Discuss all the take-overs, turn-overs, profits, losses, debts etc. . . .

thank u for this

so whts the inherent economies of scale in Pool and Everton sharing a joint stadium?

all the fckin stats and analyses should be here

sauron , debosky and dayo
make una watch o

ARE BONDS THE WAY OUT OF DEBT?

What do Cambridge University and Manchester United have in common? They are both proposing to issue bonds, in the case of Cambridge to raise funds for further investment, in the case of United as a more efficient and cost effective means of managing their debt. All sorts of companies and institutions are turning to the bond market to raise money because as banks rebuild their balance sheets they don't have as much money to lend as they did before the financial crisis and they charge high rates of interest on what is available. Cambridge Uni are hoping for a triple A rating on their bonds as befits an institution that has been going for around 800 years. Although they are also a global brand, it remains to be seen whether United will do as well.

A typical purchaser of bonds would be a pension fund. Bonds are promises to pay a sum at a fixed interest rate, which has to be sufficiently high to attract purchasers. The bonds can be bought and sold like shares. Bond issues are used extensively in the US by state governments and local authorities to fund infrastructure projects. Manchester United are being advised by JP Morgan, the US bank that engineered the Glazers' £790m takeover, and Deutsche Bank. One possible problem is that the Glazers would prefer to pay back the more costly PIK debt which we have written about recently. However, bankers would like to see bank debt paid off which is likely to have higher interest rates than those that would be paid on the bond. The club has been insistent that debt is not a problem because the annual interest on its various loans is covered by its operating profit, although that only left a margin of £3m (£72m against £69m) in 2008. If the cost of servicing the debt could be reduced, in principle more money would be available for the team.

I did a long write up on why I didn't believe the Kroenke takeover wld happen anytime soon but it was swallowed up by the spam bots, if an administrator cld dig it out for me that wld be fine as I can't be bothered to write it all up again. My grey cells have gone very lazy.

Arsene Wenger on Portsmouth's present problems:

[Quote]
"Once the clubs start to pay the TV income of the year after, and the season tickets of the years after and the club level tickets of the years to come - that is a very dangerous trend.
"It means if you are not successful on the pitch you are dead."
[/quote]

Can anyone confirm whether this is the first case of a football club issuing a corporate bond or not?


What is the interest on this bond, and is it convertible?

I feel like buying some of these bonds, so I can take ownership of Manure if Glazers default on the payments. 

Ibime:

Can anyone confirm whether this is the first case of a football club issuing a corporate bond or not?

What is the interest on this bond, and is it convertible?

I feel like buying some of these bonds, so I can take ownership of Manure if Glazers default on the payments.   

The bonds ain't for people like you.

A bond is an investment that lasts for a specific amount of time (I'd guess 10 years in this case), over that period you get the money paid back to you with interest (much like a loan in reverse). As we'd be selling bonds as opposed to borrowing money we'd get to set the interest rate (which is currently around 5.25% for long term fixed rate bonds).

The investors buying the bonds would pay the club £600m and in return they get 5.25% (probably a bit higher in reality) in annual interest paid to them by the club over let's say a period of 10 years. When the 10 year period is finished they then get repaid the £600m in full.

They also would be given security in the form of Manchester United's assets (like the stadium etc).
The club would then use the £600m to repay the current Senior debt and PIK holders which have interest rates of 8% and 14.25% respectively.
Of course, the whole point being that the club would be able to significantly reduce the amount it pays out annually in interest.

What is a bond?
It is a way of borrowing money. But instead of taking out a mortgage, David Gill, the Manchester United chief executive, and club owner Malcolm Glazer have decided to tap the money markets for cash.

Still none the wiser?
OK. Bonds operate in much the same way as shares. The club will issue them and receive cash in exchange - £500million to be precise.
Like shares, the debt can be bought and sold after it is issued. Unlike shares, bonds must be repaid.
In United's case the term of the loan is seven years and the bonds are secured against club assets such as Old Trafford and the Carrington training ground. It is an expensive IOU.

Can I buy a bond? Ibime this one is 4 u
You will need deep pockets. The minimum subscription is likely to be £50,000.
But the club's City advisers will not be counting on fans to bankroll the business. The loans will be sold to professional investors and other banks, who will receive a hefty rate of interest annually, possibly as much as 8.5 per cent.
Bankers have already begun to drum up support for the bond in Asia and will follow this up in Europe and the US.

RuuDie:

Can I buy a bond?                     Ibime this one is 4 u 
You will need deep pockets. The minimum subscription is likely to be £50,000.

Ibime's assets in London and Nigeria are not up to £15,000.

Is Manchester united wallowing in debt?

Krayola:

Is Manchester united wallowing in debt?

Just like Real Madrid are swimming in debt.

Krayola:

Is Manchester united wallowing in debt?

yep big time

SHICKENCHIMP IS BACK!!!!

WTF happened to you? E be like say you get correct lawyer to fight that deportation order.

Welcome back

~Sauron~:

Just like Real Madrid are swimming in debt.

Real Madrid can get Mutallabbed for all i care.

Krayola:

SHICKENCHIMP IS BACK!!!!

WTF happened to you? E be like say you get correct lawyer to fight that deportation order.

Welcome back

yes oo i'm back
Nah skool wahala cause am jare.
Thunder fire una mouth(deportation)

OMG
chickenshrimp is back!!!!!!!!!!!

Dont get touchy-feely.
I guess you didnt hear of the convict who was updating his facebook status while on the run. . .

Nice thread!

BIG FREEZE HITS FOOTBALL

It's nothing like the cold weather events of 1946-7 or 1962-3, but freezing weather in Britain has already had its effect on football. Fixture congestion looms and there are concerns about the possible effect on England's World Cup preparations if the cold weather persists. However, there are also substantial financial implications, particularly for lower league clubs where, as in all smaller businesses, cash flow is king and gate money is a big source of it. League rules also require the home club to pay a visiting club's travel expenses when a game is postponed or abandoned. Although there is no suggestion that they have financial problems, Rotherham United have not played since December 12th. They were expecting some good crowds for their games over Christmas and their hospitality packages were sold out.

Next season it will be compulsory for Football League clubs to either have undersoil heating or a pitch cover. At present there are about 15 clubs who have neither. However, the pitch can be playable, but a match can still be postponed because of health and safety concerns arising from the condition of roads and pavements around a ground. The postponement of Arsenal's game against Bolton, after some away fans had made the journey, was also influenced by the fact that early closure of nearby tube stations could make it hard to get 60,000 fans home. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger reflected, 'We live in a society today of 100 per cent security. We don't accept any risk. If one of 60,000 has an accident, you feel very guilty. Nobody accepts that the slightest insecurity exists in our society. We have gone from individual initiative to collective responsibility.'

However, it is not just a question of attitudes, but also of vulnerability to litigation and in particular what your public liability insurance will and will not cover. Rob Elvin, the head of the safety, health and environment group at law firm Hammonds explained to The Times, 'A football club has duties, like any other company, to not expose employees or members of the public to health and safety risks. If you know people's journeys are going to be treacherous, then arguably the match would be the cause of any accidents. You're creating greater risk by putting the match on. Clubs could leave themselves exposed to criminal proceedings if they fail to act on the advice if they fail to act on the advice of police and local authorities , there is an argument in health and safety law that failing to cancel the match carries an exposire to risk and is a breach of the law. The clubs will be insured against personal injuries to a certain level but you can't be insured against criminal cases.'

A club could play behind closed doors, but that would involve a considerable loss of revenue and would annoy fans. Attitudes to risk clearly differ across society and no doubt many fans would say that they are prepared to take a risk with icy pavements, but that does not absolve a club of its legal responsibilities. It's not really practical to get fans to sign an individual indemnity and that might not stand up in law. I'm going off to the ice hockey now: there we want the pitch to be frozen.

mukina2:

OMG
chickenshrimp is back!!!!!!!!!!!

mukinatu sindodo yes oooo i'm back

@Ruudie

i thought Wikipedia never exist anymore. . .

dyabman:

@Ruudie

i thought Wikipedia never exist anymore. . .

sleek417:

thank u for this

so whts the inherent economies of scale in Pool and Everton sharing a joint stadium?

all the fckin stats and analyses should be here

sauron , debosky and dayo
make una watch o

The logic of groundshare is hard to disprove. The cost of the stadium is split evenly between the 2 clubs while the revenue is still kept relatively distinct and separate but in the case of liverpool/everton its more of a rivalry thing than finances. . . . . fans of both clubs would want anything else but "sharing."
However if Kirby is not forthcoming, Tranmere is an option.

Liverpool & Everton – The Case For & Against Ground-Sharing

Ground-sharing, although commonplace in the rest of Europe, has always been something of an anathema in England. The very existence of both Liverpool and Everton started with a row over rental rates at Anfield. Everton had baulked at an increase in rent at Anfield, which led to them leaving for Goodison Park and the ground’s owner John Houlding forming a new club, Liverpool FC, to play at the stadium.
One hundred and twenty years on from that fateful row, there still hasn’t been a successful case of two clubs sharing the same stadium at the top end of English football but the question of whether it makes sense for two clubs in such close proximity to build two separate stadia has been raised again by Warren Brady, the head of Liverpool City Council and the head of the city’s bid to be included in the 2018 World Cup. Brady states that, “we’ve got to do something if we are serious about being a bidding city for the World Cup” and that, “I don’t want to see everything migrate down the M62 to Manchester where there are two fabulous stadiums”.

It’s important to correct Brady on one important detail. The city of Liverpool will almost certainly not lose out to Manchester in bidding for the 2018 World Cup. FIFA rules state that, under normal circumstances, one city may have two facilities and the remaining host cities would ordinarily have one each. It is impossible to believe that the FA would not select London as the city with two stadia (Wembley and The Emirates Stadium would be the obvious choices), so there is little chance of the FA saying “no” to Liverpool and “yes” to both Old Trafford and The City of Manchester Stadium. It does raise the question of whether Brady is politicking here, and what his motives might be.
Certainly, Liverpool City Council have given indications of being being in favour of Liverpool and Everton sharing a stadium before. However, there is certainly an argument of sorts to be made for Everton and Liverpool sharing a facility, so here are the arguments for and against Liverpool and Everton becoming bedmates.

Against: There is a convincing argument that a ground-sharing arrangement would be very much to the detriment of Everton Football Club. They may well be equal partners in any proposed new stadium, but the perception may well take place that they are the junior partners there and it may have a seriously detrimental effect on their ability to continue to attract new supporters. Having their own stadium is part of their distinct identity, and it’s difficult to escape the idea that should they lose this, they may struggle to find a new one.

The arguments over history and tradition are less convincing, but it is worth pointing out that setting a precedent for clubs sharing facilities at the very top of the game could have ramifications throughout the whole of English football. The motives of Liverpool, Everton and Liverpool City Council may be entirely innocent, but there are plenty of people that are involved in football to make a fast buck and that would be delighted to have a precedent allowing them to merge clubs and merge facilities coming from the Premier League.

It’s also worth pointing out that a 2018 World Cup bid will not stand or fall on whether Liverpool and Everton share a stadium, and that concerns over the loss of identity of at least one of these two clubs shouldn’t be over-ridden by the desire to host football in the city at a World Cup finals which hasn’t even been awarded to England yet. Quite regardless of this, it wouldn’t take a massive amount of tweaking to bring Anfield up to the required standard to host World Cup football. Liverpool City Council have made noises to the effect that they would prefer the two clubs to play in one stadium, and there is a valid case to make that they could be scaremongering about the World Cup bid in order to make this happen.

For: The case in favour of Everton and Liverpool sharing a stadium is based on both practical and hypothetical considerations. Most pressing of all is the issue of what the alternatives for the two clubs are. Liverpool are £350m in debt and struggling to maintain interest payments on the debt that they already have. It seems as if they will be staying at Anfield for the forseeable future whether they like it or not. Gillett and Hicks may or may not be able to fund a new stadium, but whether Liverpool FC will be able to afford to build a stadium that is considerably bigger than the one that they already have is a different matter.

Everton, on the other hand, have pinned all of their hopes on a move outside of the city to Kirkby. There is a groundswell of opinion amongst the club’s support against this move, and a ground share with Liverpool in the city might be seen by them as being preferable to moving away and ground-sharing with Tesco instead. Ultimately, neither club is in a great position to build the sort of facility that they would like to. A pooling of resources would enable them to build a stadium within the city that both can be proud of. Even those in favour of the move to Kirkby have to concede that the decision to give planning permission for a new stadium there has been kicked from pillar to post. There is a not unreasonable chance that they might end up not getting planning permission to go there regardless of whether the supporters want to or not, leaving them stuck at Goodison Park.

The fact of the matter is that ground-sharing does work on the continent. The clubs of Milan, Munich and Rome are amongst those that have not lost their identity as a result of playing in the same stadium. If the two clubs can be persuaded to work as equal partners (because one suspects that an element of the support of both clubs will believe that they are putting in all the money whilst the others reap all of the benefits), then there is precedent from abroad to say that it can work. Only a fool would say that Milan and Internazionale don’t have distinct identities as clubs.

The problem for both Liverpool and Everton lies in the past. There has been so much procrastination over new grounds for the two clubs over the last twenty or thirty years that both clubs stood comparatively still during the 1990s. Even accounting for the recession, both Liverpool and Everton would still be faced with astronomical costs should they wish to move, regardless of where they end up going. It is perhaps an indication that football supporters are much less sentimental than we might have thought that they might be that there doesn’t seem to be a significant amount opposition to Liverpool leaving Anfield. Liverpool FC is, perhaps, more closely associated with its stadium than any other club in England, but there has never been any significant opposition to simply upping sticks and leaving it behind.

For Everton, the issue is a subtly different one. They are in a more advanced position with regard to moving to a new stadium, but it is a move that their supporters seem less than happy with. These supporters may be more inclined to support sharing a stadium because it will at least keep them within the city of Liverpool, and the possibility of staying at a cramped Goodison Park continuing to loom on the horizon means that such a move may start to look even more appealing if they don’t get permission to share a supermarket with Tesco on the outskirts of a sleeper town which stretches the very definition of where the city boundaries of Liverpool begin and end to its very limit.

Ultimately, it seems unlikely (if not implausible) that Liverpool and Everton will both end up in 50,000 capacity grounds of their own in Liverpool, regardless of any debates over whether they should build their own grounds or share one. It is, therefore, important that discussion of where these two clubs end up is written from the perspective of which will benefit their supporters the most. From a personal – and neutral – perspective, whilst it is understandable that both sets of supporters have valid concerns over sharing a stadium, both clubs will have to make difficult decisions to make.

Gillett and Hicks have already shown themselves to be plenty capable of spending vast amounts of money with no significant benefit having been seen, and it would be unsurprising if staying at Anfield ended up being preferable to any plan that they could concoct. Certainly, they can ill afford having their current levels of indebtedness doubled at the very least. Everton supporters have a subtly different problem to face. If permission to move to Kirkby – which is far from assured – is granted, it will still not mean that the stadium will be built. The time to protest against it, however, is now.

A Tussle With The Tax Man - Pompey

So, the real politik of overspending has finally come home to roost in the Premier League with the issuance of a winding up order against Portsmouth. Such action by HMRC is hardly surprising. The authorities long since stopped caring too much about what happens to them, and why should they? Much is made in some circles of football turning from a sport into a business, and the usual rules of business apply. If you can’t pay your bills on time, you are insolvent and your creditors have the right to press for company to be wound up. There has been nothing happening at Fratton Park over the last twelve months or so to indicate that Portsmouth Football Club is anything other than hopelessly insolvent.

Inside the club, the denial continues to linger. Club officials continue to plead ignorance. If papers hadn’t been served upon them, it was because more likely than not that this is merely because of the Christmas break. It is the court that serves the papers rather than the creditor, and it is likely that the court service will not be operating at full strength over the Christmas and New Year period. A date for a hearing will now be set – about six weeks is considered normal – and Portsmouth Football Club now has to decide how it wishes to proceed.

[b]It is at this point that alarm bells start to go off. Portsmouth have, in reality, three choices ahead of the February deadline. Firstly, they could raise the money that they need to in order to pay off the petition amount. They have an opportunity to do this because of the January transfer window, but such a move would almost certainly condemn them to relegation from the Premier League and, even if it didn’t, they still wouldn’t receive anything like the full value for players that they could theoretically sell next month.
Secondly, they could enter into administration. Such a move would have a similarly severe effect on the likelihood of their staying in the Premier League – a nine point deduction would cut them off at the bottom of the table than they already are. It would, however, secure their future in the short term.

The third option, however, seems to be the one that they are going for, and it is the highest risk strategy of the three. Reports elsewhere in the press seem to be that they are intending to dispute the debt. They need to have a watertight case if they are to win. The clubs claims to only owe two months’ worth of PAYE, National Insurance and VAT, but this is obviously a sizeable amount of money. The club claims to have paid off £5.7m of £9.7m outstanding, but Portsmouth supporters will be wondering what the grounds are for believing anything that comes out of Fratton Park at the moment. To dispute the existence of the debt and make that the basis of fighting a court case is often regarded as a stalling tactic, creating confusion where there should be none in an attempt to set aside judgement. HMRC, however, are prevented by law from issuing proceedings as a scare tactic alone, and it seems unlikely that they would begin what would obviously be a very high profile case without having first checked that their case was watertight.[/b]
Avram Grant, in an interview shortly after his team was humbled 4-1 at home by Arsenal, seems to be in a similar state of denial. “Everybody knows we need to make the team stronger. No-one has said we need to sell players. All the players need to stay and the board knows it”. That may well be his opinion, but the bare fact of the matter seems to be that the old adage about no news being good news doesn’t necessarily apply to Portsmouth at the moment, and it has even been suggested that HMRC have timed their petition deliberately precisely because they know that the transfer window is imminent. Portsmouth supporters already know fully well that player sales have been used by the club to pay off debts – Peter Crouch went to Tottenham Hotspur for £10m during the summer, money that has already been thrown onto the bonfire of the club’s mismanagement – and it seems unlikely that, even with a transfer embargo still in place, more will not follow.

The biggest concern for Portsmouth at present, however, is their long term survival. How on earth will the club cope if (or when) it is relegated from the Premier League at the end of this season? Do they have adequate plans to offload their highest earning players? Because if they have been struggling to pay them this season (and there seems to be fairly cast iron proof that they have), they’re going to find it impossible without the comparative windfall of Premier League television, sponsorship and prize money. They may well end up winning their tussle with HMRC, but even a victory in court in February is unlikely to mean an end to their current tribulations.

Ruudie
nice work u have here

i dont see how the argument FOR the ground sharing can work tho

nice stuff

Best thread in a long time.
These days football cannot exist without it's economics.

Let's discuss Wages.

Is a Wage cap on footballers possible? And if it is what are the pros and cons of such actions on football.

Manchester United's parent company's overall debt has swelled to £716.5million, latest accounts reveal.

The company Red Football Joint Venture Ltd, which is owned by the Glazer family, filed accounts on Wednesday for the year ending June 30 2009 showing their overall debt has gone past the £700million mark for the first time, increasing by £17million from £699million.

The biggest rise has come in the payment in kindUnited's parent company reveals £716.5m debt loans, which typically have a higher interest rate, which show a £27million increase to £202million. Bank loans, meanwhile, have dropped by £9million to £509million.

The overall debt figure, not contained in the prospectus for a £500million bond issue released last week, illustrate why the Glazers are so keen to raise cash through bonds to reduce the interest on the debt.

http://eurosport.yahoo.com/20012010/58/premier-league-manchester-united-reveal-716m-debt.html

nateevs:

Let's discuss Wages.

Is a Wage cap on footballers possible? And if it is what are the pros and cons of such actions on football.

very possible but can only really be successful if enforced by individual clubs rather than the FA. . . .