Its only you that appears confused mate Well 1.2 mil divide over 12 month, its an extra 100k wages that can be offered in the budget
Yeh but what is that sleeve on again? If you look back I said 'extra' shirt sponsor, is that too hard to differentiate?
Either way, it's worth **** all in the scheme of things and wouldn't come close to getting us Andros Townsend. Ashley's position last January was evidently what it is now in that he wasn't going to put any external cash in to buy players, although he did actually put another £15m into the club last season just to keep us afloat, the evil bastard!
But this is it, in the grand scheme of things you're both right, its small amounts. However its indicative of the issues at Newcastle. He tells us the club has to be self-sufficient and he refuses to use his own money, then won't actually go out and acquire any extra sponsorship or pay for his own advertising to MAKE us self-sufficient. I forget what my actual point was think I just wanted to moan
Aye true bad example! but, if benitez ends up walking because of the lack of funds for transfers/wages, I'd have had Hart all day long
We will get a sleeve sponsor at some point since its free money to the club, no doubt about that. I've not paid any attention to it but have all the other EPL clubs got sleeve sponsors now? The free SD advertising I've never been massively bothered about, although since Ashley owns about 55% of SD shouldn't they be paying at least 45% of what it's worth? Anyway, I'd rather have free perimeter advertising than have him take profits out of the club every year or pay high interest rates on debt. I doubt its really worth that much anyway.
9 clubs by my count, could be more. But none of their owners are claiming to have virtually no cash. I think if we add it up over time, by the sheer amount of them adorned literally all over the stadium (oh and a years naming rights), I reckon it would be a useful amount. Normally I agree but lately I've been wondering if it'd have been better for him to take profits out the club. For example, will all the sissoko+ wij money go back into transfers? Or how about when we sold cabaye and bought no one for 18 months? Or the Carroll money? It feels like we've lived under a leeds-type scenario of clawing back funds.. and yet our debt to MA remains. If he'd have took the money at least we would be a saleable asset. With that extra debt sat on the valuation currently, nobody seems interested in touching us. But ye, just don't get this "we haven't got money and we can't compete" but, when big clubs are getting sponsors like official ****ing shaving foam partner, we can't even be arsed to look for extra sponsors. If I was Charnley I'd be accepting what we can to get money in now. Cos we all know what'll happen when it comes after this window, we'll get to January on a promise before feeling stupid as we're told "mike dunt do business in January"
Not even half as much as the interest on the money we owed though. Not sure what you mean. Money from player sales was largely spent by Rafa last summer and the resulting £20-30m loss we made last season. People can't ask why we are paying De Jong £60k/week, Riviere, £45k/week, etc, etc, etc, and seriously ask why there is no money for transfers. However, luckily, all the Sissoko money hasn't been spent since it is meant to be being paid at £6m/year for 5 years. That is a fair criticism and one I made myself throughout that period. MA was trying to stockpile money and had built up about £80m (probably trying to clear debts he paid off is my best guess as to why), however narrowly avoiding relegation made him give it to McLaren who spent it all. We were losing money at the time so operating costs will have used up a lot of it and we spent the rest on players. It would have been there anyway. He only paid off the debt that club already owed to banks (probably at 8 or 9% interest each year, or circa £10m/year). We had an "official dentistry partner" (not sure if we still do). Unless you are at the top table (and we aren't) then these deals are worth probably tens of thousands at best (is my best guestimate).
Held for ransom? A tad melodramatic. Why do you assume we don't spend our revenues or 'profits' on transfers after having spent £80m, £50m and £30m+ in the last three years? We only started making a profit about 4 or 5 years ago, and we made a big loss from relegation last year. Unreasonable amount to be bought out? It would have been the same as any buyer would consider the debts of the business deciding what to pay for it. Ashley is well within his rights to want his money back. It's up to him. Pay off the debt at some point: well he could have not released the £80m cash to the club and paid off a good chunk of the debt. If we want it paid off we will have even less each year for transfers. Maybe we could get more sponsors in and get a couple more million. Maybe. What our fans seem to want is just someone to donate tens of millions of pounds every year to the club. It'd be great I agree but it's completely unrealistic and most other clubs do not have this either.
As the General says having debt on the books doesn't make the club any less attractive to potential buyers - purely down to them agreeing a buying price that includes that debt. Its actually often advantageous to have/buy debt because it actually provides a mechanism for taking cash out of the club without attracting tax on a dividend. As it's long term debt to the owner it attracts no interest although Ashley rightly claims he could use the money elsewhere or earn interest on it so takes the Sports Direct advertising in lieu. That actually makes it quite a high "interest" rate the club is paying although not as high as some of the other clubs who have true loans. What it does do though is make the club lazy when it comes to advertising revenue. Normally they would sign sponsorship deals as short term arrangements and renegotiate these against market conditions when they come up for renewal. That is not happening and we are probably losing out because of it, particularly as we are now back in the Premier League. What amazes me is that, if Ashley really wanted to get rid, the thing that would most add to the value would be to get us back to being a stable Premier League team but he seems once again to be gambling with this.
Sounds like I'm wrong on the old debt situation then. Just makes you wonder when Chinese businessmen don't want our club but seem to he snapping up everyone around us, yet we're the ones perennially on sale
