1

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Atmosphere at Home Games

« on: April 03, 2024, 11:55:04 AM »

Somebody earlier mentioned the Pulis era.

It was around that time that I started to really watch the game, I was trying to understand what was being played out tactically.

I now tend to watch what's going on off the ball as well as on it, & with the help of some of the more knowledgeable forum members, I can now see a 3,5,2 : 4,1,4,1 attacking & 5,3,2 defending formations, together with controlled straight lines at the back.
I can see the point of moving the ball across the back line to pull opposing players out of positiion, & watch our midfield players moving into the space  created to receive the ball.

Personally, I find it really difficult to take that all in if I'm singing & shouting, so from my point of view I'm quiet because I'm in study mode, not because I'm bored

2

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA FC Financial report 22/23 published

« on: April 03, 2024, 11:36:44 AM »

One thing it means for sure is that in Championship terms , we are paying 1st class salaries for 2nd class quality overall.

Really?

We're sitting 5th in the table, with the teams above us mostly having higher wages bills than us.

3

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkul football

« on: March 16, 2024, 11:35:30 AM »

Bilkul have paid off the £5m loan that Lai took out from the club to prop up his other businesses.

Effectively £5m back into the club which will go down as profit under FFP.

I'm sure the accountants will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the wisdom smart loan was taken from the cash assets of the club (a balance sheet sum).
For the last set of accounts, the auditors had written down the loan, (assuming it wouldn't be repaid) & therefore reduced the asset value of the football club/group.
By paying back the loan, Bilkil have restored the asset value to where it was before the loan was taken out by Lai, so not really a profit.

I believe FFP requirements focus on profit & loss, & mainly  a sustainable relationship between wages & income.

4

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 29, 2024, 11:31:38 AM »

I wasn't suggesting a higher interest rate. A 10% interest rate over three years is less interest than a 10% rate over four years. If MSD have renegotiated, MSD are getting something out of it.

There are all sorts of options open to the Patels & MSD.

I imagine MSD would be interested in supporting the Patel family in other ventures, especially in the US & I could easily see MSD being helpful with our project to win business with the Patels in other projects.

5

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 29, 2024, 10:37:54 AM »

Agree, I don’t think it’ll be £50m. It could be near £40m though when all is said and done.

The initial loan was £20m with about £6m in interest (depending on when instalments are due). Rumours / reports are the second loan was £8m. Thats  Probably with another £2.5m in interest. That’s £36.5m. If we’ve added a year or more on it the additional interest by paying it down slower  easily takes us close to £40m.

Like you said to the overall post though, even if a lot of what Grumpy has said is true, it’s understandable people want to believe in the new regime. Hopefully the new emperor is wearing clothes (but many accept he may well be not).

I believe the MSD loans are bespoke (not off the shelf).

The loan under Lai's stewardship carried a high level of risk, & a subsequent high interest rate.

IF, the Patel family have guaranteed repayment, then it's possible that they may have been able to extend the loan without an interest penalty.

The tone coming out from the Patels suggests that they have the capacity to repay the loan, Lai didn't, so from that point of view, I don't think there's too much to worry about.

Just to clarify on cash flow. It's not WBA's cash flow, it's the Patel's, they can inject cash over a period of time as opposed to all at once.

6

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 28, 2024, 10:20:35 PM »

That was never correct.  The family have sold businesses for just under $2 billion

Do a Google search,  a number of sites quote the same figures. I

7

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 28, 2024, 08:37:42 PM »

I’ve seen it suggested on twitter he has taken on the msd loan. He hasn’t based on his interview, unless somehow he’s become a personal gaurantor / underwritten it with msd.

Big difference being our financial position destroyed the value of Lai’s investment and he had no idea how to turn it around. Patel has brought it low and has plans but It’s still a loan to the club with security on club assets.

If he can’t start to turn it around we are still in trouble / in a precarious position for a while yet, but that’s not Patels fault.

I don't think he's taken on the MSD loan either, it's possible him & his father are acting as guarantors (why MSD wanted them), but I'm sure the plan is to pay off the loan from WBA Group income/profit.

Personally, I'm happy to give Lai the benifit of the doubt, it's impossible to make good business decisions when your hands are tied, but I'm pleased we now have owners who are not constrained.

8

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 28, 2024, 08:07:14 PM »

I have just watched the video and as Johnny Cash I would strongly recommend that people go and view it.

On the loans my quick take from the video are as follows

1. The Peace loan. A very clear no comment response, which is I assume is because there is an outstanding legal dispute (Shareholders4Albion triggered an investigation as to it's legality)

2. Wisdom Smart. Will be repaid as part of the acknowledged financing needs the club has. The exact timing I suspect will be influenced by our position against the FFP limits.

3. MSD. Still outstanding but terms have been renegotiated. We don't know the full impacts (penalty clause for instance) of early repayment so I am not entirely surprised the new ownership have left it in place.

From other sources I don't think it was covered by the video,  Warm Front that is being paid off by Lai when the first instalment is paid, it is in point of fact the whole of the first instalment.

Other than that he is saying all the right things it remains to be seen if that is backed up by his actions but at this point I am more than happy to assume that they will be.

Happy bye-bye Lai day everyone.

I'm not surprised the MSD loan has been renegotiated, not paying it off in full helps the cash flow.

9

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 28, 2024, 08:03:34 PM »

I’m fairly sure it’s not a £60m takeover / he’s not paying £60m to anyone.

Reading between the lines, it looks as though Bilkull Football has taken on all of the loans (MSD, Wisdom Smart & the Peace loan)

It looks as though he's going to make good the Wisdom Smart loan, (the Peace Loan is subject to litigation, so not able to be resolved yet).

I suspect he's hoping to repay the MSD loan from media income as a consequence of promotion to the EPL.

There was an article on Birmingham Live a few weeks ago that stated Shilen Patel had a personal wealth of around £100 million & his father, £400 million. If that's true, we haven't got the wealthy owners we thought we had.

We do have the benifit though of an owner who's hands are not tied by government.

10

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: WBA NEW OWNERS - Bilkull football

« on: February 19, 2024, 10:44:45 AM »

Has anyone heard that Lai will be entitled to a bonus fee of £10 million for every year Albion spend in top-flight should they be promoted.   

As Gazberg said, Lepkowski quoted it.

If it's conditional on being promoted this season, then it makes some sense, but after this season, all of the effort will have come from the new owners, just can't see them agreeing to that.

11

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai

« on: February 18, 2024, 11:23:29 AM »

If I was Patel I would not be happy taking on other folks debts. I assume Lai’s borrowing has been offset in the price paid, but it would be nice to know about Peace’s liability

I'm not sure that Peace has a liability any more. Lai would have agreed to take responsibilty for Peace's debt in exchange for a reduction in the price of the Holdings company which Lai purchased.

Patel has taken on the outstanding MSD loans, &, I believe, the outstanding wisdom smart & inherited Peace loans. The warmfront loan is an agreement between warmfront & Lai, & is not part of the purchase agreement.

Personally, I would expect the wisdom smart & Peace loans to be made good during this financial year, but I wouldn't be surprised if the MSD loans were continued to maturity to help with cash flow.
Especially, if the club is committed to £10million a year as a promotion bonus to Lai.

12

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Action For Albion/ Potential Takeover

« on: February 12, 2024, 12:23:11 PM »

Here's the bit on us:

"The situation at West Bromwich Albion is even more confusing.

As first reported by The Athletic last month, there is a three-way race to buy the Championship club from Guochuan Lai, the Chinese businessman who paid £175million for a majority stake for them in 2016, when they were a Premier League side. The contenders are: a group put together by the English sports lawyer Chris Farnell, Armenian entrepreneur Roman Gevorkyan’s Noah Football Group and a bid led by Florida-based businessman Shilen Patel.

The latter is very much the choice of the club’s senior staff and also of West Brom’s main creditor, MSD Partners, the investment firm linked to American IT billionaire Michael Dell. And it would be fair to say Patel is now the frontrunner. However, Farnell’s group still believes it has the inside track with Lai, the man who is actually selling the shares, and Farnell and potential partner Alex Hearn are going to China this week to try to close their staged takeover of the club.

Lai borrowed £2million from Hearn in 2021. The loan was secured on 2.35 per cent of West Brom’s shares, with a deadline for repayment of last Thursday. That deadline, unsurprisingly, came and went without repayment and the accrued interest has raised Lai’s debt to Hearn to more than £4million.

Hearn has recently sold his main business, a domestic heating firm called Warmfront, so he does not need his money back urgently. In fact, he has recently signalled to the club that he would be happy to wait for a change of control at The Hawthorns before repayment.

But, equally, he is willing to see if Farnell can get his deal over the line and perhaps convert that loan into a minority stake. Gevorkyan, in the meantime, has been encouraged to remain in the race, as all outcomes are still possible.

The same can be said about West Brom’s on-field prospects, too.

A 2-2 draw at fourth-placed Ipswich Town on Saturday has them fifth, so a return to the Premier League is a realistic goal for the coming months. But they are £40million in debt and heading towards a £35m annual loss. Next season’s projection is no better, either.

If they are not sold or promoted this season, they will need an almighty clear-out to avoid financial fair play trouble next year, assuming Lai can fund them that long. The next week or so feels crucial."

I've been away from this for a while, but.........

Hearne hasn't sold  his business it's just a name change to AH Holdings (Listed on companies house website).

If, as reported, Lai had agreed to shares in WBA Holdings to repay the loan to Hearn, I assume that would sit on Hearns books somewhere in AH Holdings.
It would also be necessary for Hearne & Lai to agree a value for the repayment, so it's sensible for Hearne & Lai to meet with that value on the agenda.
The fact that WBA Holdings then has two potential shareholders will complicate the sale to Patel won't it?

13

Albion Matchday Forum / Re: Pre Match Chat

« on: October 03, 2023, 03:01:29 PM »

Yes if it works well , been a couple of issues this season.
In fairness they do correct them asap.

Ok thanks

14

Albion Matchday Forum / Re: Pre Match Chat

« on: October 03, 2023, 02:39:10 PM »

I  can't get to the game tonight, thinking of watching the official stream, is it worth £10?

15

General Football & Sports / Re: Jeremy Sarmiento signs on loan - official.

« on: September 24, 2023, 12:00:13 PM »

As expected he is very raw, i think i heard he has only made about 5 starts in his career and that showed.

However he has a lot of skill and flair, he can beat a player and with more game time the decision making should improve, he does do too many tricks some of them for the sake of it and needs to be more direct, ie - beat the man and move on rather than come back, do a few stepovers, perform a dance routine, breakdance and then try and beat him again!

I think he has been used well so far as an impact player, i would imagine between now and january it will be more of the same, lot of subs appearances and the odd start, its ideal for us but not sure whether thats enough for him or for Brighton.

What he really needs is to  be the main man, almost a free man whilst he learns, have others cover for his flaws but let him play and make mistakes whilst getting the best out of his obvious skills, i am not sure Albion and Corberan are the team for that, CC is quite strict with what he expects.

That's the point I was trying to make.
If he was our player, I could see CC spending time to develop him, but we would put a lot of work in for no return.
IMO CC will continue to use him as an impact sub, probably not what Brighton are looking for?

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General Football & Sports / Re: Jeremy Sarmiento signs on loan - official.

« on: September 23, 2023, 07:28:20 PM »

Just checking back in.
How are you feeling about him now?  Is he performing well and up to match fitness yet?
Thanks in advance.

Not sure he's going to fit in with us?

We're a team & I don't think he's a team player.

Without doubt he's a raw talent. but IMO, he needs a lot of coaching & I don't think our coach will have the time to develop him, especially for another club.
Wouldn't be at all surprised to see him go back in January.

17

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: September 04, 2023, 07:44:12 PM »

My apologies if it came across as passive aggressive, that wasn't my intention.

What was my intention was to highlight that there's so much more to setting a team out than wetting a side and formation, and a vague idea of style.

You say that football is a simple game, and maybe on the surface it is, but the level of detail in the modern game passes a lot of fans by, I think. A lot of positional play gets overlooked. For example, Swift's goal Vs Middlesbrough comes from (in my opinion), their striker trying to press at the wrong time/with no support, and it's just a cascade effect from there that we do well to exploit.

And these days, out of possession work is just as, if not more important than in possession - if you can attack an unorganised defence, like we did for our goal at the weekend, then that's going to be dangerous than Vs a set defence. So you want to look at ways of creating that.

I'm not saying I know more about football than anyone else, but I do think there's so much more that goes into football coaching than even say, 15 years ago.

Think I've said before, on a number of occasions, that I don't understand the science or language of professional football tactics.
On the other hand, I like to think I do understand the level of detail that seperates professional & amatuer sport.
The rewards for success at professional level are enormous, & the dividing lines between success & failure are microscopically thin, so it makes perfect sense to me to take a scientific & measurable approach.

18

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai

« on: September 01, 2023, 11:38:55 AM »

To me they have both profited form our great club without investing.  Fingers crossed the next owner is more responsible (surely couldn't be worse ?)

Wouldn't bank on that, as things stand Lai will sell to anyone who is willing to pay his valuation of the club.
Wouldn't be at all surprised if it's another consortium.

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General Football & Sports / Re: Jeremy Sarmiento signs on loan - official.

« on: August 29, 2023, 08:49:06 AM »

My only worry with Sarmiento is that he’s going to be that loan player we all fall in love with..

That's also my worry, we can't build a team around a loan player.

20

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai

« on: August 25, 2023, 06:59:05 PM »

Just not at 3.12 tomrrow or it will be very confusing.

I’m not wound up.

There’s story’s in the press about the club I support and how some fans are involving (lobbying, talking whatever you want to call it) government at various levels. I have every right on a this forum to say what I did, which is that don’t think the government will do anything that affects our ownership situation. 

A4A and their rep has  every right to debate that if they want to. I just don’t think. ‘ at least we are doing something’ is always a strong argument

I agree with your interpretation that future cultural change won't effect our current position.

I also applaud the energy & enthusiasm that A4A & particularly Sedgley, have put into their campaign.


From historical conversations, I know there are a number of forum members who are professional finance specialists, some of whom have challenged A4A's interpretations of WBAFC & WBAFC Group Finances. I'm not sure the responses to those challenges have won A4A too many friends.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai

« on: August 25, 2023, 01:27:07 PM »

Removed paywall:

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Finews.co.uk%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2Fwest-brom-unpaid-loans-owners-fans-fighting-back-2569868

Thanks

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai

« on: August 25, 2023, 01:02:19 PM »

Sam Cunningham, Chief Football writer at the I newspaper has written a feature article in today's paper on the goings on at Albion, telling the story of rich men who have taken money out of the club over a long period of time (Peace, Lai, etc). Includes interviews with a few people involved from the fans perspectives, like S4A and Action for Albion's Alistair Jones (Sedgley on here).

It is a very good article, which continues to highlight our case and elevating it to the highest profile current case of club owner mismanagement in the public consciousness (outside of the Glazer family).

Sedgley talks in the article about how to the aim is that the government will take on our case as the flagship or test case for the new white paper. It is worth noting the work Action 4 Albion have done has helped Shareholders for Albion get a meeting with the govnement, including it seems Rishi Sunak himself (if I understood the article correctly).

Some people (and it seems nonchalant ex players) mock the work of A4A and the shine a light protest, Sedgley acknowledges it is taken the p*** out of a bit, but the continued highlighting and work they are doing is putting just as much pressure on the club as the more aggressive forms of protest adopted by Newcastle and Charlton fans the last few years, it didn't exactly speed up their take overs after all.

If enough football editors keep talking about our case, it gives us the best chance of getting the government interested, which seems the most likely way we can have any impact.

A4A have put up a link to the article, but it's behind a paywall. (At least it is on Google Chrome browser)

23

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Kyle Bartley

« on: August 23, 2023, 09:06:48 PM »

If anybody on here ever ever takes Dood seriously, please in the nicest way possible, give your head a wobble.

I work in football and can for sure confirm he has absolutely no source whatsoever and actually borders on the brink of upsetting some rather big players within the game if he carries on spouting the nonsense he does.

I won’t name the player, but he recently mentioned a Premier League player who so happens to be signed with the agency I work for as being close to signing for WBA however I can assure you this was never ever the case.

Rumours like today are simply not acceptable. On any level.

And anybody who ever see’s his tweets again, please see through them.

I take very few ITK's seriously.

Dood very rarely gets the detail correct, but he does tend to get some early headline information, which suggests he has a link into the agent network.

I guess that, like most professions, there are genuine professional agents, & those that aspire to the role on the fringes.

IMO, his rumors come from the fringes.

24

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Kyle Bartley

« on: August 23, 2023, 11:19:45 AM »

Considering he said his contract is paid off, then it makes no sense.

Probably a mutual agreement similar to Zohore.

Looks as though CC is moving on people who don't want to play his way

25

West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Alex Mowatt

« on: August 22, 2023, 11:28:50 AM »

I've heard his link to the club is someone in the medical section. Which, since i've heard this makes sense. He's always talking about when medicals are booked and his missed the winger we've got on loan coming in because the medical was done at his parent club.

So, i think he is a little ITK, but we've sadly lost our very reliable ones from over the years.

Back to AM. He's nothing special, i'd be happy to see him leave. The only issue would be that is leaves us thin in the middle.

I would never say that you were wrong, but IMO, it's unlikely to be someone employed by the club. Leaking stories like that would be seen as a leak of sensitive information & therefore a sackable offence. It would have to be very worthwhile to take that kind of risk.
IMO, it's likely to be coming from someone connected to the agent network. I believe that's where most of the media get their stories from.