Fitton confirms accounts are overdue (From Swindon Advertiser)

SWINDON TOWN: Fitton confirms accounts are overdue

6:00am Friday 25th May 2012 in STFC News Exclusive By Sam Morshead

FORMER Swindon Town chairman Andrew Fitton has stressed that there is nothing sinister going on behind the scenes at the County Ground after it emerged that the club’s holding company’s accounts are almost three months overdue.

Swindon Football Holdings Limited, of which Swindon Town Football Company Limited is a subsidiary, has been served with a ‘proposal to strike off’ by the Registrar of Companies due to their tardiness in submitting figures for the year ending May 31, 2011, effectively giving the company a standard 90-day term to address the problem or face being wound up.

The company, whose directors include Swindon interim chairman Jeremy Wray, Fitton and investor Andrew Black, were supposed to have handed in their accounts to Companies House by February 29 this year but have still yet to file.

The financial stability risk score of Swindon Football Holdings Limited has moved from ‘below average risk’ on March 1, 2012 to ‘maximum risk’ on May 3, 2012 - the period over which the company has been in default of its filing obligations.

However Fitton, who stood down from his role as chairman of the Robins in April 2011 and has since left the club’s board, has told the Advertiser that there is good reason for the delay - namely the movement of shares between existing shareholders within the company.

“There were some changes to the relative shareholding within the company that happened after the year’s end and that always creates a problem,” he said.

“As a result, the accounts are filed late when the changes have taken place.”

Such movement of shareholding could be a precursor to new money in the football club, but Fitton would not be drawn on the subject.