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Phil Parkinson insists Wanderers’ players had “mitigating circumstances” for going on strike and forcing the postponement of the club’s final Championship home game.
The EFL has yet to make comment on what sanctions Bolton will face for failing to fulfil the match against Brentford last month, which was originally due to be played on Saturday, April 27.
Parkinson hopes the independent panel, which will convene in the coming weeks to decide the club’s punishment, take into account communication between former owner Ken Anderson and the squad in the weeks prior to the game.
“You can look at the strike or not playing that game in isolation but you have got to have an understanding of all the things that led to that to realise that the players were pushed into that decision,” he said.
“I don’t want to go into that detail now but it wasn’t just ‘I haven’t been paid’ there were other promises which had been made to them, people who were trying to help the situation but who were not being backed by the club.
“It was an all-round thing. Of course you want to fulfil your fixtures but there were a lot of mitigating circumstances which led to that decision.”
Asked whether he felt let down by Anderson, Parkinson feels the problems caused by non-payment of wages were avoidable.
“If you just talk about the most recent episode, maybe the last six weeks to two months, once the club had the court case and we got an adjournment and there was an opportunity to unlock the bank accounts and pay all the employees to keep the club running professionally, if that had happened everyone would have understood that Ken was trying to sell the club and get a solvent deal,” he said.
“The problem has been in this last month. There is money in the account but they have not been able to use it to pay the wages.
“We were all told that the option was there. They could have kept the club functioning properly. Whether that is a lack of advice from the lawyers at the club, accountancy or people at the court, I honestly don’t know why it wasn’t done. But it caused so many problems.
“The hotel being closed (now re-opened). That shouldn’t happen.
“It’s just the latest episode but the whole thing has been intensified to the point that people are not coming into work, not playing the Brentford game, and I feel it could have been avoided.
“That is what makes me sad. When we all look back, that is what could have been dealt with better. It’s not necessarily the owner – it may have been legal advice at the time. The situation would have been the same, admin or new owner, but the club would have been kept running properly.”
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The EFL has yet to make comment on what sanctions Bolton will face for failing to fulfil the match against Brentford last month, which was originally due to be played on Saturday, April 27.
Parkinson hopes the independent panel, which will convene in the coming weeks to decide the club’s punishment, take into account communication between former owner Ken Anderson and the squad in the weeks prior to the game.
“You can look at the strike or not playing that game in isolation but you have got to have an understanding of all the things that led to that to realise that the players were pushed into that decision,” he said.
“I don’t want to go into that detail now but it wasn’t just ‘I haven’t been paid’ there were other promises which had been made to them, people who were trying to help the situation but who were not being backed by the club.
“It was an all-round thing. Of course you want to fulfil your fixtures but there were a lot of mitigating circumstances which led to that decision.”
Asked whether he felt let down by Anderson, Parkinson feels the problems caused by non-payment of wages were avoidable.
“If you just talk about the most recent episode, maybe the last six weeks to two months, once the club had the court case and we got an adjournment and there was an opportunity to unlock the bank accounts and pay all the employees to keep the club running professionally, if that had happened everyone would have understood that Ken was trying to sell the club and get a solvent deal,” he said.
“The problem has been in this last month. There is money in the account but they have not been able to use it to pay the wages.
“We were all told that the option was there. They could have kept the club functioning properly. Whether that is a lack of advice from the lawyers at the club, accountancy or people at the court, I honestly don’t know why it wasn’t done. But it caused so many problems.
“The hotel being closed (now re-opened). That shouldn’t happen.
“It’s just the latest episode but the whole thing has been intensified to the point that people are not coming into work, not playing the Brentford game, and I feel it could have been avoided.
“That is what makes me sad. When we all look back, that is what could have been dealt with better. It’s not necessarily the owner – it may have been legal advice at the time. The situation would have been the same, admin or new owner, but the club would have been kept running properly.”
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