Blackpool owners accused of paying themselves and companies they control £26m after Premier League promotion

The Oyston family have infuriated Blackpool fans by paying themselves and companies they own £26million since the club’s unexpected rise to the Premier League.

The family own the ailing Seasiders - who are now battling for survival in the Championship - and appeared to openly mock supporters when chairman Karl Oyston was pictured smiling alongside a ‘cash cow’ banner that suggested they use the club like a personal ATM.



Blackpool chief Owen Oyston infamously pocketed £11m on the back of their promotion to the top flight in 2010, with more finances leaving the club before and since.



Ball boys: Blackpool players threw back objects chucked on the pitch

Ecstasy to agony 2009-10 : Promoted after winning play-off final

2010-11 : Impress in top flight but relegated on final day

2011-12 : Reach play-off final but lose to West Ham

2012-13 : Boss Ian Holloway leaves and they finish 15th

2013-14: Currently 22nd and on the brink of relegation

Supporters had hoped the cash windfall for promotion to the Premier League would yield progressive spending on the team, but none was forthcoming.

Ian Holloway’s side only suffered relegation on the final day of the 2010/11 season, but they have since seen the squad decimated and are now stuck with a team of loan players and free transfers, the majority of which are out of contract this summer. Fans argue that barely any of the £80m afforded to promotion winners has been invested.

Now in the bottom three, their record with caretaker Barry Ferguson and ex-manager Paul Ince in charge is abysmal. They have won just two of their last 28 games and haven’t scored more than one goal in a game since November. No side in all four divisions has found the net fewer times in 2014.



Frustration came to a head on Good Friday as they lost against Lancashire rivals Burnley, with supporters throwing tangerines and tennis balls on to the Bloomfield Road turf in a protest aimed at the hierarchy. On a day that was an shambles from start to finish, pitch invaders were overshadowed by the behaviour of coach Bob Malcolm, who became embroiled in a heated argument with substitute Stephen Dobbie and slapped the forward in the dugout.



Tim Fielding, chairman of the Seasiders Independent Supporters Association said: ‘My concerns surrounding the club started the moment we were promoted. It became clear that the Oystons would do things a certain way. The focus in the transfer windows was about preserving what they had rather than investing.



‘The perception I had when they talked about doing things a certain way is that they would look after themselves rather than the club. That manifested itself when you look at what’s happened since.



Making their point: Blackpool fans threw tennis balls and tangerines and held banners objecting to the owners

‘Holloway went because he looked to have had enough, Michael Appleton (manager for three months last season) realised what the club was like and nobody would work here after that. We ended up appointed somebody, Paul Ince, who seemed a last resort. There are also broken promises with a new training ground.’ Blackpool still train at the same base as Stanley Matthews used 60 years ago. That was labelled a ‘hell hole’ by Holloway but has only seen minor improvements, with the search for a new facility now lasting a decade. Oyston and son Karl hold the only major directors positions within the company. One was handed £542,562 in the last set of accounts. Another £3.1m has been given to non-related Oyston-owned companies in recent years - including £323,000 to Oystons Ltd and £68,000 to Yorkshire Riding Ltd, a magazine publishing business with which Coronation Street star Bill Roache is involved. That £3.1m figure is more than double their transfer record, spent on striker DJ Campbell four years ago. More than £5m of football money earned is sat in parent company, Segesta Ltd. That account, which looks after the club’s properties, has been used to pay other Oyston businesses. It paints an unclear picture for Blackpool, particularly with Ferguson’s men facing an uphill struggle to stay in the Championship. Not happy: Blackpool fans have protested over the club's ownership at recent home games

In the money: Owen Oyston pocketed £11m after Blackpool were promoted to the Premier League in 2010

Oyston faced mass demonstrations against Derby County two weeks ago - the first sign of overt dissent at the ownership for almost two decades. This comes only months after he’d called the strugglers ‘the envy of the Football League’.

The much-maligned chairman recently provoked anger from supporters by grinning next to a protest billboard reading ‘Blackpool FC - Oyston’s cash cow’, a photo of which was then plastered over social media by his son, Sam.



Sam Oyston, in his early twenties, runs the club’s four-star hotel which is believed to have made a £182,000 loss last year. The hotel, a separate entity to the football club, is used to feed players at lunch and host loanees.



Oyston then quipped that ‘Sam is grounded and has had his pocket money stopped’, sparking fury from fans - added to when younger son George was pictured with a tennis racket immediately after the Burnley defeat on Friday in a direct response to dissent from a baying crowd.



Fans appear to have seen enough of what they perceive to be neglect and are forcibly acting. In what has been a bizarre fortnight on the Fylde Coast, Blackpool Supporters’ Association penned an open letter to both the chairman and players as the side’s slide to League One shows no sign of abating.



Man in charge: Karl Oyston is the chairman of Blackpool

Resentment in the stands is mirrored by the wider footballing world’s bemusement in the way the club is run. Ex-Liverpool chief executive Christian Purslow said that ‘Blackpool are the only club in the history of the Premier League who didn’t give their manager a chance or spend anything. They just trousered the money and said “sod it we’ll just go straight back down”.’

Blackpool are heavily indebted to Holloway and Latvian businessman Valeri Belokon for their rise to the top flight. Sportsmail understands the latter - whose combined loan of £7.2m to the club still hasn’t been repaid and helped sign players plus build a stand - is growing ever restless at the current situation.

Murky goings-on are nothing new at Bloomfield Road. Part of the £26m to have left the club includes a deal whereby the Oystons are understood to have bought up land - owned by Blackpool FC - behind the stadium for £650,000 only to then sell it back for £6.5m after a lease for a Travelodge had been secured.