Former Cardiff City chairman Peter Ridsdale has been disqualified from acting as a company director for seven and a half years after an investigation into financial irregularities concerning payments made to him by the club. The company investigations team of the UK Governmentâs Insolvency Service discovered that nearly £350,000 which should have been paid to a company called WH Sports Group (WHSG) was in fact paid into personal bank accounts in Mr Ridsdaleâs name. Mr Ridsdale, 60, of Carnforth in Lancashire, who was chairman of Cardiff City from 2006 until 2010, has given an undertaking to Business Secretary Vince Cable which bars him from acting as a company director, and from managing or in any way controlling a company. The ban will last until April 2020. Sophie Victoria Ridsdale, 45, Mr Ridsdaleâs wife and co-director of WHSG, has also been disqualified after providing a similar undertaking which will run for three-and-a-half years until April 2016. Investigators found that WHSG traded from 2003 to 2007 and was used by Mr Ridsdale to provide sports and leisure consultancy services to football clubs. The company went into liquidation in April 2009 with assets of £22,592 and liabilities of at least £478,698, including £442,353 owed to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). In signing the undertaking, Mr Ridsdale did not dispute that: * Between May 2007 and March 2009 he acted improperly and in breach of his duties to WHSG by causing payments totalling £347,000, received for invoices raised by WHSG for services provided to a football club of which he was the chairman {Cardiff City}, to be paid into personal bank accounts held in his own name, to the detriment of WHSG and its creditors. * He also failed to disclose the relevant transactions to the liquidator of WHSG, who did not become aware of them until July 2010 when information was provided by the football club. * He failed to ensure that WHSG complied with its statutory obligations to make Corporation Tax, PAYE and National Insurance Contributions(NIC), and VAT, returns and payments to HMRC as and when they were due. At liquidation WHSGâs liabilities included £166,421 in unpaid Corporation Tax, £102,279, in unpaid PAYE and NIC, and £173,653 relating to unpaid VAT. * He failed to ensure that WHSG complied with its statutory obligations to prepare and file accounts with the Registrar of Companies by the due dates for three successive accounting periods. Commenting on Mr Ridsdaleâs ban, Claire Entwistle, Director of Company Investigations North at The Insolvency Service, said: âAs someone who has had many directorships, Mr Ridsdale ought to be aware of the responsibilities that come with such a position. "The protection of limited liability is available to those who comply with their obligations as company directors. If those obligations are ignored, the protection will be withdrawn, as Mr Ridsdale has found to his cost. âOne of the main purposes of the Company Directors Disqualification Act is to ensure that proper standards of conduct of company directors are maintained, and these disqualifications should serve as a reminder that the Insolvency Service will investigate unacceptable conduct and deal robustly with directors who harm creditors by using unacceptable financial practice.â Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...ny-director-ban-91466-31958658/#ixzz28F266Wuj
About bloody time too mate. I wouldn't wish that worm on any club. scandals, crap financial management follow him wherever he goes and I wouldn't trust him to run a bath let alone a football club.......
Wouldnt wish Ridsdale on the Jacks. Dont want the begging buckets part 3. Bristol City 1982 or whatever they are called after their previous failed club then maybe. In all seriousness no football club or its supporters deserve Ridsdale.
Agree he is a crook and feel for the honest fans that he has ripped of but do belive tho without him we would not have the fantastic CCS stadium ...................he started the ball rolling ,
Lot of truth in that John. After the Hamman fiasco when the City Council wouldn't deal with the man over the project, he was the bridge that got it off the ground. It's fair to say that CCFC used him as much over that issue as he used CCFC to line his own pockets rather than his failed company. Nonetheless, he was a chancer and probably still is. The Malaysians came in despite him, not because of him. They soon turfed him out and he lost a lot of money in the settlement as a result.
He didnt start the ball rolling Sam Hammam did. The completion of Cardiff City Stadium was as a result of the efforts of numerous people. Ridsdale was one of those. Could someone else have done the same job more cost effectively? Probably! History now anyway.
He got away with far too much for far too long. Don't think he'll worry too much about this decision. He obviousy feathered his nest well over the years.
agree, he's screwed so many people and clubs over with his dodgy dealings which have made himself huge amounts of money that he'll probably not lose too much sleep about this. if he has any children they'll probably become the directors of his companies and he'll be involved somehow. a good day for football.....
He's not my enemy, he's a business man who assisted my club in getting where it is today. The fact he is a bad business man has been suspected by many fans for years. But this didn't stop other business men employing him, therefore he must be an excellent talker. Will he stay in football? I think he probably will in the capacity of a consultant. He's a man that can fall in a bucket of crap and come out smelling of roses.
he is far from being just a bad businessman..... he deliberately avoids paying taxes (jail to you and i)and we had a huge number of run ins with HMRC when he was here, he was paying his companies hundreds of thousands and taking peoples season ticket money up front so we lose that revenue stream for a few years..... you dont get disqualified as a company director unless you do some pretty despicable things...... have you read the text? over £400k of unpaid taxes is just the tip of the iceberg with him...... i read that he's still in football as chairman of preston north end! and that he fully intends to carry on in his role as he isnt a company director! and the bastard had the cheek to say that he agreed to be disqualified 'voluntarily'.
Swamp, he is a bad business man but you must be aware that others in all the other clubs (ours included) that employed him would have agreed to not paying the HMRC and other creditors to try and stay afloat. As I said he must be a good talker as he keeps getting positions of power in clubs that are struggling financially. I believe Sam and he had a deal when Sam left Sam would have a route back into the club once the stadium was approved by the council. You will recall the council would not deal with Sam and that was why Sam brought in Ridsdale. We all know all big companies avoid paying tax (Vodafone a prime example) so the riddler has done a deal to reduce any penalties possibly due, many others do the same. Can't really say what my personal opinions are as it may be deemed libelous and defamatory and the riddler may decide to take legal action against me. But he is not my enemy and he did assist in getting my club to where it is today as did Sam.
Well if you think Ridsdale was responsible for everything at either Cardiff or Leeds then you are very Naive in my book, there will have been many others who will have known and endorsed his actions, however he did have the guts to stick his head above the parapet, listen i dont agree with everything he did, very little in fact, but he did keep our club going even though we were near the brink and the same goes for Leeds who to be fair were a much bigger enterprise than Cardiff during his tenure there and to assume he was responsible for all of their woes will show a total lack of knowledge as to how business and the the running of a business is conducted. For example, i am always concious of paying my taxes however sometimes arrangements have to be made with the tax man that is just the way it is, and the taxman works on the rule of thumb, it is better to get something than nothing, it is not avoidance it is just the ordinary man on the street will not understand the complexities of the tax system in this country, ie, corportation tax plus personal tax can add up to around 60% of a companies earnings, it never does get to that if you have good accountants but the self employed and Ltd companies are not helped in any shape way or form, therefore to assume certain things with reference to peoples taxes is a dangerous playground, Plus dont believe everything you read in the papers as that is truely Naive.
