weasel wrote:You see Marko I had already said he had wasted a lot of money on court cases. You see what you want to see cos you are completely blinkered in your hatred.
Yes Gradel left but that was not the club's choice. He wanted to leave and go to France. It wasn't about money just about a player wanting to be in France. Bates couldn't move the club to France and likewise he couldn't give RS, JH and BJ premiership football. You are clearly deluded if you think we could match Premiership wages but that was not the issue anyway - they wanted to test themselves in the PREMIERSHIP. Look I put that bit in bold in the hope it sinks in. Leeds Utd = Championship Club, Norwich = Premiership Club.
No idea why you are going on about interest in the club. Obviously just going off on a different tangent to try to win an argument that doesn't exist. Bates and his backers came in with money whilst other chancers were all farting about. You snooze, you lose. No doubt there have been lots of companies wanting to buy the club since - again another bizarre point you are trying to make which is non-sensical. You suggest people wanted to buy us well that then means the club is a wanted asset which means that people are prepared to pay Bates loads of dosh because of what he has done over the years to the club. You suggest 'people like me will believe there is no genuine interest in the club' far from it my simple minded friend if anything I think there is a lot of interest in the club. Winning the wrong argument there sunshine as stated before.
So the value of the club is the dumbest 'pro bates' argument you've heard yet you do nothing to refute the fact that the club is now worth a hell of a lot more than when Bates bought it despite the country being in recession and property values not rising. How then is the club worth £30-£40 more now than it was before Bates?
The building work increases the value of the club due to the fact the club has an option to re-purchase the stadium for an agreed cost. It also has a lease lasting for a considerable period so letting the stadium crumble to the ground only hurts us.
So you'd wait for us to be top of the premier league and then shut down the East Stand to do the building work. Much more sensible to build in the last couple of years due to the fact that if the East Stand was fully open it wouldn't have been filled anyway so closing the upper tier, as Bates did, make economical sense at this time. No Marko you wait until we get the crowds back and then close down the stand.
Over the last few months I have tended not to read your posts due to your aggressive nature and completely blinkered views. Just reading the first few paragraphs shows you have still not learnt that you need facts to back up an argument. As such I can't even be bothered to read your last few paragraphs. Those who shout loudest aren't always right Marko.
How much effort did we put into trying to convince those players that Leeds is the best place for them and that staying was the right course of action? Zero. Nothing. Nada. Zip. No effort was put into at the very LEAST making the decision for those players difficult. It's too easy to blame the players desire to leave for them actually leaving, but how often does it happen to other clubs that their best players leave without the club putting up a fight? The players usually end up leaving for extortionate amounts of money that mean the selling club has a lot to play with. Not in our case, no. No fight whatsoever. Plenty of up and coming players stay in the Championship and try their luck at getting promoted. Players like Jonny Howson who live and breath Leeds United would rather play in the Championship with Leeds than in the Premier League with anybody else. You've casually ignored the various statements from various sources that Howson was forced out of the club. No effort made to keep him. What about the countless statements from Snodgrass et al about how no ambition has been shown? No intent to keep the best players that are the foundation of the squad Grayson was building, or are you going to ignore that in favour of a speculative argument that they are just greedy players who want as much money as they can get their dirty hands on, and are just spouting words put into their mouths by agents. Of course they are, they're football players and they're all stupid. Give me a break.
The value of the club when bates bought it was such a low sum because guess what? Masses amount of debt unmanageable debt does that to the value of a business. Writing off all that debt through administration does what? I'd let you work it out but you'd need common sense for that. It means the unmanageable debt becomes manageable, and overnight the club is worth a hell of a lot more. It's not rocket science to work out that a club in the state Leeds United was in when bates bought it would be worth very little, and a lot more once the debt gets written off. It's simple, common sense. £7 million worth of loss making ground developments don't improve the value of the club by £40 million. That's just crazy talk. It's bad maths. It doesn't even make any sense.
As for the closing of the East Stand upper, what a sad excuse for an argument. The building work was done mostly over the summer when the ground wasn't even in use. The club then went ahead and sold season tickets for it before the building work was finished, and the stand remained closed while those fans sat around waiting for it to open. What difference does it make? None. The only thing is now is that it's been built so to save himself from looking an utter pillock, the East Stand upper has to remain open at all times. It was closed before and only opened on special occasions
for a reason, and that reason was unnecessary extra insurance and running costs that could be saved by not opening space that wasn't needed because we weren't filling the ground. Poor argument. Poor, poor argument. All it's done is cost us a shed load of money, it appears to be costing us more and more by the month. Have you checked the latest loan we've taken out at a 7% interest rate against the income of that monstrosity? Income that's not coming in because it's not getting used - brilliant business sense - but you'll happily ignore that because it basically destroys your argument.
Closing down the East Stand to do the developments while we're getting a full house every week would make a hell of a lot more sense than when we're not filling the ground every week because it means you're guaranteed to sell the places in the new facilities. Nobody is using the East Upper. There's maybe 100 people in there per game. What about the boxes? They go unused. Any money lost from loss of ticket sales due to a months closure of the East Upper would be made back in probably less than that time because the new facilities would sell like hot cakes if the product (football) on offer was top end Premier League. Again, simple common sense. Instead, it's going to cost more and more every season just to keep this thing running. Insurance costs and running costs for something that's not going to sell until we're in the Premier League and flying high. So it'll take a larger amount of money for it to pay off. And again, property only increases the value of the business it belongs to. The East Stand, like the rest of the stadium,
does not belong to Leeds United and therefore does not increase the value of Leeds United. I can see no fault with the fixed cost of repurchasing the stadium point - it is a good one. But at the same time, the value of the East Stand developments is so little compared to what could have been done. And yes, of course the stadium needs to be kept in decent condition because of the lengthy lease on it, but it's a hollow argument when you don't overlook that the East Stand was the least pressing concern in the "Elland Road is a shithole" problem. You've overlooked that the East Stand didn't need refurbishment. The South, West and North stands are all falling to pieces but £7 million (and counting) gets spent on a stand less than 20 years old. The West Stand is 60 years old and has been left to fall to pieces. What about the Pavilion? It's predecessor was getting filled on a weekly basis, but it got closed down to build another £1.5 million white elephant that's now losing money. Money that could have been spent improving the West Stand or the North Stand or the South Stand. It could have been pumped into the academy.
At a football club, your academy is your BIGGEST asset. It's a farm for talent. You can sell that talent. Produce 10 professional standard players a season, how many of those will go into your squad? 1, maybe 2? 3 at a push. On a really good year, you could keep the lot, and signing from the academy means you don't have to sign from elsewhere, and young players are cheap.
Any players not good enough for us? Sell them to the lower leagues. It's the reason that Man City's owners are now pumping £120 million into developing a new training facility. How much have they spent on the playing squad to get Man City to the top? Close to £1 billion so far, but they still intend to make a profit, and they'll do that by building the future squad from a super-academy. While the scale is somewhat larger, their idea was correct - growth through any means will bring profit in the long term. Growth comes from success and doing everything you can to get fans into the ground, watching the team, buying the merchandise. We don't have the sort of money to build a facility like that or do anything on the same scale, but the principle is the same. The kicker is - we already have a top standard facility at TA, that's not getting used to it's full potential because half the staff got sacked when ken bates moved in.
In the summer of 2011, the club put in place plans to open the East Stand to account for the rising demand for tickets towards the back end of the 10/11 season. They then failed to do what was necessary to continue that growth, which would mean keeping hold of Gradel and Johnson, and ensuring Grayson was given the small amount of backing he needed to make the finishing touches to his attack minded squad he'd been building. Kilkenny could have been replaced, but some people believe holding on to him would have been good as well. That summer was crucial, it was the tipping point.
Then in the summer of 2012 what did the club do? Same again, no real substantial backing for the manager. Kept the East Upper open though, despite a massive drop in demand for tickets over the course of the 11/12 season. In what universe does that make sense? Nobody's. Nowhere near enough demand for the shiny new facilities or even the bog standard seats for us peasants up there, but it gets kept open, meaning it has to be insured every match, it needs stewarding, bar and waiting staff, any number of other costs that could be cut out by not bothering. Or they can cover it by closing the South Stand - helping to further kill the atmosphere.
But why would they close the East Stand? Can't have ken bates looking stupid for improving the stand and then closing it down to cut costs. No, that would be far worse than, say, failing miserably to make a promotion push. We all know ken bates "stellar" reputation is more important than the clubs success. Again, common sense. The facilities are there, no reason whatsoever they cannot be closed down for the timebeing, have the maintenance budget cut down to the bare minimum to minimise the damage of the initial capital used to get it all going, then open it when the demand is there. But nope. That would make too much financial sense.
And tell me where you've used any facts in your argument? You haven't, the level of speculation is the same if not more than my posts, except your argument fails to account for the bigger picture, it fails to account for common sense, all it seems to do is defend bates idiocy on the basis that "he owns the club, he can do what he wants with it". It fails to account for the proper order in doing things and how individual incidents can be connected together and ARE connected together to make or break progress.
And the interest in the club is relevant because you're prepared to label bates as some sort of saviour, or say that the interest is there because of what bates did. It's NOT. That's the exact point I'm trying to make. The interest is there and always has been there because it's Leeds United. Bates came in and bought us for very little while others were hesitant to take on the challenge because he probably saw an easy buck in it. He could basically do whatever he wanted, write off the debt with his dodgy administration tactics that he's used at countless companies before, and then spend any money the club has on whatever the hell he wants and the club would still have a substantial value because the interest was ALREADY there. All he had to do was what he did at Chelsea. Spend club money (not his own) on assets that have value, strip off those assets to wherever they are held, then sell the club at the same value he could have sold it for before. Then when the club gets bought out, sell back the assets for free money. It's a shameless strategy. It's speculative, but no more speculative than anything you've had to say - the only difference is is that mine doesn't ignore the habits of a lifetime of Kenneth William Bates.
And pat, they have the opinion that some of the bad stuff bates has done is somehow good for the club. Nobody can see it but them. It's like they have beige tinted glasses on. All it takes is pretty simple common sense to work out why what he's done in those instances is pretty bad for the club.
Just keep posting like you do and dont let this lot change that.
