Nice bit of spin from AL which seems to have placated a lot of the fans but he must have been aware of the creditors if not it is gross incompetence.
1. You agree a price for the “business” - say £1m for Latics
2. You work out what the usual level of your ‘current’ assets and debts based on say the average of the last 12 months. This would include all creditors, HMRC debts for things like VAT, PAYE, National insurance etc.
3. If at the point of the sale the debts are higher than normal, you adjust the sale price by that amount... so if there’s an extra £500,000 of HMRC debts the sale price would reduce by £500,000. It’s to avoid exactly this type of problem.
4. If there were genuinely debts (HMRC or otherwise) that Corney has hidden from AL, he would have legal recourse under the sale agreement to get that money back from Corney. It would be extremely clear and simple that that is the case.
5. If the above hasn’t been done in this case, then it would lead me to believe the debts were genuine and AL is commercially very poor.
This is before you look at issues like signing foreign players on financially crippling salaries, suspending the only player who can tackle for the last two games of the season etc