Park Life

You mean they'll just say MA has to pay up? It's not always so straight forward, again in the Darlington FC case the main creditor was the Chairman/Owner who still owned the land (and would have even if the club itself had been liquidated), in the end he bought it (the club) back but with some debts wiped off IFRC. Which is what is worrying, it's not always a case of "forced" into administration, it can be a viable business strategy in certain circumstances. Vis a vie Bates at Leeds and the tricks of Leicester City. If you want 'tricks' you want Sheepshanks at Ipswich - wiped £20m off their debt via administration, bought the club back himself, then brought in the 10pts immediately after and were around the playoffs that season. Leicester City were near bankrupt thanks to inept planning, rather than trying on 'tricks': After administration the club was bought by a consortium of Pukka Pies, Gary Lineker and Emile Heskey and couldn't even afford any transfer fees after going up - the only reason the club is still going is that Muzzy Izzet turned down a move to Boro, really - the £4m or whatever it was would have kept administration away for another couple of months, but without that promotion (by 12pts!) things wouldn't have looked good. The 10% to the taxman thing is simply because that was what anyone got back out of it, much the same as others. Wasn't a case of going into it intentionally to make things easier like Leeds and Ipswich but just a huge, huge cock up by all manner of idiots; and unfortunately when anyone can't repay debts someone is going to have to cut their losses, either by administration or a winding up - and the first made more money than the second would have, luckily. Ha ha... Leicester City commissioned a new stadium and then tried not to pay most of the money to the building firm.

Bonuses for what? Sitting around mostly. You only get bonuses for winning surely? Well of course sweetie we all look forward to the end of capitalism.

Well at least he replied. I think the tone of the article weren't all that bad. Remember he lives in another world and all that.

Think he's just in the getting hits game.

This is worth about 280m...

Look at you lot...moaning away.

I find his madness quite uplifting at times.

Reckon his first stunt would be to double the price and then put on that daft punchable grin.

You never know Tom, looking at our track record it could literally be anyone.

I reckon he must be suffering. Nufcblog innit.

Paul Allen - Microsoft co-founder and owner of 3 US sports teams We have no idea, and things are being kept very secretive but one person who maybe interested in acquiring an English club is Paul Allen – the co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates. Currently Allen is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which is his private asset management company, and is chairman of Charter Communications. Allen also has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio which includes stakes in Digeo, real estate holdings, and more than 40 other technology, media, and content companies. Allen co-founded Microsoft (initially called "Micro-Soft") with Bill Gates in Albuquerque, New Mexico back in 1975. The company first came to prominence in 1981 when IBM used them as the software in their first IBM PC. Allen didn't hang around for too long at Microsoft after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 1983. His cancer was successfully treated by several months of radiation therapy and a bone marrow transplant, but he elected not to return to the Seattle based software giant. Allen officially resigned from his position on the Microsoft board in November 2000 but was asked to consult as a senior strategy advisor to the company's executives. In 2000 he sold 68M shares of Microsoft stock and he still owns a reported 138M shares. They will be worth about $3.1B t yesterday's closing price of $23.68 for Microsoft (MSFT) stock. But the thing about Paul is that he is very interested in Sports and already has three American Sports teams: Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association Seattle Sounders FC franchise in Major League Soccer that began playing only this season But quite a few Americans are interested in quickly getting on the band wagon of world football – or soccer as they call it over here - to differentiate it from American Football. Paul may see buying Newcastle at a knock down £100M ($162M) a good deal, with the plan to get them quickly back into the Premier League. If Paul did happen to buy Newcastle he could use the Seattle Sounders as a feeder team for the club. There will be more and more Americans playing Association Football in the years ahead, as the youngsters see the excitement and passion, not to mention the money, generated by world football. According to Forbes Allen is the 32nd richest person in the world, worth about $10.5B (£6.5B) right now - and that is down from $16B a year ago. Another American rumored to be interested is Larry Ellison, CEO and co-founder of Oracle and a former IBMer would you believe. He 's currently listed on the Forbes list of billionaires as the 4th richest person in the world as of March 11, 2009 - worth around $22.5B (£13.9B) Currently he's getting ready to challenge for the Americas Cup in sailing. Hopefully we'll know shortly who the winner and new owners are." Is this bloke some kind of nutcase?

Chronickill.

Bonuses for what? Sitting around mostly.

£10m in player bonuses due end of month.

Mikey looking shifty...

Give him nothing. Can't the Queen step in or summat?

Good luck with tonight Tom, hope it goes well.

Possibly. Still hoping for Mousavi to get in, although he's only "liberal" in an Iranian sense - and still very much of the Iranian establishment. That shows how badly rigged it was, all the candidates have now complained, even one that was an ex-revolutionary guard commander. If they didn't rig elections where would they be? Up to their arses in Playstations, iphones and junk food.

Interesting post from N.O. The club may have been balance sheet insolvent (as are half the premiership) but it was not cash flow insolvent. "Many large companies operate permanently in this state." - Wiki. The net debt repayments were around £7m per year. This is not an unsustainable amount. The majority of the debt was the £45m remaining on the stadium loan which was a long term contract that couldn't be foreclosed on unless the ownership changed, so your doomsday scenario of all the debtors wanting their money NOW could not in fact have happened under the old board with the financial arrangements they had in place. In 06-07, the operational loss before player trading & amortisation was £0.3m. The actual cash flow loss was < £10m more out than in. Not great, however this was in the knowledge that we were going to get a £18m boost in turnover the following year from TV revenue alone. Running the club in the same way (that includes having a £10m transfer budget), with anything less than a 14% increase in expenditure (due to wages say) would have seen us break even or make a profit. Are you telling me that would have been impossible to do under the old board? That they were inevitably going to let costs run away even more? It's possible they would have increased the debt slightly if they could get the finance, but it was certainly not a necessary inevitability as some are making out. I know I keep mentioning it, but I think it's an important point when the old board is being accused of financial mismanagement based on the amount of the debt, but the majority of the debt was due to the stadium expansion which was paying for itself over time and bringing in extra revenue. I don't know about you, but I don't call this financial mismanagement, I call it a shrewd investment. Only the remainder of the debt, around £25m, was due to "wasting money on trophy players", to get us into Europe on average 1 year in 2. This level of operational debt is less than most clubs in the premiership (all but Blackburn and the the 3 promoted teams in 07-08). Again, I fail to see how anyone can call this level of debt financial mismanagement,. Finally, in response to you're implication that we were in debt up to our absolute limit in another thread, I apologise for the lack of credibility and the location of the link, but I couldn't find a better source. I have no reason to think the Man U fan made it up : http://www.joinmust.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24381

Unswithoffable bright lights ftw.

I've stopped giving ciggies to students...Cunts.

One of the local 'girls' (very late at night) about a month ago just grabbed my balls as I was fiddling for the front door key. I turned somewhat startled (but kinda enjoying it) as our eyes met I felt her lift the €10 euro taxi change I had just casually put in my right jacket pocket. This is Hamburg man, best be ready.

After the word "aims" in the opening commentary, moving screen right to left from where the crane is. It's fast, real fast baby!

Mail are saying bid made. FFS I reckon.