CanaryPurple

[quote user="Puzzy magnet "][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="Puzzy magnet "]What''s the reason why Norwich hasn''t been bought yet then you reckon?[/quote]Puzzy Magnet, a fair question. The full answer would be way too long for a message-board. But briefly, there are various factors with Norwich that are either hard to quantify or unknown. Such as the desire/willingness/desperation/need etc etc etc of the owners to sell. Frankly only they would know if that was a stumbling block.Geography is another such. If we were in London would we attract more interest? Probably. But definitely?However there are three factors that are known quantities, which apply to most clubs - purchase price, debt and running costs. And with Norwich the position is this:1. Purchase price. The share price (of £30) is an irrelevance without the context of how many shares one has to buy. What matters is the overall price. And with Norwich there is a theoretical low price of £8,025,030, a theoretical high price of £16m, and the actual price in the real world of around £9.8m. Yes, Birmingham shares went for £1, but the overall price was more than £80m. A purchase price of under £10m when Birmingham (with whom we could be sharing a division next season) went for more than eight times that is not a stumbling block for a serious bidder.2. Debt. We await the latest accounts, but it was more than double the £9.8m purchase price. So it doesn''t take a genius to work out that is much more of a factor.3. Running costs post-purchase. The most important factor, with Norwich and with most other clubs. As the chairman of West Brom has said, in putting his club up for sale. As Preston have just confirmed as well:"We have once again been heavily reliant on the assistance of our major shareholder, Guild Ventures for continuing financial support. Without this we certainly could not continue to compete with the cost of the squad we have maintained which remains well in excess of our total football income."So, finally, to answer your question, the main reason why Norwich has not been sold is almost certainly that no-one has yet come forward who is willing to provide "continuing financial support". Ie, to keep bankrolling the club indefinitely.[/quote] Nice long answer. The real reason is that the old trout does not want to sell, however. When I say sell, I mean let someone with proper money take over for £0, which is the realistic position to take re the club''s value. [/quote]Puzzy magnet, answering fact with unsubstantiated opinion is certainly one way of concluding a discussion.

[quote user="Puzzy magnet "]What''s the reason why Norwich hasn''t been bought yet then you reckon?[/quote]Puzzy Magnet, a fair question. The full answer would be way too long for a message-board. But briefly, there are various factors with Norwich that are either hard to quantify or unknown. Such as the desire/willingness/desperation/need etc etc etc of the owners to sell. Frankly only they would know if that was a stumbling block. Geography is another such. If we were in London would we attract more interest? Probably. But definitely? However there are three factors that are known quantities, which apply to most clubs - purchase price, debt and running costs. And with Norwich the position is this: 1. Purchase price. The share price (of £30) is an irrelevance without the context of how many shares one has to buy. What matters is the overall price. And with Norwich there is a theoretical low price of £8,025,030, a theoretical high price of £16m, and the actual price in the real world of around £9.8m. Yes, Birmingham shares went for £1, but the overall price was more than £80m. A purchase price of under £10m when Birmingham (with whom we could be sharing a division next season) went for more than eight times that is not a stumbling block for a serious bidder. 2. Debt. We await the latest accounts, but it was more than double the £9.8m purchase price. So it doesn''t take a genius to work out that is much more of a factor. 3. Running costs post-purchase. The most important factor, with Norwich and with most other clubs. As the chairman of West Brom has said, in putting his club up for sale. As Preston have just confirmed as well: "We have once again been heavily reliant on the assistance of our major shareholder, Guild Ventures for continuing financial support. Without this we certainly could not continue to compete with the cost of the squad we have maintained which remains well in excess of our total football income." So, finally, to answer your question, the main reason why Norwich has not been sold is almost certainly that no-one has yet come forward who is willing to provide "continuing financial support". Ie, to keep bankrolling the club indefinitely.

[quote user="Jim Smith"]He''s not saying that as i read it he''s saying that Yeung dodn''t do proper due diligence and therefore did not find out that there were a number of debts/contracts due to be paid up. If he had done he no doubt would have dropped the price or held back some money accordingly until the debts in question were all sorted but because he didn''t check it out propoerly he paid too much.   Sneaky and perhaps morally questionable from Sullivana and Gold if they set up the payments so they fell due after they had left the club but unlikely to be illegal and I suspect Yeung is just sounding off now as he''s realised they''ve done him!   [/quote]That looks pretty much spot on, although I''m not certain I''d even regard it as morally questionable. Any business that gets taken over will have debts due. Caveat emptor and all that.There is another good quote from Sullivan on Carson Yeung:"The bottom line is he’s a former hairdresser from Hong Kong who seems to think he can buy favour with the supporters by consistently having digs at the former board and promising to fund a £40million spending spree in January for Alex McLeish."As to Sullivan''s comments about Charlton, they look intended to put pressure on the West Ham owners. It always seemed likely that Sullivan had prioritised his shopping list so:1. West Ham2. Charlton.3. NorwichNorwich remains a distinct possibility (as opposed to a probability) because there are reasons (counted in many millions of pounds) why neither West Ham nor Charlton has been bought yet.

I had always suspected that "tangible fixed assets" was an umbrella term used by accountants to cover a multitude of things, and this sorrowful saga seems to confirm that.

If the word chutzpah didn''t exist someone would need to invent it for this. The equivalent of asking someone to hand over the ownership of a house so you can move in. Only you don''t pay the massive mortgage - the now-homeless owners keep on doing that. Close to genius.

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]Many a true word is spoken in jest. OTBC [/quote]Remember what I said about a wise man Bly ?  You still aren''t any wiser are you...[/quote]Which is not at all reminiscent of the exchange between famously witty barrister F E Smith and a judge...Judge: "Mr Smith, I have listened to you for an hour now and I am none the wiser."F E Smith: "Possibly not, my lord, but you are much better informed."

[quote user="Desert Fox"]Canary Purple, If the club are not going to explain to their shareholders what the reason for the deferral is they are hardly going to respond to an anonymous bulletin board poster in cyberspace. [/quote]Desert Fox, that is precisely my point. All you are doing is sounding off in cyberspace. For all you know the club has not the slightest idea this is an issue at all.But if you care about this as much as you very publicly seem to, then go to the really very small trouble of asking the club what the reason is for the deferral. IF the club refuses to say, then you might have an issue about which to be suspicious.If you don''t care enough to ask, then you can hardly blame posters for not caring about what may or may not be an issue.

This is probably a really dumb question, but has anyone on this thread who is exercised by the postponing of the AGM actually gone to the very slight trouble of asking the club what the reason is?

[quote user="Old Shuck"]Its all academic anyway, as that World Cup will be awarded to Spain who will shortly announce that they are "going it alone" with their bid and ditching Portugal.[/quote]You''re very sure about, that Old Shuck! For me it''s more between England and Russia. England may not be that popular, but the "invented the game" stuff counts for something. And Spain have hosted the tournament much more recently than England.Russia, meanwhile have never hosted a major tournament, so they have the "about time we did" argument. Plus there will be some very strong political lobbying.

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]However my basic contention remains true, I think. That franchising works in the US because there are more cities (including potential double-team cities) than there are NFL teams. So there are always teamless cities that can seduce a team away from its hometown. And that just doesn''t apply in England.[/quote]It doesn''t at present.  However, if a new league was formed, with only 36 spots and no promotion / relegation then there would be cities that would not be represented within that league.  Maybe franchising might not occur within 5 or 10 years of a Gartside league starting, but possibly after ?[/quote]Blah, I can see that as a very slight possibility. But I suspect that if we ever got to a self-contained 36-team Premier I and Premier II then those three dozen teams will be chosen not on footballing merit but on financial factors.It won''t matter if, say, Sheffield doesn''t have a team in the top footballing 36 when the change comes; the men and women with the money will pick one. So the big footballing areas of population will all be represented.That is one of the reasons why I still cannot see how you are going to be able to franchise a club like Wigan, which was one of the examples given, away from Wigan.

---A ham sandwich walks into a pub and asks for a pint, and the barman replies, "I''m sorry, sir, we don''t serve food in here."---

Thanks, Yankee, for the expert explanation. It had, from a distance, seemed strange that LA was not such a hotbed as one might have expected. However my basic contention remains true, I think. That franchising works in the US because there are more cities (including potential double-team cities) than there are NFL teams. So there are always teamless cities that can seduce a team away from its hometown. And that just doesn''t apply in England.As to yellow hammer''s excellent point, that applies perhaps even more strongly outside Europe. "Third world" footballing countries have for years complained that having four home nations reduces their chances of getting to the World Cup finals.

[quote user="Beauseant"]Another England cricketer - Martin Saggers,  King''s Lynn born and bred.[/quote]And Fuller Pilch (born Horningtoft) undoubtedly would have been, had there been such a thing as an England cricket team when he was playing.

[quote user="Tangible Fixed Assets anyone"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="Tangible Fixed Assets anyone"] Mandraic or however you spell his name, probably doubled his wealth when he sold Portsmouth. [/quote]A non-member of the CGFPA writes:No. At the time Mandaric was worth £75m. [/quote] I think we will agree to differ about the £75m !! [/quote]Tangible, it''s not me you differing with! More the Rich List of 2000 (which had him at £75m) and the equally-respected fourfourtwo list which had him at the same amount when he sold Portsmouth.But I''m happy to acknowledge that some (a very few) owners can make money when they sell. And this was probably the case with Mandaric and Portsmouth. Where I am with T is that no-one ever made their fortune through football. And I suspect most lose money. It is the dry-land equivalent of that old saw about yachting being like standing under a cold shower tearing up £50 notes.

[quote user="Tangible Fixed Assets anyone"]Mandraic or however you spell his name, probably doubled his wealth when he sold Portsmouth. [/quote]A non-member of the CGFPA writes:No. At the time Mandaric was worth £75m. What he got for Portsmouth has never been revealed, but the generally accepted figure is £30m. Even the very highest estimates only go up to £45m.

Barry Bridges (born in Horsford).

[quote user="The Butler"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="The Butler"] Who has made a profit? Not an expert, but Sullivan and Gold have. [/quote]Butler, I think the point was about whether clubs (and Championship clubs in particular) can make a profit. Not whether owners can.Sullivan and Gold personally profited by selling out.With Birmingham the club it is another matter. 2007 (in the Championship) it was a loss of £6.6m. The next year (in the Premier League) it was a profit of £4.3m. For 2009 (back in the Championship) no figures I can find as yet.[/quote] The statement was "which owner made money out of investing in a football club" My answer stands. They sold at a profit. PC/CP I did not start on profits of clubs. My point(not prejudiced) was that investing out of your knowledge base (in our case land) and supporting that investment from within the clubs funds (as it does) must reduce the money available to that club to invest in the playing staff. Thus reducing our ability to regain our league status. All the other aspects have been bulled up by mighty Mr.T. His jibes don''t really hold water or weight as far as I am concerned.   [/quote]Butler, apologies. In the excitement of reading through this thread I missed that line! However the subsequent answer from T also has merit. Sullivan and Gold did not make their fortunes out of football. They simply added to it by selling out. And for every Sullivan/Gold there is a Mike Ashley!

[quote user="The Butler"]Who has made a profit? Not an expert, but Sullivan and Gold have. [/quote]Butler, I think the point was about whether clubs (and Championship clubs in particular) can make a profit. Not whether owners can.Sullivan and Gold personally profited by selling out.With Birmingham the club it is another matter. 2007 (in the Championship) it was a loss of £6.6m. The next year (in the Premier League) it was a profit of £4.3m. For 2009 (back in the Championship) no figures I can find as yet.

Ricardo and I will simply have to agree to differ on this. And in10 years'' time we will know who was right.I think (and I know he will HATE this analogy) he is making the Maxwell mistake (otherwise known as the Thames Valley Royals stupidity) of assuming that the American model of sport can be applied anywhere else.Leave aside the irony that in America sport seems to operate not on truly capitalist "ideals" but on socialist (the draft favouring the bottom and the closed circuit system) principles.I have (at great psychological risk) put myself in the mid of a Texas billionaire who has bought Wigan. I STILL cannot for the life of me see where I would move Wigan to. I just don''t see where I would franchise the club. Nor can Trudy, my glamorous expert on UK "soccer".The idea of a closed shop I get. And worry about. But the clubs forming that closed  shop would be the big clubs happy where they were. They would need no franchising.

[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"] The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.     [/quote]Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote] NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again. Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc. Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future. Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1. [/quote]Ricardo, you plainly are the person I was looking for who knows way more about the NFL than I do! And, just to be clear, I am probably as worried as you are by the power of money and the big clubs and the Premier League and what might happen in the future.That being said, I am still dubious as to franchising being a problem because I don''t see IN PRACTICE how it would work. The point about English cities being big enough to have two teams is that pretty much most of those cities HAVE two teams already. You will correct me if I''m wrong but I think LA has supported two teams in the past, but now doesn''t have one. Plainly if someone moved the Cincinatti Bengals, for example, to LA that would probably work, because there are fans there crying out for a team - any team - to watch.But take your example of Wigan. Where actually could Wigan go? To Belfast or Dublin? Possibly. But once those cities have been taken, where else? To become the third team in Manchester? I don''t see that working. To become yet another team in over-populated (in football terms) London? Ditto Birmingham. Or completely away from its roots to rural East Anglia, to try to become THE team in Norwich, with us still in opposition? If I were a rich owner I would be dubious about spending my money on a risky venture like that.

[quote user="ricardo"] The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.     [/quote]Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]Who is going to put £1.8m (60,000 @ £30) into NCFC Plc and have no effective say?[/quote]Good question - the 3 new directors seem to have a lot of say in the club at the moment, for a lot less.[/quote]Yes indeed. And buying 30,000 shares at £1m, which was my suggestion (Bly topped the idea up to 60,000 shares) would guarantee influence (because it would effectively buy a place on the board if desired) AND boost the transfer fund.Ultimate power will rest with Smith and Jones while they stay as owners, but influence is not to be sniffed at. There used to be a half-decent argument that it would be against Cullum''s interests to become a minority shareholder because - oddly - it might undercut his efforts to become the majority shareholder. But since he has very publicly ruled himself out of the running to become owner that argument no longer applies.

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="Mustachio Furioso"][quote user="BlyBlyBabes"] ...I suggest that the board ''strongly advise'' Delia to eat humble pie and say sorry before inviting Peter Cullum for tea and cake... [/quote] I suggest that you explain why exactly she should do that. [/quote]Mustachio, I''m afraid Bly is in one of his otherworldly Zen trances, but as his honoured amanuensis and representative on Earth I can explain this.Forget the "humble pie" bit; that was just mischievous Bly being his charmingly provocative self. What he means is that Delia should invite Peter for tea, and Peter can hand over a cheque for just under £1m. In return Delia will hand over the 33,000-odd shares that the directors created two years in the hope that some multi-millionaire fan would buy them.And that will provide a timely boost for January''s transfer dealings. Assuaging any fears that our promotion push might falter for lack of cash.That was what Bly was talking about. I mean, what else?![/quote] Well, if they created another 33,000 at 30 quid each and she and Peter enjoyed their tea the upshot would be 2m quid which would pretty much do the trick. 1m sounds a bit marginal. Of course a dinner date for May would also have to be booked to finalise the new arrangements for next season.[;)] OTBC       [/quote] Of course this would need to be voted through at the forthcoming AGM, so a resolution needs to be put forward and circulated pretty quickly. But I''m sure the Carrow Road bureaucracy can cope with that. Making a total of 60,000 new shares would reduce Smith and Jones''s majority but it would still be a comfortable 55 per cent, so no real problem there. I have to say it is refreshing to have posters agreeing on what might have been a divisive issue!

[quote user="Mustachio Furioso"][quote user="BlyBlyBabes"] ...I suggest that the board ''strongly advise'' Delia to eat humble pie and say sorry before inviting Peter Cullum for tea and cake... [/quote] I suggest that you explain why exactly she should do that. [/quote]Mustachio, I''m afraid Bly is in one of his otherworldly Zen trances, but as his honoured amanuensis and representative on Earth I can explain this. Forget the "humble pie" bit; that was just mischievous Bly being his charmingly provocative self. What he means is that Delia should invite Peter for tea, and Peter can hand over a cheque for just under £1m. In return Delia will hand over the 33,000-odd shares that the directors created two years in the hope that some multi-millionaire fan would buy them. And that will provide a timely boost for January''s transfer dealings. Assuaging any fears that our promotion push might falter for lack of cash. That was what Bly was talking about. I mean, what else?!

[quote user="blahblahblah"] Phelans'' career since finishing playing would bear out that he has a good footballing brain - is he now number 2 or 3 at Man Utd ?  They always seem to drag him in front of the cameras when they can''t get anyone more senior anyway.[/quote]As far as the BBC is concerned that''s because dear sweet Fergie simply won''t appear. The result of the Panorama documentary about - among other things - his son. The BBC is on his banned list.