Hello all,
Long time listener, first time caller etc Decided to sign up yesterday to vent my spleen after the notice to shareholders, and the frustration not just with KM but also with us, the fans and the whole financial situation surrounding the club for the past few years.
Firstly, I don't believe this transfer of assets to be a good move, but with the total ambiguity of the statement it's hard to really know the whys, so as fans we jump to our own conclusions because that's the best we can do and all we've got. My take on it is that the FC will have a reduced debt as along with the assets, the debt will have moved to the PLC too. I'm no accountant, but the debt levels at SUFC in L1 are a)un-sustainable, and b) hardly attractive to an investor considering the £M's it would take to get pennies returned. I'm assuming the investment/sale of SUFC will be the debtless football club, and the debt-ridden PLC will keep with KM but that's where the assets will also lie. If I'm wrong, so be it, but I'm not Scully!
Secondly, we as fans have in the past called for KM (Or McScrooge) to open his wallet to a) get us back to the PL, and then b) back to the Championship. All well and good, but all it appears has happened is that the spending actually just came from SUFC anyway and if it didn't, with the share options that KM took up, it came from one hand in his pocket while his other hand was tightening the grip around the clubs neck. What do we want? We're asking for money to be spent, but not at any cost to the Club, while still peddling (or at least we used to) that we're a well run-club unlike our neighbours. We weren't well run. We just had access to cheap credit and the future would pay it back for us.
Thirdly, and perhaps because we've seen our neighbours implode up until their takeover, we've taken the eye off the ball on our own problems and taken a high ground regarding finances and IMO, we were wrong to do so. Wednesday struggled with debt to effectively 1 bank, and a couple of individuals. How we laughed. The same years, such as the previous couple, we announced losses in the tens of millions of pounds. But, so what, we've got a chairman who'll never call in his loans etc etc. It's other clubs who have debt problems. Sure, we owe £50m, but it's not like real debt, SUFC owe money to KM. KM owns SUFC, therefore SUFC have no debt and KM has lots of debt. Not only that, we had loads of assets which more than cover the debt. Happy days. I have read the boards of here and Blades Mad, I've seen all sorts of terms banded about (mostly plausible possibilities in my opinion) but the one that I have an issue with is that of "asset stripping". Going back a few squares, how can KM strip SUFC assets? For the same reason that SUFC have no debt other than to SUFC, he owns the Club, he owns the debt and owes it to himself, therefore if SUFC has no "real debt", then really, we have no real assets. And how did we get here? By ignoring the very obvious signs given out every year in the accounts and by asking KM to get his wallet out. We didn't want to be well run, we didn't want to be self-sufficient, we just wanted money now, we wanted the best players now, and we want someone else to pay for it.
In my own opinion, say KM never walked in the door, I think SUFC would be standing on its own two feet, much like KM now desires. We've have some debt and it'd be to a bank but it'd be much smaller than the £50m (or whatever it is these days, how much do smoke and mirrors cost?), BDTBL would probably be less developed but adequate for the level of football, we'd probably be a mid-level Championship club who occasionally punches above its weight, less ambition and less expectant about where we should be in the scheme of things. We wouldn't have £20k a week players and our academy would be less glamorous, but we'd still churn out youngsters because we're not half bad at that. Personally, I'd take that over what we have now. We had a year in the sun and it just wasn't worth it.
Could we stand on our own two feet now? No, clearly not. Our debt is un-managable at L1 level, our assets aren't our own, our gates and revenue are getting lower, our debt is getting higher. Why? Because KM gambled his company away and there's a tipping point (surely) that you get past a point and after that, it becomes a spiral. Too much debt, less to spend, debt increases, performances suffer, revenues fall, debt increases, less to spend etc. In my opinion once more, we passed that point a couple of years ago but have been banking on a return to a higher level.
Last year was a disaster and in no way am I going to aim that at DW or the squad. Another year in L1 is another year of a growing financial burden and another year of SUFC getting weaker, not stronger.
Sorry for the ramble, I'm off for a hot choccy now!
UTB!
