Why not?

Why don't we get sold? Are we not appealing with a large stadium, best fans in the country and should surely be quite financially sound.

I can't understand why we haven't had offers or maybe we have but Ashley is looking too much or hasn't got what he wants out of us yet, we deserve somebody who wants to achieve things rather than using the club as a marketing tool.

That's why Ashley won't sack Pardew, he's achieved what was the target this season by not getting relegated. Athlough not safe yet...

 

"Last" £18m repaid this Summer then we'll see.

 

It's because Ashley will be asking too much.
The greedy fat **** will add his usual premium.
Hopefully his interest in Rangers will speed up a potential sale...

 

Quite a big protest group outside the ground last night with banners and chanting Ashley out.

It's a wonder he didn't pull some strings and have them removed.

 

European football for Rangers will sway his interest more towards them and maybe he'll let some mega rich Arab take us over.

 

I'd love to believe this but it seems about £70m optimistic. Source ?

 

The fans forum in september. Its the last £18M of what he will take back before the club is sold.

 

The thing is though - when have club officials under MA been known to tell the truth? They may have said £18million is the final repayment but MA may have changed his mind 100 times since then. We are run on a whim.

 

If it is the last £18m that is taken back that will mean he is leaving about £75m outstanding until the club is sold.

That could make some sense: He purchased the club for £130m. If he thinks he can sell for £210m then he may be willing to leave part of the balance outstanding.

If he can and will sell at that point, it will complete the tale of two owners: FF Shephard who had ambition and tried to keep the fans happy but let the club's finances go to absolute ****, and FMA who couldn't give a **** about ambition or the fans but did the club singularly well in terms of rescuing its finances.

Third time lucky ?

 

If he pays back the £18M that leaves £111M owed, which he says he wont take back until the club is sold.

 

I honestly believe the situation at Rangers has got so toxic that it would frighten him off.

 

That's if he hasn't taken any funds beyond the £11 million recorded in the last published financial statements, which are about 18 months out of date.

It's also if the amount loaned was £140m - - I've seen the figure of £125m quoted various places. Are there any semi-reliable figures available ?

 

Is that right? Surely even MA has to publish every year? Not that I've seen anything. It's so difficult to sort the **** from the rumours from the truth.

 

I'll have a word with Mike about it when we meet up this afternoon to discuss team tactics and the sacking of Pards.

 

Having the 'best fans in the country' who have a protest every other week would set alarm bells ringing if I was a prospective owner of a football club. Unless I was a megarich Arab and didn't really give a hoot about the fans and tradition of a club.

 

It's a tiny minority, but a very loud one. Sadly you're right that it doesn't make us attractive to a lot of investors. It also makes no difference to MA. He will go when and if he wants to. There is nothing we can do to force him out. Even with an empty stadium he could make a profit, he's just adjust down the investment in the club.

 

The only "facts" I have are that £18m is essentially part of the relegation loan that Ashley paid into the club (along with another £22-25m) to survive that year with the wages we had and get us back to the Prem. The £18m is now to be repaid, I'd imagine, given we've spent not a fcking jot and banked another £20m from Cabaye. The commercial revenues alone see us in profit at around £12.5m, add to that the big TV bonus of around £50m, the sale of Cabaye @ £20m; he can comfortably pocket the rest of his "personal" loan, leaving the club with £111m debt. That debt, by the way, is still one of the lowest in the league; you consider Man U's debts are at around 8x or 9x this will give it some perspective. Arsenal still "owe" money, but after paying off the shorter term loans, they were able to bank more for player purchases.

As I have said before, if Ashley appoints a relevant Director of Football, I would be led to assume he isn't going to sell. However, he has made no move to appoint either a DoF, a new reserve coach and - crucially - is making no attempt to remove Pardew, in spite of utter contempt from the faithful. It is not the actions of a man interested in the long term. We'd have at least seen or heard of people being approached for these roles, particularly the lesser ones where perhaps people below Ashley will do the hiring, It seems to me very much as though there's a freeze on headcount - a very 'corporate' term but what that is absolutely paramount to any takeover. I've been at two different companies who did the same. In fact, it is very usual to see redundancies (player sales) as well, because it reduce the balance sheet down to healthy looking profits. But this is where I think Ashley - as usual - doesn't get it. Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovic, even John Henry, Stan Kroenke, EDIC, the Glaziers - NONE OF THEM bought their respective clubs for the balance sheet!!!!!!!!!

Bottom line is that, optimistically, we appear to be for sale. Due to it being financially driven, we may appeal to more people. Ultimately, however, a Prem club is about prestige and PR - fck knows how or why he can't find a buyer. But if we owe him no more than a £100m loan (added to the reduced value of the club), NUFC can be bought for probably around £250m, maybe even less. If Ashley decides that NUFC advertisement also carried a premium that he took advantage of (say £5m a year) and contributed to Sports Direct profits of around 1% of total growth, then his accountant may put an even more attractive figure on the club.

When all is said and done, however, he has to go. He has to be pushed, cajoled, encouraged out of this club. I agree that we look less attractive with boycott's; only someone with a Knight in Shining Armour complex would then give it a go, and as we're out in the sticks of England those people probably don't exist. I'd much rather see 52,000 fans take something symbolic - JD Sports carrier bags, for example. Or a deliberate boycott on the catering, make sure NOBODY buys a single item. March en masse AWAY from the ground when 90 minutes are done, not touch the club's bars. Similarly before the match, and encourage noise - lots of it - in singling out Ashley and Ashley alone for criticism, invent songs, give song sheets, keep 'em clean for the kids, all this kind of stuff.

Also offer bad publicity for Sports Direct, get into ground with placards that make up signs saying "Don't Buy Tat from Asheys' Pound Shop" and have the entire Gallowgate make it up for the cameras. Sing anti-SD songs, just hit him where it really, really hurts. Investigate the child labour stuff and get it pinned up on message board after message board, try and get Malysian/Indonesian fans involved so they can tell it how it is. All of this kind of thing will hit him hard - because he doesn't care about the club.

 

A good post fella, agree with most of this.
In addition to banking the Cabaye money we will save 6 months of wages on him (£50k x 26 = £1.3m), Jonas (£40k x 26 = £1.04m) various other players who are out on loan (say another £0.5m combined) so around £3m in the next 6 months alone.

 

Geez... we're in a rut. Bad run, but hardly surprising given the players that aren't playing now.

We were doing well up to the Arsenal game.

The way I see it this might be a good thing. At least the board will realise our 2nd string is far off from being premier league quality.

 

A good post with some good points.

The only issue is with the catering boycott. It's a good idea but one that Ashley probably envisaged when he tendered out the catering services. He has already pocketed the money they paid NUFC for the contract and only they would suffer with a boycott.