My original comment quoted Howden who mentioned non-League signings and defended them because of Bowen. McLoughlin came from the Irish league didn't he? Not a whole lot better than non-league.
Since when did North Americans care about apostrophes, spelling or proper English anyway? Or anyone from ull for that matter hah!
Didn't we loan mclaughlin straight out and was he ever intended to get near the first team this year? Don't remember him featuring except in a crisis? The point is that yeah, we go prospecting in the non leagues as we always have and always will, like everyone else. Yeah, the management structure is grossly incompetent but the idea that it was the plan to play raw non-league kids is just as misrepresentative as it is to suggest the allams are heroes. It's a **** show, but they didn't plan it they're just plain incompetent, arrogant and sociopathically arrogant. (that's not a clinical opinion, just my humble one for for the sake of clarity and potential future legal reasons).
First game was 20 February 1999, had just turned 4 a few weeks prior. Barnet, 1-1. Whittle scored. Had a season ticket from the season following until 2016.
With respect it was Howden who brought up Festus, McLoughlin and a few others as examples of the Allams spending money, I was merely doing as you are and suggesting that those players were never intended to be in the first team and thus were minimal fees, so using them as an example of the Allams spending money is silly.
But whilst it's (mis) managed decline with a heavy dose of af We all know they are trying to cut their losses so far as possible and flog the club to break even, and then miscalculated and goosed it out of pure ignorance of everything that makes a football club successful. Enough with the conspiracy theories though. They're just ****. Plain and simple. And they've got what they deserve for burying their heads in the sand and not listening to football professionals and their lifeblood, the fans. They've pissed half their wealth down the river out of pure obstinance. We just have to watch cack every weekend. But whilst it's (mis) managed decline with a heavy dose of aforementioned failings it will only become 'asset stripping once they actually make money out of doing it. That's different to spectacularly ****ing up out of penny-pinching which is what they've done, consistently since 2013.
Seems a few on here have accounting/business awareness. Asset stripping and all that ! I'm not familiar with the Allam's Corporate structure nor the UK's corporate tax "flexibility" of structured holding companies/subsidiaries. (Transfer of profit/loss between business lines to minimize overall taxes). Might this be a factor in the strategy the overall Allam empire is using to get their money back one way or another ?
Doesn't look like they were either. Out of the current state of affairs, everyone looses. Simple. If you really wanna know what's going on then try running a privately owned public asset like you would your marine generator business for over half a decade and see where you end up.
Given one relies on wider community support to be successful and the other a handful of of customers you can undercut the competition to keep happy then you work it out. They just don't have the skill set for social enterprise, and you have to have that in football.
If you're referring to the idea of asset stripping as a 'conspiracy' then I'll respectfully disagree but it doesn't seem like we're going to come to an agreement on that. As Quill posted, what they're doing is textbook asset stripping (although all profitable assets are now gone!)
We can agree they're aggressively cutting losses though, to the point they're devaluing their own assets in the process. But that's more incompetence than spite, though I don't doubt they wouldn't spite the element of support who told them no in the first place. I'm just not buying they'd deliberately shaft themselves in the process.
There was maybe a few months where the club was worth what they invested, and like twats they held out for more.
