FLAVIO Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone are playing hardball over the new playing budget in the hope they can get away with less than £12million on summer transfers. The pair were hoping to sell their ruling interest to billionaire shareholder Lakshmi Mittal for around £45million last week. However, itâs understood the father-in-law of Amit Bhatia, who resigned as vice chair in disgust at the hike in season-ticket prices, offered less than £30million to take control. The source said: "After the recent upheaval with Amit, it could be the owners think they are on their own with funding the new campaign, and they donât want debts to mount up." Read More http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/lo...=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#ixzz1OUvHsWHr
They certaily believe in making Warnock work for his wages ! [if indeed this is a true figure] I wonder what would happen if we're struggling at Christmas - will they suddenly dig deeper come January, or will it be too little too late ? Let's hope NW lines up some cracking loans.
IF this story has any truth in it then it explains a lot. Neither side wants to put money into the club. Mittal's offer would mean that Ecclestone and Briatore would make nothing from the sale, probably a loss. The "knock-down price" would enable Mittal to make a larger sum available for transfers from within without actually putting any extra cash into the business. In effect that extra money would come out of the pockets of Ecclestone and Briatore. It was very clever to leak the promise extra transfer cash to get the fans well and truely onside. (Not difficult with Ecclestone and Briatore's lack of popularity with the majority of fans anyway.) It is all dishonest as politics. If Ecclestone, Briatore and Mittal sell me all their shares for a total of £1 I too promise that I will make millions more available for transfers and wages. I will keep ticket prices the same as they were last year. Ecclestone and Briatore were hardly likely to sell out to Mittal on the cheap, knowing that his intentions are not that much different from their own. I wonder if Mittal would have accepted an offer for his 30% of shares for £13m? I think not. To ALL OF THEM this is just a business from which to make money - and a pretty dirty business it is too. They are all as bad as eachother, it is just that some are better at manipulating opinion than others.
I think you'll find the sale would include the transfer of debt which would almost double the F1 boys price so Mittal's offer is probably around £70 million in all. He took on 20% for £20 million originally so you can see where Bernie's version of an insult comes from but whoever takes over/is in charge needs to strengthen the team or we'll be down before they finish arguing.
We're in limbo unless and until the Mittals and the Goons find common ground on price. Eccles is only in this for the quick buck. Didn't we know it anyway? So for now, the Goons will run the club on a shoestring and charge high prices on tickets to profit out of loyalty. Unless there's another buyer around - haven't heard of one - the Mittals are likely to wait until the Goons have nailed us to the bottom of the table by their lack of ambition, and may be more amenable to bringing their price down. Oh, to be a Swan or a Canary...
I don't trust any of them. Ecclestone will now NEVER sell to Mittal. It will have to be yet another player.
Eccles will sell if the money's right, Eamon. I think there'll be another Mittal offer, but if it's not until Christmas, we're all f*cked until then...
I would expect that figure of 12 million to be about right. We were told that we were going to qualify for champions league football by the goons. The truth is we are going to be fighting to stay up all season. Norwich may end up spending more than us.
Someone will probably correct my maths, but by my calculations (to buy out Eccles), £45m to Mittal (worth £17bn) is the equivalent of about £500 to any who has £200K in the bank.....or £2.65 for anyone who has £1K in the bank. If he is genuinely interested in the club its a drop in the ocean.
