TNS insists £10,000 was paid back in grant saga
Oswestry-based football club The New Saints has insisted it has paid back part of the £80,000 grant money it was given to install more seats at its ground.
The club was granted £80,000 to install new seats to allow it to compete in European matches.
It emerged earlier this year that there was an agreement to pay the money back over five years, but that little or no money had actually changed hands.
TNS had struck up an agreement to pay the money back to the Oswestry Joint Economic Board, which would dish out money to projects in the area.
The club was supposed to be involved with deciding which projects benefitted from the cash.
It later emerged Shropshire Council was looking into the matter amid claims no money had been paid back.
Now Ian Williams, chief operating officer at the Welsh Premier League club, has insisted the club paid £10,000 early in the agreement.
And he blames an administrative error on behalf of the council for any unpaid money,
Mr Williams said the club was never notified of any further meetings of the board or any projects until an invoice landed at the Park Hall-based club a few months ago.
He said: “We have done everything above board. The £10,000 was paid back early on, despite not being involved in the decision on the projects.
“Since then we heard nothing until we had an invoice recently.
“If we had been involved in the way we should have, all the money would have been paid off.
“We’re now in correspondence with Shropshire Council and hopefully it will be resolved soon.”
Shropshire Council said last week that it was taking steps to recover the money that was given as part of a legacy grant.
Mr Williams and TNS have insisted in the past they have nothing to hide, and now Mr Williams has insisted if they had done something wrong, they would have held their hands up.
He said: “If we were in the wrong, we would have held our hands up but we haven’t.”
