it was only last week simon jordan told some saudi's to buy the massive, hopefully michelle will wisper "the tigers" in his ear and re-align his priorities
I'll share this, if only to stop some of the speculation. Remember, I get told this based on what is known at the time and this was during the international break, my source has been wrong before as it's more of a casual chat than an actual journalistic thing so stuff can get lost in translation (mainly because he has a tendency to interpret stuff in a rather dramatic way, I'm more pragmatic lol). If this turns out not to be true, or some bits of it are wrong, so be it. So we were told that the team turned down the offer of a trip to Turkey, but that isn't what happened. The reason we didn't go to Turkey for training is the same reason all the free stuff has stopped, the fan holidays have ceased and why we didn't go big for a striker when we needed one. We can't afford it. Some people have asked about buying the likes of Zambrano and Puerta when we have "no money", but being in financial trouble doesn't prevent you from trading or from having cash in the bank; in this case it simply means that if our loans come due, we (our owners) don't have the means by which to pay it back. I don't know how big the loans are or how long the loan lasts for, but if we go down, it's incredibly likely that the lender will want their money back and won't take the chance that we don't come back up again. We did it last time, but it was a much weaker league back then and we had a number of decent prospects coming through that could bulk out the squad. The club is financially in bother, to put it bluntly. Now, Kieran Maguire mentioned that the club outlook was alright when he revealed that our wages were 130% of our income, but what he doesn't have access to (at least as far as I'm aware) is the source of the funds Acun has been using to pay for everything. This, as Kalman and Syd have both alluded to, is almost certainly a bank like Macqarie. In order to take a loan out from them, they would need collateral. Remember, we aren't owned by Acun Illicali, we're principally owned by Acun Medya, his media company, so one would assume that's who would be responsible for any liabilities. Except, Acun Medya is how Acun makes his money. So would you put your bread and butter up for collateral, or an asset that you're certain will become more valuable if the funds you get will see it become a Premier League club? If we go down the crapchute and need to be sold, Acun can go back to Turkey and carry on being a media mogul, having taken a bit of a financial sting that he'll recover in no time. At the time, Tan was rumoured to have left in disgrace, but turns out, he saw the writing on the wall and Acun supposedly wasn't listening to him. They didn't fall out or anything, but it wasn't because Tan nicked money or anything like that, it was out of frustration. Essentially, last season was a huge gamble using money that wasn't ours to get promoted. It didn't pay off. We then had a chaotic Summer, which at the time seemed strange because from the outside you'd think that an ambitiously owned team that had missed out on the playoffs by one win would have players lining up to join them. Turns out, we couldn't sign an amazing striker because we didn't have the money to after signing our two star larkers. We spent over £30m on transfer fees alone this season, some of which was offset by the sale of Jacob Greaves and Jaden Philogene, but I would expect our wages to bring the amount spent to a pretty high figure. We aren't close to being Bury, Macclesfield or Hereford. A closer analogy would be something more akin to Portsmouth or Luton. Yes, some of the players were told they weren't going to be here a month or so back, others have instructed agents to look around for them. It's a mess, it really is and one that was completely avoidable and entirely of our own making. But however you look at it, it's not good. At least being in the Championship means we have more money coming in, relegation would mean a severe drop in income, lower gates and high wages for players we can't shift (the likes of Matazo, Millar and Belloumi won't be going anywhere after ACL injuries). What makes it feel worse is the potential for how great it could have been. In a way, it feels worse than the Allams because at least under them we got Premier League football amid all the bollocks about name changes and us dying. We had the potential to kick on after last season, it was supposed to be an exciting Summer and season and seeing the crowds up was a real positive.
Nowt we won't eventually recover from, again. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
If something is to happen behind the scenes, I hope it happens quickly. If we go down I will end up enjoying League 1 and hope it would provide a reset and chance to fix whatever is wrong with the club and its current personnel. I just wouldn't want a load of off-field distractions at the same time.
If what Howden and ST are saying is true, which I believe it is as they’re not in the habit of making things up for ****s and giggles, then I reckon relegation won’t result in a rebuild/reset but prolonged agony for the club and the supporters. Acun has gambled but it’s us that will deal with the fallout. ST’s comparison to Portsmouth is incredibly worrying because post-2010, they went into administration several times, had multiple 10-point deductions, hardly any senior players and tumbled all the way down to League Two from the Premier League in quick succession. It took them well over a decade to recover to where they are now. That’s looking like a real possibility for City if you believe the concerning rumours. When we went down under McCann, we lost some players and Ehab was tight but he did back McCann to make some shrewd signings in League One like Smallwood, Jones, Docherty, Coyle, Emmanuel etc. and we won the league first time of asking. Lewis-Potter and Greaves both flourished that season too. If we go down now, it’s so much more worse than 2020. If we go down, it could be 2040 before we’re back in the Championship.
I'm sure there's plenty of truth to it all but I would imagine there's a fair bit of exaggeration and sensationalism going on too. For instance, we did try to buy a striker in Conway but Boro swooped in. Also, I might be a bit deluded but personally I don't think Acun would want to leave with that type of reputation following him.
Will he have a choice? Debts become due and he can't pay then then it's basically back to the 90s. Which makes Acun's love of retro gear incredibly ironic.
Is anyone surprised if the above turns out to be true? Any sensible person could have worked all of that out for themselves just by reading between the lines, and not swallowing all the bollocks we have been fed. There is no such thing as 'free holidays, free away travel' etc, nothing is free, the club picks up the bill for everything eventually and the bills have been mounting up from day one under this character. But no-one wanted to listen.
Acun reminds of Hugo Chávez a bit. When he came to power, he took advantage of the record-high oil prices at the time to massively increase public spending. Venezuela was sitting on liquid gold. However, he never invested in diversifying the country’s economy. Venezuela’s revenue was, and still remains so, wholly dependent on oil and as long as oil prices were high, he just kept spending and spending. Then, being the volatile commodity it is, oil prices dropped. Venezuela didn’t have anything to fall back on like Norway’s sovereign wealth fund because he spent it all. Now that country is ****ed. That’s City under Acun.
