Liverpool Accounts

[Tyler Durden]

its one option but the reality is the receive would sell us as a going concern to the highest bidder.

 

The grey area is players contract whether they could walk out on a free.

 

Dont think thats happened anywhere else has it?

[rEddie]

I think the adminstration route will be taken if the bank(s) do not sense a buyer on the horizon. Wachovia during the credit crisis was one of the more notorious US banks in terms of pulling lines once they had concerns over a corporate borrower.

 

davidjames said in a mail above that these financials were one of the worst set he's seen (I'm paraphrasing there dj) and I would agree.

 

I don't know what the terms of the bank loans are, but I am sure they will contain certain covenants (measurements) that Liverpool must achieve in order to keep the lines in place; E.g. maintain a certain debt versus equity ratio, debt to ebitda (earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortization),etc. If they do not have covenants in place, I would be absolutely amazed. Further, they could even have a clause restricting further player expenditures or else fall in breach of covenants? With the operational results in here, surely there must be an issue with covenant compliance?

 

Look, I will state categorically that this is conjecture on my part in relation to my bank loan comments, but really, I cannot see that Liverpool has any financial flexibility whatsoever and I can't see the terms of the bank lines being relaxed or the maturity date extended for much longer.

 

If this were a commercial business entity (not a football club), the company would be looking to sell assets, perhaps sell and leaseback property and divest of non-core assets in order to raise funds. Reduction of employees and / or salary overhead would be necessary also.

 

This whole financial situation could be why the Rafa situation is not being resolved more quickly. I now think that Rafa's position is untenable (personally speaking) due to his under performance but also due to a clear inability on the part of the club to provide the finances he needs. So LFC either sack him and pay $16m they evidently don't have, or hope he walks.

 

We need a cash-rich purchaser and the yanks need to sell for a realistic price - and quick. If the American fuckwits stall - this could be a terminal decline.

 

Aside from the banks, Liverpool need to be able to pay their creditors - Inland Revenue, transfer fees owed etc, otherwise they could also be ripe for a winding up petition...

 

I'm sorry to write this guys, but this is the grim possibility we face. Again - and I said it yesterday, Moores and Parry have basically and totally fucked us. Sure, the Yanks are killing us, but Moores and Parry are the culprits for handing over the reigns to commercially immoral purchasers.

[ali]

Kop Football loses £54.9m

 

By Roger Blitz

 

Published: May 8 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 8 2010 03:00

 

The reason why Liverpool's US owners have put the Premier League club up for sale became clearer yesterday following the publication of full-year results for its parent company showing a spiralling wage bill, crippling interest payments and a huge pre-tax loss, writes Roger Blitz .

 

The accounts filed in Companies House also revealed that Kop Football's financial arrangements expired on March 3, and that the club was dependent on "short-term facility extensions".

 

Independent auditors KPMG said there was "a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the group's and parent company's ability to continue as a going concern".

 

Tom Hicks and George Gillett last month appointed Martin Broughton, the British Airways chairman and Chelsea fan, to oversee the sale of their club.

 

The owners, whose tenure has been plagued by rows and disputes, are understood to have signed a legal document giving Mr Broughton a casting vote on all board issues, including the planned sale.

 

Kop Football raised turnover in the year to July 31 last year from £161.8m to £184.8m, thanks to increased broadcasting revenues and prize money.

 

However, interest payments rose from £36.5m to £40.1m.

 

That led to pre-tax losses swelling from £40.9m to £54.9m.

 

Kop Football sought to offset these losses by making a profit on player acquisitions of £3.4m, following a £14.3m profit the previous season, though some fans believe that this has weakened the playing squad and led to Liverpool's poor performances this season. A further £13.4m of profit was made on sales following the end of the year.

 

The parent company also made severance payments of £4.3m. Among the beneficiaries was Rick Parry, its former chief executive.

 

FT.com / Companies / UK companies - Kop Football loses £54.9m

[BexBissel]

Kop Football loses £54.9m

 

By Roger Blitz

 

Published: May 8 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 8 2010 03:00

 

 

Kop Football sought to offset these losses by making a profit on player acquisitions of £3.4m, following a £14.3m profit the previous season, though some fans believe that this has weakened the playing squad and led to Liverpool's poor performances this season. A further £13.4m of profit was made on sales following the end of the year.

The parent company also made severance payments of £4.3m. Among the beneficiaries was Rick Parry, its former chief executive.

 

FT.com / Companies / UK companies - Kop Football loses £54.9m

We made a £31 million pound profit on player sales over 2 years?

[ali]

We made a £31 million pound profit on player sales over 2 years?

 

Sky Sports did a net spend table on Friday, over the last three seasons, we came 5th with a total net spend of 27m average of 9m per season. The distance between us and the top four was considerable.

 

The £13.4m mentioned above is from the post balance sheet, therefore, after our year end of 31.07.09.

 

As we have been constantly told the 'players account' can't be touched for anything else, where's the money and why hasn't the manager been allowed to spend it. Fairly obvious answer.

[BexBissel]

Sky Sports did a net spend table on Friday, over the last three seasons, we came 5th with a total net spend of 27m average of 9m per season. The distance between us and the top four was considerable.

 

The £13.4m mentioned above is from the post balance sheet, therefore, after our year end of 31.07.09.

 

As we have been constantly told the 'players account' can't be touched for anything else, where's the money and why hasn't the manager been allowed to spend it. Fairly obvious answer.

Kop Football sought to offset these losses by making a profit on player acquisitions of £3.4m, following a £14.3m profit the previous season, though some fans believe that this has weakened the playing squad and led to Liverpool's poor performances this season. A further £13.4m of profit was made on sales following the end of the year.

Sorry mate, what do the £3.4m, £14.3m and £13.4m figures mean and how does that tally in with the Sky Sports net spend thing? How can we spend £27 mil net on players but have a £31 mil profit on player sales?

(I have got an 'O' level in Economics, believe it or not. I was a cheating bastard in school though!)

[Randy Marsh]

Very sobering article, what bastards those two yank cunts really are.

 

Anfield Road » Fans forgotten, troubles extended

 

By Andy Heaton and Jim Boardman.

 

Fears amongst Liverpool supporters that the appointment of Martin Broughton was little more than a ploy to buy more time from the banks certainly won’t be eased following Sunday Times revelations that the latest loan extension from RBS was for a full 12 months.

 

New chairman Broughton was ostensibly brought in to facilitate the swift sale of the club, a sale in his words that should be completed in “a matter of months”. If fans believed him (and a few did for a short time, until reality slapped them in the face again) there’d have been something to finally celebrate in a season no Liverpool fan has enjoyed. But the likelihood of that happening at Torres speed looked extremely slim following a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming Tom Hicks still expected the club to sell for up to £800m. That was before the Reds’ accounts were sneaked out last week showing overall debt of a staggering £473m and dashing supporters’ hopes of an end to this torture yet further.

 

To now find that the bank gave the owners at least 12 months to find a buyer who was willing to not only pay that outrageous asking price but to deal with that frightening debt leaves fans with heads in hands convinced there is no end to this nightmare. Have the owners persuaded the bank to stay off their backs long enough to see if the world markets recover?

 

The accounts showed the majority of the Reds’ debt was to the bank – an overall £238m outstanding but with a facility to increase that up to a potential £297m. Overall the club found itself hit with a £43m bill for interest during that year ending 31 July 2009, making an interest bill totalling £76m for the past two years alone. To put that into perspective, when Liverpool announced details of a 60,000-seater stadium in 2002 the whole cost, of the whole project, was estimated at between £60m and £70m. In two years the club has paid more in interest than that stadium would have cost to build.

 

Staying on the subject of the stadium, despite it still not actually existing, it’s costing more and more money every time another set of accounts is sneaked out. This time another £22.3m went into what remains a figment of a Dallas architect’s imagination. Shovels never went into the ground, “large swimming pools” never started to take shape, but Liverpool have so far thrown £45.5m at a stadium that might never be built. The last attempt at building a stadium resulted in the club writing off £10.3m for the abandoned plans inherited by the current owners, bringing the money wasted so far to £55.8m.

 

Fans are understandably angered at these figures. £76m in interest for two years, £55.8m spent on a stadium yet to even have one ounce of steel bought for it, a total of £131.8m spent by the club since the new owners came in on the very thing they were brought in for. And they’ve not it brought it. They’ve just taken.

 

Coincidentally that pretend stadium figure is very close to the amounts the owners had claimed they’d put into the club so far out of their own pockets. Co-owner George Gillett Junior was recorded speaking to a supporter late last year about the state the club was in and claimed that he and his partner had put £128m in. It wasn’t all he claimed.

 

It’s common knowledge, recorded in legal documents, that the two owners borrowed the money to buy the club, a total of £298m was made available to them. But Gillett likes his fairy tales: “When we bought the club it was with our own money. Cash.” That comment alone was astounding, even by Gillett’s standards.

 

Twelve months later and that loan needed to be refinanced but – Anfield Road believes – Gillett’s financial situation wasn’t quite as rosy as he’d said when that first loan was taken out. One of the sticking points in getting it refinanced was that Hicks was no longer keen on signing a finance agreement on a “joint and several” basis and so began a feud that still hasn’t ended. The refinancing went through eventually with all but the initial purchase price put directly onto the club.

 

This half of Liverpool’s ‘Brothers Grimm’ continued with his stories: “The club is extraordinarily good financial condition. Far better than United, Chelsea or Arsenal. We have put more money in than anyone, more than Man City with the craziness they have got.”

 

If you hadn’t heard the recording yourself you’d assume this was all made up by someone out to smear Gillett as a madman, so wild were the claims. But he made it all up himself. And he wasn’t finished: “The vast majority came from Tom and me and our personal cash, not the club, not from borrowings.”

 

It wasn’t his only gem: “If I told you that Arsenal by law cannot spend as much as we do, United cannot spend any more than we can, would you say we are under spending? We didn’t do what Man United did. They took all of their money from the player sale and owed so much money they had to use it to pay down the debt.”

 

Even when he eventually got something right he made it wrong: “We have put £128 million in to buy players on top of what’s come in in the last 18 months.”

 

Even Rafa’s most loyal supporters would struggle to accept a season like the one now ending had he been given £128m – plus the money coming in from any sales – in the space of 18 months. Most of that money went on appeasing RBS by reducing some of that debt.

 

A few months later the Managing Director Christian Purslow backed up Gillett’s claims about the owners’ investment into the club. He told Spirit of Shankly that “last summer [2009] a large amount of debt was paid off by the owners personally. At the same time, they having by then invested some £130m, it was agreed we would fund our transfer spending for the time being out of our own resources.” Let’s repeat again, they’ve not thrown anywhere near £130m of their own money into the pot for transfers.

 

The £130m shows up in the Reds’ accounts as £145.3m, but it shows as a debt. , they didn’t put the money in as equity. It’s a loan from Kop Cayman, the overseas parent company, and for all we know was borrowed by them from some other source somewhere. However they got hold of it, they charge the club 10% interest on it. And with none of the interest paid so far, the debt is growing at a sorry rate, hence the reason the £130m is now £145m.

 

Is there anything else the club could use the odd £15m for? Players, perhaps?

 

Whilst the headlines of the last few days have again been dominated by Hicks, Gillett, Broughton, Purslow, part sales, full sales, boardroom showdowns past, boardroom showdowns present, transfer spend, ins and outs but a distinct lack of Sheikhs about, the only ones seemingly not worthy of a mention are the ones who are really financing this whole sorry charade; not the banks, not the owners, but the fans.

 

Any deal that has the potential to keep afloat the bankrupt regime of George Gillett and Tom Hicks can only be described as horrifically bad for the real custodians of the club as they are consigned to yet another season of soul-destroying stagnation on the pitch.

 

In the vast majority of other businesses, such disdain for the paying customer and corporate rape would have seen a company fail long ago, as customers took their “business” elsewhere but, as we have found to our considerable cost, football is just not “any other business”.

 

The emotional blackmail of giving up on something that has been part of your life, and has given you so much for so long proves too much to bear, as we pay hand over fist for our season tickets, Sky and ESPN.

 

We are the marketing man’s wet dream, the ultimate brand devotee, and don’t those at the top just know it?

 

It’s hardly as if we are going to write a strongly worded letter to the customer services manager threatening to start watching Everton is it?

 

How they must laugh as we pay our £38, are told to sit down, shut up and that we mustn’t protest; not that it matters though, because they’ve had our money anyway, and like a victim of systematic domestic abuse, we always come back for more.

 

And remember, that is OUR £38. It’s not a £38 that we borrowed off somebody else, to be paid back by somebody else, with us making a nice profit out of it having never even stuck our hands in our pockets. We made sacrifices to find all those thirty-eight pounds. Like we make sacrifices if we decide to buy our children all three of the brand-new kits that will be out in the summer. And for some fans you’ll need to multiply that £38 by at least ten, because that’s the kind of money it costs to buy the ticket along with a £50 hotel room from Thomas Cook, the club’s official touts.

 

Of course, families like the Hicks’ and the Gillett’s wouldn’t get where they are in the world without trampling on a few (thousand) people along the way; it’s extremely doubtful we are the first or that we will be the last victims of these particular snake oil sellers.

 

We should have seen them coming, and undoubtedly we won’t be so easily fooled again, but ultimately, we are powerless to make a tangible difference, despite the admirable efforts of Spirit of Shankly and a handful of clever, resourceful and determined individuals who have, at the very least, been a major irritant to those guilty of tarnishing the name of Liverpool Football Club.

 

Change will only occur when they either find someone who is willing to pay the vastly inflated asking price for a struggling business or the Royal Bank of Scotland decide to step in a put a stop to the corporate abuse of England’s most successful football club.

 

Wachovia are no longer involved with Liverpool Football Club, charging LFC £3.6m to be freed from existing agreements before RBS quite willingly assumed their £60m+ exposure last summer.

 

George Gillett quite happily dismissed the spending of some Spanish clubs: “That money is all borrowed from the government,” he said, criticising the practice. But RBS are now publicly owned and the fact they continue to support, nay, encourage the current owners of LFC is a stunning indictment of just how much risk banks will take chasing the mighty dollar, how little they have learned from past misdemeanours and exactly what they think of the people that had to bail them out to the tune of £45.5 billion pounds.

 

A bail out that that was down to, in the main, irresponsible lending, twisted accounting practices and greed.

 

Sound familiar?

[Code]

Where is Tom Wilson?

[toshi27]

Rafa out....surely with a new manager we'll win the league next season ;)

[Delmar]

Sorry mate, what do the £3.4m, £14.3m and £13.4m figures mean and how does that tally in with the Sky Sports net spend thing? How can we spend £27 mil net on players but have a £31 mil profit on player sales?

(I have got an 'O' level in Economics, believe it or not. I was a cheating bastard in school though!)

 

Different periods compared, different basis of comparison, and someone's figures are probably off. If you think someone's figures are off, you then compare Sky Sports and FT, and make up your own mind who to trust.

[StevieH]

.....and Richard Scudamore says there is nothing to worry about?

[jackofdk]

Tom Hicks and George Gillett last month appointed Martin Broughton, the British Airways chairman and Chelsea fan, to oversee the sale of their club.

 

The owners, whose tenure has been plagued by rows and disputes, are understood to have signed a legal document giving Mr Broughton a casting vote on all board issues, including the planned sale.

 

FT.com / Companies / UK companies - Kop Football loses £54.9m

 

What little hope I have stems from this bit of information from the Financial Times. Exactly as many of us had believed and hoped, the yanks seem unable to stop Broughton selling the club to whoever he chooses (probably with some kind of minimum sales price as a term).

 

Now we can but hope that there are wealthy and sound buyers out there for an extremely prestigious sporting institution and that Chelsea fan Martin Broughton gets the decision right that lifelong Liverpool fans David Moores and Rick Parry got so horribly wrong.

 

Patience is not a virtue us football fans are reknowned for, but I think the best we can do here is fold our hands and pray that the above comes true. I still reckon it will be done in a couple of months as Broughton more or less promised, and we have the World Cup to divert our attention in a couple of weeks.

[Captain]

By Andy Heaton and Jim Boardman.

 

Fears amongst Liverpool supporters that the appointment of Martin Broughton was little more than a ploy to buy more time from the banks certainly won’t be eased following Sunday Times revelations that the latest loan extension from RBS was for a full 12 months.

 

New chairman Broughton was ostensibly brought in to facilitate the swift sale of the club, a sale in his words that should be completed in “a matter of months”. If fans believed him (and a few did for a short time, until reality slapped them in the face again) there’d have been something to finally celebrate in a season no Liverpool fan has enjoyed. But the likelihood of that happening at Torres speed looked extremely slim following a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming Tom Hicks still expected the club to sell for up to £800m. That was before the Reds’ accounts were sneaked out last week showing overall debt of a staggering £473m and dashing supporters’ hopes of an end to this torture yet further.

 

To now find that the bank gave the owners at least 12 months to find a buyer who was willing to not only pay that outrageous asking price but to deal with that frightening debt leaves fans with heads in hands convinced there is no end to this nightmare. Have the owners persuaded the bank to stay off their backs long enough to see if the world markets recover?

 

I don't interpret that extension like this at all, quite the contrary. Liverpool's accounts show a club firmly headed for the edge of the cliff. Considering the newly published accounts are for a period of net profit in the player transfer market and CL income, my guess is that we will go bankrupt within 12 months if new buyers aren't found.

 

But they will be found. Broughton is on record that RBS have extended by a sufficient amount of time as to not complicate the process of selling the club. That makes perfect sense to me.

 

As devastating as those accounts are, they at least make that much clear: The club will be sold pretty soon, as the current owners simply cannot afford to hold on to us. And it will be for a price Broughton can negotiate in what is clearly a buyers market.

 

I like the way the article exposes Gillett for the lying cunt that he is, what an absolute whopper that idiot is.

[Stouffer]

Thanks DM.

[Kobayashi Maru]

I don't interpret that extension like this at all, quite the contrary. Liverpool's accounts show a club firmly headed for the edge of the cliff. Considering the newly published accounts are for a period of net profit in the player transfer market and CL income, my guess is that we will go bankrupt within 12 months if new buyers aren't found.

 

But they will be found. Broughton is on record that RBS have extended by a sufficient amount of time as to not complicate the process of selling the club. That makes perfect sense to me.

 

As devastating as those accounts are, they at least make that much clear: The club will be sold pretty soon, as the current owners simply cannot afford to hold on to us. And it will be for a price Broughton can negotiate in what is clearly a buyers market.

 

I like the way the article exposes Gillett for the lying cunt that he is, what an absolute whopper that idiot is.

 

That's how I see it as well, but excellent insightful article by Andy and Jim to go with all the others we have had the displeasure of reading these past couple of days. What KPMG had predicted has come to fruition and the only hole in the ground being dug is the one for our own grave.

 

Hopefully, this shocking 'on the record' details will now move those who have shown a level of apathy to this issue amongst the fan base to realise how bad things are and the ignorant argument of 'but they bought us' can be put to bed and join the campaign.

 

Ps. Gillett really has been exposed as the lying nasty insidious snidey sly duplicitous parasite that many suspected him to be.

[spider-neil]

its all well and good saying 'we're going to be sold' but when the asking price is a minimum of 500m, and then investment in a stadium and then investment in the playing staff you are looking close to 1b before that new buyer sees any sort of profit. who is going to buy the club under those circumstances?

[Kopite Pete]

Kop Football loses £54.9m

 

By Roger Blitz

 

Published: May 8 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 8 2010 03:00

 

The reason why Liverpool's US owners have put the Premier League club up for sale became clearer yesterday following the publication of full-year results for its parent company showing a spiralling wage bill, crippling interest payments and a huge pre-tax loss, writes Roger Blitz .

 

The accounts filed in Companies House also revealed that Kop Football's financial arrangements expired on March 3, and that the club was dependent on "short-term facility extensions".

 

Independent auditors KPMG said there was "a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the group's and parent company's ability to continue as a going concern".

 

Tom Hicks and George Gillett last month appointed Martin Broughton, the British Airways chairman and Chelsea fan, to oversee the sale of their club.

 

The owners, whose tenure has been plagued by rows and disputes, are understood to have signed a legal document giving Mr Broughton a casting vote on all board issues, including the planned sale.

 

Kop Football raised turnover in the year to July 31 last year from £161.8m to £184.8m, thanks to increased broadcasting revenues and prize money.

 

However, interest payments rose from £36.5m to £40.1m.

 

That led to pre-tax losses swelling from £40.9m to £54.9m.

 

Kop Football sought to offset these losses by making a profit on player acquisitions of £3.4m, following a £14.3m profit the previous season, though some fans believe that this has weakened the playing squad and led to Liverpool's poor performances this season. A further £13.4m of profit was made on sales following the end of the year.

 

The parent company also made severance payments of £4.3m. Among the beneficiaries was Rick Parry, its former chief executive.

 

FT.com / Companies / UK companies - Kop Football loses £54.9m

 

This is key and good news surely, Broughton a casting vote on all board issues,

[Kennys_spell]

What about the Glenn Johnson transfer?

 

The way the Portsmouth administrator explained the situation - it looks like we still owe portsmouth approx £8 Mill for Johnson - that plus the £8 Mill they owed us for Crouch appears to have covered the cost of Johnson.

 

The accounts should still indicate the full and final fee (£8 Mill) for Johnson but I don't understand why it doesn't.

[Captain]

its all well and good saying 'we're going to be sold' but when the asking price is a minimum of 500m, and then investment in a stadium and then investment in the playing staff you are looking close to 1b before that new buyer sees any sort of profit. who is going to buy the club under those circumstances?

 

It doesn't matter anymore what the asking price is (if there is one, other than some fucked up idea inside the fat head of Tom Hicks), that mattered previously when they were holding out for a better deal. And they held on, and they waited. To no avail.

 

Them two cunts are at the end of the road here. They cannot afford to wait longer, which is why Broughton is here to sell the club. And he will, at the price the new owner is willing to pay.

 

If G&H don't like the deal, tough luck.

[Red Nick]

I dont know why eveyone is so upset.

 

This has to be great news and even if we have to go into administration we will get new owners.

 

Unless RBS want all there office fire bombed this is the beginning of the end for these owners.

[Kennys_spell]

its all well and good saying 'we're going to be sold' but when the asking price is a minimum of 500m, and then investment in a stadium and then investment in the playing staff you are looking close to 1b before that new buyer sees any sort of profit. who is going to buy the club under those circumstances?

 

Who said the minimum price is £500 Mill ?

 

As every day passes the value of the club drops due to the position the Leeches have allowed themselves to get into.

[kurt5561]

I knew the situation financially was bad at Liverpool but I didnt expect it to be this bad. It really hurts me to see a club which I have supported all my life be raped by this two parasites like this. They have shafted us big time and without any lube - proper dry bummed us. They thought they could make a quick buck when they bought us but this has well and truly backfired on them for which during their tenure the team has suffered and so have the supporters. Hate is a strong word but I hate Hicks and Gillet for what they have done to us and I hate the people who sold the club to them.

 

I do see light at the end of the tunnel thought as the evidence is there for all to see in the accounts published that they cannot afford to keep us or to even invest in the team. Interest payments will mount up and so will the debt. I believe Broughton when he said he would sell the club in a matter of months as with our poor league position, no Champions League football next season, Cancer and Aids not willing to invest in new playing staff, they can surely see that it only get worse both on the playing side and financially with them at the helm.

They will want rid of the club sooner rather than later and this summer I reckon so they can attract a new owner who has a chance to make their own mark on the club be it getting a new manager (not sure if it should be Rafa or not), new playing staff to freshen things up and get the feel good factor back at the club, and get the stadium built for which is a must to compete financially with the the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United. Its not going to be a pretty couple of months but I hope all this pain will be worth it in the end with owners who care for the club and want to take it forward and back to where it deserves to be.

[Original202]

its all well and good saying 'we're going to be sold' but when the asking price is a minimum of 500m, and then investment in a stadium and then investment in the playing staff you are looking close to 1b before that new buyer sees any sort of profit. who is going to buy the club under those circumstances?

 

They wouldn't have to use their own money for the stadium, they could use a loan. There is nothing wrong with debt per se, as long as it's serviceable and as long as it has some long term benefit for the club.

 

The owners debt is totally different.

 

If the new owners use their own money to buy the club and the only debt the club has is to fund the new stadium then that is perfectly healthy. It should be possible to service debt like that without it affecting transfers - just like at Arsenal. The frustrating thing is, Moores could easily have got a loan for £150m 3 years ago to get the new stadium project started.

[TheHitman]

They wouldn't have to use their own money for the stadium, they could use a loan. There is nothing wrong with debt per se, as long as it's serviceable and as long as it has some long term benefit for the club.

 

The owners debt is totally different.

 

If the new owners use their own money to buy the club and the only debt the club has is to fund the new stadium then that is perfectly healthy. It should be possible to service debt like that without it affecting transfers - just like at Arsenal. The frustrating thing is, Moores could easily have got a loan for £150m 3 years ago to get the new stadium project started.

 

Do you really foresee someone buying the club with their own money, in the present climate.I would be absolutely astonished were that to happen, I think spiderneils figures are not far off what it is going to take to wrap a deal up. Also Arsenal got an excellent deal if I recall around 2.5% was the interest rate they managed to negotiate , they did the deal at the right time.

[Original202]

Do you really foresee someone buying the club with their own money, in the present climate.I would be absolutely astonished were that to happen, I think spiderneils figures are not far off what it is going to take to wrap a deal up. Also Arsenal got an excellent deal if I recall around 2.5% was the interest rate they managed to negotiate , they did the deal at the right time.

 

It really depends who is interested and what their long term plan is.