk for a more in-depth analysis.
What did I find? A story about fans being encouraged to bring flags to the Blackburn game on Saturday leading the news on both sites and no mention of the club’s connections to Iceland in sight.
An admirable initiative no doubt, but was this really the most important thing that happened on Planet Bolton Wanderers today? I dare say the club’s accountant doesn’t think so.
:UPDATE: Yesterday The Bolton News reported that the British Government has loaned an Icelandic bank £100m, but it made no mention of Bolton Wanderers’ links to country’s banking crisis.
:UPDATE 2: Found this discussion on The Wanderer in which fans with more financial know-how than myself call in to question the validity of The Guardian story. It would be nice if the club could come out with similar statements of reassurance.
:UPDATE 3: The plot thickens. I’m told The Bolton News carried the story on their back page this morning, however the website version was there one minute and gone the next. Details on this discussion here.
:UPDATE 4: Apparently the ‘back page’ mentioned in update 3 was ‘a metaphorical’ one. Can anyone confirm what was on the back page of The Bolton News this morning (they don’t sell it here in London)?
Now you see it… Google brings up The Bolton News as result number one in a search for ‘Bolton Wanderers credit crunch’…
Google results for 'Bolton Wanderers credit crunch'
Now you don’t… but the link leads to an empty page and the story appears to have been removed almost as soon as it went up…
Disappearing act on The Bolton News
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3 Comments to Bolton Wanderers (not) hit by Icelandic banking collapse
[...] Contact « Bolton Wanderers hit by Icelandic banking collapse [...]
October 22, 2008
[...] the confusion surrounding Bolton’s connection to the Icelandic banking crisis last week, I wrote that The Guardian deleting that story from their website and the club staying [...]
[...] full tale of The Guardian’s story that never was is documented on this Manny Road post here, and I now have it on good authority that it was removed from their website (without explanation) [...]
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October 19, 2008