Tony Quested writes exclusively for AVFTT on current events at Bloomfield Road. It is important to explain at the outset of this blog that innuendo is not, as some uninformed folk may believe, a Mexican suppository. In the case of Blackpool FC, currently the longest running farce outside of Theatreland, innuendo is a festering canker that is helping to destroy the last lingering threads of the club's credibility.

Without credibility football clubs cannot appoint decent managers. Neither can they keep or recruit decent players. Nor persuade parents to invest their talented sons' futures in the pastoral care of such organisations. Without credibility clubs cannot raise money for ongoing development - although in Blackpool's case this would not appear to be a problem. Looking at the headline figures since their brief sojourn in the Premiership, they are positively swimming in the stuff.

Innuendo is so damaging because it lacks a face and body that can be challenged; it is a phantom in the mist. And what Blackpool FC needs now - more than at any time in its history - is complete transparency. Chairman Karl Oyston and his father Owen are the subjects of a long running sneer and smear campaign. While no-one is about to buy the chairman a Superman cape for saving Planet Football by apparently refusing to bow to the demands of agents, it is important to try to rationalise why he is more Krapton than Krypton among the Pool supporters.

So instead of the arch enemy of the truth - innuendo - we need our good friends, the FACTS. Blackpool reached the Premiership on the lowest wage bill in the Championship and only narrowly failed to stay there at the first time of asking. Has Oyston created a new business model for football clubs who traditionally live beyond their means? If fans really believe Blackpool FC is awash with cash but that the chairman and associated companies controlled by the Oystons are refusing to spend it - or that money is somehow vanishing into the seaside air - then they have a legal and moral obligation to put up or shut up.
So here is what I would do as a Blackpool fan committed to the long term survival of the club.

Given that at the time of writing Blackpool may have no manager or coaches and only eight contracted players, if you have bought a season ticket then queue up at Bloomfield Road today and demand your money back. You have paid to watch a team, which Blackpool tonight cannot field, in competitions for which they will not be eligible unless they sign a lot of players fast. You have been sold a pup as things stand. If you have been thinking about buying a season ticket but have been waiting on signings and events then withhold your cash.

And then - united and collectively - launch a campaign online to ask all Blackpool supporters, former players and directors, around the world to back the ultimate crowdfunding campaign - Kickstarter would seem appropriate - to raise funds to pay Deloitte or another top financial consultancy to conduct an independent investigation into Blackpool's finances. Blackpool's balance sheet are in the public domain. So should those of any Oyston family related businesses be.

It is a legal requirement to declare money raised and expenditure - and the relevant sources and recipients. Tax has to be payed on wages and withdrawals so HMRC has a vested interest in seeing a professionally prepared paper trail showing where any income received by the football club has gone. Fans have it in their power to withhold their cash from the club and pay it to professional fiscal sleuths to mine the truth once and for all about the accurate financial state of the organisation.

Sadly, that could not be done in time to save Blackpool's season let alone its reputation or even secure long-term survival but an independent, root and branch review of the club's finances and management of them is long overdue so that any blame can be properly attributed and any threat of repeat throttled at birth. There are proper channels for such a purge and they should be vigorously pursued without further demur.

The anger from the terraces is entirely understandable; the arrogance from the boardroom is a slur on the memories of all the great players who did so much to weave magic and conjure legends in their beloved tangerine. Enough dirty laundry has been aired in public - I say it's time to give it a damned good washing!

Meanwhile, in the wider scheme of things, those guardians of football ethics, the FA, might wonder whether Oyston and Blackpool FC have a case to answer for bringing the game intro disrepute by their current antics.

Photo: Action Images

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