New owners

TS won’t sign the deal if he doesn’t like it and it doesn’t meet his asking price and clauses. That’s his prerogative as the person who holds the goods, with someone else who wants to buy the goods.

The lease issue is between the Duchatelets and the potential new owners, again, just as it should be. The Duchatelets own something which someone else wants to buy or use, so they have to pay the going price to either buy it or rent it.

 

All true, @Ubedizzy2 but TS doesn't seem too desperate to sell. If he genuinely wanted out as badly as gets suggested elsewhere, he'd have gone with the first bid. I managed to manouevre to a point where the new bidders (let's call them the Methuen group) raised their price and are still there. However, if they are the only bid in town, and the wage bill is coming due, you'd think an owner keen to sell would move the goalposts in a favourable way to get this done.
I'd guess none of us know exactly waht is going on, and if the only block is RD wanting to use the sale to improve his lease on the Valley, that may well become a problem, as it s generally considered to be overpriced regarding sale price. But the gossip was all about how TS had lost interest and was tired of funding ever increasing loans to keep the club functioning. Which jars a bit when he raised the price, the buyers said okay, and here we are at the gates of june, still waiting, and with rumours saying teh negotiations have hit a problem.

 

It's getting towards that time now when it's best to assume there will be no take-over.
For the Hell of it we might as well wait until BB's new deadline (June 14th) but I think we'll still be where we are now.

Looking ever more likely that this Summer will be more of the same.
Maybe with Holden, or some luckless replacement should he leave.
A handful of free transfers, journeymen & crocks. Plus a few pot luck loanees.
Then dismal draws against also-ran L1 teams in front of 4,000 fans at the Valley (official attendance always magically just in five figures).
Ultimately administration & points deducted, then getting evicted from the ground.

Bring it on

 

All true, but as you have rightly said, all this is based on TS “wanting out as badly as gets suggested elsewhere”. And therein lies the problem. Perhaps the suggestions and information are not quite as accurate as some believe. To me he doesn’t seem that desperate to sell and will not do so unless someone meets his price and conditions.

I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon and I don’t think TS will lower the price so I expect him to still be here next season with an increased player budget and a vague attempt to challenge for top 6 just as Storrie has already described.

It’s not the end of the world. We are where we are.

 

It's possible that there's no takeover, TS has a real go at promotion this year, if it succeeds all well and good if it fails we go into admin.

 

I don’t think he has the readies to have a real go - and if he has - money doesn’t always guarantee success

 

So far it's not that he hasn't spent money, it's how he's spent it on the likes of Charlie Kirk etc. He appears to be recruiting football people now, and Holden looks like a good fit, so fingers crossed he's learned something, even though Sandgaard jnr is still there.

 

Though Sandgaard & Duchatelet are polar opposites in character, the effect of their weaknesses has been the same.

Both don't understand how an English league Club should be run, and both refused to learn from their mistakes and appoint proper football people instead of family members or muses & mates.
They are both prime examples of people with money getting stung by being outside their fields of expertise.

CAFC and many other Clubs are a bit like those tar pools in LA.
A little rain water covers the deadly tar and makes them look like attractive ponds, to dive into and enjoy a swim.
But once you jump in the hidden tar drags you down and you cannot escape.
Then the scavengers begin circling hoping for an easy meal. And they get trapped as well.

Football Clubs are like a narcotic. They are black holes that suck everything in.
Not because they always were. Because of the unregulated greed of players and owners at the very top, and the connivance of greedy broadcasters who sell the dream to people who cannot afford it.

 

It’s being suggested that the football people have been put in place by interested parties- but there’s a lot of bollox and rumours floating around at mo

 

The only story which is coming out is, imo, a very one sided load of bollox purely intended to make TS look bad. He has every right as the owner to negotiate on his terms if he wants to sell, that’s how business works. To his credit, he seems to be conducting his business with some professionalism, unlike the supposed interested party seems capable of.

 

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Agrees.

What I don't understand is this wish that others are peddling for him to sell up to this Charlie Methven consortium.

Between them (Methven, Donald, Warwick, Rodman) they have a fraction of the wealth that TS has.
They are claiming that American "billionaire" Josh Friedman is the money man behind them, but in 2022, his net worth was only $28M - that would barely cover a few seasons.

https://peopleai.com/fame/identities/joshua-s-friedman

 

The more we are told, the less we know.

 

But what we do know is what we’ve known from the very start of this long drawn out affair - until the buyer meets the sellers price there will be no takeover, so don’t hold your breath as despite what some would have you believe, TS is in no rush to sell.

 

If TS is in no rush to sell, then he is not seriously concerned about the amount of money he his losing just running the Club month by month.

That undermines the continuous narrative coming from some quarters that he has no money left for CAFC and that we are on the brink of wages not being paid.

It's impossible now to tell what stories have any basis in fact, and which ones are just being greatly distorted to fit someone's agenda.

 

As always, if there is no supporting evidence for the stories, then presume they are false.

If something is true then it’s virtually always possible to provide evidence to show that it’s true.

Conversely, if something is false then it’s very hard to provide evidence (which can’t be rebutted) that it’s true.

 

Something seems to be happening. A few messages from different sources saying the deal has been signed.

We'll know if there is anything in it by the end of the morning I guess...

 

Cawley saying as much, he's pretty reliable.

 

It's official- on the OS now, but will take several weeks to go through the EFL. It also has to be agreed with Roland.

 

He's such a nice old man, I'm sure he won't have any objections