Nathan Tinker missed Jets payments

By JAMES GARDINER
AN adminstrator's report has shed light on the amount of money Nathan Tinkler outlaid when he took over the Newcastle Jets in 2010.

Tinkler has often stated that he paid $5 million to buy the A-League club when he took over from the financially embattled Con Constantine.

That figure formed the basis of the $5 million price tag he put on the club a year ago before performing a backflip and taking it off the market.

However, a detailed history of the transaction obtained by the Herald shows Tinkler only partly paid for the club before attempting to hand back his A-League licence in 2012.

The records show that on September 22, 2010, after the exit of Constantine, Tinkler entered a club participation agreement with Football Federation Australia in which he was required to pay an acquisition fee of $3.5 million and a licence fee of $1 million.

The money was to be paid in instalments over 4½ years, starting with an initial payment of $500,000 on the execution of the agreement.

But insolvency experts Shaw-Gidley, in an administrator's report after Tinkler placed the club into voluntary administration, found the mining magnate failed to meet those payments, with the exception of the first $500,000.

On June 30, 2011, with Tinkler $1.5 million in arrears, the FFA began withholding a $100,000 monthly grant as part settlement.

In February 2012, Tinkler, through Hunter Sports Group, alleged he had been overcharged after former A-League boss Archie Fraser revealed in the Herald that an acquisition fee had not been part of negotiations in previous club sales.
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On April 10, Tinkler moved to return the A-League licence to the FFA, two years into a 10-year agreement, and sought compensation in respect to the licence and acquisition fees he had paid.

The governing body countered with the threat of a lawsuit and a $100 million damages claim.

The dispute was resolved after a meeting between Tinkler and FFA chairman Frank Lowy in a Brisbane airport hangar on May 1.

Financial details of the meeting, which included an agreed settlement to former Jets marquee Jason Culina after he was sacked a year into a three-year, $2.65 million contract, were confidential.

It is widely understood that Tinkler's initial buy-in figure of $4.5 million was reduced.

In a television interview a fortnight after the Brisbane meeting Lowy, said: "I flew to Brisbane, where he was working, and I met him and we sorted it out.

"I think life is about compromise.

"He had a beef about certain things and, of course, I compromised and he was happy that I got there."

It is unclear if the agreed amount has been settled in full.

So Tinks in actual fact only paid $500k of the total $4.5 million ($3.5 mill acquisition fee and $1 mill licence fee) to acquire the Jets!!!

Okay the first year he made the payment, second year doesn't make the payment FFA you would think should be asking "Please explain"
Third year of non-payment the licence should have been taken off him but FFA allowed this bullshit to drag on for yet another season!!!
Okay it's happened and it's in the past now and FFA finally stepped in but they bloody-well owe it to the football community of this region that they get the ownership structure 100% right this time.

Makes one also think what was Middleby doing these past few years in his position as CEO???
How could he turn a blind-eye to these non-payments and pretend all was hunky-dory with the club???
If he at least had the balls to resign a year or two ago and tell the truth with what was going on at the club, supporters and players/staff would not had to have endured the "season from hell".
Has a lot to answer for, Middleby and in my opinion has got off very very lightly in the aftermath of the demise of Tinkler's reign!!!