What is your breaking point?

Difficult to argue with this reasoning. Jenga.

 

Jenga ?

 

Won't buy shirts or merchandise from the club any more. Games on the other hand....

 

Yes

 

What does it mean ?

 

These for me are valid points. But it was his own fault that he had to put the money in in the first place because he clearly did not do his due diligence.

Man Utd are geared to the hilt with debt and yet they still invest money in the business. Albeit a better one than our club.

I agree with the borad principles of the club in that it has to be financially sound and self supportive. But to not buy any players when we clearly needed them was simply a mistake.

In all walks of life you, look after your customers (US) and run it with the right MANAGEMENT in charge (Not Clowns) so in this respect he could do better.

 

One further point is that he has actually not put ANY money into the club at all.

He loaned the money to his own football club that he owns 100%. Therefore he has in fact put no money in. If he had then the loan would not exist.

People dont realise that the loan exists merely because he overpaid for the club in the first place. The fact remains that when he eventually gets his money back out of the club. That he put in.

His Investment will mean that eventually he will make money out of the club.

 

Don't forget the free advertisement for Sports Direct, when Newcastle could have been getting sponsorship for other organisations. Have we got advertisements for Radio Newcastle or Newcastle Airport?

 

I can't follow the reasoning here.

Ashley bought the club for, what, £130 million. He then owned the club.

The club owed £120 million pounds to other people. Ashley took £120 million out of his other investments and loaned it to the club so that it could pay off its debts. The loan exists and it exists because the club borrowed real money from Ashley.

Ashley isn't the reason the club is £120 million in debt. The fact that the club is £120 million in debt has got nothing to do with Ashley overpaying for the club. The club got itself into debt before any of us had ever heard of Ashley. All Ashley did was change the debt from being owed to various banks at various rates of interest to a debt owed to Ashley for no interest.

Whatever else you may want to say about Ashley, this was a Good Thing For The Club.

As for saying Ashley will get his money back, he may or he may not. he would be very unlikely to if he sold now. Over the next decade or so he might. He will certainly put it down as one of the worst investments he ever made.

 

Ok let me put it another way.

He bought the club for £130 million. On further investigation he found out that there was another £120 million in debts that where not clear. Thus the clubs actual value was £10 million. The initial amount lets the additional creditors.

Thus he overpaid for the club.

Second point.

If I give you £100 and do not expect anything back I have gave away £100.

If I give you £100 but expect £100 back this means I have loaned you £100.

The difference being in that I am not any worse off.

As for saving the interest. This is true. However he is getting free advertising for sports direct therefore an additional (potential) £6 million lost in revenue. Or in other words a 5% return each year where he does not pay.

The fact is his net assets have not actually been diminished in any way. Over time he will recoup his money back and most likely more.

Lets not forget that buying a football club should not EVER be looked at as a means to generate income or a substantial return on investment. I fear this was his original intentions.

Either way we are stuck with him and the way things are.

 

Mike and club finances just makes me think of magicians doing the cup and ball trick. You never know what the **** is going on.

 

I don't pretend to be an expert on business, but here's what I believe to be true based on the information that has come out in Ashley's tenure.

1. Many clubs had/have substantially larger debt than we did, it was not necessarily imperative to pay it off so quickly. There've been soundbites to the contrary, but the sources of those tend to be moronic. I don't even think our debt would have prevented us competing in Europe either under FFP.

2. When you buy a business, it's in your own interest to include debt repayment as part of the fiscal future, whether you intend to break it up and sell parts of the core business (in this scenario, owing little means having to repay less on breaking up the company), or whether you intend to actually take up the responsibility of resurgence.

3. Ashley ploughed in 100m of his own money, at least, to pay off the vast majority of the debt in one go, but instead of accepting that as key responsibility of the major stakeholder in the company, he put it as a loan against club assets. "Interest free" is a bit of a simplistic explaination in this arrangement, I think, though I've seen it parroted about forum's a lot. This is because, if such a loan has been agreed (and I can't even remember where the original source said it was the case, so it could be purely internet speculation) while he's guaranteed that money back, it doesn't prevent him harvesting other aspects of the business to make up for the shortfall. I think we can rest at night without worrying about whether Mr Ashley's going to be homeless tomorrow.

4. Mike Ashley changed and then sold our stadium name... someone had to pay for the good PR of putting St James' back in it's rightful place. That's how much of a profiteering tosser the man is. He'd sell the stripes too if he could get a buyer.

 

Always thought it was how it looked - unfathomably dumb. He bought said club for £134m, when the club was probably valued at around £150-£200m. When he opened the safe and found it was bare, save for £110m worth of IOU's, he panicked and tried to sell, starting the bidding ludicrously high. It failed, he tried to tidy it up and sell it again, it failed.

The mistake many people make is in assuming people like Ashley are somehow better than them. He's a one trick pony. It's a fcking good trick, but it was little more than selling cheap knock off cr@p to charvas. Doesn't mean he has the foggiest - the only thing he knows how to do is buy cheap and sell it on to make some money. He thought he could do it at a football club, but was in essence sold up the swanny by Shepherd. If anyone deserves to be fcking shot, it's Fat Freddy Fckface.

 

You always know the magician is going to get the ball into the cup.

 

why ?

 

You know why. No one likes it.

Bottomless pit clubs have destroyed the game. It's only still alive because tradition and culture still outweigh capitalism. Capital One Cup was a joke. Chelsea putting out a second eleven including Juan Mata. The team we have to take on tonight are stupidly strong.

 

This would be a lovely sentiment if everyone was playing the same game. We're one of the few with an owner who not only wants to make money, he wants to do without speculating to accumulate. Like his cheap ass sports shops, we're a bottom feeding example of a football club. The whole outlook of the club whiffs badly of lacking a bit of class

 

Indeed! Jenga, as they say.

 

I took my dog out this morning and used a Sports Direct bag to pick up the sh*t, thinking " oh the wonderful irony " as I bent down to remove the offending pile from the path. It was only when I tried to tie a knot in the bag I realised that it had a hole in it and my hands were covered in sh*te.

Then I thought again " oh the wonderful irony, thank you Mike "

 

Do you take tesco bags when you walk your horse?