NATHAN Tinkler has agreed not to pursue almost $15 million he says he is owed by the Newcastle Jets until other creditors have been paid.
Jets administrator James Shaw said Mr Tinkler's decision to stand aside was an important step in sorting out the club's financial woes. Initial figures for Newcastle Jets Football Operations Pty Ltd (Administrator Appointed) showed liabilities of more than $4.7 million, including almost $800,000 in unpaid superannuation contributions, more than $700,000 to trade creditors and $2.5 million to the Tax Office.
But because the Jets had lost their only real asset when Football Federation Australia took back the club's A-League licence, any return to creditors depended on the FFA helping out.
"I will be speaking to the FFA again next week but the fact that Mr Tinkler has signed a deed of subrogation, agreeing not to pursue any rights he might have until the outcome for other creditors is finalised, is a good step forward," Mr Shaw said.
"It's true that the FFA is not obliged, legally, to put money into the deed of company arrangement.
"But from a community point of view, I am hoping that the FFA will agree to put at least some of the funds from the subsequent sale of the Newcastle A-League licence towards paying the Jets' creditors. And I would hope that Mr Tinkler standing back from that, and not pressing his claims, will help the FFA make a clean break and a quick, fresh start."
Mr Shaw said that without a deed of company arrangement, the company under administration would almost certainly go into liquidation, meaning none of the creditors would be paid.
He said a first meeting of creditors was set down for Panthers Newcastle on June 1 starting at 10am.
He said the only Jets assets were a car, a small amount of sporting equipment and some merchandise that was likely to be the intellectual property of the FFA, and so to be returned to the federation.
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He said Mr Tinkler signed the two-page "deed of subrogation" on Friday. The deed says: "Mr Tinkler, by his execution of this deed, agrees to subordinate all amounts that may be owed to him, and his associated entities, by the Jets until the terms of the proposed Deed of Company Arrangement that provides for payments to creditors of the Jets, has been satisfied, and that he will procure whatever documentation the administrator of the Jets may require to give full effect to this deed."
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