Hopefully the piss taking party has actually stopped - just a couple of years later than we thought.
S.A.F.C. - the future
- Thread starter alan reed
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Hopefully the piss taking party has actually stopped - just a couple of years later than we thought.
It never stopped. It just moved up to the boardroom.
This is why I disagree with Kevin Phillips when he says we shouldn't bother with a long term plan, just get out of L1 and think again.
If a Championship level player has a choice between Sunderland and a perennial mid-table outfit like Millwall we have to make him feel we're aiming for the PL now. Otherwise we'll only attract L1 players who we'll have to replace if we go up. Bournemouth carried some of their players up from the lower leagues to the PL and this is what we need to do instead of having to rebuild every season.
I agree whole heartily Mr Smug. However, unfortunately you get what you pay for in football as you know. I believe we need a mix of players with desire and not always on the cheap if you know what I mean. I can't wait for this bloke to get going. Love the fact he has seen the streaming service and clearly thought "why dose it have to look and be so amateurish", he's making the streaming service a safc brand. More cameras, pre, half time and post show. Seems very professional and let's face it, it'going to be the way forward. Add to that the fact he has basically asked who had the most up to date state of the art pitch (spurs) and said go and get one. Absolutely class. I nipped out this morning to get a few bits done before work this afternoon, anyway I drive past the sol every day, but today I drove up to it, just for a look. Miss the place.
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totally agree, you want to get out of one leauge, you recruit from above.
There were questions asked by the FPP advisers about the river, nothing serious, just looking at every aspect of the club.
I'd love to see a booze cruise boat setting off from Hartlepool, picking up along the coast and pulling up at Sheepfolds
Or from the Shipwright pub near the A19, I'd park there just for the crack.
Aye, I know there are some (over the road more than here to be fair) who say fpp was only ever going to be a loan, didn't want to buy us, didn't have plans for the club etc. Fact is they wanted us and they had detailed plans about the things they wanted to do. Haven't seen them myself but know someone who has, so I'm absolutely certain their intentions were very real.
Now, with the loan paid off we don't need to worry about them any more, but we can already see that KLD is similar in terms of wanting to make sure he gets everything he can in place to give us the best chance of succeeding. It suggests to me that he'll have done a very similar exercise. Hell, depending on the relationship he may even have seen what was produced for FPP. All I know about the plans is that they were "incredibly wide ranging" and that it would be the missed opportunity of a lifetime if they didn't come in. I'm getting more and more convinced that the opportunity is still there, its just in the form of another incredibly rich bloke who is happy to put up with and tolerate Donald as a minor irritant for now, whereas fpp likely wanted nowt at all to do with him. He won't be here to tread water, the very minimum he'll be aiming for is PL, but people like him don't normally set low glass ceilings like that, he'll want us right at the top. Whether he can get us there remains to be seen, but we're already seeing signs of his ambition. This should be a cracking ride
Not sure if already posted elsewhere but there’s some MSD/FPP stuff with us covered here:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...high-interest-us-loans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...high-interest-us-loans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
the thing is, and i have thought this from the start of the club going up for sale, with the massive work going on in and around the old vaux site and riverside there is a great chance for anyone with a wee bit of business knowledge to get in on the act, KLD will no doubt have taken this on board along with possible sheepfold developments...i dare say these stadium plans are really just the start to say 'we mean business' and we may yet see a few more 'surprises'.
compare this scenario to the mags trying to sell, the stadium is 'locked in' and it is well known that when trying to find an area for a new stadium they were knocked back from all sides, last time i was near the place collecting from an electrical retailer close to the ground (norland?) the lad in the shop said there were thousands of parking spaces having to be added so 'city space' is at a premium as well as feeling closed in due to the multi storeys going in...there are also ongoing reports of structural work needed which might even result in having to lose some seats (much like roker park lost a large part of the roker end) and it may yet turn out that freddy wanting more seats than the SoL could end up with them having a lot less.
compare this scenario to the mags trying to sell, the stadium is 'locked in' and it is well known that when trying to find an area for a new stadium they were knocked back from all sides, last time i was near the place collecting from an electrical retailer close to the ground (norland?) the lad in the shop said there were thousands of parking spaces having to be added so 'city space' is at a premium as well as feeling closed in due to the multi storeys going in...there are also ongoing reports of structural work needed which might even result in having to lose some seats (much like roker park lost a large part of the roker end) and it may yet turn out that freddy wanting more seats than the SoL could end up with them having a lot less.
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This should make people realise what a massive escape we've had tbh.
I remember Kittens, and others, incessantly claiming that the loan was virtually 'interest free' and nothing Donald couldn't easily cope with.
"Southampton have publicly declared the cost of borrowing from MSD, paying 9.14% interest ...
... on a £78.8m loan taken out during the pandemic last June: £7.2m interest a year."
This lad has made a great start. He is clearly from the actions speak louder than words school of though. Much happier to to see positive action and find out about it through it actually happening rather than a waffly club statement full of sound bytes on the website saying this is what we are going to.
He isn't messing about and it is very exciting!
He isn't messing about and it is very exciting!
Yeah MSD, known for preying on distressed assets, definitely lend money at better than market interest rates. A bit like Wonga not charging struggling families extortionate rates to allow them to get a weekly shop in when they know fine well the family cannot borrow from usual places because their credit rating isn't good enough.
I know it was slightly different being FPP rather than MSD with us but still, they were not going to lend that money purely for the philanthropy of it all. They would have loved to take the club following default on the loan and there will have been a significant rate of interest applied to that loan. Money people don't make money by giving money away for free.
Southampton, Burnley and Derby fans should be very worried reading that article.
You're right Smug, now is the time to have a long term plan, KLD has a blank canvas to work with, nearly anything is possible with the right ambition, drive and money behind the club.
The FPP loan was a way of recuperating the money they'd lost doing due diligence, paying for feasibility studies and advisers, etc.
By sheer good fortune the loan, along with the pandemic, destroyed the ability of Donald to push Louis-Dreyfus into a minority shareholder or, in other words, investment scenario. Donald spent the loan money and couldn't risk the £1m a year interest payments. Happy days.
Funny thing you've said there... I too have found through my life "the more professional you are, the luckier you become"
Portsmouth v Sunderland live on sky Tuesday March 9th 7.45 ko
A sure fire way to digging a hole. I used to worry about 2.75% admittedly not on £78m