There were clear warning signs about Peter Miller, nine years before he joined Port Vale

The chairmanship of Peter Miller is one of the real lowpoints of Port Vale’s proud history. However, if the then board had paid due diligence and checked press stories about Miller from back in 2002, then surely he would never have been appointed.

Who was Peter Miller?

The lowpoint of the turbulent 2011-12 Port Vale season and arguably the lowest point in the club’s recent history came when Peter Miller and Perry Deakin were “voted” onto the Port Vale board. Deakin became a board member while Miller became chairman. The problem was – both had elected themselves onto the board using shares allocated to themselves which they had not paid for. Despite promises of a multi-million pound investment in the club, a series of revelations saw the club plunge into administration and the pair leave in disgrace, still being chased to this day for the payment of their shares. Among the scandals during their brief reign were – a secret remortgaging of the Vale Park stadium, breaking the terms of the club’s loan from Stoke-on-Trent council, the revelation that Miller was on a £100,000 per year salary and the club being sued by its former shirt sponsors. Their reign was so damaging that it left the club in real danger of ceasing to exist.

However, as far as Miller was concerned, the warning signs were already there in plain sight after a Trinidad newspaper published a series of claims about Miller’s business practices back in 2002.

Peter Miller Unplugged features – the allegations

Back in 2002, some nine years before Miller came into Port Vale’s orbit, he had already been the subject of investigative journalism in Trinidad and Tobago where he had been the chief executive of the Football Company of Trinidad and Tobago (FCoTT). Journalist Lasana Liburd published a two part feature called “Peter Miller: Unplugged” in the Trinidad Express on the 10th of March 2002.

Would the articles have been easily available to the Port Vale board? Well, this website used a popular Internet archive site to check to see if Trinidad Express articles were available online and it revealed the site had been publishing articles on a website since 1998 and the newspaper’s news stories were available in 2011 at the time Miller approached the club. Links to the two features are at the bottom of this piece but here are some of the discrepancies uncovered by Liburd. It begins with Miller’s activities in 1999:

Claim: Miller assured the Trinidad and Tobago public that there was no financial crisis and the national football team was in no danger of losing its Brazilian coach, Rene Simoes.

Alternative view: according to Liburd the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation had had to appeal for cash in order to keep Simoes. Miller claimed that all was in order and Simoes had been regularly paid by his organisation FCoTT. However, this claim was disputed by the national coach who said he was actually providing his services for free until a future date when he would expect a salary. This was the first indication of an uneasy relationship between Miller and the truth.

Claim: Miller listed his profession as marketing manager.

Alternative view: Liburd says he attempted background checks on Miller but he “could not immediately satisfy a request for his résumé, while his promise to have it faxed later from FCoTT did not materialise as it was not readily available.” It subsequently turned out that Miller has no formal qualifications in the industry.

Claim: Miller worked as a football agent.

Alternative view: Liburd claims that Miller was never registered as an agent by FIFA despite his claims of representing two players in English football.

Claim: Miller represented one of the players for five to six years.

Alternative view: Miller represented the player, Earl Jean, while he was at Plymouth Argyle, However, he was there for only two years not the “five or six” claimed by Miller. Not only that but Jean disputes that Miller was his agent at all. According to Jean, he met Miller in a restaurant the latter owned and he offered to help Jean  with some business opportunities including negotiating a deal with a local printing firm to provide a car for the player.

Claim: Miller negotiated the biggest sponsorship deal in Trinidad football’s history with beermakers Heineken.

Alternative view: Miller claims “I received the biggest sponsorship in (their) sporting history with Heineken.” However, according to Stuart Charles-Fevrier who worked with him “(Miller) stayed for about three months in St Lucia. He had some good ideas but nothing materialised… it (the Heineken deal) didn’t happen.”

Claim: Miller did a good job at Trinidad club W Connection but was still sacked

Alternative view: Miller moved on to Trinidad club W Connection where he was sacked shortly afterwards. According to Miller – “I was sacked. Personally, I thought I did a very good job”. However, a club source told the newspaper – “There were real haphazard sloppy presentations and plenty of talk, but he was never producing.” According to the same source, Miller was dismissed after missing deadlines to produce a budget.

At this point, the article jumps from 1999 to 2002. By now, Miller had returned to a position of power in the Caribbean as the Professional Football League’s head of marketing. However, the second part of the feature continues with allegations about Miller’s suitability for the role adding:

• Following its chief financier pulling out, Miller offered to market the Trinidad Professional Football League. He was told to submit a marketing plan within two weeks but at the time of the article’s publication, this plan was two weeks late and still not submitted.
• The article questioned why Miller had been granted three work visas despite them only being awarded to suitably qualified workers and as previously mentioned, Miller has no formal marketing qualifications.
• Miller denied he was being paid by one of the clubs, Jabloteh, a claim contradicted by the club’s chairman who said Miller was a salaried member of staff.
• Some members of the PFL have said that Miller’s dual roles working for both the league and one of its clubs (Jabloteh) was a conflict of interest.
• Miller allegedly demanded a $20,000 monthly salary and a car from Jabloteh (the club he denied he was employed by). According to a club source he “showed up at Jabloteh’s doorstep claiming to have many football contacts and the ability to make the club lots of money.”
• Miller said he would arrange for English clubs Newcastle United and Sheffield United to play Jabloteh in friendlies, claiming it would make the club £2m. However, the source claimed these games never happened and that “instead we ended up about $500,000 in debt.”

The two features certainly raise a lot of questions about Miller’s relationship with the truth. The sheer number of question marks – so many it seems that they couldn’t be covered in a single article – must pose serious questions about his suitability for a senior role within football – either at league or club level.

So, where was Vale’s due diligence?

Now the focus needs to turn on the then Port Vale’s board who decided to bring Miller onboard. Miller joined the board in September 2011. The board at the start of that 2011-12 season comprised of chairman Bill Bratt, Mike Lloyd, Glenn Oliver and Micky Adams (albeit the latter appeared to be only involved in an ambassadorial role and had no direct say on decisions).

Perry Deakin was not on the board but was employed as CEO and he seemingly also played a key role in approving Miller’s appointment. Even though Bratt resigned days before Miller was appointed, he must surely must have been aware of his successor’s identity while he was still at the club.

Considering the need for due diligence and that these articles are still available online some 22 years later, it is remarkable that any due diligence into Miller did not unearth the allegations and that alarm bells were not sounded by any of those five senior figures at the time.

Many Vale fans will draw the conclusion that they undertook no due diligence into Miller’s background. Yet this was someone who would be taking a huge salary from the club and who would be in the club’s top role. If this was the case then this lack of background checks could be seen to be a startling dereliction of duty by people whose ultimate responsibility, as guardians of the club, is to prevent any harm happening to the Valiants.

To simply hand the keys to a stranger, without any checks on his background is frankly, asking for trouble. And so it turned out to be.

The Vale Park collapse – echoes of the Trinidad debacle

Despite promises of an £8m investment, the Miller/Deakin reign ended within a few months. There was the much publicised “nil-paid shares” debacle (where Miller and Deakin voted themselves onto the board with shares they hadn’t paid for) but other elements of the Miller reign have echoes of his time in Trinidad. Just like his Carribean spell, Miller demanded a car and a huge salary while the £8m investment turned out to be a figment of Miller’s imagination. It seems he could talk the talk but rarely produce the goods.

This appears to be corroborated by Blue Sky International owner Hank Julicher (said by Miller and Deakin to be the source of the investment) who later told the press – “I simply don’t know where these figures of £5 million and £8 million (of Blue Sky investment) came from. It was never our intention to invest that kind of money into Port Vale.”

Furthermore, in echoes of Miller’s doubtful claims while in the Carribean, Julicher added “The deal I signed…  was entirely dependent on the club bringing in the money to make these things happen through a variety of sources. Peter Miller talked about lottery funding and other deals they were working on. In my opinion, both I and the club’s supporters have been misled.”

If those newspaper articles from the Carribean had been read and taken seriously perhaps all this could have avoided!

Footnote

In 2021, the Trinidad Express newspaper posted another exclusive about alleged wrongdoings in Trinidad football. It concerned a company called “Bad Wolf Sports” According to the newspaper the company “misrepresented international contracts and partnerships it claimed to have obtained over time to bolster its chances in securing scholarship money from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.” The newspaper checked the company details for Bad Wolf and found… “The company’s managing director is Perry Deakin while directors are Peter Miller and Sarah Deakin.” What a coincidence…