stevegrant

To be fair, it's not his money, so it's much easier to be brave (or to gamble, depending on which way you want to look at it)

Worth noting that the timing of this means that we might not find out the amount of the loan until the end of March 2014 when the 2012/13 accounts are filed.

It's lodged by Southampton Football Club Limited, not the holding company.

No problem with the bit in red if true, although the summer transfer spending doesn't really support that idea, IMO. Regarding the bit in orange, the fact that we're borrowing from a mysterious fund in a tax haven would suggest to me that any sort of Liebherr "rainy day" fund has already been used and that Cortese and the rest of us are now on our own. If that wasn't the case, why wouldn't we be using that rather than leveraging the entire club in order to get a loan which is presumably interest-bearing?

Don't forget that NEXT season will signal a massive windfall for PL clubs with the new TV deal with Sky and BT Vision kicking in, with domestic broadcasting rights having increased by 71%. The team finishing 17th this season can expect to receive a guaranteed £13.8m as their equal share of 50% (5% of that 50%, obviously) of the total domestic broadcasting pot, plus £3m as the "merit payment", i.e. based on finishing position, plus facility fees for each time they're televised, plus around £20m as their equal share from the overseas TV rights deals. NEXT season, those figures will leap to £22.6m for the domestic "equal share" and £4.9m "merit payment". The overseas rights are renegotiated at different times so there's no definitive figure for that, but it would seem reasonable to assume that that figure will increase as well.

Not necessarily. If you or I went to a bank and asked for a loan, it probably wouldn't be secured against anything. Obviously that's different from business lending, etc.

No worries, merged the two threads together

SFC has borrowed an unspecified amount of money from Vibrac Corporation, registered in the British Virgin Islands, which is secured as a fixed and floating charge on all assets and future revenues. :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh:

More tickets are on their way, it was on the OS either yesterday or Monday

Are you feeling ok?

I don't know a great deal about the construction industry, but surely the architect's job is done once the plans have been submitted? Those plans were submitted months ago, so unless Cortese's suddenly decided he doesn't like something about the design (not beyond the realms of possibility), surely there's no need for an architect to be involved at this stage.

Also, of course, the main person in that statement, Iain McInnes, the proposed chairman of Portsmouth Football Club - I'm not aware of the trust members having voted for him to assume that role...

Why not? Surely it puts them in a stronger negotiating position if they've got confirmed converted pledges in the form of ACTUAL money rather than the pretend money they have at the moment?

Loads of accumulators ruined by either Spurs, Birmingham or Peterborough today, I reckon.

Well spotted, cheers. Looks as though when the server crashed last night, his user record in the database got corrupted and when I ran the process to check for corrupt records, it got deleted. Should be able to fix that fairly easily.

Please ignore...

I'd argue that the severity of the payout will make the police take much more consideration when using freedom-restricting legislation in future rather than just applying it willy-nilly to a group of supporters about whom they possessed absolutely no evidence that they posed a disorder threat, and as such the payout is perfectly justified. If the police know that the worst that's going to happen is that they have to pay out £250, they won't think twice about herding people up and disrupting their perfectly peaceful and legal movements every other week. That £2300 per victim suddenly makes them actually think about whether what they're doing is actually right.

Moved 6 miles in the wrong direction, tbf

Needs some Avram Grant, Daniel Azougy, Steve Cotterill and Tony Adams additions, I reckon

Wanted Bradford away

While we're on the subject of the FSF, perhaps one of their biggest successes in recent years was their campaign on behalf of 80 Stoke City fans who were issued with a Section 27 notice by Greater Manchester Police while they were peacefully drinking in a pub in Irlam, which basically forced the Stoke fans - despite no evidence to suggest they were a risk - back onto their coaches and back to Stoke without being allowed to attend the game. In total, £184,850 was subsequently paid out by GMP in compensation.

I believe it's a PL/FL thing, and it's one of their "please do this just so we're seen to be doing something, even though we actually don't give a flying one" ventures, so as far as I'm aware there's no punishment for not having one. Similarly, the Independent Football Ombudsman was set up by the two leagues to mediate when clubs and supporters are in dispute (it actually seems to be surprisingly rare that the ombudsman is asked to get involved), but while they will publish their findings for everyone to see and the clubs all agreed to set up the ombudsman in the first place, there is no obligation on clubs to comply with any of their findings. Most clubs do generally comply on the rare occasion they're shown to have behaved particularly improperly, though.

I'll add that the whole point of these "Club Charter" league tables is that every club is - supposedly - obliged to publish a Customer/Fans Charter which states what fans can expect in terms of the service they receive from people at the club, whether that's from stewards, ticket office staff, megastore staff, etc. The FSF, as an independent body unattached to any specific club, has chosen to review these charters based on a number of criteria and ranked each of them as such. It gives a decent barometer of those clubs who (at least claim to) do more to have strong relations with their fans and those who fairly openly don't give a toss.

They provide a service to football fans, their members. They lead campaigns on key issues (safe standing being a primary and relevant example), and also offer legal advice where required. Still, I'm sure when you or someone you know gets inadvertently caught up in some bother at a game - and it does happen, more regularly than you may think - you won't be interested in knowing your rights or getting free access to advice and support from solicitors who specialise in football banning orders and other public order issues.

I'm struggling to see anywhere where they claim any sort of "authority", to be honest. It never ceases to amuse me how organisations that attempt to help their fellow football fans - whether they support the same club or not - get labelled with this "self-appointed" or "they've got no authority" nonsense.