Come here to laugh at the Fascist, Failing Chavs

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Yes but they did it all on massive borrowed money, they literally where doing a Leeds and about to default then Abramovich bailed them out, without him they would have been sent a few divisions below and started from scratch.
I'm not sure my memory is correct but Mathew Harding bought some/a lot/half the shares in Chelsea and subsequently pumped millions in, hence them winning cups/top 4 etc.

When he died in a helicopter crash they were, as you say, on the brink (did Harding's family want the "loan back ?🤷) when RA bought them out.
 

Chelsea had borrowed heavily from financial institutions, principally to fund stadium development. Ruth Giste, the widow of the late club director Matthew Harding, had also demanded repayment of a significant sum loaned to the club. "Fans did not know that in January the club had mortgaged, if you will, the TV revenues," added Buck. "It borrowed against the TV revenues that were to be handed out in August. I didn't know as a fan the club owed money to the Harding family and they wanted it back. As a fan I was naive. I knew the club had financial problems, but didn't know the specifics."

Birch confirmed that there were other obligations that had put Chelsea in financial difficulty. He was working to refinance the debts to delay repayment for 12 months, by which time the lucratively remunerated Marcel Desailly, Gianfranco Zola, Emmanuel Petit and Winston Bogarde would have been removed from the wage bill. It meant that Chelsea's period of extravagance, mostly funded by debt, had come to a close.


Apologies Tomo Tomo for requoting your link.
 
Surprised at the price, to be honest. As usual, people loose their heads at auctions.

Maybe one of the losing bidders fancies a club at a 30% markdown that's already got a world class stadium in place and no £1B debt on the books.

:levyeyes:
 
Everyone seems to forget that Chelsea were a club going in the right direction even before the Russian arrived. They were winning domestic cups and a European trophy iirc and had top 4 finishes. It all started when that Harding bloke took over from Ken Bates in the mid 90's. During that period, 7 or 8 years, they still achieved more on the pitch than we have since Enic's 21 years in charge of us.

Meh....... Aside form the fact that Bates & Harding had them on the brink of bankruptcy; your synopsis is inaccurate and full of holes.

RA took over in 2004.

Harding was only ever an investor/vice chairman who came into the picture in 1993.... Bates remained in situ until RA took over.

Lastly, that pre-RA period of 8 years you mention was in fact 11 years..... 8 of which actually pre-date ENIC's ownership of Spurs.

Once you factor in how crap we were when ENIC took over and how much we've grown since, there's no meaningful comparison to be made.

Doing a Leeds? Oh my god we must all avoid doing a Leeds and run our clubs sensibly.

How about doing an Everton?

...Or a Portsmouth?

.....A Sunderland maybe?

Bolton?

Derby?

Crazy to me we'd continue to have such envious conversations in the context of Chelsea...... Absolute skid mark of a club.
 
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What happens to the 1.4 billion loan and ffp surely the other clubs are not going to sign this off without a suitable remedy.
I'm not sure.

With any acquisition, the buying entity can simply pay to take on the debt. So this US consortium will be owed the 1.4 billion by Chelsea PLC. If that happens, which I assume will be the case, it's a question of whether or not the new owners want to extract money from the club in order to service that debt, or if they're happy to carry on holding it like a massive bag of Chav shit.

I understand the debt part. What I have *never* understood is how FFP allowed it to happen. It's the most obvious case of financial doping.
 
whether or not the new owners want to extract money from the club in order to service that debt
Even for an oligarch, leaving 1.4bn on the table is a big ask. The consortium itself will be in debt in order to buy the club, I don't imagine they'll just sit on that 1.4bn while paying their own debt accured in order to buy the club.
 
Even for an oligarch, leaving 1.4bn on the table is a big ask. The consortium itself will be in debt in order to buy the club, I don't imagine they'll just sit on that 1.4bn while paying their own debt accured in order to buy the club.
I suspect, considering the current situation, he wouldn’t even be able to get hold of the money if he wanted it.

I’m simply assuming that debt has to have been factored into the price otherwise it’s absurdly overvalued.
 
I suspect, considering the current situation, he wouldn’t even be able to get hold of the money if he wanted it.

I’m simply assuming that debt has to have been factored into the price otherwise it’s absurdly overvalued.
Yup, since it's a consortium that means none of them wanted to take the risk of putting in all that money by themselves. Suggests to me that they won't be happy to have that big red number on their quarterly reports year after year.

It's not meaningless to them the it was for the Russian gangster.
 
Everyone seems to forget that Chelsea were a club going in the right direction even before the Russian arrived. They were winning domestic cups and a European trophy iirc and had top 4 finishes. It all started when that Harding bloke took over from Ken Bates in the mid 90's. During that period, 7 or 8 years, they still achieved more on the pitch than we have since Enic's 21 years in charge of us.
Chelsea were the most indebted club in Europe before RA turned up. If I remember right they were £100m in the red about 21 years ago and on the verge of folding. Harding had been buying them players.

they took the Lees route and with RA, they would have fared mo worse as they have always had a small core supporter fan base.
 
Meh....... Aside form the fact that Bates & Harding had them on the brink of bankruptcy; your synopsis is inaccurate and full of holes.

RA took over in 2004.

Harding was only ever an investor/vice chairman who came into the picture in 1993.... Bates remained in situ until RA took over.

Lastly, that pre-RA period of 8 years you mention was in fact 11 years..... 8 of which actually pre-date ENIC's ownership of Spurs.

Once you factor in how crap we were when ENIC took over and how much we've grown since, there's no meaningful comparison to be made.



How about doing an Everton?

...Or a Portsmouth?

.....A Sunderland maybe?

Bolton?

Derby?

Crazy to me we'd continue to have such envious conversations in the context of Chelsea...... Absolute skid mark of a club.

Sorry, so in the 11 years not 8 years before RA they won the Fa cup twice, League cup and cup winners cup. We've had 1 League cup in 21 years under ENIC ownership.
 
Chelsea were the most indebted club in Europe before RA turned up. If I remember right they were £100m in the red about 21 years ago and on the verge of folding. Harding had been buying them players.

they took the Lees route and with RA, they would have fared mo worse as they have always had a small core supporter fan base.

Barcelona are currently 1 billion in the red and they are linked with signing Haaland and numerous other big names. Funny ol' game.
 
prior to RA £100m+ in debt was probably on par with Barca now, and in Ruth I would never compare us to Barca.

and if I remember rightly Barca just got a long term £1B loan cos they own their own tv rights.

comparison with Scum over the period is fair, but not Barca and that little shit stain in west London.

I don’t anyone will ever argue we over achieved and I’m not a levy apologist. Can’t change the past but I have a fuckload of faith in our future.
 
For all the take over talk, very little is being said about the collapse in their form & the clear drift in leadership. The old regime would never tolerate failure, and it seemed to be to be a threat if a win didn’t appear. I also suspect that the bonus for success per person was / is massive.

Now that’s all gone south it’s becoming acceptable to get humped by Woolwhich. Drawing with Wolves when 2-0 up ? That’s not Roman’s Empire at all. They have switched off to such a degree that it’s perfectly possible they end up 5th behind Scum and Us. One more win & two defeats in between a cup final….I wouldn’t rule it out.

Longer term, with the culture change and the emergence of Newcastle as big spenders, they really are at risk. And for Tottenham at least the regime change is a good thing in terms of business. As it was they would not deal with Levy and went out of their way to fuck us. That is not happening in the future I can guarantee that, they will trade with us again and that’s a positive.
 
Pretty sure that their collapse in form is because since being eliminated from the CL, they haven’t had a meaningful game (to them).
Having said that, I don’t think teams that coast can just raise their game at will so I can’t see them beating Liverpool in the Cup Final.
 
For all the take over talk, very little is being said about the collapse in their form & the clear drift in leadership. The old regime would never tolerate failure, and it seemed to be to be a threat if a win didn’t appear. I also suspect that the bonus for success per person was / is massive.

Now that’s all gone south it’s becoming acceptable to get humped by Woolwhich. Drawing with Wolves when 2-0 up ? That’s not Roman’s Empire at all. They have switched off to such a degree that it’s perfectly possible they end up 5th behind Scum and Us. One more win & two defeats in between a cup final….I wouldn’t rule it out.

Longer term, with the culture change and the emergence of Newcastle as big spenders, they really are at risk. And for Tottenham at least the regime change is a good thing in terms of business. As it was they would not deal with Levy and went out of their way to fuck us. That is not happening in the future I can guarantee that, they will trade with us again and that’s a positive.

It was 2-way hostility though... I wouldn't expect too much to change.... At best it'll just take on the "never go there" style resentment similar to that of a move to the goons, but Levy will still despise them.
 
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