Verry 'paid St Albans FC wages'

It is understood that Verry Construction part-funded the wage bill for St Albans City football club before it went under last month.

The news comes as it emerged this week that William Verry Holdings, its parent company, had also gone into administration.

According to a source close to Verry, the payments exacerbated a row between John Gibson (pictured), the former chairman of Verry Construction and Craig Jones (left), then chief executive. Jones and Gibson argued over the level of intra-group debt, which led to Jones’ banishment in February.

The source said: “The football club’s manager and secretary were on the Verry Construction payroll and it was paying for other running costs. It made Craig deeply unhappy.”

Jan Crosby, a construction expert at KPMG, said it was not unusual for one company to pay the wages of another within the same group.

Although the precise level of the lending is unknown, the football club owed the contractor £515,147 according to its latest accounts, dated 30 June last year.

When Verry Construction went into administration it was owed £2.6m by four group companies.

Jones and Gibson were unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, administrator BDO Stoy Hayward has written to directors of the holding company, including Gibson and Jones, to ask them to complete a “statement of affairs” form in an attempt to discover the true state of the company’s finances.

BDO is also the administrator for William Verry (Facilities Management), another company under the holding company’s umbrella.