Now here’s a thought. Yesterday David Sullivan overtly encouraged anyone with £10 million to come forward to invest in the club. They would get a 10% equity stake and a seat on the board. On the drive home last night I mulled over the possibility of trying to raise £10 million from ordinary West Ham fans. I have no idea how many West Ham fans there are in this country and throughout the world, but I’d have thought it must be at least a couple of hundred thousand. If 10,000 people each invested £1,000, you get to £10 million. Clearly there are all sorts of issues here, not least memories of the ill-fated Bond Scheme. There is also the potential cost of hiring advisers to structure an offer, let alone the obligations of the Financial Services Act.
I am no financial expert but it cannot surely be beyond our wit to structure something that both fans and the new owners would be happy with. This blog has 35,000 individual readers every month. I imagine KUMB has more. The Over Land & Sea fanzine sells quite a few thousand copies at each home game. Surely between us we have enough readers who could come up with this sort of money. A bit of celebrity backing from the likes of Ray Winstone, Phil Jupitus etc would also give any fundraising effort a boost.
I have this morning been in touch with the club and hope to get some positive reaction to the idea.
In the meantime, if you are a West Ham fan who has financial expertise and would be willing to help come up with ideas to structure this, please do get in touch.
Also, if you are a fan, and you would like to express an interest in taking this further, and investing at least £1,000, please do send an email to me. I’m not going to take this any further if there isn’t enough interest.
My email address is iain@iaindale.com – please put “West Ham” in the subject line of the email.
nice idea but for all the reasons you mentioned and more ..utterly impractical and has never come close to succeeeding at any pro club I know of. Yes, there's a cultural tradition of multi sports club owned by members in spain and elsewhere but i think too much of head block to surmount here..pity though.
the spanish system is salled SADS for short and it causes problems over here due to spanish law, which they abuse. Unlike in the UK, where the authorities punish a club in trouble with a points deduction (which i dont agree with…like kicking someone when they are down already), the spanish sads are protected as part of the community….they respond by running up great debts and then basically not paying it back. The people owed money fight a losing battle in the courts trying to recover it and eventually they either settle for a minimal amount or just give up. The whole process then starts all over again. Also you need a massive fan club structure…r.madrid and barca have fan clubs in most citys/towns…the money comes from subs payed when you join. This entitles you to lots of perks and voting rights in club elections etc.. Dont think it could work in uk.
it's a great idea to have the fans represented on the board,obivously a lot of things to over come.Not sure weather G&S would welcome such close scrutiny from a fans reprentative.
Hi Iain – lovely as it would be, i think the idea is a non-starter. The group would need to have a figurehead but that figurehead would need to be agreed and would have to go back to the 10,000 everytime a decision needed to be made. On top of this, whatever the 10,000 felt would be irrelvent as, ultimately, Gold/Sullivan have control of all matters football. So we would effectively be represented in name only but have no input or influence.
Most importantly it think that Gold/Sullivan are looking for individuals rather that mass consortiums to get involved. If further capital needs to be raised with the banks it is often borrowed agianst the name and standing of those in control of the club – how you can borrow money against 10,000 people is beyond me……
Let's not get bogged down with the apparent difficulties regarding this idea, creative thinking is required. If we want there to be a way to do this, let's start from that position and concentrate on the positive aspects, the details can be worked out. This is a goer and I'm in.
THANK GOD…. at last a positive response rather than the doom n gloom doubters. Just say that you're in by email to Iain and we'll see how far we get. Stop dousing the idea before we see what happens. Yes, there may not be much say in football matters but lets be fair – what do we know about running a football club? G/S have plenty of experience and, with backing, could make our team great again rather than the pony that the FA whip occasionally when they want to make an example of someone!
Don't get bogged down in the detail – we can let the lawyers suggest answers to all of the possible sticky questions.
GET ON BOARD and enjoy the ride…..
I think it should perhaps have a new representative elected by the members every couple of years perhaps.But i think all we can hope for is to have a voice and eyes in the board room but with little influence.
LOON !
I have emailed Iain with an outline structure for this but have pointed out that I think its a non starter.
Apart from the logistical issues surrounding getting 10,000fans to pick on person to represent them as a figure head on the board there is also the issue of the clubs debts.
Since so many of you are willing to believe David Sullivan when he says we are £110M in debt does buying 10% of the club also buy you 10% of the debt? Thats £11M at least you are going to have to cover, if Sullivan is right.
Now on top of that what if we go down? Where does the debt go from there and are you willing to cover it?
You can hardly believe that Sullivan and Gold will allow someone take a 10% share of any profits and be completely indemnified from any losses, or debts!
I think it is a brilliant idea and would like to invest more if possible to give me a larger shareholding………………"whats that dear?" …."yeah but!"….."think of it as an investment darling"…….."well that's not very nice sweetheart, they bore us two lovely kids remember"…….I think I had better withdraw that interest Iain, nice thought anyway.
HI CH – exactly what i said in my post – banks lend against the name and standing of the owners and you can't loan to 10,000 pretending to be 1!
Chin up mate – it's not the owners we all wanted BUT we have to stand together and get behind them. Time will tell if they are truthful, honest or have the interest of the club above their own pockets BUT we have to give them that time. I've never turned my back on a family member and i won't start now so i would suggest that, like me, you tut and shake your head behind their backs and wait for them to prove us right or wrong.
I will say thought that IF they are willing to bring other investors into the vlub – nobody will do this without seeing the books first so they MUST be able to somehow substantiate their claims of the club debt levels…….we will see.
celtichammer – where did you study law?
What does ‘limited liability’ mean when used in relation to the shareholders of a UK limited liability company, as far as the liability of the shareholders to persons or organizations outside the company is concerned?
Because the shareholders of a company limited by shares are distinct ‘legal persons’ quite separate from the limited company itself, the DIRECT liability of such shareholders to outsiders with whom the company has dealt (and with whom the shareholders have not directly dealt) is nil. So in that sense ‘limited liability’ means ‘zero liability’.).
However, such shareholders may INDIRECTLY be liable (that is, via their potential liability to the limited company) up to a point (or ‘limit’), namely, the amount which they have agreed to pay the limited company for their shares and which remains unpaid.
To say there is no liability is too simplistic, but to imply that they could be liable for the % of the companies debts is downright mis-leading. Sullivan and Gold would be liable for a number of complicated reasons that I wont go into.
My point is do you think Sullivan and Gold would allow someone take a 10% share in the club without them shouldering some of the responsibility for the debts they claim we have.
If you believe that simply being limited by liability means that a shareholder can simply walk away from a company's debts then you are wrong. Given the fact that anyone buying into an existing business would be expected by anyone holding the debts of the club to give an undertaking regarding those debts.
Since you are such a fan of the law get yourself along to the commercial courts some day and sit in the gallery while you watch director after director of companies being PERSONALLY held to account over the debts of a failed company! If you think that you can start a company run up a load of debt and then simply walk away you need to study the real world.
Unfortunately in your scramble to prove me wrong, you not only completely missed the point of my post you failed to understand your own!
Directors may be held personally responsible but not shareholders, unless they choose to underwrite such liabilities. However, that means that the person chosen to represent the fans investment would be at greater risk than those he represents. Does sound like a good idea, but while considering it, why not make the limit lower, say £500. That would be more realizable for a much larger number of people. Incidentally I haven't noticed any reference to this link in our discussions
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=727…
Celtic, it might give you cause to pause and think again about the genuine enthusiasm of the new owners for our great club.
Point taken on G&S's (and the banks) acceptance of fans taking a 10% stake without any responsibility for debt, but that's one of the kinks that would need to be ironed out (not a pun) and I agree that none of us would want to be personally responsible for any further payments.
I wont say much on the directors or running up debt parts, simply this: being a shareholder does not automatically oblige you for any debts run up by people running the club unless you:
a) Specifically agree to shoulder liability or
b) Are an active participant in the process, ie Board level or Company director
Lets just agree that we dont know what G&S's (or the banks) response/s would be until we ask the question and we can't do that until we have a group willing to participate. Assuming another partner comes along who wants 40% and IS WILLING to shoulder some liability then surely they would be happy to have the help? Maybe it won't fly, but lets try……
Bubbles, anyone????
And he wonders why people were queueing up to gloat over him yesterday. the attitude and venom in the last two paragraphs sums up what is so horrible about this person.
"If you think that you can start a company run up a load of debt and then simply walk away you need to study the real world"…
that sounds exactly like how your hero BG went about things. You even helpfully told us of the many ways he could have technically returned as our owner. Do you remember?
Actually he transferred the majority of his assets to his son Thor or to private equity management firms to which he appointed his former employees as directors before declaring himself bankrupt.
His son is doing quite well on his behalf by the way, having recently sold his stake in the parent company of Wilson Sports and building one of the most advanced data storage centres in the world in Iceland, in partnership with the countries government.
Not bad considering the amount of people who continually called him and his father idiots and clowns.
Until such time as the share structure of Straumur is revealed once its nationalisation is over, Thor and BG remain the biggest shareholders, in fact majority shareholders in Straumur prior to the nationalisation!
Great idea. Benefits for the board is they have the voice of their customers @ the table. If I had the money I would be willing to stump up the cash!
8 million for 3 players,that should go along way,guess its better than nothing,hope Zola spends it all on 1 quality striker and not 3 crap ones.
all these players and managers suing clubs,they should be thankful,there are people in the world willing to pay them so much in the first place(curbs)
If he had a contract that said he was due this money then he has every right to try to get it. The fault lies with the people who dish out these ludicrous contracts. Perhaps a few high profile, high wonga payouts might bring some reality back.
Agree completely, I think Sol is a disgrace for sueing his former club for money he doesnt need when they are in the situation they are in. He is hardly stuck for the cash but it could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Surely the fans who supported him at the club deserve better than this.
I dont know what you do for a living whether your self employed or not but if you work for a company and that company owes you money that you have earned for yourself or them then your completly in the right to ask for the money ……….the fans do deserve better your right but fans come last ……..nice to see G/S being honest yesterday with us about the situation.
If I was in a situation where a company I previously worked for owed me money, money which I didnt really need as I already had the type of money Sol has, and demanding to be paid that money was likely to put the company into administration then no I wouldnt demand it back.
Out of deference for those who depend on the company (in this case the fans) I would certainly wait to be paid until they were in a position to pay or right it off altogether. Especially if I was still picking up a damn fine wage at the time.
Celtic, how do you know Sol does not need the money. You do not know what his commitments are, you are assuming.
He was offered the contract, he did the work, he wants paying for his services.
Campbell has played his entire career virtually in the Premier League, if he is stuck for cash after the money he has earned then he needs to sue his business manager and not Pompey!
Roshi – Campbell has an estimated reported wealth of almost £30m!!!!!! Pompey may be financialy bankrupt but Sol is morally bankrupt chasing the cash……
If you are so honourable celtichammer how come you cant get over sullivan being right and you being wrong. step aside and show us how honourable you are over something as trivial as you being wrong. I don't think you can, cos you are not honourable. you are a pathetic vindictive selfish judas who wants to see west ham fail just so you can say you were right.
agreed.
I said perviously that all Zola would get was £8M (which is covered almost entirely by any insurance pay out from Deano) from Sullivan. So basically he is spending nothing on players.
Oh hallelujah! Thank God for Sullivan without him putting in erm….nothing…to buy players we would only have about £8M! Dont worry I am sure he will invent some more "debts" that he is saving us from to assuage the fans!
celtichammer- if i didnt love west ham as much as i do you almost make me want west ham to go to the wall , your post are always so gloomy about the situation where in . may be your right the money from deanos insurance will be used but thats how it is at the moment . and as for inventing debts get REAL.
Between your constant Get Real comments, and your mention of Dungeons and Dragons and Hershey Bars I can only assume your posting from somewhere in the US during the early 1980s in which case "Hello time travelling Hammer!".
Some advise buy stocks in Apple, IBM and most notable Red Hat Linux oh and bet your house on a black guy becomming president you will clean up.
Either that or your some form of secondary school teacher who thinks he is still hip with the kids and down with the young persons vernacular. You're not.
As for me promoting the demise of the club or pushing the feeling of doom and gloom, go back and read my posts, when everyone and their mates dog was on line saying that we were on the verge of collapse because Straumur were going to the wall I was the one who pointed out why that wouldnt happen. Using FACTS, publicly available and verifiable.
Despite getting grief for the legnth of my posts (sorry but its hard to make detailed posts using crayon drawings) I was happy to take the time to answer questions from genuine intelligent fans who wanted to know what was happening with their club. I said Straumur would survive its nationalisation, I was right, I said that they would get backing for their restructuring plans, I was right, I said they would get their moratorium extended and guess what? I was right.
When every hack journo was claiming our club was on the verge of disaster I was one of the very few people saying they were printing crap.
Now if you want to believe everything that David Sullivan says thats entirely your choice, he also said that there is a number 61 london bus burried at the south pole that was put their by aliens which you doubtless believe.
If I want to ask how he came up with the figure he arrived at when it simply doesnt make sense I will continue to do so and if that bothers you then so much the better!
Now I await your early 80's catch phrase by way of a response.
You also said they would never sell to sullivan and they would laugh his bid out of the door. Take a tour of UP and look on the chairmans door and read the name on it. Nothing funnier than a knowitall that ends up with egg on his face. When every hack was claiming our club, not yours, was on the verge of disaster yes you were the only one saying it was crap. Guess what? YOU WERE WRONG. F A C T. as you like to say. We were on the verge of disaster alright. You were wrong about the takeover, wrong about the debt, wrong about who wrote the headlines for the Sunday Sport (hint. it was probably tony livesey) you were wrong about Carlton Cole, wrong about Upson, wrong about Kovac and on and on and on and on. Mug.
Enough bickering now, time to get behind the team and let the upton park roar carry us up the league table.
You are Karen Brady and I claim my five pounds.
Please quote exactly where I am being disloyal to the club or where I have wished it to fail so that I can find out how I can be considered a judas?
As for you stating FACT how is repeating what David Sullivan said make something a FACT? Well? The guy has mentioned several different figures relating to the clubs debts how can they all be FACTS (its fun using big letters isnt it? bet it makes you feel like a grown up!)? If one is a FACT then the other must be wrong? How can you count the prepayment of a sposnsorship deal as a debt? its not! That is a FACT!
Lets say FACT a lot more!
FACT
FACT
FACT
With due respect Celtic, it would depend on the wording of the agreement as to whether it should be reflected as a debt or not. If it has all been taken into income in the current year, then you are correct; however, if there are any circumstances under which it might become refundable, and the income has been apportioned over the three years it would appear as a current liability until the end of that three year period. In either case it would not have been unreasonable to point out that the club has already benefited from a significant proportion of the cash flow related to future sponsorship income as well as future season ticket income. This could well account for the need to raise £8 million now and £12 million in the summer, which would have almost certainly have required the selling of high value players.
Cowabunga!
of course you do! He didnt make fun of you for saying Get Real and referring to a 20odd year old video game!
making fun, video game….lol . you sure your not an old fart, get some help mate
I wouldn't trust any chairman as far as I could throw them but that is no less further then I would believe anything you have to say about the matter. I guess your not all bitter and twisted but for now, thats how your coming across.
We are all West Ham fans that post on here who care deeply about our club, its obvious that you do so try getting a little more behind the current situation rather then keep slagging the new owners off, it isn't going to get anywhere positive.
I for one would rather go with the new owners and give them the chance to make West Ham for once, into a well run football club.
For all you say about the previous owner and his son, there fault or not, they allowed this great club to get so near the brink of ruin that its not easy to forgive.
I look forward to a few years of maybe cutting our cloth to suit or means and getting back on a sure footing. I am not going to tell you to get in the real world, but thats where our club needs to be at the moment. A sure and steady approach and I cant see any better for that then Gold and Sullivan at this moment in time. Premiership football is all I ask.
Iaian, This in general terms sounds a good & positive idea in principle. Perhaps someone in the forefront of West Ham knowhow. whatever the legal implications would be to bring this to fruition is difficult to comprehend. My choice of front man vwould be Tony Cottee. OK he was a spokesman for Intermarket and may yet do something with G&S over investment.
How this would work we do not yet know . However if you take the template adopted by the FC of Manchester against the Glazers or The Spirit of Shankly & the other group (name eludes me) from Liverpool, there must be a way forward with this type of format. Worth pursueing in my opinion.
This is where we get into legal nicites, would the fans company be treated as a director or would the person elected by the shareholders to the clubs board would be a director.
I would imagine that the person would serve an elected term of 1year, so what happens the liability? As the fans company would be a legal entitiy in its own right the liability could reside with the company itself but then who foots that bill?
The idea is simply too complicated and anyone expecting to get a share of the club without underwritting any of its debts its well wide of the mark!
You may certainly be right with your last point, although if the idea of having the fans at large as a collective shareholder, grabs the imagination of S&G, we may well find that they would be happy to accept such an investment without any recourse so far as the debts are concerned. I wonder what Iain thinks about that?
after golds interview saying we are after strikers,guess everyones gunna strip us right up now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! benni mccarthy no thanks aged 32. babels a better option has blistering pace!
And that's why the constant calls on here for us to be kept informed of all the clubs plans and public acknowledgement of our problems is misguided at best.
Agreed Munky. It would be nonsensical for the club, in disclosing all this information to the supporters, to also make it available to competing clubs who may also be potential suppliers or buyers of players.
You're right, Chris. Babel has blistering pace. It's not having the ball that's the problem.
Anyway, signing Babel would take the the whole £8m and Liverpool won't want him to go on loan as they need the cash. McCarthy would be £2m max and that, for the short term, could be a good deal.
i think benni's legs have gone Roy.
Roy how many times have we been down the path of buying lots of cheap players and all of them turning out to be useless, can't we just throw the lot at one good one like we did Ashton bellamy parker etc.I know that ashton got injured and bellamy pizzed off I think its about quality not quantity.
I think in our situation right now it is exactly about quantity.
Here we agree entirely…..
Beatties a good penalty box player,but would need good wing play,something we dont have without Lbm ,Dyer(believe it or not)
Celtic hammer, I have defended you in the past but this little agenda against Gold and Sulliavn is past boring already, and mirrors another campaign you had against Carlton Cole for a while before.
There is enough negativity surrounding the club without you constantly using any subject to attack an owner that has been in control for one day and has on the face of it been completely honest and open. Lets give them a chance before we condem them eh..
Guys,
On David Golds interview outside UP mid afternoon yesterday, he specifically told SSN that WH were responsible for the debt, that he and DS were simply now the "custodians" of it… so I doubt we would be responsbile for it either if it went ahead.
So… in the interests of having something to look forward to the next few weeks (rather than just reading some of the childish bickering thats been going on here on WHTID), lets do an Obama "Yes we can" and enjoy the journey.
If/When it fails, then so be it… I'm too old to believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, so why not this… even for a short few days or weeks…
Dreams do come true…
I think the sentiment Iain expresses is heartfelt, though don't see the practicalities as workable.
For me, the jury is out on G&S. I found their passion encouraging, whilst being a little cynical about some of their claims in respect of the debt.
I am pleased by their support for Zola, actually quite enthusiastic about a potential stadium move and the prospect of affordable tickets for the masses and grateful that, at least for this window, the doom-merchants of the red tops will cease to speculate on the sale of every player who can kick a ball for us.
My slight reservations are the strategy's reliance upon being able to rent the Olympic Stadium (hardly a given, surely) and the intent to attract major new investment (equally unfounded and speculative, in my view).
Interesting times.
Let's stop the squabbling people and get behind this new regime and a new era in our great cclub's history.
COYI
You talk a lot more sense than my old headmaster did, Headmaster.
KUMB has a good thread going on this subject, with a built in way to protect the Board representative (subject to legal checks/confirmation). Has everyone emailed Iain – perhaps he can liaise with Pezza20 on KUMB and get this thing going?
IAIN ????
One other issue in this matter is how the fan investors may exit from their investment. There will be no liquid market in which to sell their part of the investment. How do they eventually get their money back? How will they get it back if they wish to withdraw sooner than "eventually"?
Another question that would need to be resolved before the deal was finalised. There are many ways that this could be done, but we need to get closer to a deal before agreeing fine details. Get your email off to Iain – it is only an indication in principle, after all. You can back out later if you don't like the solution proposed for this at the appropriate time.
Well said Headmaster!. Whilst the idea is great , I think we would face too many difficult issues which might mean we would have to spend much of our created pot of money on professional advisers. I do like the idea though of backing the club and helping the cashflow. Maybe it would be more helpful if we paid for season tickets in advance. Based on Sullivan's comments yesterday that the Bellamy fee owed by City was discounted from £10.5m to £9M in order to get cashflow there could be a win win for early payment for those who are able to purchase 2010/11 and 2011/12 now. At least they could pay back the loans they took out on the back of the anticipation we will be buying these!
Not sue about that one, Tim. Sounds like another type pf borrowing against goods yet to be delivered – and this time at the direct cost to the average fan. As a season ticket holder myself, financially it would be a non starter for me and I am sure that most others would not be able to find the readies either.
Float the company on the Ofex market where a lot of football clubs are currently listed, the requirements are nothing like those of the FTSE or AIM.
Makes little different, as its very unlikely
I’d certainly be prepared to “invest” some money in the club. In addition I would be willing to to give a power of attorney to a small committee that included Iain Dale – you can’t posibly consult with 1,000 or 10,000 people scattered around the world. Surely an arrangement could be made where we can have access to information and a voice without the risk associted with directorship. The press conference stresed Messrs Gold a Sullivan’s WH roots, fondness for the club etc so a welocme mat for a collective of other less wealthy supporters should be forthcoming. Sincerely, Hopeless Romantic from Hong Kong
celtichammer knows everything. He knows what the West Ham bank statement says, he knows more about what's in the books than sullivan does. He knows all about the mystery behind the intermarket chancers, where have they gone i wonder. seeing as they werent even involved in the final days discussions, even cellino overtook them thats how much of a joke they were. He knows all about how well BG and son are now doing. Don't question the disloyal little judas twerp. who is hoping we fail as a club just to be proved right.
People were behind the team and everything was nice. Then someone started moaning about how they were still right and david sullivan was wrong.hell hath no fury like a judas knowitall scorned. His failure to get over it wil cause many more spats i think.
thats all well and good ian getting 10% and then what ? you have to keep investing money haven't you. i've got a grand but i could get anymore to put in to invest in the team
COYI…………….. ithink benni mccarhty is great
Yea somebody has to rplace Ashton on the treatment table
Good on you mate, so do I, i'll level out your thumbs rating
If every supporter in the world gave £1…
In response to a question that someone asked
Because he has to…….
I am fed up with the abuse being directed at Celtic Hammer, especially from Midas (who gives a false email address). Stop it, or take the consequences.
What about the abuse he dishes out? mostly to reasonable comments where the only thing wrong with them is that they disagree with him. He was even anti semitic yesterday with a comment about a "y*dhammer" owning us and nothing was said about that. He's obviously a favourite of yours, so forget the ban I'll save you the trouble and delete myself and disappear elsewhere. But I guarantee he will continually pop up abusing other commenters who dare disagree with him and hoping that west ham and its new owners fail just so he can say I told you so. GONE…….
Despite my criticism of Gold and Sullivan I have not once expressed a wish that I hope they and they club fail, you are lying, simple as that.
As for your misquote, I responded to someone who slagged me off for the name CelticHammer and enquired what was next a yidhammer, to which I replied that one of them had just bought half the club.
For someone who loves typing the word FACT in big letters you cant seem to recognise one when its staring you in the face!
the FACT comment was a pisstake pf you using it. You really are dim. Your constant whining and not letting it go that their figures are correct and yourrs are wrong is proof you wish them to fail. JUDAS.
I thought u were leaving? Or are you still looking for the bit where you claim I said I want the club to fail? Because what you have come up with so far does nothing of the sort.
By your reckoning everyone who protested against Terry Brown and the Bonds scheme is a Judas then! Well you're a braver man than me calling them that!
cant you improve the registering process or make people use real names. I have no problem giving passport number, national insurance number or something like that. This has been a difficult time with people split into camps etc…but i feel a lot of probs are from non whu fans on here, simply having a laugh. If something is not done soon about this, the site will suffer and die.
the real fans are passionate and it does get out of hand sometimes, but usually we back off at a certain point. That is being exceeded now more than ever.
Also it may help to dispose of the plus/minus system, which now seems to be useless and abused a lot….celtic reached minus 7 for saying hardly anything yesterday.
If its not sorted people will leave and the problem users/infiltrators will win.
Good post Tony. I don't like the thumbs up/down thing – pointless imo..
I thing there might be data protection/security issues about us giving personal things like our passport number though. It would be easy enough to set up an auto reply system – if your email wasn't valid then you didn't get to log on.
However, Iain does this for us without advertising revenue. I am sure it must have cost him some money as well as huge amounts of time by now. I am sure it will settle down – tempers are raised right now but it will go back to normal soon.
I agree Iain – the past two days have been nothing but childish squabbles and playground bullying. CH can be over the top sometimes (sorry CH – no offence meant) but his passion for the club is plain.
CH has obviously picked up either one devoted or several different stalkers who seem to spend half their life tracking his every post.
For the rest of us I think the whole drama has raised tempers and I am sure that things will calm down amongst the general community. Let us get back to arguing over who played well and who was a lazy so an so. We will still disagree loads but I think it would be a good idea to try to stop personal insults.
I still don't trust the Brady woman by the way. Any friend of Piers Morgan……..
Iain – as I said to Goatygav yesterday we ought not to resort to name calling. Unfortunately, there is a contributor to the site that seems to be continually negative, which probably grates on others. Your original note, above, to which I replied by email as requested, asked whether any of us felt it a good idea, could offer any suggestions, or give any expertise to take forward the idea. It did not request a rant on the site as to why it was a bad idea, and why Gollivan are lying to us and making up figures and why "hard-pressed" fans shouldn't be expected to contribute, something I don't believe you asked for. Can you reasonably expect people not to challenge, without being abusive of course, the points of view that seem to be deliberately provocative?
I like the idea, and dead easy to enact, you set up a comapny and sell 10 thousand shares at £1000 each, this is the vehicle you use to buy the 10%, not rocket science.
adviser costs and the rest of that gubbins are minimal when you are purchasing full equity shares without due dilligence.
Hi Ian I am new to this fourm,
I to have had an idea for a vey long time but never gone any where with it, But after learning of our clubs true situation i fill maybe my idea could benifit westham.
As a fan I can not afford to go westham every week but feel there is more i could do to support my club.
This is where i got the idea for a transfer Kitty for the club.
A kitty owned by the fans and a real way in which we can see our money really being used to better our club.
An account needs to be opend by the club which allows fans to apply for a fourm which allows us to set up a direct debit of say £15.00 a month for 12 months now if 35.000 fans signed up to this it would equal 6.2 million a year plus intrest.
Now we all know the true situation westham is in and i fell i could afford this and want nothing in return but to see my club survive and play top flight football every year.
This is not for the hardend fan who go home and away as they all ready support the club enough.
This is for the fans who cant go westham every week and wish there was more that they could do evey year instead of just buying a shirt.,
6.2million is a lot of cash for our size club and i fell this will take a huge strain of the present owners and go along way in freeing up more cash to clear the debt.
The club manager has total control on who he spends the money on and how many players he buys with it.
It could roll over for six more months to a january window if all or part of the money was still avaliable.
This idea has the aim of supporting the club in purchases of players and getting rid of this huge debt.
I want to see how people feel about this idea as well.
Kind Regards
Gary
Gary I think you could have something well done and welcome
cheers m8 just an idea thoe.
Gary I appreaciate the thought behind your idea but dont you think that the fans already contribute enough to the club without having to buy the players as well?
Why should people give up more of their hard earned money to make life easier for the people who own the club.
The bought the club and for better or worse (you know which I think it is) they are charged with taking it forward.
Its a very decent sentiment but I think its too much to expect from over stretched fans!
Hi celtic, Yes the fans do contribute enough but this idea is for the fans like my self who cant go every week cant afford a season ticket but feel i want to support my club more.
Just a thought thoe cheers
Gary I appreciate completely where your coming for buy no fan should feel obliged to contribute money towards his club.
If the club wanted to better include its fans who cant make the game every week they could look at setting up a subscription based internet TV station along the lines of those done by bigger clubs.
For their £15 a month fans could at least get to watch reserve and youth team games and based on what other clubs charge for the service £15 would allow the club to put £10 a month directly into a transfer kitty like you suggested.
Celtic, The only thing your contributing is what the club could well do without. Try being positive for once
I have to agree, why is this person posting on this website? I'm sure Iain wasn't suggesting any hard pressed fans contribute, merely those that have some spare cash and want to invest in the club for the good of the club. Those that don't – fine, no problem.
hI, did you read my post on a idea for a transfer kitty? I was not suggesting hard pressed fans contribute, just fans that feel they would like to contribute more to there club, fans who cant go every week or afford a season ticket.
Sorry mate, I think you misunderstood my point. I was trying to communicate the fact to those that seem to disagree with the idea, or almost any idea(!), that there was no imperative to be involved and no press ganging people who either could not afford or did not want to become involved.
Hello m8, welcome aboard, i will ook forward to reading all your posts as this actually seems like a brilliant idea, i don't think it would happen but it is a great thaught, for all thise who say we are only getting £8 million for the TW, you must read the sun and espn, rubbish, Right about £8 million is for ashton and straumer gave some money can't quite remember the sum to our club as a gift, + G&S i have no doubt will inject further money, they siad that they had spoken to GZ about targets and that they will invest money for each player when he wants t osign someone, yes they won't be massive signing as we can't push ourselves in further debt, but what we can do is get good buys + a few loan players, great bussiness for the club, so overal i think to be honest we will have well over £8 million for this window. Look forward guys, Keep the faith.
Cheers m8 looking foward to responses as i feel this could be put in to action I have e,mailed the club but wanted to see what the fans thought.
Gary, I think it is a very creative idea. I'm not sure how easy it would be to actually carry out though. I'm split both ways as I now don't get to see as many games in person as I'd like as I now live on the South Coast and family/ work do not allow me the same 'freedom' I used to have so see your point in being able to contribute in other ways, however I think club shop purchases and occasional ticket purchases serve the same purpose, but that's not to say that your idea wouldn't get some support.Good luck mate
I'm in. As long as I have a say in the team selection & tactics. :p
Thanks to the M25, I have passed by Mr Sullivans house twice today. I thought a quick blast of Bubbles with my horn was appropriate on the return journey.
Yeah Devo we would need the worlds biggest subs bench to get all the scheme members into the matchday squad!
You know maybe I was wrong, not in my estimation of the clubs position but in my belief in what CB Holdings wanted from this deal. I assumed that whoever made the best offer for the whole of the club would be the one they would take, I mean its fairly standard business practice to sell an asset to the highest bidder.
Whatever put Tony Fernandes off this deal I find its hard to believe that he couldnt raise the money. Fernandes is simply too smart a business man to make an approach for the club if he couldnt complete on his end.
Cellino said he made the biggest offer and was willing to pay off the clubs debts, something he certainly has the cash to do.
Intermarket pushed the valuation for the club to the level achieved and never made the song and dance about the debts that Gollivan have.
The more I look at this the more I think Upton Park is the key to all this. There is no financial reasoning in selling the ground and renting the Olympic Stadium. We previously offered £100M towards the construction of the arena to go towards converting it into a 55,000 seater stadium which was rejected.
We then undertook a study to redevelop the current ground and discovered it could be increased to around 45,000 for about £40M which was deemed to make more sense. This is our best option as it can be dont without the need for excessive longterm borrowing (most likely it could be funded from cashflow) and it leaves us with a asset that has appreciated in value and we still own it.
If we sell the ground then the vast majority of the money would have to go towards developing the new stadium to suit our needs, so we would be paying for work on a ground we would never own. Given that we would only gain 10,000 extra seats and we would have to pay rent (not cheap I am sure) the increase in match day revenues would not be worth the value we would have lost in givign up our own ground.
In fact a very rough estimate would mean that it would take 10 to 15years of capacity crowds to make up the difference. For that matter I cant see us getting £100M for the sale of Upton Park as a brown field site, so we would have to either borrow to make up the cost of footing the bill to convert the new stadium or redevelop Upton Park, sell it and then use that money, this would however involve borrowing even more money.
Keep groping in the dark for your proof that you were right. Bye bye judas. You finally bored me into submission. I'm outta here.
Your leaving because you cant back up your claim that I have said I want the club to fail, and you never will.
If wanting to see the club do well, with the right owners who are honest about what their intentions are is a judas then there is going to be a hell of a lot of us.
BYE !! don't think we will miss you.
celtic….if the ground is sold would the banks take the money. Surely our debts are secured against our assets…eg chadwell heath and stadium site. Also they would hardly be happy if we sold the stadium, while owing them cash.
tony if we owed what sullivan claims we owe, I cant see the banks accepting the deal he says he made.
Likewise if Straumur are one of the banks we owe money to is he simply claiming the money paid for the equity is being taken off the debt? Or is the debt being written off.
What I want from Messirs Gold and Sullivan is a clear statement of exactly what the club owed and to who the day before they took over and what exactly we owe now they have, my guess is that the first figure is a damn sight lower than they claim and the second one is the exact same.
What you say about the stadium is true, but given the sum that was previously offered by the club to go towards converting the olympic stadium and using that as a guide how much profit would the club actually make from the ground sale if we have to pay for renovations at the new place?
My guess is that the ground will be sold to a holding company owned by Gold and Sullivan for redevelopment for a nominal sum on the undertaking that they foot the bill for the changes to the new ground, meaning they would essentially give away our ground and main asset in order to move to a ground that we will struggle to fill unless we are playing at a level that they show no signs of funding the players purchases to achieve.
private chat with celtic…
celtic to me it seems silly to move after spending loads of cash building three new stands and i feel having the potential to fulfill our needs at upton park by developing the east stand. we dont even need to pull down the existing stand just build around it (cheaper). if we could get permision to build it back over the road, leaving the road to run underneath and filled in corners it should be enough. We may even be able to purchase some of the grass area behind the wall, cos the flats are not that close to the wall.
Also i argued with you a lot (in good humour) over my support for g/s, but i was worried how on sky he said 40 mill of transfers debts, then had to say that included tevez money owed to sheff utd…hardly transfers. The statement of not selling players (a relief) was then casually followed by selling our ground, to rent olympic stadium.
Personally dont think it will happen, but im not sure i trust them totally.
private chat with celtic..
I read up on this stadium the top half is not a permanent structure, it has no boxes (biggest earners) man city make more from 9,000 corporate members (boxes,food, drink) than they do from 51,000 potential other customers (including season tickets), all the stadiums inferstructure is outside the main stadium and you have the track aswell. it could cost a fortune to turn this into a football stadium.
I can live with it if we had a massive lease, a hire purchase deal or were buying it outright…it might be great. Its possible he was just trying to impress and give us hope of better things in the future…which would be understandable. Maybe when they actually look into it they will come to the same conclusion as the others did and develop the boleyn anyway…so prbable i got upset other day over nothing.
we delayed this years financial report a while back….must be due soon and all will be revealed then. I dont think he would openly lie, he just probably over exited and got confused in the sky tv interview…he did seem genuinely emotional about buying us. We are not going to fold nor or anything and thats a relief in itself…it could be worse like poor pompey fans….then we would really have problems, maybe we should remember that.
to be fair tony we were never going to fold, it simply wasnt going. As for the forthcoming set of accounts, well if history is written by the victors then accounts are written by the owners.
The right accountants can make a set of figures sing whatever tune you want. Even the blunts did it to us by making an extraordinary one of payment against the clubs debt in order to post a loss for the year when they had in fact made a profit the season they went down.
The olympic stadium would take huge work to make it suitable for our purpose, the figure that have been quoted is £100M more than twice what it would cost to bring Upton Park to a capacity of over 45,000 so whats the point? Financially it makes no sense, its not like we will be left with £50M+ in the bank to sign players with, at best the deal will see us break even (that is a major best case scenario by the way) and we lose our biggest asset? Worst case scenario we end up paying back loans to finance the redevelopment of a ground we are also paying rent on? And for what?
There is no way that Gold and Sullivan will pay out the kind of money it would take to get into the champions league so that we could fill that stadium.
As for Sullivan getting muddled up in the interivews, he has been claiming these massive debts for months while admitting at the time he hadnt seen the books, so he has to keep up that pretence to save face and make him look like the saviour he wants to be seen as.
As for who I want to buy? With £8M to spend it doesnt make a difference as we wont get them! Benni and Eidur are good players but past their best and neither has been playing well of late. We certainly wont get Zamora back for the money we have. Sullivans promise of buying players in the window has already failed to deliver what we need.
Blimey, Celtic. They've only been there two days! How many players can you expect to sign in 2 days?
My view is that the money available is to provide a short term solution, i.e. keep us in the Premier League. The January window is never awash with good, available players and tends to lean towards loans and short term contracts.
The time for major change will be during the summer.
Now please give Gold and Sullivan a little more time.
Upton Park real estate,once sold clears all the debts.
Please dont waste money on any player above the age of 28 by that time their hunger and legs are starting to go,just buy Pavlychenko.
Really great Idea Iain. Unfortunately for me really bad timing. Hope to see a WHTID 10% share in the club. That would be very, very interesting seeing that we can't all agree on anything on here never mind about agree with the other shareholders in the boardroom.
evening Ian.
Firstly I would like to thank you for such a great fans forum, I read it every day at least 10 times.
The comments are always passionate as you would expect from Irons fans and I do not always agree with some of the posts, but I believe everyone has the right to say what they think, however I totally disagree with having a verbal brawl with posters and for the that reason I believe that the vendeta some have people have taken out on Celtic is totally unacceptable.
Saying that I feel IMHO that your whole hearted defence of him is a little uneven as Celtic has brought a lot onto himself and can not be considered whiter than white.
If you can and I know it may not be possible, but I would appreciate if you could e-mail me with why you feel that Celtic should receive such protection, thanks:-)
On the take over side they are not my first choice and I am sceptical about a lot of their info and their plans and a part of me thinks they will use and abuse us as previous owners have.
Only time will tell and let’s see the statements when they are eventually published
Hi All,
Here's an idea don't know if he has already been spoken about as I got bored ready all the other post and skipped to the end.
Instead of buying 10% of the club for the why not float 10% of the club at a £1 a share or a 1p per share and let people have the chance to own a bit of the club. I'd pay £1000 to have a hand full of shares even if I can't choose my 1-1-1-8 formations.
Lets stop the I know more then you rubbish and look forward to 3 points against Portsmouth
Both yours and GARYPOAGUE ideas are great in principle, but with everyones finances going south probably the timing is not right..
Wow, that was a hard read. Logged on on a Thurs morning downunder and had to wade through a mass of constant bickering.
Do you guys/girls acrually know each other?? Should i be looking for a punch up on tv at the next home game.
Have to say it all seems a little childish to me.
Time to focus on West Ham the magnificent football TEAM again.
COYI
well said Kiwi; I've just waded through it and came to the same conclusion. Maybe all parties should think whether their comments could be made less agressive before hitting the submit button. We are all West Ham supporters above all aren't we?
well i certainly am ! Its a bugger not being able to get to Upton Park (although have PROMISED to take my kids when we do the OE in 2012) but maybe being out of the country i dont get quite so "angry" over the off field developments………some of the comments are pretty damned nasty. Cant figure out how opinions alone can be so devisive which is why i wondered if there was a personal history between some these guys.