The question on many Town fans’ lips today after the news broke this morning of Newcastle United and West Ham United’s dawn raids by HMRC would have been something similar to ‘I wonder if……..’
The ending of that sentence having many possible outcomes:
…The League have the balls to do what they did to us’ and …they will get away with it?’ being just two.
The HMRC have confirmed officers have arrested “several men working within professional football industry for suspected income tax and national insurance fraud”.
A spokesperson said: “180 HMRC officers have been deployed across the UK and France today. Investigators have searched a number of premises in the North East and South East of England and arrested the men and also seized business records, financial records, computers and mobile phones.
“The French authorities are assisting the UK investigation, have made arrests and several locations have been searched in France.
“This criminal investigation sends a clear message that, whoever you are, if you commit tax fraud you can expect to face the consequences.
“As this is an ongoing investigation HMRC is unable to provide any further detail at this time.”
Given our punishment for ‘financial irregularities’ in 1990, which prevented promotion, what should #NUFC and #WHUFC punishment be? #STFC
— Swindon Town Polls (@PollsFL92STFC) 26 April 2017
Now we are not 100% in the know as to what the investigation is for but from the outside this is much bigger that Towns, involves a lot more staff and affects other Football Associations too but Newcastle Chronicle are confident they will not get the Swindon Town treatment tonight commenting ‘The full implications remain to be seen, but early indications are that Newcastle won’t face any points deduction from the investigation.’
The English Football League said it couldn’t say anything about the raids and the situation remains unclear.
A spokesperson said: “It would not be appropriate for us to comment at the moment as the investigation is ongoing.”
One thing for sure whatever happens Town fans will be watching…
Well, we all know what Swindon Town’s fate was after their financial irregularities…
Consistency please! 😂#safc
— Tinders (@safctinders) 26 April 2017
If #NUFC are found guilty of breaching league rules they could be demoted to league 1. Precedent was set in 1990 with Swindon Town
— John (@DogLayer) 26 April 2017
I wonder if there teams being investigated for alleged ‘Fraud’ in football will be demoted as we were @Official_STFC were in June 1990? Not!
— Alan Mcloughlin (@4AFMac) 26 April 2017
