stevegrant

Except without the cup finals, trophies, etc?

Judging by his performance on Monday night (against his real team's bitter rivals, no less!), it'll be like playing against 10 men if he plays.

Didn't stop Leeds... (although obviously their appeal was rejected, eventually)

Yes. Luton's "holding company" problem wasn't that it was in debt, it was that their directors stupidly put payments to agents through there, presumably as some sort of cover-up. The thing that they're ****ed off about (and with some degree of sympathy from me) is that club officials pointed out the irregularities to the FA when they found out what the directors had done. The FA would probably never have found them had they not been tipped off, and Luton's "reward" for exposing their former directors? A 10-point penalty, which will almost certainly cost them their place in the Football League. The directors' penalty? Nothing.

The problem Luton had with their holding company wasn't that it was in debt, it was that they used it to pay agents, which is strictly against the FA's rules. All fees to agents must go through the football club's accounts. They didn't do that, so got hit with a 10-point penalty from the FA. The Football League then added 20 points to that deduction because they failed to agree a CVA with its creditors when it exited administration, and because they had been in administration three times. It was the football club which held the debts, not the holding company.

He says, while being outraged without knowing all (or indeed any) of the facts...

Fantastic. So you'd rather compromise the very existence of SFC just so you can say "Lowe's gone!"? Just fantastic.

Of course, it had absolutely nothing to do with the massive drop in the price and the "all hands to the pump" rallying call based on the very immediate crisis that had just exploded. All hail Barclays, that responsible lender who allowed SLH to borrow £6.5m after approximately the same level of revenue had instantly disappeared with the end of the parachute payments, and then kicked up a fuss despite the company then spending 15% of its revenue attempting to reduce said borrowing. Christ. :confused:

I'd disagree. If the club decided in January that they were cutting prices for ALL games for the second half of the season to £15, many season ticket holders would have been ****ed off - myself included - as the cost-per-game of a season ticket would then actually have been MORE than buying on a per-game basis (it's currently just over £16 per game based on the March Madness renewal price of £380). While I understand and appreciate the financial position of needing to get as much cash in as possible, there were very few "public" signs of the severity of the situation to the average fan, particularly given that we didn't sell a single player in the transfer window. Perhaps they could have done the £15 deal for a couple more games, but any more than that could have had a longer-term effect, not just in terms of season ticket sales but also with matchday sales as well. Just because tickets are suddenly cheaper every game, that doesn't mean people are automatically going to return in their droves and, more importantly, attend on a regular basis. As a slightly long-winded example: Current price £24, averaging 7k matchday sales = £168k per match x 23 home games per season = £3.864m Club tries to stimulate attendances by dropping the prices for the following season across the board to £15, which brings 17k matchday sales for the first 5 games = £255k per match = £1.275m, but the football on show is crap, people are ****ed off, etc, so despite the price drop, people can't be arsed to pay to watch a crap team, so the attendances fall away again. The next 5 games drops to 13k matchday sales = £195k per match = £975k, and then the remaining 13 matches average 10k matchday sales = £150k per match = £1.95m. While the matchday sales have increased by £400k over the course of a season, the club has had to reduce the cost of a season ticket in line with the matchday price reduction. Therefore instead of getting 10,000 season ticket holders at £350 (£3.5m), they're getting 10,000 at £250 (£2.5m), so they end up losing out overall.

It was probably too wide on the right for a right-footer. That said, it never stopped Beckham or Le Tiss...

I also agree to a point. However, football is such a competitive industry these days, where the smallest advantages count for so much. The likes of West Ham scandalously cheated their way to Premier League survival and it ended up only costing them £20m when they stood to lose more than double that if they were relegated. You can guarantee that any other club in our situation would be doing everything possible to avoid a points deduction, and therefore I have no reason to argue against SFC from doing likewise. If people don't like us, meh, big deal. We don't make the rules, the Football League knew about our ownership structure when we were relegated in 2005 and gave it the thumbs-up then, and they also knew about the loophole that may become evident if we were to have financial problems. They chose not to close that loophole - it's their problem.

But then they'd have just asked the club to do so, rather than spending a fortune trying to prove that they are the same... I'm with Jimmy_D on this one, I reckon they're ****ting themselves because they've got nothing on us and so they announce that they're going to get some forensic accountants to look into it but that it might take weeks, which allows time for the season to finish, where they'll be hoping we get relegated anyway, so they can just brush it all under the carpet and pretend it never happened. We could make the next few months very very uncomfortable for the Football League here...

There hasn't been a single suggestion of anything illegal, or even that the club has misled or lied to the Football League, so I'd watch the libel line if I were you. When we were relegated, the Football League were clearly satisfied with the structure we had in place at the time, otherwise we wouldn't have been issued with the "golden share" that every club gets as a member of the league. They knew the score then so you can be sure they know the score now. They even had the opportunity to close the loophole when Derby went into administration a few years ago but chose not to - perhaps they didn't expect to be in that situation again, who knows, but they missed a trick there.

Christ :smt017 I'm not sure they'll necessarily need "full" access - they'll be able to get copies of the various accounts from Companies House for £1 each, which may be sufficient. Quite why the FL couldn't do that in the first place is a bit baffling really.

Surprise, surprise, they've bottled making a decision. They're clearly hoping we go down anyway so they can just brush it all under the carpet. It'll be very very interesting to see what happens if we manage to stay up...

I would disagree. £2.5m of our revenue this season has gone on paying off the overdraft. Were it not for said overdraft, the club would have an extra £2.5m in its coffers. The wage bill has been cut pretty much in half - we're now running at about 50% of turnover, which is a perfectly stable amount. The only other liabilities are in the stadium mortgage, which is comfortably covered by season ticket sales. It's been suggested that Barclays would settle for a reasonable percentage of their debt as a full and final settlement. If, for argument's sake, they accept an offer of 60%, that means whoever wishes to buy the club will have to raise £2.46m to pay off that debt. It's possible that they may need to find another £1m or so to act as working capital while season ticket sales are carried out (the money initially gets ring-fenced for the mortgage payment) but in theory, now there's been a clean sweep, optimism among the fanbase will rise and fans will return, which will make the club self-sustainable once more.

Worth bearing in mind that Forest brought about 2500 down for that game whereas I suspect Charlton barely had 500.

Let's put it this way, if "nothing" is what we get then SFC ceases to exist, it really is as simple as that. Therefore, "something better than nothing" clearly is accurate, otherwise there is no club for us to support from that point forward.

Spot on. The supporter groups, such as the one that "derry" is trying to piece together, clearly aren't going to have as much money behind them as some of the other names who have been linked, but they're declaring their interest so that there is a "Plan Z" if all else fails. If nobody with serious money on their own steps up to the plate, who else is there if you completely disregard groups of supporters who are doing their best to get something together? Surely something is better than nothing...

1730 from Wandsworth Common, gets into Watford Junction at 1820... £5.30, bargain

I would be stunned if any potential buyers weren't aware of the situation and/or hadn't factored possible/probable relegation to League One into their plans.

Latest update: Quite a few payments waiting to clear into the bank account - once I've identified which ones these are (they don't show on the statement until they've cleared, which is irritating), I'll be able to give everyone a bit more information and possibly open up some more places. The vast majority have paid, so thanks to everyone who has done so. I'll keep you posted

I think that whichever way the Football League decide, it will be decided at tomorrow's meeting. They won't want it to drag on like the Leeds saga did last season. I can see it from both points of view, the club believe they have a watertight legal case which should see us safe from the points deduction based on the letter of the law - it's the Football League's fault that the loophole exists, it's not as if it's not been known about for years - Spurs first exploited it in 1983, albeit for different reasons, and we did the same when we floated in 1997. On the other hand, I think we'd be shouting from the rooftops if we were relegated because another team were in our position and ended up staying up at our expense, so a points deduction wouldn't be unjustified.

Nick Illingsworth on SSN now, time for the forum to go into meltdown...

Indeed... 1994 called and asked for its news back