devaney » Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:06 am wrote:Red Till I Die - Sorry I posted my response before it was finished. Family just arrived for dinner and it would have been rude to ignore them.
The last sentence simply should have finished with the words: talking about. To suddenly suggest that I'm reverting to type when we were having what seemed a sensible discussion and accusing you of not being a Liverpool supporter is a tad confusing. I have never accused anybody on this forum of not being a Liverpool supporter except BTN but let's face it, it's a bit tricky taking him seriously with the mountain load of negative shight that he posts. Not sure where the reverting to type comment comes from.
My views of FSG may not be as harsh as yours. I certainly don't agree with everything they have done and to suggest that I think we owe them a huge debt of gratitude is wrong. I don't know if the owners of Spurs have accusations of greed thrown at them because they have spent considerably less than ourselves over the past three to four years. FSG could easily have kept the proceeds from the Torres sale but instead they allowed Kenny and Comolli to invest heavily in players. Unfortunately that was an unmitigated fk up which we are still recovering from. How many other clubs during this window have sold two players for a combined loss of £35m? That in itself takes a degree of commitment. I simply do not believe that they are the parasites you suggest.Simply because as a company they have bought a newspaper costing £70m doesn't necessarily mean they should invest more money in ourselves. FSG may well be be opportunistic but surely that is what any sensible business is all about. It doesn't necessarily mean they are vultures.
As for the Stadium when you look around Anfield more and more properties have been purchased. Speed of progress is painfully slow. I do however believe that work is going on behind the scenes. Perhaps I am wrong. Were FSG concerned about the results of the commitment campaign that permitted season ticket requests to be resubmitted at the cost of £5? Again I don't know.
With regards to the purchase price it also has to be remembered that FSG took on the £35m outstanding architectural fees amassed by H & G which contributed towards their first year losses of £52m. They also took over the massive costs of compensating Rafa and his team. The original sale price of £300m did seem incredibly cheap but I don't remember that many companies/individuals queuing up to buy us and certainly not for a lot more more. A company like any property is worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it. Where does your figure of £500m come from?
I'm not sure what you mean when you say they are possibly charging the club interest on the loan for buying the club. What loan? They paid cash. There is no suggestion of interest payments of the magnitude you suggest in the company accounts. I think that is an unreasonable suggestion.
Sorry for the confusion. You were certainly not being accused of anything.
i wasnt to know you couldnt finish your post mate so i didnt know what to make of the final sentence and gave a silly remark in response. again my apologies as i didnt intentionally set out to insult you.
my views are harsh on fsg i agree but again il admit to being somewhat of a pessimist where they are concerned. they frustrate the life out of me.
they did make mistakes that window in the fee's paid but thats done and dusted and its like they are punishing us for it, we have gone from overpaying to not wanting to pay. they will not match the prices being asked of the clubs whose players they are trying to sign and it dont matter if that price is 30mil(willian) or 6mil (llori). somebody just walks in and goes stick your valuation and here is our's, now hand him over.
every club loses on some players but also gain on others and it in turn balances out. for example allen 15mil + borini 12mil + coutinho 8mil =35mil. lose 50% on both allen and borini but sell coutinho for 25mil and that gives a profit. in fairness for the paltry £5mil for downing we got we would have been better off keeping him. if he was say leaving villa only this season for £5mil you know we would have snapped him up.
all i would like to see from them is better investment on the level that a top club in the world should be. invest in the team, make top 4 = extra revenue or invest in the stadium = extra revenue that will allow us to compete where we should be. that is what i thought they would bring to the table not austerity like measures.
from what i have read on the stadium it seems nothing is concrete from the clubs end and its been mostly driven by the council. they seem more eager to start than us. did H&G not have 2 sets of plans ? one for a redevelopment and another for stanley park. where those plans that bad that every thing had to be scratched amassing to that amount.
rafa left the club months before they bought us so along with the architectural fees was included in the purchase price which was them paying £200mil off the clubs debt and giving an undertaking to pay the rest.the 200mil is interest free and we still pay rbs the remaining. the 200 mil wasnt really free and still has to be paid back and maybe i was again harsh in saying over a short period. in the 1st set of accounts they published i can recall a significant increase in revenue only to be eaten up by administration charges. revenue has increased at a massive rate and in turn that was supposed to benefit the team but yet that progress is minimal despite heavy wage cuts.
the £500 mil i used was actually less than hicks valuation albeit backed up by forbes valuation that year. the point was though that if we where worth that would they have still of been interested. deloitte has us worth around 350mil last year and i doubt they would have been interested in that figure either.
they are much better business men than H&G thats for sure and to grow a brand by that much in 3 years is impressive stuff so we are making money but it still isnt enough to enable the team to compete for the best players and thats why im skeptical. maybe in ten years it will but football is a dog eat dog business and it evolves all the time with bigger players changing the game and if they arent willing to compete now they wont then.
this is all just my opinion mate and i know its a half empty but but borne out of frustration, after 3 years it looks like they just bailed us out rather than be willing to invest enough to boost us up a few rungs. they have accepted we are at the bottom and want us to claw ourselves back up. if they are truly here for the long term then i dont know why they wont gamble a little.
ten years ago none of us would even be concerned about finances at all but now it has completely overtaken the most important thing which is the football.
i do miss them days
