DAVID Williams has defended his £100,000 a year salary as chairman of Burnden Leisure plc - the group which controls Bolton Wanderers.

The 45-year-old London-based businessman, who is on the boards of five other companies, says he is paid the 'going rate'.

"Your typical chairman of a plc will get that," he told shareholders at yesterday's annual meeting at the Reebok Stadium.

"I have been able to secure a deal for this club (the merger) which I believe is a cracking deal. It has enabled the club to move forward as it wanted to do."

Mr Williams, who is not a football fan and has attended just one game at the Reebok, received a £250,000 bonus for his work with Mosaic Investments, who acquired Bolton Wanderers for £22 million through a reverse takeover in April. Sue Ball, who was also a director of Mosaic and is now Group Finance Director of Burnden Leisure, received a bonus of £175,000.

"The bonuses," the chairman explained, "were a pre-agreed arrangement for all the work we had done in sorting out the old Mosaic company. When I became chairman in February 1994, the company was in a mess. It was valued at £5 million, in debt and struggling.

"Within three years we turned it round into a company valued at £20 million. When I joined the company, there were no share options available so we were promised performance related bonuses, which we earned."

Previous sport story

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.