Says in the accounts of the SMC:
"The directors consider The Hull City Association Football Club (Tigers) Limited to be a related party by virtue of common control. " ie owned by the same people.

The SMC is 100% owned by Superstadium Holdings Limited, which in turn is 100% owned by Russell Bartlett.

Not really. If anything happened to the SMC then it could have serious implications for Hull FC. They are the ones responsible for the upkeep of the stadium. If they haven't made provision for this then the burden will fall on the tenants. Also, there are likely to be monies owed to us as the SMC presumably collect gate and ticket income on behalf of the club. Our current agreement to use the facility is, presumably, with the SMC. If they cease to exist then we have no agreement to play at the facility and any financial agreement made is null and void.

I would have thought that the financials for the SMC should be fairly simple and see no reason they should be so late in submitting that they have been threatened with being struck off

Our tenancy agreement is with the council, not the SMC.

Yup

there is so much ill informed tripe on here it's untrue.

Hardly ill informed tripe. I merely said that I presumed our agreement was with the company that operated the stadium and colelcted the income from us. Not exactly a leap into the unknown is it?

How do you know that to be the case?

Rebuttal by City here:

[urlhttp://www.hullcityafc.net/page/NewsDetail/0,,10338~1799219,00.html[/url

The YP article suggests new auditing standards (I'm assuming it means accounting standards) are the reason for the delay in filing.

Because a tenancy agreement is with the owner, not the appointed operator. And because it was published at the time of the move. And several times since.

It's a 25 year lease BTW.

The SMC operates the stadium on behalf of the council. They have no legal right over it nor over the tenants. If the went bust tomorrow it would have zero impact on our right to use the stadium.

Not so sure about this. I wrote to Duffen at the time of the RL Test match refusal to stress I considered the stadium to be a public facility and the SMC therefore obliged to service the needs of the whole community not just it's own footballing interests. I wrote asking for their complaints process so I could formally raise my concerns and know the timescales for a response and which independent watchdog to approach if I was not happy with the outcome.

This is an excerpt from the reply I received from Paul Duffen himself:

"You appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that the Superstadium Management Company Ltd (SMC) is some outpost of the Hull Civic empire. It is not. The SMC is a private commercial company which amongst other assets owns the Head Lease to the KC Stadium and surrounding land. As Chairman of the SMC my decision is final with regard to the running of the Stadium, including what events do or do not take place. There is no complaints procedure"

I took it that "owning the lease" would mean the SMC are under no control of the council and do not "run the stadium" for them, it is a business purely for their own profit and benefit.

Their only other obligation is to the two tenants - Hull City, an independent company run by the same people and Hull FC. Without knowing the clauses that were drawn up within the original agreement when the council sold the lease to the SMC I don't even know if the council would have the right to reclaim the stadium or would the rights be passed to their (the SMC's) creditors?

personally I think its becoming a 'no smoke without fire' case...selling your best player for around 6million, when weeks before you'd stated you wanted 12million, in a quick deadline day sale is strange behavior. Also all this summers signings have been loans, or players from lower leagues (that presumably don't demand as high wages) for a club with 'no debt' thats won another £60million+ from SKY for staying up it was a very cautious summer.

that combined with the fact the owners made their fortune in property, which has hardly been a good industry to be in, during this recession...it makes you wonder.

I hope it all isn't true, but all 3 Hull clubs have had situations in the past where everything looked rosey then suddenly its revealed the club is built on sand. So there's reasons to be skeptical.

The SMC do not own the stadium. It's no more an asset of theirs than it is ours - it could not be seized by creditors.

The SMC are indeed an independent commercial organisation - I didn't mean to give the impression that they somehow worked for the council. The terms of the Head Lease they were granted, however, contains some provisions regarding the generation of revenue and use of the stadium. There are also covenants that apply to the use of the site.

At the end of the day if the SMC goes belly-up then the Head Lease reverts to the council. They will then either have to run the KC themselves or sell the Head Lease to another SMC-type company to do the job.

"As Chairman of the SMC my decision is final with regard to the running of the Stadium, including what events do or do not take place. There is no complaints procedure"

I don't normally resort to name-calling, but, seriously, what a to$$er. "My decision is final" - 95% of "events" are covered by the original agreement anyway, so talk about bigging your part up.