Has anyone's view on Stuart Donald changed in the last few weeks ?

Nil desperandum said:
Seemed to me that Charlie was the only one with a semblance of control. Donald came over as a kid with a crush on hs teacher whilst Hill and Coton were ..... as we've all deeply suspected - way out of their depth.
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coto ius operastiong at the lowest level of football he ever has in his career i think? or maybe joint lowest?
nowt he can do about donald knocking back his recommendation and oiver paying for grigg instead..
hill made the righ call on grigg..yet stick gets flack..
coton recommeneded grigg and marquis..ross said grigg was prefffered..but then, rightly, joined with hill and said diot go higher for grigg...

the right thing for donald to do then would be to switch to marquis,..who we would certainly have had for £1.25m..
marquis has scored more goals tha grigg this season i think..
 


KittenMittens said:
I am very interested to see the club accounts this month (unless they avoid that by doing what Ashley has done)

There was a loan via Close Bros that was taken out and used to pay Ellis Short this time last year, and the only thing at that point outstanding was the purchase of shares by Donald from Short. We haven't heard anything about how that amount was then put back into the club, and why a loan was taken out in the club's name to pay that debt in the first place. I am hopeful (although I can see a way they could have avoided it) that we will be a little more clear on that soon.
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Repaid in full before the year end, and used instead of an overdraft because it was cheaper. It wasn't even secured. It was done to smooth cash flow.
 
kildaremackem said:
coto ius operastiong at the lowest level of football he ever has in his career i think? or maybe joint lowest?
nowt he can do about donald knocking back his recommendation and oiver paying for grigg instead..
hill made the righ call on grigg..yet stick gets flack..
coton recommeneded grigg and marquis..ross said grigg was prefffered..but then, rightly, joined with hill and said diot go higher for grigg...

the right thing for donald to do then would be to switch to marquis,..who we would certainly have had for £1.25m..
marquis has scored more goals tha grigg this season i think..
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:lol::lol::lol:
 
kildaremackem said:
coto ius operastiong at the lowest level of football he ever has in his career i think? or maybe joint lowest?
nowt he can do about donald knocking back his recommendation and oiver paying for grigg instead..
hill made the righ call on grigg..yet stick gets flack..
coton recommeneded grigg and marquis..ross said grigg was prefffered..but then, rightly, joined with hill and said diot go higher for grigg...

the right thing for donald to do then would be to switch to marquis,..who we would certainly have had for £1.25m..
marquis has scored more goals tha grigg this season i think..
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We were quoted £10m for Marquis. It was shown in STID.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
Repaid in full before the year end, and used instead of an overdraft because it was cheaper. It wasn't even secured. It was done to smooth cash flow.
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The close bros loan was paid back, yes, because that was always going to be paid back by the parachute payments. But of course, 'the majority' of that was actually used by Donald to buy something (his shares). My question is what happened with that money.

Fair question, right? If he spent (for example) £6.5m of that loan, he should owe it back to the club.
 
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Daks said:
The lack of funds from the beginning was startling.
When they were talking about changing stadium name , changing club crest even to make a few quid and really changing anything at the club for a pittance of money
Me and a few others called them out from very early days and got slated on here.
But , has anyone changed there view on him and methven after recent documentary and interviews etc ?
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No always defended the job they were trying to do. Always thought Donald was genuine and Methven was a typical PR man and hence not very sincere.
They did the hard part getting the finances sorted and failed on the easy bit... getting out of this division. Didnt like it when the faithful got impatient and don’t have the money to ride it out.
Thanks for sorting the finances and we move on
 
KittenMittens said:
The close bros loan was paid back, yes, because that was always going to be paid back by the parachute payments. But of course, 'the majority' of that was actually used by Donald to buy something (his shares). My question is what happened with that money.

Fair question, right? If he spent (for example) £6.5m of that loan, he should owe it back to the club.
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Evidence for this?
 
Chewit said:
No always defended the job they were trying to do. Always thought Donald was genuine and Methven was a typical PR man and hence not very sincere.
They did the hard part getting the finances sorted and failed on the easy bit... getting out of this division. Didnt like it when the faithful got impatient and don’t have the money to ride it out.
Thanks for sorting the finances and we move on
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I've just watched the Grigg episode again and it highlights so clearly that they were out of their depth - Donald especially. I think Donald is by far the more genuine decent bloke and had a feel for us fans even though it was ego driven but was never wealthy enough or wise enough to be at Sunderland and future success was always going to be reliant on further investment or a sale later on. Donald thought further investment in him would do it but he is a nice enough but not smart enough bloke. Methven is pretty savvy in a business sense but an absolute wanker. They are not the right people to be running our club. Savage cuts were needed we all know that but in a way they weren't in a position to do it at the right pace. At risk of repetition the need to cut so fast meant they didn't have the resources to tackle the other urgent issues quickly enough - alongside the cuts and as he said even himself he is now running a high cost league one club and cant afford it. We simply must have a different decision maker and deeper pockets to enable us to grow.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
Evidence for this?
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His own words, GOM. He said it in the May podcast last season. He said that 'the bulk of' that loan went to Ellis Short.

There was nothing else left to pay as the SBC charge was lifted in August of 2018.


1:12:50

He was getting rid of the charge Short had over him (and the club) for his shares. I'd guess so he could sell to Campbell who was on the table at that time, but that part is just parsing his words.

Either way, I think it's time to accept that this is what happened, and ask when and how that money came back.
 
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Vauxie said:
He bought us when nobody else did and we are now stable, he has done alrreet in my book.
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Yep, at a time when operationally we were a complete disaster and Short had chucked the towel in - people have short memories and unrealistic demands. SD has lived every minute since taking us on and now as a viable business we can at least operate on a day to day level. He's transformed the shit show and whilst we don't like being in League one, this is our medicine after years of awful management and decision making. I think we need to show patience, which I know is rare in the football world. We are a league one team now and have begun the slow process of rebuilding.
 
Don’t think he’s the most evil bloke in the world, but he’s shown that he’s full of half truths, trying to spin plenty in his favour.

He’s not up to running a club the size of SAFC.
 
KittenMittens said:
His own words, GOM. He said it in the May podcast last season. He said that 'the bulk of' that loan went to Ellis Short.

There was nothing else left to pay as the SBC charge was lifted in August of 2018.


1:12:50

He was getting rid of the charge Short had over him (and the club) for his shares. I'd guess so he could sell to Campbell who was on the table at that time, but that part is just parsing his words.

Either way, I think it's time to accept that this is what happened, and ask when and how that money came back.
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The SBC charge on Sunderland was lifted. SBC's charge over Short's assets wasn't lifted until May 2019. SBC had to lift the charge on Sunderland because none of the Sunderland companies owed them money - Drumaville did, and the agreement was that Sunderland would be paying it off with the parachute. From the date of the final removal of SBC's charges, it looks as though Short has applied money from Madrox to the share purchase first. This also indicates that Short had been by in full by this time last year.

Campbell wasn't in the picture until late spring 2019 in any event, so what happened the previous August is irrelevant to that. Forget what happened here - it's what happened in Short's companies that tells us more.
 
Watmore can I say said:
When will people realise that we are a f***ing terrible purchase to anyone with half a business brain? Sunderland AFC is not a saleable asset to anyone other than to someone who wants a vanity project.

We could have a lot worse than Stewart Donald in charge of the club, he's not minted but he never said he was.

But but but he bought the club with parachute payments....... He bought the club when no one else would take it on and it was on Ellis Short's terms.
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Red bull could make money out of the club and bring it relative success. I dont understand why they havent taken an english club on.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
The SBC charge on Sunderland was lifted. SBC's charge over Short's assets wasn't lifted until May 2019. SBC had to lift the charge on Sunderland because none of the Sunderland companies owed them money - Drumaville did, and the agreement was that Sunderland would be paying it off with the parachute. From the date of the final removal of SBC's charges, it looks as though Short has applied money from Madrox to the share purchase first. This also indicates that Short had been by in full by this time last year.

Campbell wasn't in the picture until late spring 2019 in any event, so what happened the previous August is irrelevant to that. Forget what happened here - it's what happened in Short's companies that tells us more.
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But what you're saying matters both ways, because it's Donald effectively using the parachute payments to pay his own debt to Short.

When they removed the charge in 2018 a reasonable assumption is that £25m of the clubs money had been paid to Short and guaranteed to SBC for SAFC's accumulated debt of £25m. Do we agree on that? I don't think they'd lift the charge over SAFC unless Short/Drumaville had satisfied that part of the charge.

Short taking out an SBC loan is effectively him fiddling this so that Donald could pay for the shares with the club's money isn't it? Ultimately that's what it means, and again, I question whether we will see that reconciled at any point. We know £25m went to SBC for debt accumulated by the club, we assume £5m was deposited by Donald on day one for the shares, but that still leaves £7.4m that Donald paid at some point - whether in summer of 2018 or spring of 2019 - to Short out of the parachute payments (or via a credit facility based on them).

That's why I'm interested in the accounts, they could reveal that this has been paid back or they could reveal that it's still owed. My biggest fear is that because of the Close Bros mechanism, the money paid in April 2019 to Ellis Short will be unaccounted for and not counted as being owed back to SAFC.
 
KittenMittens said:
But what you're saying matters both ways, because it's Donald effectively using the parachute payments to pay his own debt to Short.

When they removed the charge in 2018 a reasonable assumption is that £25m of the clubs money had been paid to Short and guaranteed to SBC for SAFC's accumulated debt of £25m. Do we agree on that? I don't think they'd lift the charge over SAFC unless Short/Drumaville had satisfied that part of the charge.

Short taking out an SBC loan is effectively him fiddling this so that Donald could pay for the shares with the club's money isn't it? Ultimately that's what it means, and again, I question whether we will see that reconciled at any point. We know £25m went to SBC for debt accumulated by the club, we assume £5m was deposited by Donald on day one for the shares, but that still leaves £7.4m that Donald paid at some point - whether in summer of 2018 or spring of 2019 - to Short out of the parachute payments (or via a credit facility based on them).

That's why I'm interested in the accounts, they could reveal that this has been paid back or they could reveal that it's still owed. My biggest fear is that because of the Close Bros mechanism, the money paid in April 2019 to Ellis Short will be unaccounted for and not counted as being owed back to SAFC.
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No, the charges over Sunderland were replaced by charges over Short's assets instead. Short in turn had charges over Sunderland's assets. You can't just look at one side of the transaction. Short taking out the loan was a cosmetic exercise to ensure the club looked debt free - simple as that. You ignore the possibility that Donald put further money into Madrox to clear the balance on the share purchase. You keep claiming that the Madrox/Sunderland debt rose to £32m, when there's no verifiable evidence that that's actually the case.
 

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