Skip to main content

Posts

Lai loses out

Last Thursday, West Bromwich Albion announced that Florida-based businessman Shilen Patel has agreed to buy them from current owner Guochuan Lai. This news was joyfully greeted by the Championship club’s fans as Lai’s clueless spell in charge has seen two relegations, albeit with one promotion in between, and a massive deterioration in the club’s finances. So much so that a once well-run club was heading towards bankruptcy. Perhaps the best evidence of this narrowly avoided crash can be seen in the return on investment Lai is getting. The Chinese businessman paid about £200million for what was a Premier League club in 2016. Patel is paying him only £10m guaranteed – £2.5m on completion, £2.5m in August and £5.5m in August 2025. There is the possibility of bonus payments if West Brom are promoted. Go up this season, and they are currently fifth, and Patel will pay Lai an extra £18m. Promotion next season would trigger a £10m payment, £5m the following season and £2m if West Brom
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

Liquidation threat at Rochdale

Rochdale is having a pantomime by-election while its football club faces going out of business. Liquidation s the fate Rochdale face, according to their board, if the club’s 650 small shareholders do not vote the club out of fan ownership by agreeing to issue nine million new shares at an extraordinary general meeting on March 7. These new shares, 90 per cent of the club, will be available to purchase by a new owner for 22p each, which would immediately put £2m into the club. The club’s current directors took over in June 2021, picking up the pieces after Rochdale were relegated from League One. With their finances already stretched by the pandemic, the board was immediately forced to defend Rochdale from a hostile takeover. They won that war but were relegated from League Two last season, ending a 102-year stay in the EFL. But Rochdale are not a basket case. Their debts total about £1m and most of that is to the chairman. They also own their stadium, which is worth about £5m and has r
Post a Comment
Read more

Gulls in administration

Former Football League club Torquay United are to be placed into administration as their owner can no longer fund the club:  https://torquayunited.com/club-statement-12/ The statement says:  ' The financing of football in this country is precarious and can only thrive in the lower divisions where there is either a close collaborative relationship with the local authority, it is a trophy asset or is backed by substantial local individuals and businesses. I believe that it needs a fundamental overhaul of its financing structure, rights distribution in the lower leagues and recognition that many clubs represent a fundamental part of the local community and its visitor attractions. Ambitious Clubs should in my opinion be given special status in their push to bring in investment, develop facilities, bring spend and employment to the local economy.' Osborne has made several mistakes since taking charge in 2016, but he has lent the club £5m to keep them afloat. He is unlikely to get m
Post a Comment
Read more

Brentford: an inexpensive route for US investors?

Matthew Benham has appointed Rothschild to oversee the potential sale of Brentford in a deal that is expected to value the Premier League club at about £500 million. Insiders insist that Benham, the British businessman credited with the transformation of the club since taking control in 2012, would ideally like to remain the majority owner while attracting fresh investment.  But that position could change if Rothschild finds an appropriate buyer, with Sky News reporting that Benham, 55, would then agree to relinquish control and seek to remain involved as a minority shareholder. Rothschild is expected to launch the process imminently, with interest likely to come from US investors attracted by the chance to gain a relatively inexpensive foothold in the Premier League, compared with clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester United, not to mention a smart new stadium. A Brentford spokesperson said: “Given the recent rise and growth of our club and the changing shareholder landscape with
Post a Comment
Read more

Ratcliffe's vision for United

Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he wants Manchester United to fight for Premier League titles within three years, as he laid out his vision to rebuild one of the world’s most popular football teams. Speaking to journalists at Ineos’s headquarters in west London on Wednesday, the British chemicals billionaire called for “patience” from fans and warned that transforming the club would take time. However, he acknowledged that supporters had already endured more than a decade of “complete misery”. “It’s not a light switch, it’s not one of these things that changes overnight,” said Ratcliffe, who completed a deal to buy 27 per cent of the club on Tuesday. “The fans would run out of patience if it was a 10-year plan, but it’s certainly a three-year plan to get there.” The 71-year-old has set his sights on winning the Premier League and the Champions League, and knocking local rivals Liverpool and Manchester City “off their perch”. To achieve those goals, the top priority in the short term was imp
Post a Comment
Read more

German football gives way to fans on outside investment

The German football league (the Bundesliga) has called off talks over a potential investment from private equity after mass protests from fans, the third time it has failed in its efforts to bring in outside capital.    This means Germany has kept to its Sonderweg. The notion of a Verein or association is deeply embedded in German culture and it is possible to characterise Germany as an ‘associative state’.   Leaving aside a couple of company owned teams such as Bayer Leverkusen, football clubs in Germany were Eintrager Verein   (e.V.) or member associations.    In 1998 the German football association adopted the 50+1 rule which has been much admired by reformers in Britain.   This allows the club to become a commercially run entity (such as a limited liability company) and distribute profits to its investors. At the same time 50 per cent plus one of the voting shares must remain in the hands of the e.V., so that ultimately the members’ associations retain control.    The rise of
Post a Comment
Read more

Time to abandon the Sonderweg says Leverkusen chief

It is a general characteristic of public policy debate in Britain to see Germany as an example from which lessons can be drawn.   This is understandable given the success of the German economy and the way in which, for example, developed systems of training that have produced high levels of skill. Modell Deutschland had to deal with the challenges of unification, Europeanisation and the Eurozone crisis, unprecedented levels of immigration by refugees, globalisation and the rise of far right parties and at times it has looked fragile.  Nevertheless, it has largely survived and Germany was widely praised for its response to Covid-19 while the German economy and German soccer made a relatively rapid recovery which has now subsided whilst the traffic light coalition government is seen as divided and weak. Replicating the 50+1 rule in England (confining outside investors to a minority stake in most clubs) attracts considerable support, but its translation to a different environment is not
Post a Comment
Read more