multisync1830 I'm not up in money laundering so walk me through this.
I get money illegally or I don't declare money and pour it into a loss making business the other side of the world. What is in it for me?
As an aside Thailand has strict anti ML laws and a 78 year old respectable business woman is unlikely to be interested in this plus it's far to high profile.
It can only be for the land which will most likely be transformed around the stadium and Bearwood. Where the club fits in less obvious.
I don't buy the whole 'it can only be for the land' story. Sir John seemingly had his pick of groups that all wanted the club for the land, and by the sounds of it the likes of Phoenix would have gone through the financing part far quicker.
Why does anyone buy any company? Because they believe that the potential value of the company is greater than the price they are paying. There is real potential at RFC. We have a strong supporter base, a good amount of land, a modern stadium with grounds for expansion, an excellent academy, and compared to a lot of clubs not a huge amount of debt. As well as 3 more years of parachute payments. It could well be that the Thais have recognised that with no debt this club will only need a small amount of investment to capitalise on the decent infrastructure that has been built over the past 15 years.
Some will choose to offer different scenarios, and that's fair enough (once bitten twice shy and all that), but to suggest that Money Laundering is the 'one and only reason' is a complete joke. And I believe there is far more to this deal than just land development. Time will tell - John seems pretty happy and as long the FL tests don't point to insincere intentions I'm happy to give the Thais a chance to tell us their plans and then see if they back those plans up.