With two weeks to go until the new League Championship season kicks off, Blackpool "only have eight contracted players," according to Luke Edwards of the London TELEGRAPH. At Blackpool, there is "only growing fear that the club is facing humiliation on the field and disaster off it, with fans, board executives and members of the football staff apparently at war with each other." Two weeks away from its first Championship fixture, Blackpool’s official website "lists just eight players as full squad members, and no goalkeepers whatsoever, with the club’s owners, the Oyston family, the subject of bitter protests from both the directors’ box and ordinary fans." The Oystons "stand accused of failing to reinvest in the club, despite benefiting from three years of Premier League relegation parachute payments" worth £9M ($15.3M) a season. Club Dir Valeri Belokon, a Latvian businessman who, as club president, has a 20% stake in the club, "wrote an open letter to Karl and Owen Oyston last week," in which he accused them of taking as much as £35M ($59.5M) out of the club. Belokon "has demanded a final parachute payment due next month is used solely for recruitment, given the club’s parlous situation in terms of their playing staff." Blackpool Supporters Trust Chair Tim Fielding said, "It’s extremely worrying and every time I think it can’t get any worse, it does" (TELEGRAPH, 7/26).
