by Stranded »
02 Nov 2023 08:51
YorkshireRoyal99 blythspartan I think the club will be liquidated and I have some money towards a phoenix club.
For all Storey’s bollox, I do wonder what due diligence from a potential investor might unearth. We have way more overheads than other clubs who have been in our position and I can honestly see there being too much shit to sort out.
I sometimes think Ejaria hasn’t been played so that we don’t trigger an appearance clause in his contract, which would mean more money paid to Liverpool. I appreciate this is all doom and gloom, but I can’t see a happy ending.
Saying that, it will be good fun supporting a Phoenix club and ground sharing with Maidenhead. We can break some crowd records in non league football.
I don't think it will go as far as a phoenix club, if we enter administration, I'd imagine that's the time someone like Ashley would buy us when we are worth absolutely nothing (figuratively speaking), that's when I think he'd pick the club up.
The issue I'd have with Ashley is he would only want us once we are at our lowest value, which would be once we've entered administration, which would almost certainly mean we'd be playing in L2 next season. The problem there is, what does that mean for the infrastructure of the club, in terms of the training facilities, academy, playing squad etc. Further cut backs would be necessary. All this would be fine if there was a guarantee we'd make it back up to L1 and then work towards the Championship again, but as we have seen with clubs like Bradford and Swindon, that isn't always the case.
Ashley would be one of the better options for the medium/long-term, although I think potentially another consortium willing to pay the price for ourselves now gives us a better chance to get out of this mess in the short-term, giving us a better chance of survival this season and keeping hold of what we've built behind the scenes. The risk then being, how do we know we haven't got another Dai on our hands? At least we know what we will get with Ashley. I just don't see liquidation happening under any circumstance.
One of the big problems at the moment is any new owner will look at the league table, see a side 8 points adrift of safety and on a run of what 7 without a win. They will be aware of the charge that has now been levied which, IMO at best, will bring a suspended points penalty activated at a certain date if the amount remains unpaid - so in short, they will look at the club as more than likely to be in L2 next season as things stands.
Given that, why would you pay 40m now and probably end up with a L2 side when you could wait for administration and pick up the same L2 club for half the price? If we are go down, we are probably going to have to strip down the academy, sell a lot of players and literally start again, again. So why pay more on the off chance the club may stay in L1. Remember we can't really strengthen in January as we can't pay any fees, so you would be hoping that changing the manager brings about a massive change and that no more punishments are brought against the club.
In short, Dai has shafted himself and more importantly us.