The Kildemand Affair

[Deleted]

So, Matt Ford is claiming he acted 'in the best interests of the sport'.....you can't fault his propaganda machine !!!

PIRATES chief Matt Ford has defended himself over the controversial Peter Kildemand saga, insisting he acted in the interests of speedway.

The Poole promoter came under fire after arch rivals Coventry issued a strongly-worded statement on Friday following days of speculation and confusion surrounding rider Kildemand.

The tug-of-war over his services came after Pirates and Bees tried to include him in their line-ups, with both claiming to have struck agreements with the Dane.

Initially, with Kildemand injured, Coventry say they redeclared their team with Piotr Pawlicki at reserve. But the reigning Elite League champions claim after the former proved his fitness, they submitted a further re-declaration to include him in their one-to-seven.

In the meantime, Ford says Kildemand agreed to turn out for Pirates against Peterborough last Wednesday and to join the Dorset outfit in a doubling-up berth alongside Jason Doyle, which would have meant he was unavailable to Coventry.

The Brandon outfit claimed the situation demonstrated an “apparent abuse” of Ford’s position with the BSPA, an alleged inappropriate approach and illegal submission of a one-to-seven, which prevented “our legal one-to-seven from being applied”.

Bees insisted Kildemand “made it clear that he intended to remain with Coventry” and made no agreement or deal with Pirates, while also suggesting he had been told he would face a 28-day suspension if he did not consent to ride for Poole.

When contacted for a response on Saturday, Ford said he had been advised not to comment on the statement at this stage, but he did claim it was “factually incorrect”.

But Ford gave his views on the Kildemand situation in an interview with the Daily Echo last week, prior to Bees issuing their statement.

Ford said: “He was taken out of the Coventry one-to-seven and was a doubling-up rider with Travis McGowan. They asked for an urgent management committee decision and the other members and I replied to say what they were doing was perfectly okay, to contract Piotr Pawlicki.

“I contacted Keith Denham, the owner and promoter of Workington, for permission to speak to Peter Kildemand. That was granted and I got a number to contact him on from the Workington team manager.

“I spoke to Peter by telephone and text messages are still on my phone and have been sent as proof to show he agreed to the fixture on August 24 and agreed to join Poole and would be in the second doubling-up position alongside Jason Doyle.

“What has happened since then is very unfortunate as Coventry tried to reinstate the rider in a different position and move one of their other riders, Josh Auty, out of the team.

“If at the time of bringing in Pawlicki they had requested Kildemand come in for Auty, that would have been agreed. What is not acceptable is that two days after they tried to reinstate the rider in a different position (doubling up with Nick Morris).”

Ford said this would have been against the rules and added: “I have the total support of the (BSPA) management committee because I acted in the interests of speedway.

“However, I don’t want to pursue a rider who isn’t sure what he wants to do and at this point in time, he is injured anyway.

“We will revert to our previous one-to-seven with Jason Doyle and Gary Havelock but make a change to Gary’s position at the beginning of September.”

In a lengthy statement, Coventry raised a number of other issues about the running of the sport and made renewed calls for an Independent Appeals Panel to be introduced following the close-season problems.

Bees also say their clash against Belle Vue, which they lost after Kildemand had not been permitted to ride, should be re-run.

Taken from The Bournemouth Daily Echo.

[Deleted]

Just for the record, here is the other side of the story, taken from Coventry's web site.........

THE management of the Coventry Bees would like to both apologise and explain why, last Friday against Belle Vue, the club was only able to track five riders. We also feel that supporters should know of the unsatisfactory circumstances that Coventry are operating under this season.

We have refrained from issuing a statement earlier to allow the BSPA to reply to certain questions we raised and explain the reason why the sequence of events occurred as they did. As yet no explanation has been forthcoming and so we detail the sequence of events and our comments below because we believe that this episode highlights everything that is wrong with the manner in which speedway is run in this country:

On Friday 12th as a result of the suspension of Eddie Kennett and the unproven fitness of Peter Kildemand who was due to ride that night and over the weekend for Workington we redeclared and included Piotr Pawlicki at reserve.

On Monday 15th after speaking to Peter and him having proved his fitness over the weekend we resubmitted a further redeclaration including Peter Kildemand in our 1 - 7.

We subsequently learned that using his privileged position as a Management Committee member thereby pre-empting any other club, Poole Promoter Matt Ford contacted Peter Kildemand on Saturday 13th after being made aware of our Friday 12th redeclaration and informed him that Coventry no longer wished to use him and he was to be included in Poole's 1 to 7. Peter informed Mr Ford that he did not wish to ride for Poole and wished to speak to Coventry on the following Monday (15th). If Coventry did not wish to use him he would speak to Poole again but he made it clear that he intended to remain with Coventry. Peter did no deal with Poole, no agreement was made and as a result he certainly did not consent to Mr Ford's illegal inclusion in Poole's 1-7. Scandalously Peter was informed that if he did not consent to ride for Poole he would be suspended for 28 days.

Peter Kildemand then telephoned Alun Rossiter on Monday morning (15th) and an amended redeclaration was made by Coventry at 12.09 pm on that Monday.

It was confirmed to us verbally by the BSPA office that our Monday 1-7 would just need ratification by the Management Committee. We heard nothing more until 4.30 Wednesday afternoon August 17th at 4.30 pm effectively close of the office's business when we were told that we could not use Peter because he had been included in another unnamed team's 1-7 (Poole). That was the first we had learned of this and incredibly our redeclared 1-7 was not circulated until Friday 19th, 4 hours before the start of our meeting against Belle Vue. Why was there such a delay as any other club wishing to use Peter Kildemand would have been informed one week after Poole's Management Committee member and Vice Chairman, Matt Ford.

We believe this incident reflects the following:

1. Apparent abuse of his position by a Management Committee and BSPA Vice Chairman to gain an advantage over other clubs.

2. An inappropriate approach to our rider by the same MC member on Saturday August 13th.

3. An illegal submission of a 1-7 by the same club which prevented our legal 1-7 from being applied. Poole's illegal submission must have been before 12.09pm on Monday and we require substantiated proof of the time and date of this illegal submission.

4. A dilatory approach by the BSPA office in dealing with our 1-7 resulting in our rider unbelievably being included in another team's 1-7.

5. Further reasons why Promoters who have a vested interest in decision making should not be making key decisions on their competitors.

6. The unsatisfactory nature of the way the sport is run which Coventry and Peterborough sought to change last winter.

7. The unacceptable breach of the agreement made between the BSPA, Coventry and Peterborough on the latter two clubs return to the Elite League at the start of this season. We are now approaching September and there has been no Independent Appeals Panel set up neither have there been any move towards setting one up, of which we are aware.

8. Since Coventry's and Peterborough's return to the Elite league there has been no General Council meeting or convened meeting of Elite League clubs. We believe this to be unacceptable or worse in the extreme.

Peter Kildemand was in the pits ready to race against Belle Vue on Friday 19th August but because of what we believe to be machinations on the part of certain parties we were prevented from using him and as a result we had only five legal riders to use. Nick Morris was unavailable and Josh Auty broke down on the motorway en-route. We therefore believe that the match should be re-run as a result of our being prevented from using Peter Kildemand due to the ratification and enforcement of Poole's illegal 1-7. If our 1-7 had been approved before the Belle Vue meeting we could have used Peter in place of Nick Morris but as it was we could not use Peter effectively guesting in place of the non-show Josh Auty because Peter's average was higher than Josh's.

During the winter we took a stance together with Peterborough to eradicate many dubious and discredited actions which favoured certain clubs against others. After receiving the BSPA's assurance that effectively tainted procedures would be "cleaned up" we alongside Peterborough returned. We returned on the clear understanding that goodwill would be forthcoming from both sides for the betterment of British speedway. So far we have seen little of the promised goodwill. We feel we have met obstruction, obfuscation and inactivity some of which we believe has been designed to frustrate the level playing field we were promised.

Possibly we should just return the Elite League trophy to the BSPA office for them to hold on Poole Pirates behalf indefinitely and thereby avoid the necessity to run meetings and incur the resulting financial losses only to ensure that Poole win the trophy anyway.

The key to our return was the promise that the ruling body would introduce an Independent Appeals Panel. Immediately the season started an unsatisfactory situation occurred involving Poole's Dennis Andersson when previously applied rules were ignored and he came into Poole's pre-season 1-7 on an advantageous 4 points instead of the expected 5 points. So far we have seen absolutely no sign of this and we can only assume that certain favoured promoters, for their own reasons, do not wish to see a diluting of their control and this coupled with the absence of any meetings imply a desire to retain the discredited status quo. The purpose if the IAP is to rule on disputed matters from the rule book. It would never be involved in the running of speedway despite the distorted misinformation put about by those people who would not benefit from a fair and democratically run sport. The IAP would rule on matters such as this and many many other disputes that appear to be settled unsatisfactorily.

[Deleted]

I'm not too up with procedure (if there is one!) but would there be a chance that Ford has used his MC position to act on info that nobody else knew about? i.e. signing Kildemand before anyone really knew he was available?

[Genghis]

A load whole of bollocks being talked by both sides.

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2011 21:12:26 GMT @mattj said:

I'm not too up with procedure (if there is one!) but would there be a chance that Ford has used his MC position to act on info that nobody else knew about? i.e. signing Kildemand before anyone really knew he was available?

No, of course not.....nobody would abuse their position in speedway !!!

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2011 21:30:55 GMT Genghis said:

A load whole of bollocks being talked by both sides.

How can both sides be talking bollocks.......one of them must be telling the truth surely ?

I'm sure there are many people eager to get hold of Matthew's phone, and if what he is saying is true, he'll be only too happy to show them.

[Genghis]

Aug 29, 2011 21:52:20 GMT @kevh said:

Aug 29, 2011 21:30:55 GMT Genghis said:

A load whole of bollocks being talked by both sides.

How can both sides be talking bollocks.......one of them must be telling the truth surely ?

I'm sure there are many people eager to get hold of Matthew's phone, and if what he is saying is true, he'll be only too happy to show them.

I suspect the truth lies somewhere half between the two statments. The "bollocks" I was talking about was more about the other things quoted - such as Matt Ford being only interested in the "best interests of speedway". And how can Coventry take any kind of moral high ground after their actions last winter.

About time someone knocked their heads together and told them to play nicely.

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2011 22:08:12 GMT Genghis said:

I suspect the truth lies somewhere half between the two statments.

But there have been three statements......one from Coventry, one from Matthew of Ford and one from Peter Kildemand. Two of these tie up with each other, the third doesn't.......do you want to have a guess at who is out on a limb ?

[Deleted]

It may all be getting a bit ridiculous, but I have to say fair play to the Coventry promotion. Everyone knows the sports decision making process is flawed, but they do seem to be the only promotion willing to make a stand against it.

It's obvious Ford abused his MC position in this instance, if they don't now engage an independant panel now I can't see Coventry running next season.

Tim Sugar for Chairman of an Independant Appeals Committee?

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2011 22:42:34 GMT @wacks said:

It's obvious Ford abused his MC position in this instance, if they don't now engage an independant panel now I can't see Coventry running next season.

I just don't get this.......surely some/most/all of the other clubs can see what's happening here, so I'd have thought they would take the necessary action to remove Matt Ford from his post.

Is there something we're not being told, or are they all afraid of something. The last 12 months really haven't added up if you consider everything that's happened.

The lawyers employed by both parties surely wouldn't have left any agreement so open to allow this to happen. Wasn't an independent committee agreed upon ? Surely a time scale was agreed ? OMG, there really are more questions than answers !!!