I hope Kroenke is in this for the long-term, as his history in the US would seem to suggest. I personally would like Nina Bracewell-Smith to hold onto her shares, but pledge her voting proxy to the board. Since none of us know what happened and why she was ousted from the board that might not be a possibility without some grovelling on the part of Fizman and Hill-Wood, neither of whom do grovelling very well.

There doesnt have to be a takeover in all this, if Bracewell-Smith, Fizman, Hill-Wood and Kroenke pooled their shares together. That would make it impossible for Usmanov to do anything, and unnecessary for Kroenke to mount a takeover.

No, i’m not in the habit of lifting other peoples comments, at the top of the post I did say that i read that post on “a cultured left foot” blog spot and thought that Tony might like to have read as i thought it was well written.

No offence was intended.

Jazbo

A link to the Spuds’ accounts.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200911100700122354C

On the face of it Imran would appear to be totally correct.

They sold 15 players for £72.5m & bought 15(several of them the very same players) for £119.3m.

The whole crux of their finances would be down to whether you consider their current squad to be appreciating or depreciating assets.

No doubt it will be a mixture of the 2 but will Keane, Crouch, Bentley, Pavlyuchenka or even Defoe be worth more than they paid for them?

I’ve done a guest piece today

http://clockenders.com/afc/

which you might find interesting – and there is a new article on http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk which has just gone up. Struggling to get today’s article up – a meeting with a visiting client is about to start – but there will be a new piece later today.

Tony

Unless you’re the commenter known as Joe at ACLF, I’m suspicious that you’re lifting comments made on another website and pasting them here. Tony usually doesn’t like that.

Plus, you can make your own, even incorporating Joe’s points.

Unless you’re Joe of course.

It’s a very underrated topic.

The hacks are too busy demanding that every manager and every chairman in the country, “spend some money”.

Every club that has a bad weekend is charged to “spend some money” & “bring in some quality players”, at a time when clubs have spent more than ever before, and clubs are in more debt than the Yank Treasury.

At least the yanks, can sell their debt to the Chinese. The likes of West Ham, Portsmouth, Man Poo, Chelski, Liverpool can’t even sell shirts to the Chinese who prefer to make and sell their own counterfeit football shirts.

Nomiated for the knighthood. All hail Sir Tony Attwood. This time there’s no foreign nationality clause to prevent it.

Ole,

I think your earlier piece (from the last thread) on the takeover contradicts itself in some ways:

One one hand you say that Kroenke is blocking a possible takeover – this I would agree with.

But on the other hand you assert that: “Over 50% of the club is now in the control of Kroenke, Fiszman, other board members & the AST.”

So the obvious question is why would Kroenke block Usmanov if he already had (directly and indirectly as you say) 50%?

And to my mind – he doesn’t have this yet, but that’s not to say he could be quite close to that figure.

The reasons why Kroenke has shelled out so much money is obvious: the club is very well run – only going into debt to increase its turnover by building a stadium, it has an amazing manager who brings in a yearly profit on transfers, the club successfully plays attractive football, and its profile is growing at an enormous rate. As an American, who has only run sports enterprises in the states, AFC represents an golden opportunity to manage a global sports brand. A brand that is becoming huge in Africa/Asian markets and a sport that is becoming very very big in the states!

So if you were Kroenke – do you think you’d be afraid of Usmanov? Yes to some extent, but Usmanov doesn’t threaten his investment per se. If Usmanov exceeds the threshold, Kroenke will make a very tidy profit in the same way the Magnier/McManus entity reaped massive rewards selling back to the Glazers. Nor would taking dividends necessarily mean a shortfall in investment as you suggest (in fact dividends would attract further investment!!) or represent a reduction in valuation as you also assert, imo.

What would be the one thing that would scare the sh1t out of silent Stan most? The prospect of Wenger leaving. If Wenger left, most of the players would go too. There would not be the same attraction to play for the club. Fans could become disillusioned too and all of a sudden you might find it difficult to fill the stadium. What do you think this would do to the share price that you have shelled out millions for?

And why would Wenger leave? Well, Usmanov has already been vocal about buying expensive players, letting Ade go and of course injecting money through the rights issue. This thinking is directly contrary with AW philosophy. It would interfere with his control and vision of how the club should be run. AW would, to my mind, walk instantaneously.

Stanley needs to appease Wenger, who wields unbelievable power both on and OFF the field. Stanley needs to directly or indirectly tie down 51%.

I don’t think AW has spent 13 years of his life, building a club and leaving a legacy to see some egotistical Oligarch Phuck it all up over a battle for shares!

Wenger wields so much power at this juncture without even owning a single share.

That’s my take.

But the point about the debt to Revenue and Customs goes beyond what you have said and maybe I did not make myself clear = for that my apologies.

The debt was there I agree, when the new owners took over. What is bizarre to the point of being beyond understanding, is why a company so rich as the organisatiion or organisations that have taken over Notts C did not clear up that debt on day 1, or day 2.

The point is that a long term debt to Revenue and Customs means a winding up order if it goes to court. What the hell are people associated with the club doing, if they are such big time execs, if they get to one day before a high court action, before settling.

And that was all it was – one day before. One more day and the club would have had a winding up order.

I have seen a number of businesses go down for all sorts of reasons – many legit and many the opposite – but the one thing I can tell you for sure is that there is no point in not paying Revenue and Customs.

Apart from anything else, Revenue charge the highest level of interest of any organisation in the country on unpaid debt, and the penalty for not paying is to have your right to be a company director removed for between 2 and 15 years.

I will always admit that because in these columns we try and cover many aspects of football there are things that I get wrong – but I think your suggestion that implies that no research has been done, is unreasonable.

Why not come back to this column and explain to us all what is going on at Notts C and why these debts are being left to the last day, and why, from an outsider’s point of view, it looks like money is being switched from Switzerland to the Virgins to North Korea and back again, as needed? I don’t say that is what is happening, I say that is what it looks like.

Tony

the good news is the OF have have rejected to join the premiere league .thanks god for that.the only think they will bring it s shame on the premiership with their bigots supporter .nobody will be please to see a drunk fat Scottish rangers supporter coming in their town ,destroying half the town center.anyway they hate the English as for the overrated Celtic supporter they think they are all Irish.

Nobody in England want them,the rest of the Scottish league don’t want them,they cant rot in hell as far i m concern.if they really want play here they can create another club who have to start from the bottom of the English league pyramid like every new club

it look like Bournemouth first followed by portsmouth(:( sad for them because they have fantastic fan)and west ham.look like Harry”i am good at buying expensive bargain “Redknapp left every club he manage with a bad omen…….:D good i hope he keep going with the Totts

Have to agree with former comment that Liverpool are safe as their name and reputation will be very attractive to a future investor.

Can`t understand why some senior managers are pushing for Celtic and Rangers to be included in the EPL. So, we take on Rangers who are broke and kick out Portsmouth and Hull who are in the same situation, does this make sense?

Liverpool are going to have a much slower, more prolonged death. As for the comments on a new Billionaire coming to the rescue – where are they? If Hicks and Gillette are expecting to make a profit on their “investment” (it makes me laugh to even call it that!) they are mad and should be glad to just get thier money back. Liverpool face a serious threat of no CL football next season, it’s one thing having a single club pushing for a top 4 position i.e. Villa last season, but Liverpool have Man City, Villa and the Spud’s. The chances of all of them running out of steam are far more unlikely. In the event of Liverpool missing out on CL football that £60 million will effectively become £80 or £90 million. By my reckoning it would take the sale of Torres, Mascherano and maybe even Gerrard to raise the money required. The rest of their squad aren’t worth a toss.

And this quote with my name on is something I like far better then some blokes who copied whole articles from this site to copy it in the comments section from other blogs and put my name under it.
Must say I was a bit disturbed by it.
Now I don’t mind that people read my articles, and the more the better, but not in that way. Yes, I’m a modest guy from flanders but well every one has some kind of ego.

Now, on topic.

I agree with Paul C in the way that Liverpool is a name in the world of football and you will have some rich guy wanting to buy it in the end. Same with MU I fear. All the rest can do a Leeds anytime I think.
You could imagine a rich fellows meeting somewhere in some Arab country: Sheik More-Money: Hey I just bought Liverpool yesterday, it was a bargain. Sheik Even-More-Money: Just signed the papers for MU today. Sheik Looks-Silly-Now: Well, I just bought Hull City the day before.
The last would be the laugh of the town for some years, I could imagine.

Good article, Tony.

On a completely different note, saw this morning that Robinho wants to go to Barca and that they are talking about opening discussions. Is it just me, or does it seem utterly and completely ridiculous for Barca to be even considering signing this arrogant, lazy malcontent? If I was Cesc watching this, I would be saying “well, if Barca sign Robinho then something mad must have happened to that clubs DNA. Perhaps I am not fated to go there after all.”