Let's look at a few of the stories knocking around on News Now for a moment. According to one headline our creditors are about to take over the club. Tribal Lifted From Other Sources claims,
"West Ham United is poised to be taken over by its creditors in coming weeks. The Sunday Times says sources close to the east London football club suggest the huge debts of former owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson and those of the club itself have all but killed the chances of any rescue. This means it will fall into the hands of Icelandic bank Straumur and a consortium of other financial institutions. Straumur is owed about £100m by Gudmundsson, while the club owes about £45m to a group of banks including RBS. The Icelandic bank is expected to hold on to the club for between two and three years before putting it up for sale."
Now, if that is true, it sounds pretty serious to me. I know people have argued that because it is the owner and not the club that is in receivership, we will not be deducted points; but I'm not so sure. Southampton tried the same line as that and are kicking off the new season with a 10 point deduction aren't they? What is good for the goose and all that...more red and white stripes to come back to haunt us perhaps?
Meanwhile, Robert Green is pressing for parity wages with Neill and co. Now I may be in a funny parallel universe here but aren't businesses that are facing receivership meant to cut wage costs, not increase them? There's no doubt that we have offered Green more, but not enough to keep him happy seemingly. These two stories just don't tally do they?
Then there are the rumours of us being in the market to buy players. How exactly? If we haven't got the money to service our debts, how can we be in a position to increase those debts? I suppose the argument is that the debt remains, it is just that the new company that owns us (our principle creditors) is now responsible for paying the debt back - to themselves apparently! Seems confusing to me!
Now if I was a player with the club, or thinking of joining the club, I would want this situation resolved VERY quickly. If I was the Premier League or the PFA or FA I might be calling soon for on a ban on the signing of players by the club until the financial situation is resolved. As a fan, I am very concerned. I want clarity and at the moment, all I see is a fog. What is REALLY going on?
5 comments:
Don't forget that Clarky may be off to Celtic!
Then we would be buggered! He is the power behind the throne in my opinion. The move makes sense for him and Celtic sadly. Worrying!
I have been worried for some time about our dodgy finances but mainly because we are badly overdue publishing our accounts. More importantly, we've delayed publishing them by cynical rule bending in similar fashion to what we did when lying about the side agreement over Tevez.
Until we can see the accounts published at Companies House then we should fear the worst. If they show we are barely surviving and our debts are increasing then we might have trouble with The Prem. On the other hand if we are running profitably despite highish borrowings and a bankrupt owner, we should be OK.
Billbanksy
We should sign Billy Jones from Preston.
There is no comparison w Soton. Lowe set up a holding company to hide Soton's debts. WH are not in debt. Straumer and/or the Icelandic govt will take BG's assets for his debt.
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