I can't wait for the club to be sold, to be honest. It was an inevitability as soon as Markus died and a woman who has no interest in football inherited it. Can't believe no one else could see it. We need to get it over and done with and see the torch passed to someone who cares. Would have been nice if Kat could have done less damage on her way out.
Yep, same here. As soon as this becomes the accepted story and we can all stop hating on the man who took us from the bottom of the third division to 8th in the PL, the better.
Well I hope it's not true, because I don't see any way we could recover if his warnings of more to come go through.
If a new owner couldn't be found at the original price, but could be at a greatly reduced one, would they be the kind of owner to invest very much in the club? Not sure what they would hope to gain. The only way to make money would be by 'farming' kids, selling them on, and creaming the profits. At the same time they have to ensure PL status to keep all that juicy TV money coming in. It's a hard balancing act.
A debt-free club should be able to make a decent profit from all the commercial income alone, unless they spend all of it in the transfer market. We wouldn't need to be a "selling club" to advance; merely being debt-free would give us a financial advantage over most PL clubs because more of our revenue could be allocated for transfer spending. Just spending your money wisely is the key. A backseat owner who appoints a competent chairman is all I ask for.
Joe, I've just read that whole post. It's a clouded view. Anyone following the last few months could have written that post or written one with a slant 180 degrees the other way; there was simply no point of reference other than report that have already been out there. It may well be true, but too easy to accept it as that without any firm quote or substance. On NC, it still leaves one thing unanswered for me: how was he going to continue that growth? I understand all the stuff about players believing in him and him being the glue (we all knew this) but I haven't seen one piece of information telling me how he was going to fund a massively increases wage bill and transfer policy that would allow us to compete with clubs like man united who generate over 10 times our total commercially generate income, just with one years kit supply. I have posted some question marks over NC (none taking away that he was the pivotal reason for our five year progress), but it just seems he went to KL with a plan to drive us further, but we have no understanding of that plan. If when they met she told him that she wanted to sell the club and was going to sell the stars first, I understand his leaving and then the trickle down of that info to MP and the players; there is no way I believe he didn't tell anyone if her plan was to sell the stars. If he left because she did tell him she wanted to sell the starts, then I apologise to him and understand why he left. I just want to understand if it was that of because she wouldn't bank roll massively higher wages and transfers. If the latter was the case then I'm still please we didn't take that gamble.
If he's wrong, then KL has surely moved on a level from very naïve, to totally incompetent. Just imagine if all this had happened because of bad business management rather than something more sinister!
See my post above Joe. I think your bit above is the key to the pack of cards we're seeing. Did NC go because she wanted to sell the players and then the club, or because she wouldn't back his plan to progress and how was he going to fund that. Did she think he was starting to not spend carefully? I don't know.
A bit of both. Obviously from her point of view she needs to decide when the value of the club is as high as it's going to get and sell at that moment. She's only ever been looking to sell high from the moment she inherited the club. And when it comes to selling she needs to take Cortese's job. He, as we know, thought we could get higher and wanted her to wait. She didn't want to take the risk because obviously she thought it was far from a sure thing that we'd get any higher than 8th and decided it was time to sell now rather than keep investing (i.e. gamble that the value will increase further).
From what I can see the Liebhher family investment into Saints stands at around £67m including the purchase price. Most of the investment has been coverted into equity, so there's only around £16m in loans (form the last accounts) outstanding to them. If she's asset stripping prior to a sale then she has to ensure that you remain in the EPL or it'll be totally counter productive
Definitely. If we get relegated, that'd shave £50m off the price. Not sure she would actually know that though.. hasn't exactly helped the club in these summer months..
I was told by a bloke out walking the dog this morning that he was told your owner is a Portsmouth Fanatic. The plan is to sell all your players off and get you relegated before selling Southampton buying Portsmouth for a few Quid and spending 140m on players. Portsmouth end up in the premier league as a top 8 club while Southampton end up in league 2
arguably the best place to sell a club is for £50m or thereabouts in the championship. A buyer thinks they can add value by getting promoted. If you sell a club in the premier league you've already got the cash bonanza and you work it into the price so nobody wants to pay for that. It makes no sense to get relegated just to sell it for that little, but if you can sell off assets for as long as it lasts for personal profit, that could work. edit:Then again someone convinced Venkys and Mr Pringle to buy Blackburn and Fulham. edit2: venkys paid £23m that explains that.
There is a handful of people out there who will buy a club in our current position. As you mentioned, Fulham were bought for a lot of money by an American guy. Randy Lerner and whoever he's just sold to are two more examples. Both of those clubs actually went for a bit more than we'll go for.
