Jordan rues Palace plight

Owner says 10-point deduction could have been avoided

Last updated: 7th February 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Jordan rues Palace plight

Jordan: Upset by Palace plight

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Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan said he was 'devastated, humiliated, embarrassed' after the club went into administration last week.

Jordan has bankrolled the Eagles for 10 years, investing more than £25million of personal wealth in the club, but saw his side docked 10 points after creditors were brought in to deal with the dire financial situation.

Palace are believed to be £30m in the red and Jordan announced his intention to sell the club at the end of last year.

The London outfit twice failed to pay their players this season, and Agilo, the company brought in to deal with the crisis, put the club into administration on 26th January.

A 10-point penalty deduction followed, plunging Neil Warnock's side into a Championship relegation battle and away from the play-off places.

The collapse has seen hopes of a return to the Premier League dashed, with star player Victor Moses sold for £2.5m to Wigan to keep the club afloat.

Jordan had remained silent on the issue, but has spoken of his hurt at seeing the club he has run fall close to going out of business.

"I have vigilantly kept my own council since Palace went into administration, but I think the time is appropriate to talk publicly for the first time," Jordan told the Sunday Mirror.

Hell bent

"It's important to make it clear that I did everything in my power to avoid this completely unnecessary and ridiculous situation.

"I was just devastated, humiliated, embarrassed. I was completely and utterly inconsolable."

Jordan branded Agilo "hostile" in their handling of the situation at Selhurst Park, and insisted the situation could have been avoided.

But the matter was taken out of his hands, he says, because they were determined to put the club in administration, despite being warned by football finance experts they were unlikely to recover any money.

He added: "Knowing what I know now, rather than what Agilo were telling me at the time, it didn't make an ounce of difference, because they were hell bent on putting the club into administration regardless of the consequences to the club.

"Perhaps someone in the long run would be able to explain to me and the supporters exactly what Agilo have achieved besides the attempted fire sale of our players, which didn't happen.

"I felt I had let the supporters down, the manager down and the staff down."