BROMSGROVE Sporting secretary Phil Baker insists the club are in a ‘good position’ financially following the shock resignation of former chairman Brian Seymour-Smith and his consortium.
The Rouslers were rocked by the news which broke earlier this week after Seymour-Smith, Craig Cotterill and Paul Molesworth shockingly resigned from the board of directors and left the club with immediate effect.
However, despite the abrupt nature of the consortium’s departure, Baker is confident Sporting can continue to operate within their means.
Baker told BBC Hereford and Worcester: “It has come as quite a surprise to us, within any football club there are always disagreements and differences of opinion and there have been a few in the background but absolutely nothing going on that would cause anyone to resign or walk away from the club.
“When the consortium handed in their resignations it came as quite a surprise and quite a shock to all of us at the football club.
“We need to keep supporters informed about what is going in and keep them on board and to keep them supporting the club through a potentially difficult time.
“The remaining board members all get on extremely well, we have a large number of volunteers and helpers at the ground, we’re in quite a good position to carry on with running the club.
“But obviously the chairman will have to be replaced, somebody who was going to bring in substantial amounts of sponsorship money and a director of football who had very good contacts is going to leave a massive hole in the board.
“That’s something we’ll have to fill but we’re reasonably confident we can do that, not immediately, it will take a bit of time but we believe we can do it.”
And Baker insists he and the board do not regret the decision to allow Seymour-Smith and his consortium onto the board despite the trio’s short reign in charge at the Victoria Ground.
Baker added: “We were approached by Brian and his two colleagues during the summer and they made quite an attractive offer to us to come in and run the club and bring in a substantial amount of sponsorship.
“They talked about a figure of bringing in £100,000 and bringing it in fairly quickly, anybody coming along to a small football club offering that sort of money, we’re going to listen to them and we were quite convinced that was the way forward.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I don’t regret the decision we made to invite Brian and his two colleagues onto the board, at the time it seemed to be a good decision.
“I don’t really know all the reasons why Brian and his two colleagues have left but with hindsight maybe we should have done a bit more due diligence and questioned things a little bit more.
“At the time it seemed like a good idea, occasionally things don’t work out as you expect and this is one of those occasions.”
Baker also confirmed that current vice-chairman, Graham Scott, has taken over as acting chairman with the club set to announce Seymour-Smith’s permanent successor in the coming days.
Baker said: “Like all football clubs we suffered a fair bit during the pandemic, the football hasn’t been too brilliant the last two seasons, we’ve ended up fairly low in the league and we have lost a number of supporters so crowds and income has been down.
“We’ve had to use money in reserve to top up the budget but financially the club is extremely solvent and we don’t have any financial difficulties.
“However, we do need sponsorship and to raise money and people to come into the ground, pay their admission fee, and take advantage of the facilities we’ve got, we’re reasonably confident we can carry on in that direction.
“It’s a very difficult situation, it’s very easy for people to criticise the board or members of the board for past actions, what we need at the moment is people to help us out with the running of the club, if there are people out there interested in helping us out now is the time for them to come forward.”
