benno2

Something just isn't adding up here. What sort of banks would loan this sort of money based on this sort of incredibly risky, pie in the sky business plan whilst expecting the club to churn out enough profits to cover the interest, never mind the repayments? RBS and Wachovia will know that a further huge loan will be required to cover the stadium, the point of which is to provide sufficient extra revenue to pay for itself and make the team more competitive. It's only at the very top of the game that any real profit can be made as Man U and Real have demonstrated, so the banks will know that in order for the whole plan to be viable, consistent high-level investment in the team will have to be made year in year out. If we can surmise that it's pie in the sky to do this and make annual repayments of getting on for £80m per year (has anyone actually worked out what the level would be repaying say £650m over 20 years at 7-8% or so interest?), why can't they? My point here is that banks are not daft and would surely say this is totally unworkable and throw the whole plan out. Is it therefore not likely that this initial £350m although secured against the club will not be paid by the club's profits (which will service the stadium loan and keep the team competitive), but by G&H themselves? Isn't that the only way this could work and the only way the banks would lend the money?

Thanks Tim.

I don't know too much about these things, but given that the Federal Reserve has just cut interest rates by 3/4%, might that not mean that they'll now get better terms from Wachovia at least and therefore are more likely to sign?

But this £30m per annum repayment level would not include stadium funding. We'd be paying that level just to fund G&H's purchase of the club, cover the cost of Torres & Babel and the start of the work on New Anfield. The stadium itself would be funded by a loan on top of even that. Repayments for the total end debt would be more like £60m. It's a risk and a half to say that we could afford that and maintain even a normal net spend, especially in the years before it's finished. This is why there's so much opposition. Moores could have done this himself, funding the whole thing through loans. G&H will have brought us nothing but huge risk.

Since when?

There's been one concerted protest so far on a slightly different, yet related issue, and the manager is still here. None of us can know whether Rafa was going to be sacked or not and whether that protest made any difference. That much is true. But months of fan protests? Really? Can you tell me how these months of protest have manifested themselves? There were signs of more protest against Luton that much more is true and tomorrow will up the ante again. But this would only anyway be the tip of the iceberg as to what is possible. Difficult, but possible.

The players are in a very difficult position, it has to be the fans I reckon.

This is most likely true. But what's the alternative? A loan for £350m just to buy the club as it is and secured against its assets costs what, £20m a year just in static interest charges minimum? That's your net spend gone then. Not a single brick has been laid for the new stadium in that £350m either. Or at the very least, only the very beginnings of it are covered. The stadium is then also paid for by a further loan of a similar amount, we're now talking towards £60m interest charges per year if it's to be paid off in anything other than the very long-term. For three-four of those years we don't get the added economic benefit of the stadium providing extra funds to make good this added burden. So no new players then either and we might have to sell a Torres or Mascherano (who might not be ours anyway) just to make ends meet. With no new investment in the team other than through sales in the meantime and it could easily be worse than that, we'd slip out of contention for qualifying for the CL anyway most likely and our manager would be long gone. So which is the bigger risk, action now or inaction?

But it's also wrong because there's no such protection. Even any such thing brought in couldn't be made retro-active.

There's little point in season ticket holders boycotting games, they've already paid for them and that doesn't hit G&H in the pockets. Although the symbolism would be massive. Not spending a penny in the ground on matchdays would hurt them though. Perhaps it would be easier to get people to boycott one game as a starting point to fire a warning shot across the bows. The people that can control this best are the season ticket holders, as there will always be some blerts willing to pick up a ticket sold by the club, if they've had trouble getting them in the past. Any sort of fan action would have to be disciplined and would be a huge thing to organise, there's little point in denying that. A get together to hammer out objectives and tactics would have to come first before rushing into anything rash. Get the first part right and people would probably follow. It might not need to come to this though. Hopefully it won't.

DIC don't have to lean on the bank at all though. The bank knows they're out there. In reality there would probably have to be some sort of contact from the bank to DIC for the bank's peace of mind. But would that be illegal in the same way that the subsequent post by l19red? In reality there are probably a number of laws and regulations that prevent this. But surely RBS has title of the club if the loan isn't repaid at the end of February, don't they? Given that they know DIC are willing to pay more for the club than the value of that loan it at least makes back of the fag packet business sense for them and DIC. But wait, they didn't secure this loan against the club's assets did they? So it can't have been collateral in the deal and therefore what I'm talking about won't happen. But if they do sign the new deal it will be. That would be the time to start taking the sort of fan action that hits them in the pockets. If, say, fans could be united and disciplined enough not to buy tickets for home games and only season ticket holders attend home games (after all they're owed games by G&H) and spend nothing whilst inside the ground. Then things would start to bite pretty quickly and repayments to the bank would quickly become difficult. If they reneged on them the bank could take the club over or more likely G&H would be forced to sell up first. The lads still get some sort of support this way too.

If G&H don't get re-financing in place by the end of next month, couldn't RBS take the club off them? It's their money that has bought it after all and they know they'd have a willing buyer in DIC. We hear that a new deal is close, but the deadline is looming. If RBS are part of the new deal with Wachovia, might it not serve their interests better to pull out? Of course, this might mean that G&H are able to strike a deal with Wachovia alone, but if that were the case, then why haven't they been able to so far?

Perhaps DIC now think they undervalued the club in the first place.

Have Ajax also had an enquiry from Juventus? According to Tuttosport they should have.

You can see why Barca have only won the European Cup twice if this embodues the club ethos.

He certainly did when he said we wouldn't sell Baros and 10 days or so later he was a Villa player.

When Rafa denied that we were interested in Bridge, didn't he say that we're not looking for a left-back just a centre-half, or did I just dream this?

True, but doesn't it depend on his motivation? If it was just to get one over on Rafa then the hint of him being interested would be a worry.

Eidur Gudjonsson anybody? A relatively short-term option it's true and we know there's history between us and him. But he'd be cheap and would provide a good footballing partner for Torres. It's guile in this position that we lack and he could provide it. He's also won a title or two in his time. He ticks quite a few boxes.

But somehow Chelsea did.

You could look at it another way. Just how many other sets of fans have ever had a night like Istanbul? Or the whole of that CL run for that matter?

It's from here: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/weltfussb...kel/341/146004/ (9th paragraph)

Excellent. So everybody can say what they like and no-one is wrong. A perfect, yet pointless world does exist after all.

Link?

... and this is known fact?