johnpb78 wrote:Curlie wrote:So what's the bottom line here.
City's bank account is in the black and the scum's is 700M in the red, with interest mounting?
Is that the simple version?
Puts it into perspective about us "ruining football"
Our owner has put in £395 million, and we have a tasty looking squad. He has another £300m to spend go before we get to the stage where he has spent equal to the cost of U***d's debt. Add another few hundred million to cover the cost of buying the club, and why would anyone want to invest upwards of £1bn to make the club debt free and get a return on investment of perhaps 1/2%.
U***d's dominance of the game is currently built on a foundation of debt, and its now coming back to bite them on the arse. Whilst everyone talks about what happens if the sheik fucks off, the owner cant fuck off, because nobody else will be able to take on the liabilities of the playing staff's contracts, hence nobody will buy the club as it is unviable, so he has to stay here for the long haul. Same with Abramovich and Chelsea.
Perhaps it is becoming clearer report by report that the reason we are ruining football is because the "old order" monopoly in England and also in Europe will change, and the losers will be the established clubs who are based on debt.
Its hard for even the most blinkered of U***d fan to argue that against the FACT that slowly declining investment in the playing staff over the last 3 years is eating away at the quality of the squad, and as Giggs, Scholes etc draw towards the end of their career, the decline in the quality of the playing staff is happening at an increasing pace.
All looks a bit gloomy for the rags fortunately.
I agree with your explanation too.
What is particularly worrying is that the Glazers were simply allowed to manipulate the debt from some private investor , onto the club. The Glazers thought they new the finance markets better and gambled on interest rates staying low and borrowed heavily to gain ownership. The naive , or unlucky shareholder forced to sell his shares because one or two major shareholders madoff , sorry made off with outrageous profits on their sales, were then force to cough up extra as season tickets costs start spiralling upwards.
City's owner took money from his back pocket. Sure, he could insist that the 'soft loans' he made be paid back at 33% etc, but what would that gain him ? he'd break his own company !
The Glazers borrowed money, money they never had and are now paying for it. Or customers for all products United are now paying their interest rates for them. It is a shocking example of how big company financing works to the disadvantage of the average punter. This is no different from other Mergers and Aquisitions that take place. The exorbitant fees demand by banks etc for managing a 'takeover' are quite out of hand and often reflect very little on the true effort they put in ( ie fees should be smaller ! ).
Invariably the customer pays for such takeovers.If not in the short term , certainly in the medium and long term.
This takeover brought NO improvements in the running of United through synergies with other companies the Glazers have title to ( i won't say 'own', because it's difficult to know how high the Glazers are leveraged on other businesses).
The companies that managed the Aquisition of United for the Glazers, should also take a good look at the debt mountain they eventually signed off for the club. A failure to be successful, a drop in attendances, will soon bite into those shirt sales all around the world.
Whereas, everywhere you look, even on Arsenal, Chelsea and United's fancy billboards around the pitch , the word 'ETIHAD'
keeps popping up ! How nice for City and our owner.