Not many insolvency practitioners can say that they have played football alongside the likes of Vinnie Jones, Terry Phelan and John Fashanu (to name just a few!). But our very own London partner, David Hudson, has had his share of the limelight, having played semi-professional football for a number of years, topping his game with a three-year professional contract at Wimbledon FC.
Like most professionals, David was approached by a football scout, who offered him an opportunity to join Wimbledon Football Club in 1989 – in those days, the equivalent of a Premiership side. And so, many years ago, David took up the position of goalkeeper alongside the ‘Crazy Gang’, as the Dons were nicknamed. David reminisces about his greatest footballing career achievement. “The unbelievable experience of playing in front of 60,000 people in Sierra Leone” – the pinnacle of his career.
However, following an injury, and consequently a dent in his confidence, David was released from Wimbledon, but continued to play in a semi-professional role. In search of a day-time role to support his designer watches, fast cars and excessive lifestyle, he was offered (all by chance!) a junior administrator position in Southend at a firm of insolvency practitioners. “I realised that a professional career in the lower leagues in football would leave me retired fifteen years later without a David Beckham style pension. So as I progressed through my junior position, trying to balance evening training and weekend games with insolvency and job based training. I gave up playing football in favour of a career.” And his greatest insolvency achievement: “Passing my exams to planning exit strategies, in particular focussing on unsolvable problems and against the odds producing high, unexpected returns to creditors.”
Two extremely varied career paths with different types stamina required, but still with a great overlap between the two industries. David’s experience of a life in the public eye has put him in good stead for dealing with the pressures associated with insolvency and have aided his work in football club insolvencies and administrations. He told evolution about his experience of working as the joint administrator for Southampton FC, where he learnt that the footballing industry is foremost run on emotions. He also has predictions for the future of football: “Having
seen Portsmouth enter administration, I believe that the market is set to get worse. We have also seen Leeds, Bournemouth and Chester, to name a few, face great liquidity problems and I expect more problems for football clubs over the coming months.”
The advice he gives to football clubs is to run them as businesses, which they are often not. He feels that emotional ties to the club and an over-emphasis on attracting the best (and most expensive) players has taken priority over raising and managing finance. He says: “At the moment, we are seeing high wages, which cannot be sustained and the previous wealthy third-party individuals that once took over clubs are now being cautious in providing finance, following the recent economic crisis. By allowing football clubs to be driven by success at all costs, the football market is in danger, particularly for those clubs at the lower end of the market.”