They're talking about this situation and asset stripping on Talksport which is quite interesting if anyone is bored.
IF KL is not taking the profits for herself, and she wants to sell the club then what she is doing is really neither evil nor incompetent. Essentially whoever buys the club will not be able to "asset strip" and keep the profits, because she will have beat them to it. She has already sold the biggest, easily convertible assets and put the money back into the club in the form of long-term investment. The new owner would be buying your basic, solid, no-frills Premier League club, ready for them to put their own stamp on it. This would hopefully be of more interest to someone actually wanting to run a football club, as opposed to someone who just wants a toy.
To be fair ...you are probably right......but for her to walk away with £100mil + and leave a debt free club is doubtful for me at any rate.....
FFP makes it difficult. That's the beauty of it. You sell it to the masses like "This way no one goes broke" which is somewhat true. But what you are really doing is making sure the small clubs know their place and don't do anything crazy. In exchange, they will get enough Sky trickledown money to make some profit. We are the Washington Generals (the club that is paid to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters).
"Taking the profits" and "clearing the debts" are likely to be one in the same though, as I'd imagine that most of the debts are to KL. Thus, this isn't about careful stewardship of the team...it's about getting her wedge out so that she can recoup the full proceeds of the sale when it happens.
FFP can be sidestepped with legitimate (and HUGE of course) sponsorship deals from the companies that made these toy owners rich in the first place. It's just an income versus expenditure exercise but you'd need a seriously big ego to just hurl cash in that fashion now, not to mention bank balance.
This all makes total sense if you're a stone hearted money driven **** with no honour or respect for anything. To dismantle what was built up over the past 5 years is soul destroying. But it makes sense to do it this way and to do it now. The only thing that doesnt make sense to me is how the vendors intend to field a team on opening day. Will it be an academy side plus a couple of new signings? Are they literally intending to sell a blank canvas? Still nothing but questions with no answers.
But if the debts are to KL, the club owes her money. So all she's really doing is taking her money back. She could sell the club for 100m with a 30m debt that she will collect later. Or she can sell the club for 70m with 0 debt, having already collected what is owed her. I don't see that as being greedy, I think that's just not gifting the club 30m. She could I suppose, just write off any loans but I mean... I'm not making her out to be any sort of hero. I'm just saying that the way she's going about things probably makes it more attractive to buyers, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I think her concerns about the stewardship of the club will be revealed by who she sells it to. Having already taken what is owed her, she could well just sell it to the sketchy consortium that will pay her the most money upfront, and if they finance that by saddling the club with debt and it goes bankrupt that's not her business because she no longer has any money tied up in it. Or she could try and find an owner who cares. I'm not counting on the latter happening, but hope springs eternal I suppose.
If Katharina sells, I really really hope we get an utterly mental despot **** in charge. but I doubt Cortese would return HAHAHAHAHHAHA! back in the game!!
I guess I partly agree and partly disagree. You are right that there are all sorts of ways around the FFP. The big clubs can flaunt the FFP if they wish because no one will stand up to them, while the small clubs will have to toe the line. I suspect that if some new kid tried to sling money around and threaten the big clubs, all of a sudden their marketing deals would be struck down as shams. Sorta like how Brendan Rodgers complained about players not living up to their contracts and found away around Suarez's minimum release clause. And yet has no problem taking Lovren and Lallana from us one year into their contracts. Or how various managers, ex-managers, coaches and players from big clubs pen opeds lamenting the high price of British players while their clubs are the ones paying high prices for British players. Maybe it's a legitimate problem, but the blame is levelled at greedy Southampton and our bad owners instead of the structure of the Premier League that makes it nearly impossible for us to do any different. Granted, this all happened before the FFP as well. It's not so much the fault of the FFP as much as that's just the new convenient way for them to keep their hegemony. But that's kind of the point. They won't let new boys into their club. A new owner isn't going to change that. Like you said, it would take a super, super rich owner with a super, super huge ego who wants to waste too much of their time, money and effort. A rational person is probably not going to bother.
The latter is what I'm getting at. She could write off the loans as a condition of sale, which would cut into her profit margin but would still leave the deal plenty profitable. In simpler times that'd be called 'investment': putting money into things like infrastructure to boost the end-of-day return, whereas now it's a debt to be collected plus the additional money gained for the asset thanks to those improvements. If I put a new muffler on a car, I can't levy a debt against it while also raising my expected sale price, but you certainly can with a business.
This is all a red herring Remember The CEO's statement that they are mindful of a growing sentiment among the supporters that ML should be memorialised? I reckon we're selling all the players to build a giant gold Markus towering over the stadium
Supposedly a link indicating she is putting Saints up for sale: http://www.hat-trick.fr/southampton-est-en-vente/
To put the other side, or to flip it, I decided to write up a summary with no real opinion behind it. Not mine, no massive presentation of views, but a summary. What reasons are there for Katharina sell? - She has no real interest in football - It was her Dad's hobby/interest - She wants to move on from this (for any emotional ties she has formed between her father and the club) - The club has finished the five year plan - (the main one for me - is it sheer coincidence that she arrived as the plan drew to its end?) - As the five-year plan was successful, now is the ideal time to cut ties - did what her father asked and kept the club in the family to achieve those aims How would she SFC attractive to a buyer? - Lots of players want to go because Nicola has gone, that's handy because it gives me some funds to spruce the club up - I'll net £120m and spend half on building a solid/competitive playing staff - I will employ a big name manager who has experience of working in difficult scenarios - I will use the rest to clear off the outstanding debts - I will use more of the money to pay for the training ground and further developments at St. Mary's Stadium What can we boast of when selling the club? - We are debt free, entirely - We own our own stadium, and it's a UEFA 4* stadium with pioneering LED floodlighting and undersoil heating is also in place - We have a state-of-the-art training complex that is brand spanking new - We have the best academy in the United Kingdom - We have a high-profile manager who has been in the game for a long time, draws respect and has coached some big clubs in Europe - We have a, what will be, 'competitive' playing squad who will at very least hold their own - We're a club based in a city, not too far from mainland Europe - We're a one-club city - We're the only Premier League club south of London Now personally, I'd say that makes a pretty attractive proposition. And although not as prestigious or steeped in history as Aston Villa, if I was going to buy a Premier League football club and the two that were on the market were Aston Villa and Southampton, I know which one I'd be putting my money towards.
This post from Crab Lungs on Saints Web confirms every suspicion I've formed. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?51167-The-mess-we-re-in/page2#.U9blcYCSzzw
