Marching On Together

Considering what he did when selling Chelsea, surely his plans are to make us a saleable asset. People have questioned why hes spending funds on the stadium improvements but it will make us a good prospect.

Look at other clubs that have been taken over its unusual why we aren't the perfect acquisition. A one club city of Leeds size and with our huge and established fanbase.

I know we don't own the stadium the prospect of a takeover would probably include purchase of the grounds from the council.

Who would be happy for a big money takeover? Is it the only way forward in modern football or is it still possible to achieve things through patience and team spirit.

I would prefer us to do it the hard way but we can only accept what Bates decides to do in future.

Chelseea pre-Abrahmavic were not far off being genuine title contenders.

weasel wrote:Chelseea pre-Abrahmavic were not far off being genuine title contenders.

yeah they were... it needed Abramoviches millions for the final push. they'd made a couple of runs at it (as we did) and they did get within 4 points in 88/89 but never really threatened again until RA bought in

Breaking into the top four or five in the premiership & more importantly sustaining that position will always be a tough nut to crack no matter what happens to our club

weasel wrote:Chelseea pre-Abrahmavic were not far off being genuine title contenders.

You forget that Bluescum were on the verge of oblivion with unsustainable debt and Roman if he'd not been rebuffed by the spuds would not have got involved with Bluescum, Bates had leeched off Harding's money & Bates wasn't looking to sell Bluescum but was looking for money to bail him out until Roman made him an offer he couldn't refuse (probably over sushi in central London).

It is odd that our club has never been bought by a big money spender.

Emsley wrote:It is odd that our club has never been bought by a big money spender.

yeah it has

revieboy wrote:Considering what he did when selling Chelsea, surely his plans are to make us a saleable asset. People have questioned why hes spending funds on the stadium improvements but it will make us a good prospect.

Look at other clubs that have been taken over its unusual why we aren't the perfect acquisition. A one club city of Leeds size and with our huge and established fanbase.

I know we don't own the stadium the prospect of a takeover would probably include purchase of the grounds from the council.

Who would be happy for a big money takeover? Is it the only way forward in modern football or is it still possible to achieve things through patience and team spirit.

I would prefer us to do it the hard way but we can only accept what Bates decides to do in future.

I totally buy into your argument about LUFC being the most attractive club out there without serious financial backing it perplexes me that there isn't interest, well actually it doesn't as there has been but its been rebuffed by certain parties.

Here's a few things to consider:

Rather than invest and upgrade facilities we don't own why wouldn't we have repurchased reduced our operating costs even if we had to borrow some money to repurchase, the cost of borrowing is at all time lows (even lower last year).

If we owned ER or TA or both we would be eminently more attractive, additionally we would also have assets we could use as collateral to invest in the facilities rather than having to fund improvements off operating profits (player sales in our case). I wonder why as a business we would want to pay ever increasing rent when we could repurchase ER/TA and reduce our cost base even with mortgage repayments who benefits from paying rent.

Whats the return on the investment of Ken's tent & ESU refurbishment I suspect it's minimally 3 years but more likely 5 to 7 years that has been funded again from operations rather than taking strategic debt that could be paid off over a 3 to 7 year period rather than up front out of operations.

Using operating profits (player sales as that is the only way we are profitable even after exceeding our break even numbers regarding crowds) to fund capital projects has negated investment in players and team strengthening, I'm not advocating mortgaging our future ala Liesdale but if we had been investing 2M+ over the last 3 seasons we would be back in the EPL, QPR & Norwich both invested 5M+ this season and got automatic promotion.

Can imagine investors are put off due to our fans, history from Bowyer gate etc, we have no assets no stadium, no training ground need i go on..

faaip wrote: yeah it has

& will happen again in the not too distant future !

Jason123 wrote:Can imagine investors are put off due to our fans, history from Bowyer gate etc, we have no assets no stadium, no training ground need i go on..

Im losing the will to live here.

Bates will bE dead by the end of next season he is 80 now

Obviously if we ever want to be at the top again we'll need to be bought out, but in the mean-time i think Ken's doing a good job...

I've personally always felt that Ken's plan was to get us back to the premier league spending as little as he possibly could, and then sell us on... and i still thinks that's the case now...

Council do NOT own the ground!! I

t's more than likely it belongs to Bates, but under the present name of whoeveritmightbeatthemoment?? It's all very well making a property good to sell, but if the team playing are shite, whats the point? No one is going to invest intensively if their main concern cannot perform. Get the team a winning one and then invest in property to make the whole package more attractive but to invest in the property and half heartedly in the team doesn't make sense to me. Not unless you don't give a sh1t about the club, but are only interested in the property to be a saleable asset for redevelopment issues.

joelufc20 wrote:Bates will bE dead by the end of next season he is 80 now

Bit harsh

Armleywhite wrote:Get the team a winning one and then invest in property to make the whole package more attractive but to invest in the property and half heartedly in the team doesn't make sense to me.

Seen it happen over here North & South - clubs investing in the infrastructure, but producing shite on the pitch. This in turn led to dwindling crowds and so a downward spiral was begun. All that results are the proverbial white elephants.

Armleywhite wrote:Council do NOT own the ground!! I

t's more than likely it belongs to Bates, but under the present name of whoeveritmightbeatthemoment?? It's all very well making a property good to sell, but if the team playing are shite, whats the point? No one is going to invest intensively if their main concern cannot perform. Get the team a winning one and then invest in property to make the whole package more attractive but to invest in the property and half heartedly in the team doesn't make sense to me. Not unless you don't give a sh1t about the club, but are only interested in the property to be a saleable asset for redevelopment issues.

I partially tend to agree Armley, I thought that Jacob Adler, based in Scumland, still owned the stadium and training facilities. However, I found out recently that he sold on the properties to Teak Trading at the end of 2006, (both of my parents dies over that period, probably why I didn't know before) who are a company based in the British Virgin Islands......... know anyone else who operates secretive companies in tax havens? I have a soft spot for Kuddly, but he does tend to play his cards close to his chest

Guy's like Ken Bates live till they are 200 in most cases.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bates isn't actually looking to sell. Let's face it he doesn't need the money but he does like being in the spotlight and being able to start high profile arguments. After selling Chelsea he probably got a bit bored and rather than simply retire and fade out of existence he took us over. Due to his tax exile status it also means that he still gets plenty of time at home with the wife living it up in Monaco.

That said though the clubs that have been taken over have had a lot of the infrastructure in place. Man City taken over shortly after getting the City Of Manchester stadium for free. Chelsea taken over with the whole Chelsea Village thing and as such a huge property portfolio in the mega expensive Chelsea/Kensington area of London. Man U taken over - worldwide merchandising already in place, huge stadium owned by the club, huge fanbase. Liverpool similarly own their stadium, world wide merchandising etc. Basically all of these clubs have the infrastructure in place so just need a few players (except MU) to move on to another level. The income is guaranteed through the turnstile and tv money and they don't have to pay rent for stadiums, training pitches etc.