Football #29: A Time for Transfers

[Horza]

Any excuse to drag up this classic:

Harry Redkanpp’s Lunch:

I’ve got up this morning and her indoors has left a note saying she’s gone up the shops and I’d better have made the lunch by the time she gets back or else. She says she wants spaghetti bolognaise.

Opened up the fridge. Jesus Christ, have you seen what she’s left me with? I’m down to the bare bones and no mistake.

There’s spaghetti, a tub of pasta sauce, some minced beef, fresh herbs, some parmesan cheese, a bottle of Baron Philippe de Rothschild Opus One Napa Valley 1987 red wine and Claudia Roden’s ‘Simple Mediterranean Cookery’ book! Bloody amateur hour, I’m telling you. How the hell am I supposed to make spaghetti bolognaise with that little lot? I thought there’d be some top, top ingredients in there.

Whoever’s bought that from the supermarket should be ashamed of themself. It’s a mish-mash of lopsided ingredients. The whole recipe has been badly constructed. It’s scary, I’m telling you.

I’m just standing there swearing and muttering to meself when the phone rings. It’s Jeff Powell phoning up to say how brilliant I am and that I’m one of the best cooks of my time and that I could have cooked for England. I have to cut him off though because I’ve got Brian Woolnough on the other line saying I’m one of the kitchen’s great characters and it’s a bloody miracle how many meals I’ve made out of literally nothing. They’re saying I’m like a Cockney Jesus, the way I’ve managed to feed the five thousand with the tiny amount I’ve had to spend in the supermarket and just my wheeler-dealer know-how.

I need some better ingredients and fast. When I saw the wife come home from the shops yesterday with some spaghetti, a tub of pasta sauce, some minced beef, fresh herbs, some parmesan cheese, a bottle of Baron Philippe de Rothschild Opus One Napa Valley 1987 red wine and Claudia Roden’s ‘Simple Mediterranean Cookery’ book, I had no idea that’s what would be in the fridge when she asked me to make spaghetti bolognaise.

It’s a hard job I’ve got on here this lunchtime believe me. If I can even get anything into a pan it’ll be a massive achievement and I know Jeff and Woolly would agree with me. Trouble is the wife can’t take criticism. Too precious these days, women. That’s the trouble. I’m short of people with the right character in this house.

When you’re as stretched as I am, a lunch is a massive distraction from the really important meal: dinner. I think I’m just going to have to serve up the pot of pasta sauce with some tap water and just hope for the best. If I can pull this mess round it’ll be amazing really.

[baxus]

it's no longer a rumour

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/redknapp-to-make-tottenham-exit.html

[mormont]

Latest twist in the Rangers saga: Walter Smith is leading a consortium to try to gazump Charles Green.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18447530

[slothman92]

After seeing a little of the Euro, who did we predict as the new transfer darlings. The hype around Dzagoev seems to be building. Also Pilar for the Cezchs.

Guys like Mvilla, Llorente, and Erikson, who everyone thought were going to really raise there price have dissapointed or not been able to play

[Inigima]

Latest twist in the Rangers saga: Walter Smith is leading a consortium to try to gazump Charles Green.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18447530

Well, that's interesting. Some questions:

- Their supporters seem pretty pleased about this. I gather this is actually maybe legitimate and not another sleazy asset-stripping? Is the plan to just straight up pay off Rangers' debts? (If not, how else would this work?)

- Has Green's bid already been accepted? Can the club accept the new offer if they want to, or would Green have to agree to allow the new deal? Green seems like a cartoon villain, it wouldn't shock me if he demanded a payday to step aside if his blessing is required.

- Rangers would still be a newco under this arrangement and should still have to fuck off to the third division. Could they survive that? (I am guessing yes, given their fanbase.)

[mormont]

Well, that's interesting. Some questions:

- Their supporters seem pretty pleased about this. I gather this is actually maybe legitimate and not another sleazy asset-stripping? Is the plan to just straight up pay off Rangers' debts? (If not, how else would this work?)

- Has Green's bid already been accepted? Can the club accept the new offer if they want to, or would Green have to agree to allow the new deal? Green seems like a cartoon villain, it wouldn't shock me if he demanded a payday to step aside if his blessing is required.

- Rangers would still be a newco under this arrangement and should still have to fuck off to the third division. Could they survive that? (I am guessing yes, given their fanbase.)

At the moment, it appears that the sale to Green has gone through. The debts of the old Rangers will die with the club. Technically, they remain with the old club which the liquidators are winding up, but with the failure of the CVA, the old club only has the £5.5m Green has paid for the assets to repay those debts. The auditor's fee is around £5m (yes, really) and that has to be paid in full (unless the liquidator thinks it's excessive, and they may): so it's accepted by the creditors that the debts won't now be paid. The sole exception could be the outstanding 'football' debts, transfer fees and so on: although these are legally dead too, there's potential for the football authorities to make it a condition on the newco being allowed to play that they make payments to cover these debts.

Green's position was that he had a legally binding agreement that if the CVA fell through, he could buy the assets of the old club at the price of £5.5m. Smith's consortium were challenging that on the basis that the liquidator has a duty to maximise the value of the assets. But their bid was only £0.5m higher, so there's some doubt that the liquidator would find it worthwhile to try to nullify the Green/Duff and Phelps agreement for that small a benefit to creditors. So they tried to appeal to Green directly to step aside - never likely to work. Green has bought the stadium, the training ground, and various other bits and bobs for £5.5m. That's an absolute steal. The land Murray Park is built on alone is worth more.

The Smith consortium could now buy the club from Green, I suppose. I doubt it's likely.

What Green will now do is open to question. Nobody yet knows whether the newco will get the players: Green insists that their contracts transfer whether the players want to join the new club or not, but employment law in the UK says different. It's possible he means that the player's registrations transfer, not their contracts: but I doubt any court would support that either. He doesn't have a membership in any league, either. So he may have a stadium but no players and no league to play in. He needs to apply to join a league right away: probably the SPL, but if they turn him down - and they might - he'll have to apply to the SFL, which means the Third Division. Could they survive that? Well, they won't be getting crowds of 40-45,000 every week playing against Cowdenbeath with a team consisting of whatever players Green can scrape together in a few weeks, but probably. It'll just be humiliating for a few years. But that seems guaranteed whatever happens.

[Inigima]

So Green's got away with it, then? That hardly seems fair, are there likely to be lawsuits? I have a hard time thinking HMRC will allow Green to run off with the land and the stadium and all the rest for £5.5 million and left £35-90+ million in tax debt with an empty shell corporation. That can't possibly be legal, can it?

I'm slightly baffled by your representation of Green's position with respect to the club's assets. The club has £x in assets, including land, stadium, etc. it also owes approximately £a jillion to its creditors. He offered to pay them roughly 9% of their due. They said no. How can Green then legally just say "fuck you guys then, I'm not paying you anything and I'm taking the £x in assets"? Don't those assets have to be liquidated since the CVA was rejected? Are you sure about this?

What about the conflict of interest re: Duff & Phelps? I'm assuming there will be lawsuits over that too.

Whatever happens, Frankenrangers will definitely apply to join the SPL. They should be rejected but who knows if the board will have the spine to do that. If they don't and newco Rangers are admitted directly to the SPL then I hope the other supporters keep their word and boycott the league. I am not optimistic that any of my preferences will come to pass.

[mormont]

So Green's got away with it, then? That hardly seems fair, are there likely to be lawsuits? I have a hard time thinking HMRC will allow Green to run off with the land and the stadium and all the rest for £5.5 million and left £35-90+ million in tax debt with an empty shell corporation. That can't possibly be legal, can it?

*shrugs* It's how liquidation works. The debts were run up by oldRangers. Green (&co) entered into an agreement with oldRangers' administrators, which was that they would provide £8.5m of capital to enable oldRangers to exit administration by partially repaying those debts in a CVA: on the condition that if this failed, they would be entitled to buy the assets of the old club for £5.5m, which would be used in the winding-up process for oldRangers. At no point was Green actually the owner of oldRangers: he would have become so had the CVA gone through. So the debts aren't his. And at the time he made the offer, it was the best one on the table. Duff and Phelps could have refused the offer, in order to sell the assets on the open market: but they didn't. They were still participating in the fantasy that a CVA could be made to work.

There may yet be lawsuits. We'll see. If so, they might mean that newRangers can't play next season at all, in any league.

Whatever happens, Frankenrangers will definitely apply to join the SPL. They should be rejected but who knows if the board will have the spine to do that. If they don't and newco Rangers are admitted directly to the SPL then I hope the other supporters keep their word and boycott the league. I am not optimistic that any of my preferences will come to pass.

I agree, but we'll see. I think maybe four or five clubs will vote against, but it depends. If Green offers to gang up on Celtic and change the voting structure, something the other clubs have wanted for years but had no conceivable way to achieve, then they might bite the bullet and let the newRangers in.

[Inigima]

That's insane. So ripe for abuse, as we've just seen I suppose. If that's really the process then I should hope it will go to court.

[Inigima]

So does HMRC just have to write off the massive tax debt as lost? It's bizarre to me that someone could just say to the taxman, "whoops, sorry, we've spent it, no money for you" and they have to accept it while the debtor changes into a fresh change of clothes and resumes business as usual.

[The Iceman of the North]

So does HMRC just have to write off the massive tax debt as lost? It's bizarre to me that someone could just say to the taxman, "whoops, sorry, we've spent it, no money for you" and they have to accept it while the debtor changes into a fresh change of clothes and resumes business as usual.

Isn't that the basic concept of bankruptcy everywhere?

ETA: My only question is how the sale of assets came through. Over here it would be up to a legal appointee (usually a lawyer), to sell of assets, and distribute the proceeds to the creditors.

[Inigima]

Yes, but you don't then get to return to what you were doing by shifting the assets to a new company and doing the same thing the old company did.

[The Iceman of the North]

Yes, but you don't then get to return to what you were doing by shifting the assets to a new company and doing the same thing the old company did.

I don't know the history here. If I understand it correctly, Green formed a new company that bought the assets. Did he own the old company?

[mormont]

Isn't that the basic concept of bankruptcy everywhere?

ETA: My only question is how the sale of assets came through. Over here it would be up to a legal appointee (usually a lawyer), to sell of assets, and distribute the proceeds to the creditors.

That's what the liquidators are doing. But, as I say, Green has an agreement that he gets first refusal on that sale: in theory the liquidators could tear that up, but they won't go to the legal trouble of doing so unless the gains to creditors are significant. £0.5m, in the context of oldRangers' debts, is peanuts. And the amount that Green is offering will barely cover the auditor's fees.

I don't know the history here. If I understand it correctly, Green formed a new company that bought the assets. Did he own the old company?

That's complicated, but the short answer is no. He would have become the owner if the CVA had been agreed by the creditors.

[The Iceman of the North]

Who was Green's agreement with, and how could it be legally binding if the club is put under liquidation?

[Inigima]

I don't know the history here. If I understand it correctly, Green formed a new company that bought the assets. Did he own the old company?

No, he didn't, which is why this works I guess. Mormont understands this better than I do, so maybe I'm failing to understand something, but let me reframe this in a non-footballing context.

Imagine that Amazon went out of business. They do so because they ran up massive, unsustainable debt for an outsize competitive advantage and because they willfully withhold taxes (but did deduct them from employees, probably so Jeff Bezos could pocket the money instead). Eventually this catches up with them and they are broke and can't service their debts, which amount to approximately £a jillion.

An administrator, who are shown conclusively to have lied about their knowledge of the company's financial statements, is appointed to attempt to get them out of bankruptcy. They set their fee at £5 million, which must be paid before anyone the company already owes money to sees a red cent. Along comes me. I offer to buy the company for just slightly more than the administrators' fee and far less than the assets would be worth if they were parceled out. The administrator says yes, thank you, we would love to cut this deal for approximately our fee and no one else will get any of it in any significant amount. You get your very high fee. I get a sweetheart deal. Everyone else is left holding the bag. Everyone including us pretends you haven't lied about your knowledge of the situation.

I name my company The Amazon. I insist (falsely) that Amazon's highly skilled technical staff -- that's Amazon, not to be confused with The Amazon -- are obliged to work for me and all of the awards Amazon won for being such a good business are now The Amazon's. I keep everything the same including physical assets and buildings and continue where Amazon left off. I insist that despite the fact that, essentially, nothing has changed except the man at the top The Amazon is liable for none of Amazon's debts and you lot who are owed £a jillion will instead realize a repayment of £0. Jeff Bezos has presumably fucked off somewhere, probably somewhere without an extradition treaty, with all the money he stole from the taxman.

As far as I can tell it's like that, except that there's also the matter of league membership, which they will certainly try to flout as well.

[mormont]

Who was Green's agreement with, and how could it be legally binding if the club is put under liquidation?

The agreement was made by Duff & Phelps - the firm who were appointed to run oldRangers in the interests of the creditors when it went into administration. Control has now passed to the liquidators, whose job is to realise the value of the club for the creditors. But the agreement is technically with oldRangers, which is why it still exists despite the exit of Duff & Phelps.

Is it legally binding? Well, BDO, the liquidators, can break it if that's in the interests of realising more value for the creditors. But as I understand it, Green and his consortium could take that to court. The liquidators therefore need the additional value realised to be worth the hassle of breaking the agreement.

I should add that the only reason I sound like I know shit about this case is that I read the newspapers and the excellent independent blogs who've been covering it, including the award-winning Rangers Tax Case blog.

[Horus Ex Machina]

Peter Nowak finally fired. One of the funniest articles that I've read on the subject here... http://www.phillybur...19bb30f31a.html

And I think that Harry Redknapp's firing really hightlights the difference between how Europe handles it's managerial/coaching positions and how it's done here. Granted this was a contractual issue, but it shouldn't be this hard to come to an agreement given his track record. Who else is sitting out there who will be an improvement for them over the next few years?

Expectations seem incredibly unrealistic over there in the top jobs. Zero credit is given for past accomplishments, which is especially interesting in cases like Redknapp or Antoine Kombouare who are the men who basically resuscitated the fortunes of their respective clubs in the first place. Also not that a Champions League equivalent win like Di Matteo's last season would not only guarantee a head coaching job here, it would damn near make it impossible for him to ever lose the job or at least guarantee 5 to 10 seasons. Di Matteo will be under the microscope by next season.

It's actually more beneficial to job stability to take the helm of a mid-table club where the only requirements will be to avoid relegation and maybe win a domestic cup tournament and make noise in the Europa League. Top clubs only want "named" coaches, and few top clubs in Europe ever hire former players shortly until said player has been an assistant for at least 5 seasons. It usually seems to take a bit longer to see a bigger name pop up in the rolodex if they ever do at all. Is it just that the old guard tends to hand around for alot longer, or that the top clubs tend to not like making risky bets.

Which is better? Really hard to evaluate. Alot of Europe's top managers' resume's may speak for themselves, however they might look a bit different if they did what some of the best American sports coaches in taking over "project" teams and building them up. Then again, that's more or less impossible in Europe so it's more about out dueling the other powers of Europe. So really only their record in continental competition and against the top league contenders matter.

Phil Jackson is probably the best American correlation to a guy like Jose Mourinho. Jackson used to be criticized for his success in that he always had top superstar players, yet the years that he stepped away from LA and another multiple-championship winning coach in Rudy Tomjanovich stepped in, they missed the playoffs. Jackson came back and they won another title, proving that talent + tactics win in the end. Jose Proved it by winning Champions League with multiple clubs from leagues that aren't considered one of the top two in Europe, just like Jackson did with multiple teams. Eric Spoelstra (being mentored by a famous coach) kinda correlates to.AVB suddenly being thrust in charge of Real Madrid and expected to win the Champions League, although Spoelstra is a horrible coach. The jury's still out on AVB.

Just a couple thoughts.

[Inigima]

Look At That Goal.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2012-06-16-phi-v-dc/highlights?videoID=188846

Look At It.

[Horus Ex Machina]

Look At That Goal.

http://www.mlssoccer...?videoID=188846

Look At It.

Poor Phili. They finally fire Nowak and fortunately for them it was just in time to keep him from trading away Adu. Unfortunately it wasn't until after he'd already gotten rid of everyone else that had made that team worth a damn. In related news Sebastien LeToux scored the second best goal of the day in MLS. http://www.mlssoccer.com/video/2012/06/16/goal-le-toux-opens-scoring-great-goal