Absolutely no suggestion of Catts being a Roswell, although there was the ‘refuses to leave any money behind’ statement from Donald. The club likely offered to release him last year but he had no options and declined, whereas after a solid season he will have offers. Can’t hold that against him in bear facts.
Your views are perfectly valid and likely spot on. But me personally, I have aproblem with a naive, big-mouthed, financial opportunist labelling a long serving player as a Rodwell with a work ethic.
A financial opportunist that gave a manager the highest budget ever seen in League One and took the club out of debt? Ok mate. He did take an opportunity, he did use club funds. He also had a vision of a way out and backed the living **** out of the gaffer, lowered crippling outgoings, and replaced seating etc that had made us a laughing stock for 5 years. Half a tale is a better story though right? I could make you a nice highlights real of every shot Messi has missed of you wanna convince yourself he’s a **** footballer. People with money are circling now, a year ago they all seen a massive money pit. Thanks to Donald’s ‘opportunism’ we are now a very attractive proposition and have a real chance to recover.
Donald may very well be an opportunist, but the club is in a much better state now than it was before he took over. Cattermole was a financial burden to a 3rd division club. It's not like he single handedly dragged us out of League 1. It's in the best interests of the club that he goes.
I don't think stewart had much to do with taking the club out of debt. SAFC owed Ellis Short something like £80 million, which he forgave. SAFC owed £40 million to the bank and donald used £35 million of the parachute money to pay that debt off. Apparently we have only one player on our roster coveted by a Championship club, and that club finished only one or two spots above the relegated sides. Promising academy youngsters have left in droves this summer. We are along way from the Premier League, which is where SAFC belongs. Donald took on a club that was losing £500,00 a day, or week, can't recall which. The cash flow has been stabilized but I won't even give stewart credit for that. I credit the 32,000+ fans who came to support the club, every match. Stewart took a risk, no one knew what the level of support was going to be. For the risk he undertook, he deserves a handsome profit. I just hope he takes the money and ****s off before SAFC take up permanent residency in league 1.
But we're in League 1 as a result of Ellis Short's ownership. We were on a massive downward spiral and without someone coming in halting that, things could have got much worse. Donald has halted the slide and started building a platform from which the club can be rebuilt. Whether that's by him or by someone else. He's undoubtedly a chancer and clearly hasn't got the financial muscle to put us back amongst the big boys but he's made us far more attractive than we were before he took over. Someone needed to come in and put some graft in and he's done that. And the atmosphere around the club is so much better. That makes a huge difference.
Have you any idea how much gate receipts on a 32k crowds contributes to the running costs of a large football club mate? I understand things are different in the USA (in a good way if we are honest), but remember a parachute payment of £35million is £135million down on a Premier League club. If Donald hadn’t had a way, he’d not have passed ‘fit and proper’, we’d potentially have been folded by Ellis Short. Ellis could see that Donald’s way at least gave him a portion back. Nobody else stepped up, there were parties with money but then Ellis wanted the debt paid and as such it wasn’t viable for them. The solution Donald and Ellis arrived at, with hindsight, was the only way the club was being stopped from falling. Ellis was gone, he hadn’t been to the club in a year. If it was as simple as Donald ‘taking’ the club then why didn’t a million men do the same? The rich would have taken that deal and immediately moved the club on. They didn’t. They didn’t because the structure and thought that Donald and his advisors came up with was maverick, a little cheeky and frankly ingenious. If he walks away with a bag full of cash, he deserves every penny. He didn’t steal the club. He ****ing saved it.
Just for a perspective about gate receipts.... £600k approx per game. Sounds great don’t it? Stadium cost, salaries (38 or so pro contracts), academy costs. A football club pays around £750k year for stadium electricity. Then there’s Northumbria Police and match day staffing, there’s the costs of club travel and marketing. And remember, we played 23 home games. There’s 52 weeks in a year so all of that is halved. Then there’s new signings (Grigg alone was millions..).
