City's stadium sponsors have drawn a line under the wrangle that threatened to blacken their reputation.

Intersonic agreed an out-of-court settlement with the car leasing company who had tried to have them wound up.

"The whole situation caused a huge problem not just for us but Bradford City as well," said a spokesman from the telecommunication firm.

"That's why we are now looking to counter-claim for damages caused to our good name."

The dispute blew up over hire costs for a fleet of cars they used during an eight-month period.

Intersonic offered to pay £25,000 after six months. There were no price figures on the contracts but they calculated the figure based on an original e-mail sent to them.

But they were shocked to receive a demand back from the car company for £61,000.

The spokesman said: "We asked them to send a full breakdown of how they reached that figure but the next thing we knew we'd got a winding-up petition. We weren't budging and they weren't budging.

"We didn't even see the notice for several days because it had been pinned to the door of our old address and by then our bank accounts got frozen, which obviously had a knock-on effect in sales."

Eventually, the two sides agreed on an extra £16,000 - the same figure Intersonic were offering to cover the extra two months of hiring the vehicles - to avoid taking the case to the High Court in Newcastle.

City chairman Julian Rhodes admitted: "It was negative publicity when we didn't need it, for something that was unnecessary."

Meanwhile, Halifax have insisted City will have to pay to bring Wayne Jacobs back to Valley Parade.

Jacobs, wanted by Stuart McCall as his number two, has another year left on his contract with the Conference club.

Halifax general manager Angie Firth said: "We have not had any official notice of approach from Bradford City. If there was, there would be compensation due."

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