Would you sacrifice the naming rights

[pboromag]

anyone can waste money
transfers and players are not an exact science
we usually criticise after the event
however look at the duds sheppard brought towards the end

loads and loads

he was 2 seasons away from destroying the toon in any form we want it to be

the debt was huge wen they sold to ash
and was ony increaing as the league positions got lower

ash aint great
but he is more stable

and when required he does back his investment

ie when we go down he makes sure we have the funds and te backing to come up

i dont think sheppard had this money

[TheOtherTerryMac]

anyone can waste money
transfers and players are not an exact science
we usually criticise after the event
however look at the duds sheppard brought towards the end

loads and loads

he was 2 seasons away from destroying the toon in any form we want it to be

the debt was huge wen they sold to ash
and was ony increaing as the league positions got lower

ash aint great
but he is more stable

and when required he does back his investment

ie when we go down he makes sure we have the funds and te backing to come up

i dont think sheppard had this money

He got use relegated twice through lack of investment so we have to thank our great saviour for investing money in his Club to get us promoted again

Yeah we have a load to thank him for.

[pboromag]

He got use relegated twice through lack of investment so we have to thank our great saviour for investing money in his Club to get us promoted again

Yeah we have a load to thank him for.

invetment if he didnt have the debt he may have been able to make

[Zippity]

Going forward, the main problem now is that Ashley isn't interested in progressing us as a club beyond existing in the Premier League.

If we ever want to have even the chance to achieve anything, he has to go. Simple as that.

[TheOtherTerryMac]

invetment if he didnt have the debt he may have been able to make

The debt is still there and increasing every year man. He hasn’t paid any of HIS debt off we are more in debt now than we were when he took the Club over. He has invested Jack Sh it in the Club since he took over.

It was his incompetence in the first place that he didn’t carry out the correct due diligence and thought he was getting a good deal. Greed got the better of him and he signed off on the deal thinking he had come out trumps

Nobody to blame for this other than Ashley nobody to blame for two relegations other than Ashley

We are now supposed to be a well run Club I don’t see it that way.

[pboromag]

look at sunderland etc
thats not a run welll club

people keep saying ash was duped

yes he was
sheppard had spent our money

they had threatened our club

if ash had come in with no debts
maybe he would have invested the 100 odd mill in players then
wortha whole lot more than it is now

he was eager at first

the wind was knocked ot of him when the debt was there

i think that he always was going to make the club self fnding

but when it is straddled with 100 odd mill of debt from the start it mucked it all up

and that part was the sheppards fault

idits can laugh that he didnt do due dilligence

2 things
if he had and not brought the club where would we be under sheppard
we had players on huge contract that werent performing etc
we had spent money we didnt have
we ere slipping down the league
we owed money we couldnt pay back
we needed money for new players
a lot of the squad were near end of contracts or just needed replacing
the sheppards and their family were taking loads out the club for personal gain when they knew it was in debt ,stealing yours and mine money
threatening the very existence of our club
at least when ash makes a mistake
he spends to rectify it
the sheppards just kept plundering it

secondly
if it was revealed and he insisted on a lower price would the sheppards have sold or just let the club do a sunderland when no one wanted a club with so much debt and such a lot to do

the fact the debt sits there and is there and the fact its increasing will put investors off

the club as it stands with purchase clearing of debt and a transfer kitty is a 600 million spend minimum

[ghostrider]

If Ashley sells up he sells up owing nothing to banks. It's all in house debt, if people want to call it debt.

At this moment in time it's a club debt with Ashley as owner of the club.
Look at it like buying a run down house and ploughing a large wedge into doing it up.

Any debt paid on that house leaves that debt under the owners control, as in, the owner sells on with that paid up debt added in for whatever reasons it's there.
The new owner buys the property for the price agreed and start with a clean slate, except for the natural bills of that property as it stands.

That's why the club is around 400 million.
Buy that and you buy all of it, debt free.

[TheOtherTerryMac]

Posters are staying that we are a well run club self sufficient on a level footing. This is total bull shyte we are a club b in debt to the tune of £150million

You can dress it up anyway you like but the fact still remains that we are a club in debt. It does not make a jot of difference who the money is owed to. You can not say Oh it’s not real debt as it’s a loan off the owner. Chelsea or in debt to the tune of £1,14 billion to their Russian owner.

When Ashley sells the Club he will want his money back exactly the same if we borrowed the money from a bank or a consortium of investors.

I have just googled premier club finances and you would be shocked how many clubs have none or very little debt.

We are a premier league Club with a lot of debt and it will never change with the present owner. Financially Sunderland are better off than us.

[pboromag]

but he didnt create the majority of the debt
and if he had known about it he could of and would of taken the debt from the asking/selling price
either way he didnt create the majority of it
so if you take what he inhertited away from what it is now it isnt that bad

but either way it has stopped him investing

would you swap sunderlands position for ours and our debt ??

we dont have any debt
we have a loan from ashly
as do many other clubs

sunderland had a debt of 110 mill a year ago and interest was 8 mill a year on that aloan

[ghostrider]

I'll say it again. This club is not in debt, except to the owner of the club.
If the owner sells the club he's not going to sell it for a set price and then say " ohhh, by the way, I might as well tell you that you've also got a few hundred million debt to sort out before you start doing anything else."
He's going to sell it for a set price which makes the club itself debt free after it's bought for that set price.

Unlike Hall and Shepherd who sold the club for profit and also left the debt to the new owner who was naive (?) enough to jump into the deep end to find the debt as a massive anchor and chain around his neck...but he solved the debt problem by taking it away from the banks and outside monetary interest and gathered it all in house, owed personally to himself as an interest free loan rather than accruing interest on a debt alone before any debt is paid.

However...like I said. Unlike Hall and Shepherd who trousered a fortune and left debt, Ashley will trouser whatever he trousers in with his asking price for the club....lock stock and barrel, with no shock horror due diligence issues.

That's the difference and that means that although theoretically we can say we are in debt as it stands, it's a debt that does not carry forward and nor is it a debt that has any detriment on the club's future in terms of financial stability or interest build. Ashley has saw to that but it gets swept under the rug in favour of him somehow taking the club to the cleaners and pocketing fortunes....somehow.


It wasn't too long ago (and people can admit it or not) that some fans were lauding Ellis Short for the job he was doing in terms of not being afraid to buy players and pay them decent money to try and build a team.
I saw a few posters on here that wished we had an Ellis Short and not Ashley.
I'm more than sure nobody is wishing that, even as it stands...right?

I saw how many wanted us to copy the Southampton model. I remember once that some fans wanted us to copy the Dave Whelan way, because apparently this man knew how to run a club and Ashley was just a FCB who couldn't run one.


The reality is a tad different but the arguments will roll on until Ashley leaves, because the dislike for him is at fever pitch with some and at a stubborn dead end with others who will rarely give an inch in terms of any good he's done.......it's all bad apparently.

People are quite entitled to their thoughts though, because it's entirely up to each and every individual to decide what they think is right or wrong about the running of the club and/or the potential long term value of it in monetary terms and obviously footballing stance against the elite.
But just remember that we could be under a much much worse ownership than people think Ashley already is.

It's one of the reasons why I'd rather have him than take a chance on some PCP type coming in....because they're the real wolf in sheep clothing type, I believe.