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Port Vale’s Perry Deakin and Peter Miller were elected to the club’s board after being issued with £350,000 of shares they hadn’t paid for. So in football terms the result for Vale fans at the time was:
PORT VALE.........0 PERRY&PETER....0 EXCLUSIVE
BY MARTIN TIDESWELL, STEVE SHAW AND ALEX CAMPBELL newsdesk@thesentinel.co.uk
THE two men now running Port Vale Football Club both became directors without putting a single penny into the club. Chief executive Perry Deakin and chairman Peter Miller were both elected to the club’s board by shareholders who had been told they had already purchased £350,000 worth of shares. Many shareholders had assumed Mr Deakin and Mr Miller had paid for their shares at the time. But Mr Deakin admitted yesterday they had been issued with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of shares that had not been paid for at the time they sought election to the board. When confronted with the evidence yesterday, he claimed, however, that both he and Mr Miller had invested the £100,000 and £250,000 respectively into the club within the last seven days. The Sentinel has been unable to verify this. Mr Deakin also confirmed to The Sentinel that he had written a letter, shown to him by The Sentinel and dated September 5, offering
MONEY MATTERS: Port Vale’s chief executive Perry Deakin, left, and club chairman Peter Miller. Mr Miller the position of chairman – a previously unpaid figurehead role at cashstrapped Port Vale – with an attached salary of £100,000 and the following perks: ■ Business class return flights to the UK (a maximum of eight per year); ■ Accommodation while in the UK; ■ Provision of a vehicle while in the UK; ■ ‘Reasonable’ business and sustenance expenses. Mr Deakin confirmed these were the contents of a letter he wrote and sent to Mr Miller in the U.S. containing his personal terms and conditions. He told The Sentinel yesterday: “Our chairman is working for the football club in a paid
role, which is not the first time or the last time a chairman has been paid by a football club. Peter is worth his remuneration.” With regard to the share issue, Mr Deakin said: “£500,000 worth of shares were issued at nil value for myself, Peter and Blue Sky. I’d signed a promissory note to put the money in. I have now paid my £100,000 within the last seven days. Peter has also now put his £250,000 in, but there is an issue with Blue Sky which we’ve already highlighted. It’s our money. I’m not holding shares for anyone else.” Mr Miller then claimed the documentation given to Companies House, the UK’s register of businesses, by Port Vale on November 24, a copy of which was purchased by The Sentinel yesterday, was incorrect and would be retracted and replaced by another form. Yesterday’s revelations came at a meeting between the chairman and chief executive and the committee of the Port Vale Supporters’ Club, which Mr Deakin and Mr Miller walked out of. The news of the issuing of so-called ‘nil paid’ shares and the revelation that the chairman is receiving a salary sparked fury at last night’s public meeting of the supporters’ club at Smallthorne Victory Working Men’s Club, amid rumours the £8 million Blue Sky International investment is also in doubt.
Supporters’ club chairman Peter Williams said: “I think Mr Miller and Mr Deakin should be removed from the board. In my opinion, they were elected under false pretences. “The supporters’ club canvassed fans about Mr Miller’s candidacy to the board at a game because we hold the proxy for Robbie Williams’s shares and wanted to gauge their opinion. We took with us a letter signed by Mike Lloyd (the then acting chairman) which stated, for example, Mr Miller had purchased his £250,000 of shares. “We all assumed this meant Mr Miller had paid money to the club for these shares at the time, but now we find out that this wasn’t the case. “We’re supposed to have moved into a period of openness and the supporters’ club has played its part in that. But, as far as the supporters’ club is concerned, that openness has not been reciprocated by Mr Miller or Mr Deakin.” On September 28, Mr Deakin told The Sentinel he had purchased £100,000 worth of shares in the club. Two days later, the club’s website stated Mr Miller had purchased £250,000 worth of shares, with a further £150,000 of shares being TURN TO PAGE 63
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