Prince on Sheff United Way

[S64 Blade]

His answer regarding due diligence of potential buyers filled me with no confidence whatsoever.

 

[Bladesman]

His answer regarding due diligence of potential buyers filled me with no confidence whatsoever.

Not even a "We do have a look around on Google."

 

[Grey Blade]

It was never mentioned. The context was due diligence. Dozy was more believable due to the downpayment which wasn't required of the first bidder

It seems strange that a refund wasn't mentioned. If I put a deposit down for a car and the seller had a change of mind, I'd expect my money back.

 

[nopigfansintown]

I actually wanted to jump in and ask something about this.answer Nick beat me to it with a different question and then the moment was gone, we'd moved on.

He made this illogical point twice imo - on Slav and Wilder. He claimed both he and Mccabe wanted Wilder instead of positive Nigel. Weird.

 

[YES Blade]

With these interviews, they’re largely pointless as we generally don’t learn anything new. I couldn’t understand all the pre interview moans because had that been a Radio Sheffield interview I doubt it would’ve been much different.

I was pretty much in agreement with the Prince on all the topics covered. He comes across as a bloke who understands football and how to run a club, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the cash to compete.

You can be the best and most qualified football club owner in the world, but if you’re competing against owners with much deeper pockets, you’ve got no chance.

I’d be happy for him to stay on if the new owner was also happy.

 

[nopigfansintown]

It seems strange that a refund wasn't mentioned. If I put a deposit down for a car and the seller had a change of mind, I'd expect my money back.

It would all depend on the minutiae of the contract and if he covered himself.

 

[MagnifiqueShorehamStreet]

`So it seems, the Prince gets personally involved in negotiations with transfers.
Says all I needed to know, about our progress in landing player targets, this close season.

 

[coolhandluke]

To be fair to the Prince he actually sai

He made this illogical point twice imo - on Slav and Wilder. He claimed both he and Mccabe wanted Wilder instead of positive Nigel. Weird.

To be fair to the Prince he said it was himself and Simon McCabe who wanted Wilder whilst the rest of the Board wanted Adkins

 

[bakeblade]

The whole Slav thing was a strange one.
He basically admitted to deliberately neglecting to hire who he thought was the best man for the job (Hecky). Under no circumstance is that in the best interests of the club. To then claim that if Hecky had been appointed and got off to a bad start (like Slav did) then the fans would have been on his case is nonsense.

PA cannot claim credit for firing someone he admittedly didn’t think was right to start with and replacing him with someone he chose not to hire in the first place.

Aside from that and the current state of the playing squad I quite like the guy.

If he was after a sacrificial lamb before appointing his preferred option (PH), why not go for a cheaper option than Slav and his entourage.

 

[jim2007]

Not even a "We do have a look around on Google."

I saw it a bit differently.

He rode Dozy like a cheap seaside donkey. Got £9m off him, probably knew he was bollocks and knew that Dozy'd never get past EFL/EPL due diligence.

Ultimately the leagues have the final say after their own due diligence, so why spend serious dollar doing what they're going to do better anyway? And we trousered money that, it seems, kept us out of admin.

Might be completely wrong but that's what I read between the lines of what he was saying.

 

[S64 Blade]

I saw it a bit differently.

He rode Dozy like a cheap seaside donkey. Got £9m off him, probably knew he was bollocks and knew that Dozy'd never get past EFL/EPL due diligence.

Ultimately the leagues have the final say after their own due diligence, so why spend serious dollar doing what they're going to do better anyway? And we trousered money that, it seems, kept us out of admin.

Might be completely wrong but that's what I read between the lines of what he was saying.

But he’s claiming to want to sell the club to the right party. The EFL/PL checks do not ensure clubs get good owners.

So, if he is serious about selling us to the right party, it is then his responsibility to check that they’re fit for purpose.

 

[bakeblade]

I saw it a bit differently.

He rode Dozy like a cheap seaside donkey. Got £9m off him, probably knew he was bollocks and knew that Dozy'd never get past EFL/EPL due diligence.

Ultimately the leagues have the final say after their own due diligence, so why spend serious dollar doing what they're going to do better anyway? And we trousered money that, it seems, kept us out of admin.

Might be completely wrong but that's what I read between the lines of what he was saying.

But how much time did he waste pissing about with Dozy, and giving him exclusivity? It put us back months in finding a serious buyer.

 

[mancunianblade]

Came across this daily dickhead article when digging around earlier

Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad explains why he bought Sheffield United

When Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad plays fantasy football, his contacts book allows him to pick up his mobile phone and ask a club owner if his players will be involved in games in the coming weekend.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Firstly I think he paints himself as a bit of a weirdo Dan bit but that doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t be adverse to him staying on in a minor % role, if late their is quite a bit of NFL related interest in football. JJ watt at Burnley and now Brady at Brum. part of me thinks he s waiting for someone similar to come along for him to be NFL mates with. Mentions George Gillette in that article for instance

 

[1973Blade]

He makes some fair points. But he seemed to say two contradictory things: That it is good to have players in their final year of contract because they perform better than ones with a long contract who are likely to relax. But we need to have more players on a four or five year contract.

 

[RammyBlade]

To use Hecky's phrase "Listen" my view is and has always been that the Prince is a straight forward guy with the best interest of the club at heart. Its a shame that he doesnt have the finance to make us a strong Premier league team but I do believe that he has done a good job overall.
I think this was a well balanced and reasonably positive interview .
Well done Nick and Hal UTB

 

[moody1889]

He was right though
This forum was full of furious fannys saying hecky would be the cheap option and demaded a slav type manager

His mistake was not allowing slav to sign the players he needed to fit his system
In retrospect he should have simply kept hecky on

That is correct to be fair hand on heart the vast majority of us did give Heckys previous forays into management.

I will be honest I thought he would be the cheap option and I am so glad he proved me wrong.

Hecky has been brilliant for us and long may it continue.

 

[tincan]

Great interview, some news to me, contradictions and reassurances. Pleased that he's doing these interviews - I've never known any owner/chairman have such involvement with the fans.

 

[HD8 Blades]

So he wants praise for appointing Hecky because it was a big decision and he got it right. In fact, he always knew Hecky was the right choice. It was the bloody fans who wouldn't have accepted him, so he went for Slav instead. So despite knowing Hecky was the best man for the job, he bottled it because he was scared of the fan reaction.

He caps this rambling mess off by saying anyone can make obvious decisions, but big decisions, when the fans are against you, are when an owner really deserves credit.

Keeping your customers happy is surely key in the running of any business

 

[HarryHaslam]

Just so much pissing about, he’s wants out and to sell up, now wants to stay but in a minority role. Seems we are never going to move forward at this rate.

Maybe he wants to stay now because Charlton we’re finally sold last month so that ship has sailed.

 

[georgebernardshaw]

His answer to the question of due diligence for Mauriss and Dozy was pretty risible. Fair play to SUW for asking it.

The whole interview reinforced my opinion that we need him to sell asap.

Spot on, we need to get rid asap

 

[thehet]

Prince>Chanser

 

[AWetFlannel]

Prince>Chanser

Prince>Fallowfield>Chanser

 

[Foxy]

Great interview, some news to me, contradictions and reassurances. Pleased that he's doing these interviews - I've never known any owner/chairman have such involvement with the fans.

To be fair, our previous one also used to do fans forums and call supporters directly.

 

[HarryHaslam]

His answer to the question of due diligence for Mauriss and Dozy was pretty risible. Fair play to SUW for asking it.

The whole interview reinforced my opinion that we need him to sell asap.

Makes me laugh about the due diligence, his idea of due diligence is “Have you got the money? Sound, submit the paperwork and hopefully you pass the EFL test”

He wanted a sale, a quick sale. He planned to then buy Charlton and have CW as the manager and try and replicate what happened here. Charlton were sold for £12 million last month so that ship has sailed. Probably why he now still wants to be involved.

He has done a good job with us but I wish he’d cut out the bullshit.

 

[Bladeloyal]

To be fair to the Prince he actually sai


To be fair to the Prince he said it was himself and Simon McCabe who wanted Wilder whilst the rest of the Board wanted Adkins

Nice to see an old hacky blade back on the forum signed a owd Beighton blade

 

[Sithblade]

He made this illogical point twice imo - on Slav and Wilder. He claimed both he and Mccabe wanted Wilder instead of positive Nigel. Weird.

He said it was him and Scott McCabe who wanted Wilder, not Kevin who wanted Nigel.

 

[west_yorks_blade]

To be fair, our previous one also used to do fans forums and call supporters directly.

Alright Kev..

 

[Kevincarterversion2.0]

There were some things I thought were reasonable and other things that were a bit questionable.

My understanding was that there is a 20% chance he will have a stake in the club once sold but 80% chance he won’t. Reading between the lines, it sounds like he is still willing to sell completely, but one of the potential buyers probably involves him retaining a stake (Saudi consortium maybe?).

I don’t particularly like the contracts-approach (leaving to final year) but HRA indicated that this is partly because we don’t know what league we will be in by summer 2024 and partly because he doesn’t want to hand out contracts to aging players.

HRA said Berge hasn’t re-signed any options put to him. Reading between lines and based on what we did with Ndiaye, Berge will not be allowed to leave on a free in January.

HRA did say replacements for Ndiaye are coming. I’d have probed more on that to get reassurance that these are creative players and not a couple of workhorses.

Says we can buy back Ndiaye if OM sell him in future (presumably if he doesn’t reach his expected potential). This was the rights bit of the deal.

Doesn’t waste time and effort on due diligence because league does it better and has time and resource.

Embargo occurred as a result of £2m not being received from Dozy. Never really explained anything more on that, but I’d have probably probed on why he budgeted based on Dozy’s money for a key period of the season (January). Presumably they were confident Dozy was the real deal (which perhaps suggests doing a bit of in house due diligence would be sensible).

Said no bid was accepted for Ndiaye in January but “tried” three options to resolve embargo which included selling players. Not sure if this was a language barrier as trying to sell players would probably involve at least seeking out bids for players. Confirmed Ndiaye ultimately went to OM for under his value - because contract was expiring. Did mention Ndiaye not been available for 6 games due to AWC but this seemed to contradict his claim that he was desperate for Ndiaye to stay.

Wanted Ndiaye to go to LA so they could be away from media glare. Became obvious Ndiaye wanted to go over teams calls etc so never happened. HRA didn’t really answer why he didn’t come over to meet with Ndiaye- bar that he thought coming to LA was better for avoiding media glare etc and because Ndiaye changed his mind over staying very quickly. Contract was all agreed with Ndiaye to stay, including a lower release clause to OM than other clubs.

 

[JOEYDEE]

True, but they seem particularly important. More Important than much of what was asked tbh. They did ask the Kop post question but I'm not sure he really answered it. He didn't answer safe standing.

I think he said kop post project is scheduled now for next summer..

 

[Yogi]

Thanks to SU Way for getting the interview and raising fans concerns. The problem was many of the answers deteriorated into long drawn out waffle. What I got from that was;

1. The Prince has now changed his mind about the sale and wants to be a part of the Club moving forward. He also said he wants UW to continue to be involved in a minority stake if possible. That may explain why there is little progress to report as potential buyers may want a clean break. He later talks about 70/80% chance of selling and 20% prefer to stay in a partnership. Not sure if thats the stake he wants to retain in the Club or the odds of him selling at all?
2. PA says we are in advanced talks with 2/3 parties but nothing is imminent. Not sure how advanced can become not imminent.
3. His reasoning behind why he uses third parties to communicate rather than more traditional media channels is down to 2 issues. One he's not forgiven local media for the court coverage. That was 4 years ago!! Two he doesn't like speaking to newspapers because they twist facts. Welcome to the real world!!
4. Darren Smith was positive about the Court case on twitter thats his reasoning for him being used for information. That was also 4 years ago. Good question from Hal about Radio Sheffield which PA conceded he may now give an interview to.
5. PA says he has invested up to £70 million in Club in answer to the question about the Clubs valuation.
6. Prefers to let EPL do the majority of due diligence on new owners as they have the resources and process. So expect more of the same in terms of owners credibility.
7. The embargo happened because we were expecting a down payment from Dozy of £11 million and only got £9 mill. Half answered the question as to why we got into a financial mess by saying he took the decision not to sell players to aid promotion.
8. Says we are on top of contracts- open to debate - and we never forget where a players contract position is. Then a long meander into how the NFL deal with contracts and usually wait until the last year of a contract because a player tries his best to get a new contract and then his performances drop off when he signs the new one. Don't understand this logic at all a players value decreases rapidly in the last year of his contract??? Not saying he's suggesting this is how SUFC operate so no need to mention it surely?
9. Got more than £14/15 million for Ndiaye. Says Ndiaye missing for 5/8 games in Africa cup was one of the considerations for selling. So why have we bought Slimane?
10. Made a comment about obtaining matching rights with OM for the Ndiaye deal. Not sure how this works other than if OM sell him for less than they paid we get something in return?
11. Didn't really answer the question about Berges contract other than to say he along with Ndiaye had indicated they didn't want to renew. Said delay on some contracts is because we don't know what division we will be in but surely thats going to be the norm over the next few years unless we storm the EPL.
12. Finishes on him putting money back into the Club from player sales so hopefully PH will get all the money.

Probably one of his poorest interviews to date imo and thats no reflection on SU Way as they raised a number of challenging questions. We don't seem to be any further forward in changing ownership and the waters have been muddied by the implication PA wants to stay on in part. Until this is resolved we will continue to flounder imo.

I thought his waffle about NFL contracts was worryingly incorrect. Teams don’t tend to wait to offer new deal to good players until the last year of their deal as the clubs have less leverage in that situation. Normally when NFL teams know they have a good player on their hands that player get a massive multi year deal as soon as possible because it works out cheaper that way.