Are scum going bust again?

[Mtv 0]

I''m leaving this thread now........................

[macdougalls perm 0]

[quote user="mtv"]

Only sticking up for a ''morph'' son of mine..if thats ok with you? Anyway the arms dealer bloke was a solicitor call de stafarni or something like that and he wanted to ''buy into the club'' never taken seriously by Smith and Jones nor the fans I don''t think

Still wanting to know what alternatives they had to Evans other than going into Admin.

[/quote]

You''ve been answered several times on this thread already - and they did go into admin. You know as well as I do that they thought he offered untold riches and just jumped in wirthout thinking about it. Many people on here agreed with them and others saw what he was up to - that''s the point of looking at the thread history. Re stickin up for Morph, as I said, you can do what you like - couldn''t care less - but if you''re gonna accuse people of having nothing better to do than engage with trivia on here then you should perhaps look at some of your contributions yesterday.

And, btw, I think your son is more than capable of sticking up for himself - actually seems a lot more articulate than you [:D][:D][:D] That''s simply a joke by the way! [;)] 

  

[macdougalls perm 0]

[quote user="mtv"]I''m leaving this thread now........................[/quote]

..... please don''t take your ball with you [:)][;)]

[Bill 1,788]

"Still wanting to know what alternatives they had to Evans other than going into Admin"

That''s not the matter for debate. But then it''s a familiar forum trick. Make up something then argue about that rather than accept you''re have no credible argument in regard to the matter being discussed.

The point is NOT what choice the paupers had at that time. The debate is about whether we should have pursued the same route (maybe MTV can give us his considered thoughts on that, rather than repeatedly bleating out the same worthless point).

The way it affects us relates to how the paupers got in this parlous state. The £25m securitised loan was taken out to NOT ONLY build the two stands but to roll up around £8m of debt that the hapless red faced buffoon had run up getting them into the Premiership. Had the redevelopment of the ground and the infrastructure been an ongoing process at poorman road there would not have been the need for this massive borrowing. The paupers have form here, many will remember the financial disaster that was the Pioneer stand.

Sheepshanks, with the football knowledge of a flea, had presumed that the paupers would remain in the Premiership for the next 25 years and so could easily make the repayments on that loan. When the realities of that belief were pointed out he cheerfully told the deluded simpletons of suffolk that if relegation did come they could still meet the payments. "Let them eat cake, old chap"

Relegation in 2002 left them with a wage bill of £30m odd and no way of paying it. Perhaps the club could, or should, have bit on the bullet and slashed the playing squad by whatever means and faced a long hard slog back to challenging for promotion. They didn''t. They chose to bluff it out and chance that the banks would stay with them on the basis that they would be challenging for promotion and subsequently get promoted. That led to Sheepshanks lying to anyone who listened at the 2002 AGM. Suppliers, traders and even St John''s Ambulance were taken in. The club went into administration (as good as bankruptcy) a few months later, even after receiving £1m from the sale of a player. There is much about that time that cannot be printed for legal reasons - however that is why refering to them as a grubby little club has good cause.

There is also much to be learned from that shambles. Much to be learnt about proportionate expenditure and investment. Maybe if every halfwit that squeaks about ''ambition'' were to put their money where there mouth is and remortgage their home, then give me the thousands so I can go off to the casino they might have a bit of credibility. If I win they''ll get their money back - if I lose, well at least they were showing ambition.

We never were, and I''m fairly certain we won''t be, in the position the paupers were in when they had to hand over their club to some dodgy asset stripper. Lord alone knows how many millions they cheated out of locals. They cheated the taxman out of £5m alone. It could be why they still struggle to find local involvement with sponsorship.

The much vaunted ''hinvestment'' was nothing of the kind.

- The club received £3.9m in return for handing over control (87.5%) to Marcus Evans Investments.

- It was then loaned another £8.1m to cover ongoing debt payments

- An agreement was made with Norwich Union whereby the loan would be settled for a figure lower than the £25m owed.

Both the £8.1m and the full £25m NU loan are still on the clubs books showing as debt and still racking up interest to the club, with undoubtedly interest on interest. We have the chance to read our club account, warts and all. The binkickers have just received a pretty worthless statement that says little more than the club is technically bankrupt (still), less money is coming in (still) and the debt is getting higher (still)

The real debate is not what the paupers should have done at that time but whether we should run our club in the same reckless manner so as to have little choice but to hand over our club to a faceless shyster.

A cook or a crook, some might say.

[norfolkchance1 0]

Well said!

The last three lines are exactly the point I was getting at City1st.

The fountains of knowledge who appeared in the thread I dug up spouting that we should be doing what they did are keeping out of this thread.

What a surprise!

[shefcanary 2,402]

[quote user="PKC"]The thought that occurs to me is are they actually trading legally? It has been many years since I worked for a Chartered Accountants and solency laws have obviously changed a lot but, is it not the case that if your debts are greater than your assets then you are basically insolvent. Now Marcus Evans has pilled the debt on Ipswich and don''t forget they don''t even own their own ground so their assets are worth less than ours. I''m sure someone out there can confirm or refute my suspicions.[/quote]

PKC

All Evans has to do is write a letter to the auditor basically saying he will continue to pump money into the club to ensure they keep meeting liabilities as they fall due (for instance pay the VATman on the due date) and the auditors will sign off.  He owns the company, his word is his bond.  As long as they beleive he is in a position to pay of the debts (becuase he has millions stuffed in another bank account somewhere) then the club can trade on.  Only if Evans gets p*ssed off with lack of on the pitch improvement and thus says not another penny more until we are in the Premier league, wil the auditors stop signing off the accounts.  and then it is only a matter of time before the VATman takes them to court like Sheff Wed , Portsmouth, Cardiff, Plymouth et al all have recently.

[Bill 1,788]

In fairness the thread happened BEFORE the Sheepshanks letter to the shareholders spelt out bluntly what the true cost of the handover was to be.

Even then, and quite a bit since there has been this idiocy being spouted from down the A140 that Evans cleared the debt (he actually increased it considerably). The club couldn''t be sold for five years (it was the £8.1m loan that could not be redeemed). The club can be sold or put into adminstration at any point.

What does arise out of this is supporter responsibility. Portsmouth are coming to Carrow Road on Saturday. A club that was almost folded a few months back - to a backdrop of nonsensical whining about the ''poor fans''. What poor fans ? The fans who were cheering the arch shyster Redknapp ? Who never once appeared to ask who was financing the ridiculous levels of spending.

Nobody expects fans to employ legally trained accountants to crawl over every single transaction to ensure nothing, however untoward, is going on. But when it is so blindingly obvious, when in the case of the binkickers it was there in black and white then they deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

Last night saw the AGM of what''s left of the original owners of Ipswich Town Football Club. A pretty meaningless PLC that adminsters the shares that own only 12.5% of the club. Now, given the backdrop of events and the standing of the club, never mind the parlous state of the team you would expect some vigorous questioning of the club''s chief executive.

What did you get ? A bunch of cap wringinging rural halfwits sat gawping at their ''masters'' in stoney silence. Maybe someone might have thought to ask .....

- why the club is being charged by Marcus Evans Investments, interest on the full £25m original NU debt when Evans supposedly only paid around £6m for it

- or why the club is being charged interest at all when Evans is supposed to be ''hinvesting'' to get the club promoted

- why was the money from the sale of Walters kept by Evans. Is this likely to happen again in January ?

- why are 21 players out of contract in June ? How many of them are entitled to sign pre contract agreements with other clubs in January ?

- what is the actually level of debt taking into acccount both interest and non interest bearing debt ?

- why has work on improving/replacing the pitch been put on hold, is money that tight ?

All of the above has been reported endlessly in the local media. It requires nothing other than to be able to place your finger on the page and read the words. Even suffolk folk can do that.

So why the failure to question those that run your club - and how much bleating and whining about hindsight will waft up the A140 when it does all go belly up ?

[Power Hamster 0]

[quote user="mtv"]

Ok Hamster, you did not answer the question though did you? were they right or wrong to take Evans money?

Blah..right or wrong, what were the altenatives at that time for them?

[/quote]Sorry I had to go to work, so I couldn''t reply straight away. My original point was that we should look back and learn the lessons from other people''s mistakes. On that basis, and looking back over the last decade or so, looking at other football club take-overs, I would say that Ipswich were extremely foolish to go jumping into bed with such a shadowy, mysterious figure as Marcus Evans. The experience of clubs such as Man Utd and Liverpool shows the danger of handing over control to someone who doesn''t really care about football or about the club itself, however much money they appear to be promising.The more I see of various clubs financial dealings, administrations, insolvencies, bankruptcies etc., the more I agree with what Delia said a few years ago about being very particular as to who she was prepared to sell the club to.

[norfolkchance1 0]

Again totally agree Hamster, no doubt I''ll be banded as a happy clappy fan (by the usual suspects) but to be honest I don''t care. NCFC do have ambition and are doing things the right way.

[Bill 1,788]

I don''t doubt that virtually every club has ambition.

What is in doubt is whether that ambition is for the benefit of the club as a whole, or the benefit of it''s new owners.

Too many have been the latter.