I would like help from the truly ITK on these thoughts :
The assets of a football Club are usually its Ground and its long Contracts with attractive players , both categories of which have a market value if sold.
Lots of Clubs our size have sold the inner city (valuable) land/ground on which they sat , which has financed the building of soulless new stadia on the barren edges of their towns , plus a few new players.
Am I correct in thinking we can't do this because of the Prince deal - which cleared our monetary debt to McCabe by giving McCabe the freehold of Bramall Lane ?
So we as a Club don't have our ground as an asset ? McCabe has it and we are just tenants who have to pay rent ? And when McCabe checks out for good , the freehold of our beloved home could end up anywhere his will & testimony sends it ?
And when you look at the players contracts we hold (apart from Brayford, Sharp & possibly Che) , they are not worth a hill of beans. A huge number of the contracts run out this June anyway, so are worthless. And those that don't are with players who are generally worthless - as shown by our inability to offload any of them , despite desperately wanting to reduce the squad.
So would I be correct in concluding that the entire Club , if valued by an accountant , is virtually worthless at the moment ?
If we made a trading profit , like a normal business , there would be some value in us "as a going concern" , even if the assets were worth nothing - but naturally , like any other Club outside the top half of the Premiership , we are loss-making , and so there is no value to chalk up there.
So why oh why oh why doesn't McCabe just LEAVE , if he is not prepared to put any more subsidy in ?
On my argument above , his stake in the Club (and the Prince's) is worth practically nothing , so he cannot expect anyone to pay him anything for it !
He has already got out of the Club the biggest asset worth having - the freehold !
So if he or his successors decide to redevelop the Lane as a retail park or flats , we have no home to sell to buy us a new home.
I would welcome informed comment or correction on the above points.
I feel that he should just give the other half of the Club to the Prince for £1 , if the Prince would bankroll some proper effort to get promoted (ie: new players fees / wages).
I have a multitude of fears which stem from our current business structure , but the worst is the disappearance of the Lane as my football home.
My other fears include such things as "why are we limping along the middle of the third division when a Saudi Prince is a co-owner ?". Surely the Prince is in it for the pay-off that promotion might bring ? So he knows , as any businessman , that you have to speculate to accumulate.
There is something FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG with our Club , but I am insufficiently informed to know what it is , given that I rely on a local media (RS/Star) who have never heard of investigative/incisive journalism.
Many years ago (in the 80s) I was managing a £1m turnover business and I kept telling the owners there was too much cash in one particular current account.
Little did I know that they had identified my successor (someone's nephew) and the cash was going to be used for my severance package !
I get the feeling something similar is about to be done to me by the Blades - I can see it all going strangely wrong before my very eyes and I cannot for the life of me think why - but it's too mysterious to be innocent.
I know you're optimistic but....
