Following this Blog's discovery about our Club flogging tickets and merch to its "Charitable Partner", The Albion Foundation", I made a formal complaint to the Charity Commission asking them to investigate.
The initial story can be found via this link if you are really keen:
https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2020/10/has-wba-fc-profited-from-albion.html
I must stress before any morons start having a pop at me that (a) I am a Baggies supporter, and (b) there is no doubt that the Foundation does some wonderful work. Nevertheless, there is something which, on the face of it, is seriously wrong here and it is in the public interest that the full facts are disclosed. And the Foundation did not help itself here by denying the facts at the outset of my enquiry.
After an horrendous delay the Charity Commission has finally responded with an absurd letter. Here is my response today which should, I hope, be self-explanatory:
"THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION
"On 18th December, 2020 I made a complaint to the Charity Commission concerning The Albion Foundation - 1081948. At all material times, West Bromwich Albion was a Premier League Football Club. Although the Club has historically given little or even no funds to The Albion Foundation it gains kudos by claiming that the Foundation is somehow the charitable “arm” of the Club. There were, at the time of my complaint, very real concerns relating to conflicts of interest in that employees of the football Club were also acting as trustees of the charitable Foundation.
"Not only were the football Club giving little, or even nothing at all, to the Charity, I exposed the fact that the Charity had purchased nearly £2m worth of match tickets and merchandise from the Football Club - thereby improving the financial position of the Club. It is important to note that The Albion Foundation initially denied this which, in itself, raises serious questions of the governance of the Charity.
"I received a letter from you dated 16th February, 2022 purporting to respond to my complaint. Firstly, your letter was a mere 425 days after my complaint - an egregious and completely unexplained delay notwithstanding the Covid crisis. No apology has been forthcoming for this grossly unsatisfactory tardiness. Secondly, the content of your response, as set out below, is wholly unsatisfactory and, quite frankly, an insult to a journalist raising very serious issues of considerable public interest - especially in the local area.
"Here are your responses together with my additional comments. I seek an immediate review of this whole matter and a properly detailed and appropriate reply.
Finding One:
“The charity has stated that in previous accounting years it has made errors within the financial statement [sic] and that these would be noted and corrected in future financial statements.”
"You refer to errors in “the financial statement” whereas I submitted the 2017, 2018 and 2019 accounts with my complaint all of which showed large purchases of tickets and merchandise by the Charity from the commercial private Company, WBA FC. Why do you only refer to a singular “financial statement”. Which of the three sets of accounts sent to you do the Charity now say contains false entries?
"You appear to have simply taken the Foundation’s word for this very serious aspect of the matter. This sale of tickets has been going on for some years and, in the meantime, The Foundation has seemingly been raising false accounts and fundraising - including from quasi-public bodies - on the basis of a falsely-represented financial position.
"What were the errors and how did the Trustees (including employees of WBA FC) come to sign off false accounts?
"Are you saying that the Foundation did not spend large sums with WBA FC on tickets (and merchandise)? What are you saying?
"The promise to rectify matters at some unspecified future date is wholly unacceptable when you have allowed the Charity to continue to fundraise for 425 days based on inaccurate statements of their financial position and without explaining to donors that large sums were being transferred to a private company i.e. WBA FC.
Finding Two:
“That the charity trustees provided a breakdown of costs involved in running the charitable activities. Evidence was also received to show that the trustees had made decisions in respect of how these costs represented the best value for the charity.”
"This “finding” is utterly meaningless. The Trustees have to provide a breakdown of costs in their annual accounts in any event. Why have they not made the breakdown submitted to you public noting, as above, that they continue to fundraise on the basis of seemingly false financial statements.
"The Trustees are bound by law to act in the best interests of the Charity and so what does the second sentence of this “finding” even mean?
"Do the Trustees accept that they spent nearly £2m with WBA FC on tickets (and even merchandise) and, if so, how do they say this constitutes “best value”? Again, why is this information not being placed in the public domain?
Finding Three:
“We received assurances on how conflicts of interest were managed and how the trustees ensured that all decisions were made in the best interests of the charity.”
"Leaving aside the obvious conflict of interest that the Foundation allows itself to be represented as the charitable arm of WBA FC when the latter has given it little or even nothing over recent years, this “finding” does suggest that at least some sort of conflict of interest has been perceived and - allegedly - managed.
"If the charitable Foundation did make the large payments to WBA FC for tickets etc. were the Trustees who were also employees of the football Club involved in those decisions or not? What was your “finding” on this fundamental issue?
"What were the perceived conflicts of interest and how, precisely, were they managed? What, if anything, has changed since the date of my complaint in late 2020?
Finding Four:
“Details were provided on how purchases from WBA enhance the provision to the beneficiaries through the different projects being run by the charity.”
"Whilst this appears to be an admission that there has indeed been a history of the Charity making purchases from the football Club, why are these new “details” not being publicly disclosed?
Once again, how much has the Charity really spent with the Club and were the “club Trustees” involved in these purchases? I repeat that the Charity initially denied making any purchases from the Club.
Are the purchases at WBA FC face value or at discounted rates?
WBA FC
"Your letter suggests that you have simply taken the Foundation’s say so for your “findings”. Did you make any sort of independent investigation yourselves? How did you independently assess the weight of the assurances given? Did you seek any evidence from WBA FC itself?
Given the gross delay in your initial response to my complaint please respond with a maximum of 28 days."
That is the end of the letter. It is, of course, regrettable that the Trustees of the Foundation have not themseleves seen fit to set the record straight. The Skidder did contact one Trustee (who, it is very important to note, was NOT on the Board at the time of the issues arising in my complaint) Conservative MP, Nicola Richards, but she has declined to respond for whatever reason.
The current Trustees are: James Verrier (Chair); Benjamin Szreter, Xu Ke, Richard Stevens, Hitesh Patel, Paula Burns, James Orton, Nicola Rcihards, John Carrington, Mark Miles and Simon Topper.
Perhaps one of them could go onto Adrian Goldberg and Chris Lepkowski's "The Liquidator Podcast" (at buzzsprout.com and on Spotify etc). and explain what has been going on here? Perhaps they could pre-empt further involvement of the Charity Commission by making the full facts public themselves? What is there for this Charity to want to hide?
COYB!
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