Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.
runedge said:
Thats not what I mean. I meant that if fans around the world knew we were in financial danger, theres probably enough fans out there that would "do their bit" to help the club by spending more. I could be wrong.
forget it mate.... it's 716 millions overdraft we're talking about here (and more than 1 billion to get the whole club)... maybe, if man utd fans were 1\6 of the entire world population u could do something about it....
lazio fan tried that in 2004 (before lotito's rescue). lazio had about 2 millions fans all around the world those days.... sure they're probably a lot less than united fans...... but then again, their debt was much smaller than united's one aswell (it was 250 millions euros, wich is about 225 millions pounds).... and it was also much easier for them to help their club than it would be for u. lazio was a listed company so they could buy shares directly (instead of buying merchandising products, wich is a way more abstract process)......yet it didn't work.
there's really not much fans can do in theese kind of situations, sadly. just wait and hope for the best.
runedge said:
If 40 people all put £20million into the club, they wont be as desperate to get their money back as the banks would who loaned out the money. And seeing how its only £20million, most of the millionaires could probably take that loss and not worry as much as they would if any one person had to take the loss of the whole £800million. In some ways it sounds like a great idea. Lets say if (the now) 60 people all agreed that they need a world class signing to improve the squad, they just chip in a million each and we now have £60million to spend on a player.
mate it's way more complicated than this..... and investing +1 billions euros on a company which as 716 millions debt (that's the figure i heard) doesn't sound like a great idea..... it could never sound like a great idea.... no matter how we put it, this is a huge loss... the best outlook is to hope for a return on investment in, say, 5, 6 years..... it's hard to imagine a worse way to invest your money. and mate, being a millionaire doesn't mean u don't care about profits... quite the opposite actually.
that's why i said it must be a group and it must be an english group.... not because a group would turn this into a great idea..... it would still be a terrible idea, from a financial perspective...... but at least it would be possible (while it's pretty much impossible for a single billionaire to get persuaded to close such a deal).
the loss would be distributed over many people.....obviously so would the incomes (so, from a financial point of view, this would still be a terrible move). but since the loss would be less substantial, some motives (other than business) might actually persuade some people to get involved (getting world wide exposure, or contributing to saving the club you love, things like that)...... but as i said, that wouldn't make this deal a
great idea... at all. it would just make it
possible. but possible doesn't mean easy..... i mean, finding a group of people who are willing to inject such a huge ammount of cash.... to wait years for a return on the investment.... to share the lead with other 30, 40, 50 billionaire........ that's really not easy.
so if theese people are serious, that's your best chance to survive.... and u're already lucky u got this chance.
i understand and share your concern about the governance of man utd.... there would be just too many people involved, and billionaires don't like democracy.... it would be a mess, but hey, man united would still be alive at least, and that's the most important thing right now.
runedge said:
And why do you think United has little profitability? We're still making a lot of money. The problem is that nearly all of that money is going towards paying the debt
well "profits" equals to
incomes minus outflow (expenses, contracts, taxes, amortation, interests over debts).... so even though u're still making a lot of money that doesn't make u a profitable company coz your outflow is more substantial than your incomes.
i can't be 100% sure of that, of course, coz i don't have access to united's balance sheet, but i heard that this season, without the departure of ronaldo, united would have been reporting a loss of over 30 millions pounds...
now, even assuming u burn 20 million pounds in interests each year (it can't be more than that), that would still mean that, without ronaldo's move AND without the debt (and its interests) aswell, u would have still faced a 10 millions pounds loss..... and all of this, during a season that couldn't have been more succesful for man utd, from a financial point of view (the year after a league win and a champions league win guarrantees u the highest incomes u can expect in football).
so, even without the debt, man utd would still be no profitable at all (i assume it's down to some way too expensive players contracts)..... as a matter of fact, even my mighty little palermo is more profitable than united right now (40 millions profits over the last 4 financial years)
Its getting ridiculous with the headers.
