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Secret Buyers/new Owners - Threads Merged


waldorf34

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The thought of foreign owners both excites and terrifies me.

There are only a few ownership models that really make sense in this day and age for a club like ours.

A platform for a football agency is one, but it's a very risky one. See Raith Rovers/Claude Anelka as a worked example and even Hearts under Romanov when the side was littered with lithuanian players.

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The thought of foreign owners both excites and terrifies me.

There are only a few ownership models that really make sense in this day and age for a club like ours.

A platform for a football agency is one, but it's a very risky one. See Raith Rovers/Claude Anelka as a worked example and even Hearts under Romanov when the side was littered with lithuanian players.

The only thing I'm comfortable with is the fact SG has proved good diligence so far with potential buyers
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Dundee bought players with a view of selling them on , as did Hearts , think the model was based on the Real Mallorca model , and was dependant on selling a player on for a decent fee and then using the money to buy another couple of " assets " , most Scottish clubs tried to do this during the seventies and eighties with Scottish players ., think this would be interesting , and the set up we have is almost a perfect fit for the model , quite an exiting prospect , but also a bit scary , I,d be happy for us to give it a go .

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As much as we need a change at the club with an injection of fresh and dynamic ideas, this gives me the fear.

In this era of global communication, social media, and transnational corporate links, why the need to "showcase" players from Argentina or elsewhere at a provincial club in Scotland? I smell a rat.

Motherwell knocked this back, and we would do well to do likewise.

Talk of SG et al applying appropriate scrutiny to bids for their shares is all good and well, but perhaps they should consider setting a realistic price so someone with an affinity with the club (or Scottish football at least) might take a genuine interest.

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Lets see, Raith, Livingston, Dundee, Hearts. Any more examples needed why such a proposal should be chased out of town?

I mean this reeks of the same as Claude Anelka at Raith.

We worked so hard to get out of debt and it cost us a lot. To risk this future on us being able to sell on South American talent seems hell of a risky.

Is there any recent examples of foreign ownership working in Scotland?

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Hearts and Motherwell are both entering into fan ownership on the back of initial investment being made by a wealthy individual.

Ann Budge put the money in for Hearts and Les Hutchison is putting the money in for Motherwell.

Both are then being repaid over time by the fans before ownership formally passes to them.

1100 of our fans pledged to join 10000Hours, and that was despite a lot of misgivings (let's not get into that again please) about the bid.

I dont' think it's unrealistic to think that 2000 fans could be persuaded to pledge £10 a month (or 1000 fans at £20 a month) towards a new strong fan ownership initiative, generating £240K per annum.

If the selling consortium was prepared to take £1.2m for arguments sake they could be paid in five annual phases and fan ownership would be delivered by 2020.

It sounds like a long time, but if they had done that the year they put the club up for sale they would be out by now !

There would need to be something in it for the fans though, other than just safeguarding the future of the club. You can't expect people to fork out £1k of their hard earned even over 5 years without offering them some sort of tangible incentive.

That's a very simplistic view of the world, but you get the drift.

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Div. I did say in earlier post that perhaps The Consortium may be willing to accept Buyout Payment in instalments.My wife son and myself did sign up to 10000hours but would be more than willing say to sign up to a Saints Foundation. This would be broadly speaking asking for fans to donate monthly by Direct Debit affordable sum similar to The Foundation of Hearts which has a membership of 8000 and will pay off Ann Budge eventually. My son in law who is a Jambo is a member.May be worth getting something going.

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The way I see it is we had our chance to go for a buy out. We ended up failing to back what was on offer. The ship has now sailed and we are now completely vulnerable to some foreign buyers coming in. Not sure why people are surprised, what exactly did they think might happen?

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Div. I did say in earlier post that perhaps The Consortium may be willing to accept Buyout Payment in instalments.My wife son and myself did sign up to 10000hours but would be more than willing say to sign up to a Saints Foundation. This would be broadly speaking asking for fans to donate monthly by Direct Debit affordable sum similar to The Foundation of Hearts which has a membership of 8000 and will pay off Ann Budge eventually. My son in law who is a Jambo is a member.May be worth getting something going.

Div would be insane to go anywhere near this after the last time.

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Div. I did say in earlier post that perhaps The Consortium may be willing to accept Buyout Payment in instalments.My wife son and myself did sign up to 10000hours but would be more than willing say to sign up to a Saints Foundation. This would be broadly speaking asking for fans to donate monthly by Direct Debit affordable sum similar to The Foundation of Hearts which has a membership of 8000 and will pay off Ann Budge eventually. My son in law who is a Jambo is a member.May be worth getting something going.

I think this is a good idea, even if the consortium aren't willing to accept payment in instalments, then we should be planning for what happens at the next opportunity to buy the club.

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"vulnerable to some foreign buyers coming in", bloody hell we're not Man U, the words "beggars" and "choosers" come to mind more like.

There is a limited time that the selling consortium will continue to say that they'll only sell to the right people before they need to sell to get some sort of return, whether that be immediate or over a number of years from a body like SMISA. SMISA are probably going about things the right way but they probably need someone with some commercial business savvy (a lawyer and / or accountant) to head things up and keep a hold of things, if they were ever to go down that route, that is. Not cheap.

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Scottish football has NOTHING to offer outsiders other than as feeder club or tax dodge.

Our stadium is in the middle of one of the most infamous areas in the West of Scotland, therefore, relatively speaking, of little value.

Our training ground. as far as I know, is not ours.

Our playing staff, collectively and individually, are of little value. (Even including our top 100 prospect who can start leaving come January).

I just can't see any Johnny Foreigner acting like the knight in armour riding over the ridge on his white stallion, saving the day.

We probably have enough going for us to attract a manager better than we can afford but I think the fact that the title of this thread reads "Secret buyers" says it all.

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Scottish football has NOTHING to offer outsiders other than as feeder club or tax dodge.

Our stadium is in the middle of one of the most infamous areas in the West of Scotland, therefore, relatively speaking, of little value.

Our training ground. as far as I know, is not ours.

Our playing staff, collectively and individually, are of little value. (Even including our top 100 prospect who can start leaving come January).

I just can't see any Johnny Foreigner acting like the knight in armour riding over the ridge on his white stallion, saving the day.

We probably have enough going for us to attract a manager better than we can afford but I think the fact that the title of this thread reads "Secret buyers" says it all.

You could work as Doncaster's PA with that sort of possitivity.

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You could work as Doncaster's PA with that sort of possitivity.

Might be negative, but he is essentially right. Our stadium won't have a great land value. Scottish football isn't in a brilliant state and isn't making the money it should be for a variety of reasons. We don't own our training ground (but there are sound reasons for that). Our players are on short contracts and Bosman ruling means best players can and do leave for free- to Championship and clubs willing to pay more. Broadfoot, McGregor, Higdon, Dorman all moved on for little/nothing. It isn't the 1980s any more.

St Mirren as a club has value to fans and the town and generally speaking we are decent at what we do, but we don't really have value outside that, that is why nobody has put down the money to buy it in what 5 years?

All in all I really don't like the sound of this and feel it is totally the wrong direction for the club to be headed down. It's not as if they love the club as it seems Motherwell was first choice before being sent packing there. I'm always sceptical of these kind of things. Raith, Livi, Hearts, Dundee are a few of those where it unwound. Hearts might have rejoiced Romanov when he came in with big ideas, they weren't laughing last year.

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