Generic clubs in financial crisis Thread

[readingbedding]

Football is bigger than the professionalism within the game.

[Super_horns]

Our board have now resigned...goodness know what this means now but probably not good if Mr Simpson comes back along with Lord Ashcroft.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Agree with all of that - a ground is a tangible asset which makes a club much more likely to be asset-stripped (q.v. Brighton, York, Wrexham etc), and often the earliest warning of troble is when an owner separates the ownership of club and ground (as Scalley has recently done at Gillingham).

My job is buying and selling property for pension fund trustees. at my last company, dealt with the purchase of Valley Parade when they were at Championship level, the chairman Gordon Gibb moved the ground to his pension fund and rented it back to the club. Only the start of their troubles really. Just a few years after spending £15m on new stands he bought the lot for £3m.

A certain recently relegated SE London club also went about selling off their training ground and surrounding property in the same way this year. Had a good chat with their chairman, they were a lot closer to complete financial collapse than was reported. But im not allowed so say who, Data Protection n all

[Dirk Gently]

Agree with all of that - a ground is a tangible asset which makes a club much more likely to be asset-stripped (q.v. Brighton, York, Wrexham etc), and often the earliest warning of troble is when an owner separates the ownership of club and ground (as Scalley has recently done at Gillingham).

My job is buying and selling property for pension fund trustees. at my last company, dealt with the purchase of Valley Parade when they were at Championship level, the chairman Gordon Gibb moved the ground to his pension fund and rented it back to the club. Only the start of their troubles really. Just a few years after spending £15m on new stands he bought the lot for £3m.

A certain recently relegated SE London club also went about selling off their training ground and surrounding property in the same way this year. Had a good chat with their chairman, they were a lot closer to complete financial collapse than was reported. But im not allowed so say who, Data Protection n all

No great surprises there - most clubs' book are in a terrible state and there's all sorts of dodges and wheezes of moving money around.

Orient is a good example - Hearn got the FC to build the new stand, he pocketed profilt from the property deals, then bought the stand for next to nothing, and now charges the FC rent for using teh stand as well as keping all the refreshment and hospitality income etc.

[Wycombe Royal]

Latest on Watford:

- Shares have been suspended
- Warning that the club could go into administration
- Russos want £5m loan repaid within 7 days. If not they will own the ground as that was used for security.

[Super_horns]

Lets just hope these men can actually start actin like grown ups and come up with an agreement to to save the club...

Thay's if they care about WFC and us fans at all in between their big egos and personal disputes.

Daft thing is Lord Ashcroft for example has quite a bit of dosh but clearly is only interested in the ground but would lose a lot if we did enter administration.

The Russos would be winners out of such a situation.

[(.)Boobies(.)]

Transfer embargo due to be placed on Plymouth [if it hasn't been already]

[Wycombe Royal]

Transfer embargo due to be placed on Plymouth [if it hasn't been already]

It has already, 2 days after they announced plans to increase their stadium capacity to 46k.

[Dirk Gently]

Transfer embargo due to be placed on Plymouth [if it hasn't been already]

It has already, 2 days after they announced plans to increase their stadium capacity to 46k.

tbf, the stadium increase is surely tied up with WC 2018 - and not only happens only if we win the bid but is also paid for out of the 2018 fund.

[(.)Boobies(.)]

Transfer embargo due to be placed on Plymouth [if it hasn't been already]

It has already, 2 days after they announced plans to increase their stadium capacity to 46k.

I'm sorry, 46,000? Bonkers, absolute bonkers. Who do they think they are, Bristol City?___ Still a lot of murmerings at Selhurst Park about entering administration.

[Arnie_Pie]

Some of Watfords plight could have been avoided by selling us Tommy Smith and not Portsmouth, who are yet to pay......

From timesonline

Portsmouth owe money to Chelsea over the signing of Glen Johnson, since sold to Liverpool, and to Tottenham Hotspur over the acquisitions of Jermain Defoe and Younes Kaboul, but the Premier League says the payments due to Watford, over the summer signings of Mike Williamson and Tommy Smith, are the most pressing.

[(.)Boobies(.)]

Some of Watfords plight could have been avoided by selling us Tommy Smith and not Portsmouth, who are yet to pay......

From timesonline

Portsmouth owe money to Chelsea over the signing of Glen Johnson, since sold to Liverpool, and to Tottenham Hotspur over the acquisitions of Jermain Defoe and Younes Kaboul, but the Premier League says the payments due to Watford, over the summer signings of Mike Williamson and Tommy Smith, are the most pressing.

Yes and no. We weren't offering £1.8m up front. One of the biggest problems in the whole sorry saga was how we wanted to spread the cost, and a large proportion was to be made upon promotion back to the Premier League. They may actually have got no more money from us than what Pompey made initially.

[handbags_harris]

Lets just hope these men can actually start actin like grown ups and come up with an agreement to to save the club...

Thay's if they care about WFC and us fans at all in between their big egos and personal disputes.

Daft thing is Lord Ashcroft for example has quite a bit of dosh but clearly is only interested in the ground but would lose a lot if we did enter administration.

The Russos would be winners out of such a situation.

As you may (or may not) have read on page two I think, I have a good friend who is a Watford STH in the stand behind the goal (The Rookery?), so I pay a little bit of attention to Watford matters. I quite like them tbf (infinitely better than Luton anyway!!). I said to him not long ago that Jimmy Russo, on the face of it, is a very dislikeable character, and it appears he is now screwing over Watford. Obviously he knows stuff that we don't know, but my own hunch is that with no funding forthcoming from Ashcroft he can only predict WFC going into administration, and with HMRC not agreeing to CVA's the repayments aren't necessarily guaranteed.

[handbags_harris]

And now for the more educated view:

In a nutshell, last night was our AGM in which 3 board directors (including Jimmy Russo) resigned. They have loaned the club £4.88million (secured against the stadium) which they have called in and set a deadline of close of business today to be repaid. If loans not repaid, we will surely have to appoint an administrator.

Why has this happened? It’s a confusing mess and there’s not a lot of news coming out of the club. My take on it is this – which is part rumour and part fact. The Russo’s, as board members, faced a re-election vote last night where they have to be re-elected to the board. The vote is based on the number of shares you own. The Russo’s only have around 30% of the shares but former chairman Graham Simpson, who has close ties and allegiances with Lord Ashcroft, together own around 54% of the shares. Simpson has beef with the Russos (they removed Simpson as director at an EGM last year) and it was a well known rumour that Ashcroft and Simpson would, through their combined majority shares, vote the Russo’s off the board at the AGM. The Russo’s, probably legitimately annoyed that despite only owning 30% of the shares, they’ve put in 100% of the funding for the club, jumped rather than be pushed.

The loans the Russo’s had made were secured against Vicarage Road (in hindsight a clever move by them), and once they resigned, they called their loans in right away – to be paid by the end of the day. Barring a miracle, Watford can’t get that money. I think the Russo’s have engineered a situation where they can either make an offer for the club when it is in administration, or Lord Ashcroft/Simpson will have to plough money into the club.

Understandably, most fans are upset by the news. Even the scenario above (Russo’s using this to buy the club), is drawing criticism of using the club. Alas, as always it’s the fans who will suffer.

More news will come out surely, but my gut feeling is that it’s brinkmanship.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Given the money owed by Pompey to Watford, could you not get a scenario where Watford could launch a winding up petition against Pompey in order to save themselves?

[Dirk Gently]

Given the money owed by Pompey to Watford, could you not get a scenario where Watford could launch a winding up petition against Pompey in order to save themselves?

It'd never get through, though. Under a rule change made this year, the PL have the power to withhold TV payments due to one of their clubs and pay that money direct to creditors - I don't doubt they'd do this if push ever came to shove.

they can also take over complete running of one of their clubs if it falls into financial difficulties - they are so desperate to do everything possible to safeguard the image and probity of "the PL brand".

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

How can pompy owe money for defoe still???? Thats fecking pizz poor management.

[The whole year inn]

How can pompy owe money for defoe still???? Thats fecking pizz poor management.

Considering Harry Redknapp is involved at both ends of that transfer, it is hardly suprising

[(.)Boobies(.)]

Watford receive a stay of execution over the repayment to the Russo family.

[Jerry St Clair]

Given the money owed by Pompey to Watford, could you not get a scenario where Watford could launch a winding up petition against Pompey in order to save themselves?

It'd never get through, though. Under a rule change made this year, the PL have the power to withhold TV payments due to one of their clubs and pay that money direct to creditors - I don't doubt they'd do this if push ever came to shove.

But we get the same end result though, surely? If TV payments are withheld then that just removes another source of income and renders the club unable to pay other debts. So instead of Watford seeking a winding-up order, another company does. Though, as you say, this maintains the image of the Premier League to a certain extent.