West Brom ‘car crash’ Guochuan Lai situation used as marker for dysfunction by finance expert amid Premier League club revelations
The “car crash” situation at West Brom relating to the non-payment of loans by Guochuan Lai have been held up as a marker for the problems at Everton by Kieran Maguire.
The release of various clubs’ accounts at the end of March has unearthed worrying situations at The Hawthorns and at Goodison Park, but amid the reveal from the report of the Toffees that they had moved onto a third set of auditors in four years, finance expert Maguire pointed out that the only club who had been through more was indeed West Brom.
Maguire had highlighted that it was a “red flag” that PwC had quit as auditors of the club, the fourth to go in seven years, in on 22 September on The Price of Football podcast (26m 40s), with Matt Slater of The Athletic subsequently outlining the miserable findings of the latest firm via Twitter on 30 March.
Speaking on The Price of Football podcast again on Thursday (6 April, 17m 40s) Maguire said of the Everton discovery: “The only club that has changed auditors more times than Everton over the course of the last few years is West Bromwich Albion, and we’re fully aware of the car crash that’s existed there with regards to director’s loans not being repaid. There’s been a lot of frustration.”
The current Baggies auditors delivered nothing but bad news to the fans, with the £5million loan to controlling shareholder Lai now effectively written off as lost after multiple failures to repay, and “material uncertainty” over the club’s future without major player sales [The Athletic, 30 March].
Poster child
It comes to something when West Brom can be used as shorthand for how badly in trouble a football club can be.
There is a reason why Baggies fans are staging regular protests against the current hierarchy, and in that sense have a number of parallels with their Toffees counterparts.
Carlos Corberan may have done a stunning job in rescuing the club from a potential relegation to League One, given what has since come out has confirmed that would have signified complete oblivion for the club in its current state.
But for the Spaniard and this squad to have the long-term future of the Albion’s very existence hanging over their heads if they don’t pull of the unlikely feat of not only securing a playoff spot, but also going the distance, is a testament to the mess behind the scenes.
Maguire has been well across it for a long time, but in the grand scheme of things the nightmare for Baggies fans has had far less exposure than the travails of Everton’s support under the reign of Farhad Moshiri.
Part of that inevitably stems from the fact West Brom are in the second tier, but when the situation in the Midlands surpasses that on Merseyside there has to be greater scrutiny.
In other West Brom news, an international coach has been left stunned by what has happened to one of his players at The Hawthorns.