Originally Posted by
Badly Ironed Shirt
In February 2016, Vincent Tan promised fans during a Q&A session that he would convert £68m of debt to equity immediately.
In 2012, he told fans that the money he was investing as part of the rebrand was in the form of shares.
At other stages he promised to convert debt to equity
1) on promotion
2) on being in the PL
3) on paying off Sam
among other reasons.
At no stage has he actually made good on any of these promises. Now, I know people will argue that it doesn't make the blindest bit of difference whether debt is converted to equity or not. That may be correct (although what happens in the event of Tan passing away?). However, the point surely is that Tan has, at various stages, made promises on converting the debt to equity, and on giving the fans a debt free club within "5 years". That promise was first made in 2012, and it was still "5 years" in 2016.
We have heard odd reasons, such as Malaysian red tape, for the issue. Strange, then, that the Malaysian Government was not an obstacle to Tan investing/loaning £100m to the club in 2012, and many more millions afterwards.
It's all sustainable as long as Tan is alive and interested. But, what happens if that changes?