Living by your means is **** then you die a horrible death regardless, so I say **** it live by whatever means you want.
You are worse than Fredor - read the thread. We are saying that the club is being run as a going concern. The mistakes he has made are the football side. Unfortunately that's quite an important part of this business and something in which we are all stakeholders. The difference between us and Sunderland is that they have no choice but to be stingy and its come back to haunt them this year. Ashley made a conscious decision to do it and then realised too late that it was the wrong approach.
He's bored the living daylights out of me and I honestly don't care how we'll run the club is or isn't mate He's a **** that's made billions exploiting peasants
Ok I take it back - have also started eating low sugar muesli with low-fat Greek yoghurt and a banana on for breakfast. Excellent start to the day.
I cannot believe you are all as stupid as you are making out to be, am I to believe that a businessman paid 180 million pounds for a concern with 129 million pounds of debt ! and has since the day he took it over ran it at a profit , would you do it ? Maybe you would !
I love porridge (have it a few times a week) and would NEVER besmirch it with sugar! Semi-skimmed rather than water for me but I probably need the calories in the main.
In all honesty I do put a very small amount of milk in with the water I try to avoid dairy because I break out on cycle if I consume too much
I strongly suspect the debt (£129m) is his way of excusing not selling the club. He will want to make a profit AND have someone cover that debt, that places an artificially high price on the club (£300m) which we are not worth therefore he can justify holding onto us - which he wants to do as we push his main brand Sports Direct (free advertising all over the place, it is worth highlighting that ever other club makes millions a season from the type of advertising he gets for free through us). Yes he paid over the odds for us, he failed to do due diligence (I thought that everyone knew that to be honest) and has managed to run a profit within the business by effectively writing off our debts with one lump sum owed to him which we do not pay interest on (which is pretty damn amazing of him to be fair). His business management has been very good (all player payments are up front fees, there was a wage structure and rationalising of budget throughout, all outsourcing was reviewed and amended, etc) and we were, prior to the summer of 2015, one of only 3 or 4 clubs in the league to have made a profit for a few years in a row (that is after tax and all other fees and comes not from spurious linked figures but from our actual accounts). His running of the club and the mismatch between good business management and horrific footballing decisions has been a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, stuffed in a football and booted off the Tyne bridge.
I reckon he holds onto the debt so that he can have the SD advertising for free and call it "in-lieu" of interest. Its also always good to be owed something by an organisation (as long as you don't need the money) as you can then take profits out of the organisation and saying you are paying back the loan, rather than as dividend which might be taxable. He doesn't need an excuse not to sell the club - he owns it outright.
Whether you believe that a businessman paid £180 million for a club with £129 million debt is irrelevant. It is a recorded fact that it happened. He hasn't turned a profit since the day he arrived though. It took either 3 or 4 years to do that (depending on whether you look at pre-tax or after tax figures). That should be the easy bit to believe. Turning a profit at a Premier League club should be the easiest thing in the world to do with all of the TV money on offer. The hard part is turning a profit and remaining competitive. Only the best run clubs manage to do both. Only the absolute dregs of the football world would manage neither!
From memory, Ashley paid £134m to buy the club. The club had £111m worth of debts at high interest rates which Ashley paid off to save the club the interest each season (in return for the free SD advertising). In the season we were relegated last time, when we were far less financially stable, we needed a 'short-term loan' (overdraft) of £29m which he financed and which was to be paid back with 2 years I think. He took an £11m payment the first year reducing the debt to the current £129m and never took the remaining £18m back. He genuinely hasn't taken any money out or put any money in other than that. The club has made a profit for several seasons now and stockpiled cash which was spent on transfers - there is approximately £30m of that left after the player trading this summer.
Looks like it came from a very reliable source In comparison of Sunderland and Newcastle, one must also bear in mind that Newcastle have been bringing in more money than Sunderland each year due to a bigger following, bigger stadium and more games on TV. I've never seen Sunderland in the top 20 richest football clubs list before but Newcastle are regularly in it.
Since 2008 we've appeared in the Forbes top 20 list of richest clubs on 6 occasions (including 2016) - highest placing 16th, lowest 20th (in those seasons we made the list). During this period sunderland didn't make this list once This is based on Forbes estimate of past transactions, market value, debt, and stadium. if we use Deloitte then the figures are comparable - again I've stuck to the top 20, although Deloitte's ranking do go lower Since 2008 we've appeared in the Deloitte top 20 list of richest clubs on 3 occasions (although figures only go to 2015) - if we took the top 25 then this increases to 6 times i.e. all bar one season. Highest sunderland position is 25th (in 2014/15 season when we were placed 17th) - respective revenues (generated from football operations) were £169.3m and £132.9m Guess if anyone is quibbling with these figures, they'll need to take it up with Forbes or Deloitte please log in to view this image
We are also the richest club in the world ................ not playing in its country's top division. Another statistic to be proud of.......oh wait.
Richest and best supported club to have ****ed up sufficiently often to end up in the also ran division.
