Fletcher On McSheffrey Sale Report

The aim of the forum was to take views on the sale of Gary McSheffrey and not to focus too much on the previous nights performance at Edgar Street

First Paul took a straw poll to see who thought the sale of Macca was ‘a bad thing for the club', and 26 hands were raised.

The ‘was it a good thing for the club' question resulted in 9 hands beign raised. The remaining abstainers were generally waiting to see what the club's next moves were with the money made available (more later) before deciding if it was a good thing or not. Paul then asked how many season ticket holders were present and an Arthur Scargill'esque unanimous showing of hands followed, Paul's next question of how many were PSL holders meant that all but 10 hands returned to the tables.

Paul took 3 initial questions to set the ball rolling, these being:

Did Mickey Adams have the final say on the transfer of Gary McSheffrey as had been stated on 21st July?

How will the money from the sale be spent?

How will the sale enhance the 3 year plan that is in place?

Paul said he'd taken 30 calls on the subject of Gary's sale along with some 150 mails, to which he'd responded to all, with a high percentage of positive thoughts after explaining details.

We were then taken through a ‘hypothetical' transfer process, whilst it was stressed that the details of Macca's sale were confidential (and to be fair Paul was true to his word in keeping to this).

He went through how chairmen contact a club to make an offer whilst the roles of agents can be used to alert those involved to the offer, how these are rebutted but then how subsequent offers are dealt with, how the news of these offers filters to the player involved and can also start to affect others within the squad, how an agent could (but was stressed with Macca that this did not happen) speak with the club about wage increases to stay, and how Mickey Adams has a wage budget which is fixed (& apparently at it's max tho Macca's sale has now given some leeway). Ultimately a ‘tipping' point is reached where despite everyone saying no deal, varying factors come into play that tips the situation from a no way to a sell.

Amongst these factors considered with Macca's sale were:

There were 2 weeks left on the current transfer window:
Will Macca ever be valued at this figure again in the future;
Would Macca have been happy to stay;
Would Macca have given his all as a result of such offers.

Paul stressed that all these and more were taken into account and the board felt that all things considered the sale was the right thing for the club itself.

With this in mind Paul said that once the 3 main aspects of a transfer had been concluded (actual agreement of the transfer, agreement on personal terms, and passing a medical) Mickey would have had no more than 6 hours immediately afterwards to get another player in before the news broke and quoted prices increased substantially. Paul confirmed that at the time of Macca's sale, 12 offers had been made to other clubs for players but none of these came to fruition.

Ultimately Paul felt that Macca had ‘been raided' by Birmingham who were using the parachute payments to good effect when in reality, and unlike when CCFC were relegated, these payments that were initially intended to help maintain relegated clubs fulfil the contracts of Premiership wages for the 2 or 3 years following.

Paul confirmed that these days clubs such as Birmingham have wised up and now have relegation ‘clauses' in place so that wages are reduced in accordance, therefore the parachute payments are now significant revenue streams that these clubs use to full advantage in buying players such as Macca.

Paul also confirmed that, as an insight as to the time transfer deals can take, the purchase of Elliot Ward took over 4 weeks to conclude, and later that the loan of Luke Steele was terminated just before the contract had been signed and that the club just missed out on getting Stephen Bywater too.

Questions then moved on, at varying points, to the club finances and principally around the sort of transfer kitty that Mickey Adams will have at his disposal for a replacement striker. The general feeling within the forum floor was that Kevin Kyle wasn't a favoured purchase given his recent injuries, and the name of Freddy Eastwood was mentioned by more than one forum participant.

Paul set out that the club is maintaining a £28 million debt which is the same as when he arrived, and that the overdraft facility was at it's max, with £14 million of the debt payable to the bank.

The remainder is made up of investor/director loans to the club which a questioner asked if there was any pressure for a return payment, to which the response was no. He also confirmed that, as a result of previous management within the club (but was very careful not to, and did not, mention any names but think BR) it was now a very costly exercise in playing football at the Ricoh as a mere tenant where the sale of the £6.5 million worth of shares in ACL were sold by the then board to the Higgs trust thereby losing the revenue from car parking, match day food and drink, etc from the club.

All this happened before he arrived at the club and that since joining, he and his team have increased the clubs revenue by some 34.5%, and they are trying to explore avenues to see if they can recover the car parking and match day catering revenue streams which will all help to offset the stadium costs.

Responding to a question posed about possible purchasers of the club (surely we're a better buy than Villa?) Paul confirmed that he's actively seeking investors into the club and has contacts and agents working in a number of places including Portland USA and Dubai, and that his task for the next 6 months is to look at a package having an investment made into 50% of the club.

The agreement at the time of the £6.5 million share sale was that the club could buy back 75% of these at the original price with the remaining 25% being purchased at the current going rate. Paul's estimate of the £10 million investment in the arena project by the council would now have increased to some £25 million with further regeneration land available, so any potential investor would be looking at putting in £11 million for an instant £25 million valuation.

Later Paul confirmed that the sale of Macca was a club decision with no pressure applied by the bank, but that the chairman will be meeting with the bank on Friday after which the amount of money that will be available for club to spend will be determined.

Paul stressed that the debt was of course an issue but managing the overdraft was a more immediate one with the bank, and that his projected target of 12,000 season ticket holders for this season had fallen short at the 9,000 bracket, so this was a natural hole in the plan & overdraft. Paul did ask the floor why they felt this had happened with lifestyle changes such as the unfortunate redundancies within the car plants on Coventry quite a factor.

Paul also felt that the car parking exclusion zone set around the Ricoh was too large and prevented many supporters from parking up within a 15 minute walk radius, with obviously some supporters who were not able to walk this distance and not afford a parking space, and when compared to Highfield Road these were also factors in why season ticket sales weren't as he'd hoped for – this point was agreed by many on the forum floor.

Paul didn't know when the £250K payment was due in from Liverpool following Chris Kirkland's England debut but joked that a courier bike had been dispatched to Anfield at the start of the second half of the England V Greece match!

During the various questions on the finances available Paul did say that he'd made some mistakes, one being the TrueSkyBlue and now Private Seat Licence naming, but also that he thought the fans would have been more supportive of initiatives such as the PSL, where only a third of season ticket holders took up the invitation to attend the PSL presentations, and out of this only a third actually took up a PSL seat, despite what he sees as an attractive package.

Back onto the Macca sale Paul confirmed that the deal, despite the reports written in the Birmingham press of a £3.5 million deal, was actually £4 million but he could not, due to the confidentiality clauses, reveal how this was made up or would be paid, though in response to a subsequent question did confirm that bolt-ons existed. Paul also confirmed that £2 million had been paid on new players for the squad.

Paul returned to the initial questions posed and asked those who had said that the sale of Macca was a bad thing for the club if they still felt the same. The general response was that it depended on what investment money was available and how this was actually invested before they could properly answer the question, a point Paul readily accepted.

Further questions came in during the forum on the telephone system issues, which it seems are due to the system installed by ACL and not the club itself, with Mark Davies introduced to the floor as the new Customer Services Manager and he briefly outlined that the new automated ticketing system is hoped to go live very soon.

Also following a question on last years black away shirt that was meant to last for 2 years but with the Puma deal it is being replaced. A £10 discount on the soon to be launched away shirt for those with last years black away shirt had been proposed by the club, with the forum floor initially informed that these discounts would only be available to those presenting last years black shirt and proof of purchase at the full price. This led to some concern before Paul took an executive decision that no proof of purchase was needed, just present the black shirt at the point of purchase to have the label cut or marked and then claim the discount. A round of applause was returned to Paul as a result.

In closing members of the floor thanked Paul for laying on such an evening and that it was appreciated by all, especially given that this would never have happened under previous boards. All in all a good evening, and a positive exercise, it was just a shame that more couldn't make the evening but hopefully future events will attract a greater audience.

The forum closed at approx 9pm.