stevegrant

Works fine for me. Quite a lot of pages

Were you at a game when any of this happened? Did you either confront the individuals or report it? I'm guessing a "no" to at least the second question...

In theory they would head straight for the liquidator, I think. However, if the CVA document has a ridiculous get-out loophole, they'll probably be fine.

Just a post number will be fine

What were these lines? I've seen this mentioned a few times but must have missed the actual find at the time...

Sorry, what??

Given your recent record of posting things that were never said on Talksport, I'll take this one with a pinch of salt

I went to the game yesterday (pretty much on my doorstep so would have been rude not to!), and it was a 300 wicket, to be fair. We didn't bowl particularly badly, and it was a pretty flat track with a fast outfield and short boundaries. The game was lost in overs 10-20 of our innings. Howell was excellent, Myburgh and Vince doing what they seem to do more often than not by getting in and then getting out stupidly. Dawson looked in good touch before he got out as well. What doesn't help our cause is McKenzie coming in and taking 25 balls to score his first six runs at a time when we had a fair bit of momentum. Sometimes he needs to remember he's not batting for a day to save a test match at Lord's...

However much he paid for the "advice" to sue Twitter and demand details of any user who had posted anything relating to his affair, it wasn't anywhere near enough. Absolutely staggering that a lawyer genuinely thought he would have a case there He'd be well-advised now to go down the Andrew Marr route. The majority of people know who it is anyway, and ironically all that is being achieved with this super-injunction is keeping the story IN the press!

imo I think this would have made the 5yr plan very difficult, if not impossible. I'm not so sure - the system in League Two made allowances for direct contributions from club owners, hence why Notts County were able to sign the likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Lee Hughes and Johnnie Jackson in that division. The thing that was a bit odd was that the Football League didn't take a closer look at the situation when the Munto Finance thing all started to unravel, as in the end that money didn't actually exist so they massively exceeded the salary cap.

*sets remote record*

I love the fact that either Wigan or Blackpool, in the bottom 3 going into the final day, could lose their last game and still stay up I could see Spurs battering Birmingham on Sunday, while Blackpool and Wigan only lose by the odd goal against Man United's reserves and Stoke respectively.

Yes. I don't see why that is a bad thing. It's basically financial doping. The majority complained when Abramovich came on the scene and started spunking money Chelsea didn't actually have, creating an imbalance and artificially inflating transfer fees and wages way above what most other clubs could afford. The reason many clubs are in financial difficulty is because they have either had someone pumping in money who has then stopped doing so, or they've been trying to keep up with the clubs who have had cash injections from benefactors. Are you advocating that the only clubs that can compete are those with benefactors willing to pay out of their own pocket, and ******** to anyone else who can't (or don't want to) attract such an individual? IMO, that scenario will only attract more of the sort of people who have been involved down the road, wanting to find a business willing to act as a laundry. The clubs coming down from the Premier League also invariably retain Premier League wage bills for at least the first year, which then guarantee losses, and as such they would fail this break-even test, with more money being distributed to the other clubs as a result.

Agreed, although would argue that exemptions should be granted to directors who are appointed in situations where they're essentially fire-fighting, but then that would create further grey areas. Disagree. Directors should not necessarily be independently wealthy people. Club directors should, in theory, be people who know how to run a business and/or a football club, and responsibility should not fall upon the directors to finance the club when it should be self-sufficient. I'd say a better deterrent against clubs racking up debts and spending money they haven't got would be automatic relegation for clubs who enter administration. A points penalty has been proven to not be a big enough deterrent. Ultimately, that's got to be down to the clubs to implement, and unfortunately there will always be clubs willing to leave out that clause from a player's contract if it's going to be the difference between that player signing for them and that player signing for a rival.

I actually think rules like this will be to our advantage at Championship level. While at the moment things are skewed in favour of the clubs who are receiving parachute payments from the Premier League, these clubs also have enormous and unsustainable wage bills. As a result, they all make losses while they're in the Championship. As a result, they've then got a choice of either cut the wage bill dramatically to comply with the break-even test or potentially suffer a further financial penalty with that money being redistributed to those who do comply. If we can get ourselves to a situation where we're breaking even - certainly possible - then we stand to reap the benefits of that at the expense of those whose income would still be greater than ours.

It's not that simple, though. These rules would almost certainly dictate what types of income and expenditure is counted towards the break-even test. For example, finance for infrastructure (building/renovating facilities, etc) would almost certainly not count towards it, as that's generally regarded as good long-term planning. It won't be a case of just looking at a bank statement, seeing £25m resting in it, and saying "OK, that's fine, you pass". Just because a company has cash in a bank account, that doesn't automatically mean it's solvent.

I would imagine they would have "fair market value" rules to cover that sort of thing, just like UEFA.

That's correct. I don't know whether this one covers a similar period or if they're going to do it on an annual basis - I suspect they'd rather do it annually rather than over a longer period of time, but that then doesn't take into consideration that one year a club might have a profitable year and the next it might make a loss to a similar value, which would obviously then be evened out over that two-year period.

Barnsley, while clarifying their position on the speculation surrounding Mark Robins' future at the club, have revealed that a meeting of all (presumably current, rather than next season's) Championship chairmen/CEOs has been convened for this coming Thursday to discuss a proposed "break-even test" for clubs in the division. Clearly, based on last year's financial figures and the likelihood that the position probably hasn't changed a great deal this year, it's going to have an impact on us. The proposal is for a test similar to that being brought in by UEFA for clubs wishing to compete in the Champions League and Europa League competitions, with sanctions applied to clubs who don't "pass" the test, which could include transfer embargos, a competition tax or a fine structure depending on how badly the club fails the test. The competition tax would likely be a system where clubs that fail the test have to pay an amount as a proportion of their losses into a central fund which then gets distributed among the clubs that do pass the test - that then gives clubs an additional incentive to break even, as they'll then be eligible for a payout from this fund. Any thoughts?

And Redknapp's blown the best part of £100m in transfer fees himself since he became Spurs manager, so it's not as if he's been lacking in resources.

Certainly the level of sympathy will be greatly reduced this year as the club set a precedent last season. However, that doesn't mean the club is right not to give supporters a choice as to how they pay for a season ticket.

Amusing. Surrey, captained by KP, have just been thrashed by 10 wickets by Cambridge University

The people actually serving the stuff will have absolutely no input on what they sell, they're agency staff who come in on what's probably minimum wage for a few hours every other week.

I'm liking Stoke to win after extra time at 16/1

I'll be trying out this place (Croydon branch) tonight - should be interesting. It seems to be really popular, I was intending to go there a couple of weeks ago, didn't bother booking thinking "it's only a Sunday evening, how busy can it be?!", and then when I got there, there were 50-odd people in the queue to get in with a likely waiting time of 2 hours