29th November 2024 - Clem talks to the Moonraker

Sam Morshead of the Moonraker posted a piece on his website: https://themoonraker.counterpress.media/  following conversations with Swindon Town Football Club owner Clem Morfuni. I have asked Sam if he is happy for me to  take out some extracts of the piece to pick the bones out of what we already know. I would like to thank Sam for allowing me to do this.

So here goes:

During the conversation with Sam, the question was asked about Clem's comment that he made during the January 2024 Fans Forum:

In January, Morfuni made a comment at a fans’ forum which many took as a commitment to writing off the money owed to him.

Asked by The Moonraker to clarify that statement, he said: “I probably shouldn't have made that comment. I've spoken to my legal department. I've spoken to the finance department. I can't just write off the debt at the moment.

“What I meant was that I wanted to clear the debt once I've sold the club. I want the club to be debt free once the club's been sold. That's what my intentions are. I know what happened last time: there was a £2.95million debenture, which was put onto the club by Andrew Black, which we had to clear and nearly put the club into admin, which I don't want to do.

So we go from saying one thing, but meaning another - something that Town fans have been all too familiar with since the Morfuni ownership started in July 2021. I would also like to highlight the debentures. In the statement that Clem Morfuni makes to Sam Morshead, he alleviates to the debentures as being £2.95m  from the date of Andrew Black leaving the club. As you will see on a previous page on this very thing, the actual debenture was not in the form of 1 whole debenture, it was in the form of 4 debentures of which 1 was owned by Andrew Black and 3 by Sir Martyn Arbib. The total value of the 4 debentures was £2m. The £950k relates to interest charges on those debentures (A debenture is basically treated in the same way as a mortgage for buying a house).  It does show Morfuni's lack of understanding of what he is putting money into the club to pay off in the way of debts.

Slightly further down in Sam's article he writes:

The club’s minority shareholders, Chris and Holly Kiely, also come into the equation. Chris, the son of former Ireland international goalkeeper Dean, stumped up a seven-figure sum in 2022 to help pay off a debenture when it was called in by an associate of former Town owner Lee Power.  

Now with the 1st highlighted piece being stated by Clem Morfuni, so why does he keep insisting that the debenture was called in by an associate of Lee Power?

I can only presume that it is to make himself look like he's saved the club on multiple occasions, this I have debunked in the page "Did Clem Save The Club?" or that he is trying to discredit Lee Power even further so that he could never been perceived as the worst owner of Swindon Town Football Club? Who knows, what I do know, it's another lie and until he provides proof of the allegations, it will remain a lie.

During the Interview, Sam asked Clem to comment on the statement of newly formed fangroup Spirit of 69's that they describe as systematic and abject incompetence. The reponse of Morfuni has baffled fans and I find it quite laughable. Morfuni stated “I've been in business 30 years now. I run a business that is global, employs 900 staff. To say that I'm incompetent running a business, I don't accept that". 

Well a lot of my research previously has been around Clem's Axis businesses. Whilst Clem Morfuni claimed in his due diligence to the STFC Trust that he has an annual turnover globally of 200m AUD. Since then, he has had 3 of his businesses liquidate (Axis M & E Ltd, Axis Plumbing NSW Pty Ltd and Axis Services Group UK) with a combined turnover for the same period as supplied to the STFC Trust of !30mAUD. Now to put that into perspective and to do a conversion from AUD to £ sterling. At the time of writing this, 200m AUD is equivalent of £102,506,000, if we now remove the 130mAUD off for the liquidated business turnover which leaves 70mAUD, that is equal to £35,877,100 as a global turnover for Axis. During the liquidation of Axis Plumbing NSW Pty Ltd, it was discovered that by Peter Kriec (the liquidation company) that accounts filed into ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission) that Axis Plumbing NSW  Pty Ltd had a turnover of 70mAUD but only had a profit of just over 312kAUD, how can a company spend over 69.5mAUD? I can answer this one too, Axis businesses globally in their accounts state that they have loans with other Axis Global entities. This is normal in business, just not to the scale of the loans that are being put on balance sheets. 

Clem also made the following statement:

“But when it comes to running the business and putting processes [in place]… we've refurbed the shop, the fan zone or Statue Park, the Legends Lounge - although there's a problem with the flooring. What we've done on the pitch, refurbished a pitch, everything else. We have an Advisory Board meeting once a month. We've had 30-odd and I’ve been at every one of them except for one. I was late because it was 11 o'clock at night. But we've got interaction with the supporters on every level now, so to say we're incompetent running the business? No. 

Whilst there has been some improvements around the ground, there are still fundamental repairs that should have been resolved on day 1. I will go back to what Hanners stated on Tuesday's Fools Rush In podcast. To stand and watch your child going to the toilet in the Town End and seeing them stood in a puddle that is not water from an overflowing sink, but other people's piss is totally unacceptable in this day and age. You also don't want to see your child get in the back of your car, touch their shoes and put their hand to their face or in their mouth. 

The Advisory Board meetings have been reduced to bi-monthly and not monthly as Clem claims, The claims of having interaction with supporters on every level now is again a lie. The fans send in questions to the AB and it is batted away as being answered although it has not been.

These are the fundamentals of a football club owner and those that he employs in a senior management role not only being incompetent, but also showing absolute contempt against a fan base who are not stupid and can see through lies very quickly.

I would like to take the opportunity to applaud Sam Morshead on the article and if you haven't subscribed as yet, please do so as the content is fantastic.

I would also like to point out that  whilst I use this platform to debunk, criticise and show the lies of the current STFC board and owner, I am not a journalist and have never wanted to go into that field of work. So I would like to doft my hat to those who do and especially those who I have had interactions with over the past 3 years, the likes of Sam, Daniel Wood and Joe Acklam.

I would also like to doft my hat to the 3 co-founders of Spirit of 69, Dan Hunt, Terry Pierce and Rich Pullen. As you all know, I tried to organise a protest and whether fans were not at that juncture or my personal credibility was low (I have publicly apologised) I failed. I am backing this all of the way as change is needed and it is needed now.