Or Steve Bruce could have consolidated us in the Premier League and we could have made significant profits year after year to reduce our debt. You don't back Bruce to do that I would have. Given him 20m that summer might have increased our debt but it might have kept us in the league and got us another year of 100m TV money. All a guessing game, that's why I won't ever give Ehab credit as he threw away our best ever chance of becoming a consistent Premier league team by sacking Bruce and not backing him. We will probably never get that chance again.
I think there was a fair sized bank loan that got paid off. The rest, see HappyAllam's flashy new Jag
Hull City's profits for the last two years was £59.3 £21.3 million was paid to the bank £17 million paid to Allamhouse to reduce the debt £4 million paid to Allamhouse to redeem shares (the Allams had to convert loans of £4 million into shares to comply with the Fair Paly Rules. Once in the Premier League they reversed that by reducing the number of shares to the original number) I haven't analysed the balance of £11 million but part of it would have been spent on reducing other creditors, paying corporation tax and buying assets, leaving cash in bank of £2.9 million.
I am sure every penny could be explained and accounted for to someone going through a due diligence process.
The Allams use the best lawyers and the best number crunchers. I'm sure they will have found a legal way of disappearing the money.
Enough to pay off the debts Bruce ran up, the salaries of the players he bought and £24 million off the Allam's £80 million debt. Our current team was bought with what money was left.
The Allams / Bruce took the debt to almost £100 million - then he got us relegated so the Allams then started the process of recovering their gift before the debts got totally out of hand - Brady and Chester went first which took us down to around £80 million - the gains we made on Clucas, Maguire and Robertson circa £25/£30 million were partly offset by the losses on Hernandez and Huddlestone circa £15 million as well as the many smaller losses on Macca, Prozzy, Sagbo Daws, Meyler, Elmo etc which come to another £15million on top of which are the loss on Mason and Odubajo which is why the debt is only down to around £60 million - it is wrong to say the club made millions out of Bruce - we didn't - we were fortunate the TV money increased everyone's value and we should be thankful for Marco Silva for having confidence in Maguire and giving him the platform to increase his worth - twelve months before only Boro were interested at £6 million - Brucie had a great start getting us promoted and then keeping us in the Prem - he bought too many players the next season and ended up falling out with a number of them ie Ben Arfa, Curtis and Macca - the team became disjointed Maguire was farmed out - it was chaos and we got relegated - the rest is history
This is my feeling also, SB had his faults but he was the glue that kept the club together when the Allam's were trying their best to divide the fan base. As a manager there are better, but he was good as we could expect and If the Allam's had supported him with 3 or 4 new good signings after he got us through the playoff final, bearing in mind the increase of the TV deals, I feel we could have stayed up that next season and who knows be still the. Opportunity missed IMO.
I never said Bruce made the club millions, I just wanted to see an unbiased figure from someone who doesn't have their head stuck up his arse. What you say seems fair in a rough rounded up kind of way. Not to forget the whopping budget he had at the time to get us promoted in his first season, football finances were very different then before the mammoth rise in TV revenue. I think that season is where most the Allam debt (excluding the Bartlett debt they took on) was accrued. We had a mental wage bill that season.
You are right that in percentage terms the first season when we got promoted the wage bill was 152%, but the loss that year was £25M. The first season back in the EPL the wage bill was 52% of turnover with a loss of £9m. If my memory is right Assem Allam said him saving City and his gift to the people of the Hull area was to not put the club into administration, but he gifted £40m which was the debt Bartlett left. Therefore in reality already the Allam's have a debt of £60M during their tenure so actually they re not far off getting their money back. However, we all know now that this so call gift has turned out the be a loan, but if they really did stick to their word then they should swallow the £40M gift.
