Tan`s Exit plan and debt to equity

[insider]

Think back to the late 70's, 80's and 90's or are you too young to remember those times?

What is the fixation with my age?
I remember the late 70`s and i don`t remember them being that bad, we had an excellent cup run in 1977 and knocked about in the same tier we are in now without having to rely on a megalomaniac sugar daddy to get us out of a massive hole that he had helped to dig.
The early 80`s were a bit depressing with low crowds and little investment but then we had the 83 promotion season probably up there with my highlights following city, again this was achieved by the astute Lenny Ashurst not by throwing money at it.
Granted Alan Durban`s tenure at the club in the mid 90`s was also depressing. Frank burrows first promotion was also great and done on a shoestring.
Then we had the Ricky Wright years in the 1990`s which were also great, then decline towards the end of the decade.
In all the ups and downs since I saw my first game in 1972 I have never felt so disconnected with the club as I do now. It`s like Tan stole my dignity and I have to go cap in hand to a man I have come to hate just to watch my club.
And in all that time in the 70`s 80`s and 90`s I never thought the club would go under (and it never) as the debt was never that big.
Now with a man that seems to do things on a whim ( my mum told me to change the colours back ) at the helm I fear what his next whim will be.
So to sum up yes the worst period in the clubs history in my opinion.

[cardiff55]

What is the fixation with my age?
I remember the late 70`s and i don`t remember them being that bad, we had an excellent cup run in 1977 and knocked about in the same tier we are in now without having to rely on a megalomaniac sugar daddy to get us out of a massive hole that he had helped to dig.
The early 80`s were a bit depressing with low crowds and little investment but then we had the 83 promotion season probably up there with my highlights following city, again this was achieved by the astute Lenny Ashurst not by throwing money at it.
Granted Alan Durban`s tenure at the club in the mid 90`s was also depressing. Frank burrows first promotion was also great and done on a shoestring.
Then we had the Ricky Wright years in the 1990`s which were also great, then decline towards the end of the decade.
In all the ups and downs since I saw my first game in 1972 I have never felt so disconnected with the club as I do now. It`s like Tan stole my dignity and I have to go cap in hand to a man I have come to hate just to watch my club.
And in all that time in the 70`s 80`s and 90`s I never thought the club would go under (and it never) as the debt was never that big.
Now with a man that seems to do things on a whim ( my mum told me to change the colours back ) at the helm I fear what his next whim will be.
So to sum up yes the worst period in the clubs history in my opinion.

We always seemed to struggle after we went up in 75/6.
The next relegation was 81/2 and we hardly set the world alight in the 6 seasons we were back in Division 2. The 76/7 season, when we had the cup run we were pretty low in the table, but the games against Wrexham , Spurs and Everton had big crowds at home.
Crowds were dropping right through from 77/8-81/2, apart from the one year, 78/9 I think when we finished 6th or 9th but were in a relegation battle all through, but had loads of games i n hand. I think we had 6 out of our last 7 at Home and won or drew them all. 80/1 was grim and so was 81/2 when we went down. Although during the period we spent 6 figures on transfers of Ronnie Moore, Bill Ronson and Peter Kitchen. We also paid a big fee for Dave Roberts, who was injury prone. Most of the players went at the end of 81/2 and Ashurst built a team of free transfers, plus Jimmy Mullen at #15,000 and also used the loans system well. We went up.

83/4 and 84/5 were dire and Durban took us down is 84/5 and agin the following season. I remmed

When Rick Wright took over, things were better. At the first home game of 91/2 we were once again awful and he made an announcement of the PA system at half time I think, promising to spend money and give the fans the team they deserved. that week we signed Paul Miller for 60k and Carl Dale for 95k! We just missed out on the Play Offs, and went up the following year after we signed Stant and Ratcliffe.

But when we went back up it all ended , no more money and a season near the foot of Division 3, or whatever it was called then, just missed out on relegation and Gary Thomspson playing center half! We went down again the following year.

Undoubtedly the best times were after Hammam came in, sorry to mention him, promoted in 00/1, Play Offs in 01/2, and again the following year when we went up at the MillStad. Then a good year, before a bad one and crowns of about 10k-11k. It got better when Dave Jones came in , much better . he signed a load of rubbish but also got good players on free transfers, Rae, McPhail, McNaughton, Alexander , Jerome to name a few and also unearthed a few he sold on for massive profit, Loosens, Johnson, Chopra. It was great even after he went and Mackay came in and we got promoted.

Then the rot started and is still here. I think e still will have to unload other players during this season, Manga, Pilkington etc. to get back to square one. We may be relegated by then though.

[Blue in the Face]

... FFP, magnified by reducing parachute payments, has a lot to do with our current situation.

FFP relates to losses, I think the limit is £13m for this season which includes a max of £8m for shareholder investment & a £5m loss. Tan has set out his strategy to convert debt to equity of £8m per year for the next 5 years which should serve to make us debt free. The reason why he is structuring this over 5 years is to comply with FFP shareholder investment rules. I wouldn't be surprised that our pre transfer income this season will be around £20m which will be quickly swallowed up noting the number of high earners we have etc.

If Tan is taking out as much money as he can as you suggest, then why sanction the signings of say Emyr Hughes, Jazz Richards, Ben Amos & Joe Bennett who will all be earning very good salaries & in Huw's case a transfer fee estimated in excess of £1m was payable. Personally, I doubt very much he has taken a penny out but I also suspect that he does not want to put anymore in, hence a far more prudent approach to recruitment & a concerted effort to remove high earners from the wage bill.

Personally I am in favour of a debt free club operating within it's means so if this is achieved then we will be in the best financial position we have been for a long time & it can provide a firm foundation for the club to move forward. As you have said crowds are indeed dwindling & some of this is indeed down to Tan. That said, in my view far more is down to results on the pitch - if by some miracle we got promoted this season I am certain the crowds would come flocking back.

Tan has made lot's of mistakes, including wasting a lot of money via a number of bad choices, there is no doubt about that. However, I will be pleased if he delivers a debt free club as promised.

I am sure that Since 62 will be able to add to this & indeed correct me if I have any details wrong.

So what I take from this is that a loss of a maximum of £13m a season, or tax year, which includes a reduction of the debt at the maximum of £8m per season, is the biggest loss a club can incur in order to comply with FFP. So from this point forward, VT intends to wipe the debt in the quickest time frame possible. And VT has already paid off somewhere around half of the club's debt already?

It doesn't make a lot of sense for Vincent Tan to wipe our debts right away given that CCFC has been a money pit for him. I imagine that the £40m he has earmarked to wipe our debts in the long term are better off invested elsewhere in the short term to insure he gets some return somewhere on the liquid capital he posseses.

I'm bumping this post because I made the mistake of have a look at the darkside to see if there is finally some acceptance that there is every chance of silver linings in regard to CCFC for the first time in many a generation. Fat chance. I understand that the darkside leader was on the Sam Hammam payroll and stood to gain something if Sam was to re-gain some level of club ownership. But there is no possibility of that happening now of course. So what is there to gain now by being continually critical of the club? Is it a hits thing? Stubborn pride? Or just a lack of intelligence to comprehend the strategy to make us debt free?

This only bugs me because there are a lot of impressionable people who visit the darkside who are given an image of doom when it comes to CCFC. This can only be a bad thing for the club. Surely.

[CCFC CASUAL]

So what I take from this is that a loss of a maximum of £13m a season, or tax year, which includes a reduction of the debt at the maximum of £8m per season, is the biggest loss a club can incur in order to comply with FFP. So from this point forward, VT intends to wipe the debt in the quickest time frame possible. And VT has already paid off somewhere around half of the club's debt already?

It doesn't make a lot of sense for Vincent Tan to wipe our debts right away given that CCFC has been a money pit for him. I imagine that the £40m he has earmarked to wipe our debts in the long term are better off invested elsewhere in the short term to insure he gets some return somewhere on the liquid capital he posseses.

I'm bumping this post because I made the mistake of have a look at the darkside to see if there is finally some acceptance that there is every chance of silver linings in regard to CCFC for the first time in many a generation. Fat chance. I understand that the darkside leader was on the Sam Hammam payroll and stood to gain something if Sam was to re-gain some level of club ownership. But there is no possibility of that happening now of course. So what is there to gain now by being continually critical of the club? Is it a hits thing? Stubborn pride? Or just a lack of intelligence to comprehend the strategy to make us debt free?

This only bugs me because there are a lot of impressionable people who visit the darkside who are given an image of doom when it comes to CCFC. This can only be a bad thing for the club. Surely.

This is probably why Dalman has hit out on the press today

[Phill Stants brother]

So what I take from this is that a loss of a maximum of £13m a season, or tax year, which includes a reduction of the debt at the maximum of £8m per season, is the biggest loss a club can incur in order to comply with FFP. So from this point forward, VT intends to wipe the debt in the quickest time frame possible. And VT has already paid off somewhere around half of the club's debt already?

It doesn't make a lot of sense for Vincent Tan to wipe our debts right away given that CCFC has been a money pit for him. I imagine that the £40m he has earmarked to wipe our debts in the long term are better off invested elsewhere in the short term to insure he gets some return somewhere on the liquid capital he posseses.

I'm bumping this post because I made the mistake of have a look at the darkside to see if there is finally some acceptance that there is every chance of silver linings in regard to CCFC for the first time in many a generation. Fat chance. I understand that the darkside leader was on the Sam Hammam payroll and stood to gain something if Sam was to re-gain some level of club ownership. But there is no possibility of that happening now of course. So what is there to gain now by being continually critical of the club? Is it a hits thing? Stubborn pride? Or just a lack of intelligence to comprehend the strategy to make us debt free?

This only bugs me because there are a lot of impressionable people who visit the darkside who are given an image of doom when it comes to CCFC. This can only be a bad thing for the club. Surely.

They should give a life ban to him and his cronies from the club for all the hate and shit throwing he aims towards Tan. He's the Anjem Choudary of Cardiff City.