SAFC response to latest stories


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Still cant see how this is gonna end well for any of us.
Theyre pissing off their customers... many of whom feel that these guys cant be trusted and why should we keep throwing money at them to line their pockets on a payday deal with in return for us
what happens if they cant sell? what happens in many of us walk away?
whats the realistic outcome given where we are all at here and now?
 
Still cant see how this is gonna end well for any of us.
Theyre pissing off their customers... many of whom feel that these guys cant be trusted and why should we keep throwing money at them to line their pockets on a payday deal with in return for us
what happens if they cant sell? what happens in many of us walk away?
whats the realistic outcome given where we are all at here and now?

The club would go bust,
 
If you can't understand that there's a difference between a journalist guessing at the clubs financial state, to direct questions to the club about the finances then I'm not explaining it to you
We’re all guessing at the club’s financial state because Toot and Ploot change their minds every time they open their mouths, my guess is we’re skint and don’t have the proverbial pot to piss in, meanwhile Toot is trying to do a magic trick by selling something for more than it’s worth (and considerably less than he paid for it) whilst maintaining a controlling interest, or at least remaining in charge, the bloke is deluded.
 
Who was that lad you had on the podcast with the Yorkshire accent? He’s f***ing clueless. Half the stuff he was moaning about the owners have already responded to. Was he literally just there to whinge and agree with you?

Usually enjoy the podcasts but that was a shambles yesterday.

How about having someone on with a balanced view?

Donald said on a podcast last year that the club was owed money by Madrox and this would be drip fed back in when the club needed it.
 
The club would go bust,
Is that not blackmail?

@GBSAFC makes a point. People are losing their jobs and won't have the money that they use to. People will have bills to pay. This pandemic shows that there is more important things than football. Also we won't be be going to watch football anytime soon.

Why should people fill Stewart Donald's pockets when they are struggling? Why should they spend money on something they don't enjoy?

If Donald couldn't afford to buy the club he shouldn't have bought it. Clubs will go bust as long the FA and EFL allow chancers like this to buy clubs and use them to improve their bank accounts rather than run them like clubs.

Stewart Donald doesn't care about SAFC. He cares about money. If we go bust it won't be the fans fault. It'll be his.
Donald said on a podcast last year that the club was owed money by Madrox and this would be drip fed back in when the club needed it.
The man tells that many lies he doesn't know what the truth is anymore.
 
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Donald said on a podcast last year that the club was owed money by Madrox and this would be drip fed back in when the club needed it.
Well didn't you need some money in Jan for transfers to challenge for the top 2 or at least cement yourselves in the playoffs? And for a club who has got money at its disposal why are you selling your young talent? I might have got all that wrong and obviously I'm coming from an outside point of view. And I want you promoted btw.
 
Is that not blackmail?

@GBSAFC makes a point. People are losing their jobs and won't have the money that they use to. People will have bills to pay. This pandemic shows that there is more important things than football. Also we won't be be going to watch football anytime soon.

Why should people fill Stewart Donald's pockets when they are struggling? Why should they spend money on something they don't enjoy?

If Donald couldn't afford to buy the club he shouldn't have bought it. Clubs will go bust as long the FA and EFL allow chancers like this to buy clubs and use them to improve their bank accounts rather than run them like clubs.

Stewart Donald doesn't care about SAFC. He cares about money. If we go bust it won't be the fans fault. It'll be his.

The man tells that many lies he doesn't know what the truth is anymore.

I don't think so. In the absence of funds coming in from elsewhere, reduced income could conceivably result in ends not meeting. If push came to shove, if funds could be found, they would be, because going bust means, usually, that the shareholders lose everything. It's very much not in their best interests for insolvency to happen. People won't be filling Donald's pockets. Gate money goes to Sunderland, not Donald. If you aren't taking a salary or getting dividends, there are few legal ways of getting money out for an owner.
 
The club would go bust,

Its a real possibility but the world arround is changing fast.
money is getting tighter for many and the owners dont have a clue... they smell a possible big payday and are hoping they can run us on a shoestring.
but if the game is fucked (ie leagues finished sooner, behind close doors game for months to come)... who in their right mind buys into football right now
Is that not blackmail?

@GBSAFC makes a point. People are losing their jobs and won't have the money that they use to. People will have bills to pay. This pandemic shows that there is more important things than football. Also we won't be be going to watch football anytime soon.

Why should people fill Stewart Donald's pockets when they are struggling? Why should they spend money on something they don't enjoy?

If Donald couldn't afford to buy the club he shouldn't have bought it. Clubs will go bust as long the FA and EFL allow chancers like this to buy clubs and use them to improve their bank accounts rather than run them like clubs.

Stewart Donald doesn't care about SAFC. He cares about money. If we go bust it won't be the fans fault. It'll be his.

The man tells that many lies he doesn't know what the truth is anymore.


im trying to be objective but thats getting harder when we seen no evidence that these guys have:
a plan going forward
since day one it been short termism and a cant see them changing the reactive ways
an exit strategy thats routed in reality
I don't think so. In the absence of funds coming in from elsewhere, reduced income could conceivably result in ends not meeting. If push came to shove, if funds could be found, they would be, because going bust means, usually, that the shareholders lose everything. It's very much not in their best interests for insolvency to happen. People won't be filling Donald's pockets. Gate money goes to Sunderland, not Donald. If you aren't taking a salary or getting dividends, there are few legal ways of getting money out for an owner.
The problem many have is that weve had your of dross and failure... hopes in short supply and loyalty is like a well.... sooner or later it will run dry
 
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I don't think so. In the absence of funds coming in from elsewhere, reduced income could conceivably result in ends not meeting. If push came to shove, if funds could be found, they would be, because going bust means, usually, that the shareholders lose everything. It's very much not in their best interests for insolvency to happen. People won't be filling Donald's pockets. Gate money goes to Sunderland, not Donald. If you aren't taking a salary or getting dividends, there are few legal ways of getting money out for an owner.
Rangers didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bury didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bolton, Leicester, Southampton, Portsmouth.

They all hit the skits because of owners who claimed to have money and cooked the books. Just like what Donald is doing. Blaming the fans is a low blow.
 
Rangers didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bury didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bolton, Leicester, Southampton, Portsmouth.

They all hit the skits because of owners who claimed to have money and cooked the books. Just like what Donald is doing. Blaming the fans is a low blow.

I'm not blaming anyone. I told you, no opinions. I was asked what might happen if people stopped going. I've attended enough creditors' meetings to know that there are many, many causes of insolvency.
 
Rangers didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bury didn't go bust because the fans stop going. Bolton, Leicester, Southampton, Portsmouth.

They all hit the skits because of owners who claimed to have money and cooked the books. Just like what Donald is doing. Blaming the fans is a low blow.


Chris witherspoons (sic) threads have been reasonable forensic and pretty understandable to the laymen like me... they been provocative enough to make people sit up and see the problem
whats clear is that there are huge questions and the wall on almost denial isnt holding up.
football/the wordl is in a dark place right now , the game its lifeblood (fans and tv money) are under threat like never before. in such dire situation we look for our leaders to offer a strategy but our club like our country
is just symbiotically lurching along hoping for a lucky break rather that knowing what to do next
The Gers case was a club bought by dodgy deals and self funding... that ended very badly
 
Not convinced by their engagement with the Echo so late in the day.

Echo isn’t even produced at home anymore so it’s not as if they are dealing with the local journalists as I would think of them (Weatherall, Argus and those who followed).

The petulant one word responses in the article reeks of Methven.

It’s an ill conceived idea and will serve only to worsen a relationship between these clowns and the supporters which was already fractured.

Nobody believes a word they say so they would be better served by keeping quiet until they sell up, instead of which we have more self serving bullshit.

In short it’s a shambolic statement produced by someone whose profession is PR.

I can’t wait until these Directors, their newly appointed CEO (who’s sketchy CV warrants him being nowhere near the job here), Recruitment team (Don’t get me started) Manager and his assistants from first team down to U18 are gone.

It will need a new regime to set those wheels in motion, I just hope that they can be the right owners with enough expertise and sufficient financial clout to start to put in place the structure to get us heading in the right direction in the first instance.

The ongoing virus issues may end up forcing the current owners hand. 🤞
 
Well didn't you need some money in Jan for transfers to challenge for the top 2 or at least cement yourselves in the playoffs? And for a club who has got money at its disposal why are you selling your young talent? I might have got all that wrong and obviously I'm coming from an outside point of view. And I want you promoted btw.

I want a change ownership as much as anyone but the same people accusing Donald of lies are making up lies about him themselves. :lol: It’s ridiculous.

There is a salary cap in League 1 (SCMP) which could be why we aren’t spending a lot of money, however we were told there’d be significant investment in January if I remember correctly so the owner hasn’t helped himself again when we’ve only gone and spent about £100k on a bit part player from QPR.
 
........im trying to be objective but thats getting harder when we seen no evidence that these guys have:
a plan going forward............
The Madrox statement claims that they had / have a 5 year plan for the Club although I am at a loss as to what that might be. Having failed to get promotion after their first season their immediate reaction was to sell the Club. Such a step would seem to me to have removed any need to have previously prepared a further four years of it.

The prospect of selling up appears to have consumed all of the current time up until the end of September 2019 when the plan fell through. As far as the team was concerned during that period there was little evidence of any "second season phase" of any plan being put in to operation with regard to another attempt at promotion. Indeed the most obvious "lesson learned" in June 2019 - i.e. that Ross with his two Wembley failures wasn't the man to motivate the team and should be replaced before the new season started - wasn't even acted upon until October when it was clear that Donald was going to remain the owner of the Club. I didn't get the impression then that Ross's departure was any part of a preconceived plan or strategy so much as it was an act of desperation with the nw season already being well under way.

My view is that the club has just bumbled along this season. It enjoyed a little success around the New Year which began to falter before circumstances beyond the world of football have enabled us to avoid the full misery of ending another season with absolutely nothing achieved

Owing to the current emergency and the impending global financial crisis I should imagine that the remaining three years of any 5 year business plan for the Club has by now been rendered totally redundant. I think however that the plan is simply to keep the Club ticking over in League One and to sell it if they can all of which has been pretty much the case since October 2019.
 
It was obvious to anyone who is involved in corporate finance as a job that the acquistion deal would be structured so that:
(a) the individual shareholderholders in the holding company would put in as little money personal money as possible and any significant money they did have to put in would put in as loans (so it's owed it back to them and and can get it out tax free as and when cash becomes available to pay it);
(b) the buying company would use all the available assets of SAFC to pay for/finance the deal;
(c) Ellis (who was writing off more than £100m) wasn't going to leave any of the future parachute payments on the table as a windfall for new owners. They would either be allocated to cover pre-exsiting SAFC debts and/or to cover imminent cashflow needs/operating losses (which were clearly going to happen because of the wages and other costs and the fact that we had fallen into the tird tier).

There might have been a lot of smoke and mirrors/tax planning involved with buying of Ellis' debt and then coverting it into equity etc. but the above was always going to be the basis of the deal.

I said all this at the time. I'd far rather they had just been honest about how tight the cash position was from the outset. The PR puff was all well and good at the start (and a lot better than listening to energy vampire Moyes) but football, in the end, is a results game.

None of this means they were bound to be bad owners by the way.

The commercial punt was that they could get a potentially big club for very little cash outlay and would make a killing if the club could manage to get up in the first two years - as it was odds on to do.

They worked pretty hard and have been unlucky to be honest but now the tide is out ('out' as in the way it goes out right before a Tsunami IMHO) and the fact that they aren't wearing any trousers is obvious to all.
 
The Madrox statement claims that they had / have a 5 year plan for the Club although I am at a loss as to what that might be. Having failed to get promotion after their first season their immediate reaction was to sell the Club. Such a step would seem to me to have removed any need to have previously prepared a further four years of it.

The prospect of selling up appears to have consumed all of the current time up until the end of September 2019 when the plan fell through. As far as the team was concerned during that period there was little evidence of any "second season phase" of any plan being put in to operation with regard to another attempt at promotion. Indeed the most obvious "lesson learned" in June 2019 - i.e. that Ross with his two Wembley failures wasn't the man to motivate the team and should be replaced before the new season started - wasn't even acted upon until October when it was clear that Donald was going to remain the owner of the Club. I didn't get the impression then that Ross's departure was any part of a preconceived plan or strategy so much as it was an act of desperation with the nw season already being well under way.

My view is that the club has just bumbled along this season. It enjoyed a little success around the New Year which began to falter before circumstances beyond the world of football have enabled us to avoid the full misery of ending another season with absolutely nothing achieved

Owing to the current emergency and the impending global financial crisis I should imagine that the remaining three years of any 5 year business plan for the Club has by now been rendered totally redundant. I think however that the plan is simply to keep the Club ticking over in League One and to sell it if they can all of which has been pretty much the case since October 2019.


...aye they're all fart and no plop
 
The Madrox statement claims that they had / have a 5 year plan for the Club although I am at a loss as to what that might be. Having failed to get promotion after their first season their immediate reaction was to sell the Club. Such a step would seem to me to have removed any need to have previously prepared a further four years of it.

The prospect of selling up appears to have consumed all of the current time up until the end of September 2019 when the plan fell through. As far as the team was concerned during that period there was little evidence of any "second season phase" of any plan being put in to operation with regard to another attempt at promotion. Indeed the most obvious "lesson learned" in June 2019 - i.e. that Ross with his two Wembley failures wasn't the man to motivate the team and should be replaced before the new season started - wasn't even acted upon until October when it was clear that Donald was going to remain the owner of the Club. I didn't get the impression then that Ross's departure was any part of a preconceived plan or strategy so much as it was an act of desperation with the nw season already being well under way.

My view is that the club has just bumbled along this season. It enjoyed a little success around the New Year which began to falter before circumstances beyond the world of football have enabled us to avoid the full misery of ending another season with absolutely nothing achieved

Owing to the current emergency and the impending global financial crisis I should imagine that the remaining three years of any 5 year business plan for the Club has by now been rendered totally redundant. I think however that the plan is simply to keep the Club ticking over in League One and to sell it if they can all of which has been pretty much the case since October 2019.

Their 5 year plan included 2 failed attempts to sell it before the second season was out :) :)
 
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