Bangor City Chairman Domenico Serafino has spoken about the current situation at the crisis-stricken club, in an exclusive interview with The Bangor Aye.
The Citizens were suspended from “all football-related activity” in November 2021, for failure to pay wages owed to players and staff, believed to be in the region of £53,000.
As a result of the suspension the club has not been able to fulfil five fixtures and has incurred fines and points deductions.
The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has given the club until 19 February to pay or face expulsion from the Cymru North league.
Serafino, along with a consortium of investors, agreed a deal to buy Vaughan Sports Management’s (VSM) shares in Bangor City in 2019. Italian-born Serafino, a professional musician and producer, then became the chairman and person with significant control of the club
The Interview:
(1) The club was suspended from all football related activity in November for unpaid staff and player’s wages and are now just days away from being expelled from the Cymru North. Can you explain the current situation at the club?
DS: “In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, like most Clubs in the world, the Club is going through a complicated situation. Furthermore, there were various internal and external factors that catapulted the Club to the critical situation in which it is today.
“The Club was well-formed, well-armed with positive projections for the future, but many steps were taken without my endorsement, which led to: hiring players, renewals outside the financial possibility of the Club, both for players and staff.
“In addition to all this economic imbalance, bad sports results also began to appear, so we found ourselves with a Club with a salary budget above its reality, with poor economic results and as if that were not enough with some of the Club personnel taking actions contrary to planning. Many of those actions as I mentioned before, were without my endorsement and even my knowledge. Taking advantage of the good faith and trust placed in many people.
“This accumulation of situations inevitably led to us having to withdraw from the tournament. In addition, not having enough players with the requirements requested by the FAW, since the 13 players signed in January 2022 were rejected by the FAW itself.
“Our legal department is evaluating different legal situations to protect the Club from those who economic and image damaged us, with the sole purpose of destroying the institution.”
(2) You arrived at the club in 2019 with big plans to return the club to its former glories, what went wrong?
DS: “I believe that it was not just a thing that went wrong, but a set of things and people.
“When I arrived at the Club an important and notorious investment was made. I paid for the shares, but I also found that the Club had many debts which the previous owner did not mention to me, those debts were also paid. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Club was left without debts, debts that the Club clearly carried thanks to the previous management of the institution.
“As mentioned, in addition to the circumstances that led to this. I trusted certain people to help me run the Club’s day-to-day from a distance (me in Italy, especially during the pandemic), however, all they did was look after their own interests and not the Club interests.
“They took advantage of my absence. In an arduous administrative investigation that was carried out, we discovered the existence of a WhatsApp group chat. This group was made up of certain people with the clear intention of interfering with the Club, which included: both former and current staff, the former manager and the former President. It was in this same group where the idea of holding a protest to lower the wage bill by 20% for the next 16 months (where they did not play). All this the day before signing an agreement that was already verbally made with the players.
“Also there is a very important detail so you can understand everything that happened. After saving the Club financially in 2019 after an imminent bankruptcy, the problems began when a person entered as a minority partner of the Italian company (which was the owner of Bangor City FC) one person who all he did was immerse me in big problems with the Italian Club that I was also managing and consequently this had repercussions in Bangor City.
“This same person was a member of the WhatsApp group mentioned before also with the former President of the BCFC and with other people in the city. What they were planning was to form a Club in parallel, with actions not authorized by me.
“It should be noted that we also suffered the theft of all the official accounts of the club, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, among others.”
(3) There have been rumours this week the club is for sale, is this true?
DS: “Two people contacted me in the last few days, but there was nothing specific and no agreement was reached.
“The announcement published and disclosed this week by the press and social media is completely false. I have not authorized anyone to post that type of ad.”
(4) As the club failed to apply for a licence to play in the top 3 Tiers of Welsh football next season, what are your future plans, if any, for the club?
DS: “Our intention has always been to apply to the FAW leagues. At the beginning of the season we applied for Tier 1 since we had the best team, but we then realised that the management of our former coach was not giving results, and in September we were effectively already out of all the competitions, we told the federation that we intended to apply to Tier 2.
“There is no doubt that we paid a very high price for inexperience of our former coach. Last December, the FAW imposed an administrative block on us, which is why we could not finally apply to Tier 2.
“In relation to the future of the Club, we want to emphasize that we have already taken the first step in carrying out a total “cleansing” of the personnel who betrayed the values of the Club. The Club itself will continue to rebuild itself based on young players thanks to the development centre.”
(5) Will the people who are owed money be paid?
DS: “Of course, the Club is going to clean up its debts as it has always done. As I mentioned before, when I arrived at Bangor City FC, the club was submerged in debt, which, due to a strong investment, was brought up to date.
“Later, due to the ill-intentioned acts of certain people looking after their personal interests and the covid-19 pandemic, among other factors, led us to the situation we are in today. We always try to handle ourselves in the correct way and in an empathic and flexible way.”
(6) Do you have a message for the fans and the people of Bangor after all that’s happened at the club?
DS: “I want to say to all the fans of Bangor City FC that we will continue to fight and return Bangor City to its former glory. We want to organize and project the Club into the future, from scratch, from its foundations. Like Jens Lekman’s once said: “Sometimes you have to burn to the ground before you can rise like a phoenix from the ashes”.
“Lastly, I would like to give a huge thank you I want to thank those players (who are willing to play for the Club in any category), to the Club employees who stayed faithfully collaborating with the Club, the entire group of volunteers and true Bangor City fans who supported and continue to support the Club unconditionally.”
