"What did you make of John Henry's comments on Anfield redevelopment?"

[Stickman]

Who'd have thunk it, owners who don't give a shite about the fans and are only in to make a huge profit.

[Dave D]

If they genuinley want to sell, from a business perspective, they would be cutting their nose of to spite their face.

 

By not building the new stand they would be stunting the growth of their asset and giving any buyer leverage to beat them down by £100millions.

 

I cant see them risking losing that level of profit just to hide behind ticket prices.

 

It was a ridiculous thing to say but surely there must have been some form of context in conversation. Or was he being interviewed about the Red Sox and just blurted it out.

 

Either way, our John is a bit of a slippery customer who has a tendency for causing ructions with the odd barbed comment.

 

He also has a very fit bird

 

Fuck him.

 

Im too made up with Klopp and the boys to focus too much attention      

[Arl arse]

This feels like being put on the naughty step, or being told you're getting a boss bike for Christmas only to find a fuckin tangerine and a lump of coal under the tree.

[stringvest]

Who'd have thunk it, owners who don't give a shite about the fans and are only in to make a huge profit.

 

 

Just like every other owner in the premiership, then.

[magicrat]

This feels like being put on the naughty step, or being told you're getting a boss bike for Christmas only to find a fuckin tangerine and a lump of coal under the tree.

 

You got a tangerine ?

Lucky cunt

[stringvest]

If they genuinley want to sell, from a business perspective, they would be cutting their nose of to spite their face.

 

By not building the new stand they would be stunting the growth of their asset and giving any buyer leverage to beat them down by £100millions.

 

I cant see them risking losing that level of profit just to hide behind ticket prices.

 

It was a ridiculous thing to say but surely there must have been some form of context in conversation. Or was he being interviewed about the Red Sox and just blurted it out.

 

Either way, our John is a bit of a slippery customer who has a tendency for causing ructions with the odd barbed comment.

 

He also has a very fit bird

 

Fuck him.

 

Im too made up with Klopp and the boys to focus too much attention      

 

 

They are not giving any buyer leverage to knock them down by £100m.  That's just silly.  And they are not silly. 

[mattyq]

They are not giving any buyer leverage to knock them down by £100m.  That's just silly.  And they are not silly. 

No, they're deffo not silly but they are human and every now and then make mistakes...hiring BR, the 1st season transfer saga, not getting in a decent MD etc etc...all well documented and all discussed ad infinitum

This is another of their mistakes in my opinion

I've always doubted they'd re-build the Anny but with the obvious success of the new Stand I'd began to hope they'd change their mind

The sums mentioned concerning our valuation of £1 billion are pie in the sky at the moment and I'm sure they know this but with a winning team and further investment in the stadium it might actually happen

Speculate to accumulate 

[Curly]

Nightcat is gutted he didn't manage to last on here til now. This was everything he ever worked towards. I bet he's jizzed all over his map of shipping lanes within the Indian Ocean.

[Anubis]

I don't see it as letting down gently, Stringy. They could have just said the cost benefit ratio doesn't justify it. The ticket prices comment was a swipe at the protesters last year. Hopefully it will serve to wipe the cobwebs out of the eyes of those fans who still go on about how they arrived like knights in shining armour to save us.

[ZonkoVille77]

Henry is a cunt.

[Russ Atmosphere]

Henry is a cunt.

 

Took a while but we got there. Repped.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

 

Simples

Not having that.

 

Negged.

[stringvest]

I don't see it as letting down gently, Stringy. They could have just said the cost benefit ratio doesn't justify it. The ticket prices comment was a swipe at the protesters last year. Hopefully it will serve to wipe the cobwebs out of the eyes of those fans who still go on about how they arrived like knights in shining armour to save us.

 

 

I'm not sure about knights in shining armour, but they were the only credible show in town, and I'm glad they took us over when they did.  I don't think they've done much wrong, apart from the bluster about 'here to win things' but then again, I wasn't expecting them to do anything that they couldn't justify from a financial return perspective.  Investing an additional 250m into the team in order to give us a chance of winning the league was never a starter, because the risk to them isn't worth it.  

[lifetime fan]

3 great articles, Paul's sums up my feelings almost perfectly bar the last sentence.

 

"After all, that culture is the very reason why you bought us in the first place".

 

They've never given a flying fuck about our history, passion or culture.

 

The only reason they bought is the fact we were a bargain they'd quickly make a profit on.

 

They'd have bought any business or 'soccer team' regardless of if the ground was a quarter full if there was money in it.

[lifetime fan]

Sorry Paul, that sounded arsey when I thought it was a brilliant piece and summed up my thoughts perfectly.

 

I actually reckon you meant was "that culture" was what you (the owners) banked on from the very beginning.

 

To them it was just an advertising point to make more money.

[lifetime fan]

A point I'd also make about their experience of the American sports and sports fans is their acceptance of being financially raped.

 

How many of those fans travel to follow their club/team?

How many of their fans take time off work to follow their team?

 

If away support is not realistic/possible are FSG (and American owners) expecting 'home' fans to be prepared to pay twice as much based on their dollars to head ratio?

[lifetime fan]

Either way FSG can fuck off.

 

I don't mind owners coming in and making a profit, fucking hell Moores and his family did all the way through our greatest triumphs.

 

What I don't like and won't accept is some cunt that doesn't even know the game trying to treat me like a patsy and lying through his teeth expecting me to swallow his shite and then say thank you John after.

[Rick]

Would the next ones be any better?

[kalasoma]

These are my rather rudimentary maths.

 

New stand £115M

New stand revenue p.a. £20M

Naming rights £5-7

If the owners did absolutely nothing to try to recoup the costs of the new stand other than keep the revenue from the main stand alone and keep prices where they are, it would take about 4 years for the main stand to pay for itself.

 

New ARE £50M - Ian Ayre gave a ballpark figure

New ARE revenue p.a. £10.5M based on increase roughly to 13,800 (current capacity 9000 with expansion of 4,800 added seats)

Naming rights estimate £2M

Again, let's say we get a new ARE by 2018 - 4 years to pay it off

 

Domestic TV Deal worth £5.5bn Overseas TV deal approx. £3bn (Totalsportek)

 

If we finish 5th (I know, not great) but still £132M for 2016/2017. That's the domestic TV and overseas combined (prize money divided by 20 clubs + live tv appearances + where you finish in the table).

 

Add roughly £3M from player transfers this season -  £135M isn't that bad. They can take £100M back for the stand, and maybe put £35M into the new ARE build. The following season, they can take £50M (remaining cost from Main and ARE builds). Give us some money for player transfers and even reduce ticket prices by 2017/2018. 

 

Again, I'm just playing around with numbers, so I'm naive as to how this all actually works. I know it's not as simple as that.

 

However, I'm not buying that the ticket protest at the Sunderland match last season has any correlation with putting 4,000 new seats in the ARE, or, raising ticket prices. Even if they spent the entire 'prize' money on paying themselves back for the Main Stand this season, and we had to rely on player sales revenue next season, I still don't see how a ticket protest prevents them from starting the ARE build while doing exactly what they did to build the new main stand in the first place. I am obviously missing something here.

 

If they have no stomach for owning a premier league club, then sell. Admit that at least.

 

Thanks for buying us in 2010, though. That was awesome.

[Lee909]

This feels like being put on the naughty step, or being told you're getting a boss bike for Christmas only to find a fuckin tangerine and a lump of coal under the tree.

You got a tangerine ?

Lucky cunt

We were so poor we had to share the lump of coal and it was on the fire by boxing day

[Paul]

Sorry Paul, that sounded arsey when I thought it was a brilliant piece and summed up my thoughts perfectly.

 

I actually reckon you meant was "that culture" was what you (the owners) banked on from the very beginning.

 

To them it was just an advertising point to make more money.

 

Yep.

[Trumo]

We were so poor we had to share the lump of coal and it was on the fire by boxing day

 

You had a fire?

[Russ Atmosphere]

Would the next ones be any better?

Good point. Although I can't help but notice that the threads of underperforming left backs, say, rarely feature such fears.

[Razoray]

You had a fire?

Probably had firelighters 'nall the cunt.

[Dave D]

They are not giving any buyer leverage to knock them down by £100m.  That's just silly.  And they are not silly.

 

 

 

Why? New owner lowers price of club due to stand needing redevelopment to the tune of 100m