[wba_1996]

Fair enough I can accept ‘only time will tell’ but the point I’m making is that people have already made their mind up that Peace ‘sold us down the river’ to someone who doesn’t care based on nothing at all. Yes we have been relegated but I can’t see how any blame at all can be put on Lai, he has seen who has made the mistakes and fired them because of this. If he left the same people in charge to make the same mistakes again then fair enough it would show that he’s not got the clubs best interest at heart.

I don’t know whether it’s just a stick to beat Peace with or people just love to be negative and make out we’re in a crisis

Spot on, exactly what I posted a few months ago. Lai has sanctioned spending levels greater than we have ever seen. Jenkins has even expressed his surprise that we have blown the whole of the £40m profits that were in the clubs accounts when he left. It's not Lai's fault that we've been paying the likes of HRK £40k a week and had two managers who were inept. We've paid wages in excess of £100k-a-week to two different players this season, something I thought I would never see us do.

Lai is not the man to blame, it was the rest of the idiots employed by the club who wasted the money, he has since fired them which can only be a positive for me.

[baggiejohn]

Personally, I believe it was a lack of understanding of FFP which was the major cause of our downfall last season.
Before FFP, it was possible to buy yourself out of a hole in January. It can't be a coincidence that all the relegated clubs & most close to relegation were established Premier League clubs up to the limits of their FFP allowances.

I believe there would have been cash available to spend on players, but FFP pushed us down the Daniel Sturridge route.

Following comments from Mark Jenkins, a few weeks ago, I'm not sure we understand the implications for next season yet either.

[Standaman]

Personally, I believe it was a lack of understanding of FFP which was the major cause of our downfall last season.
Before FFP, it was possible to buy yourself out of a hole in January. It can't be a coincidence that all the relegated clubs & most close to relegation were established Premier League clubs up to the limits of their FFP allowances.

I believe there would have been cash available to spend on players, but FFP pushed us down the Daniel Sturridge route.

Following comments from Mark Jenkins, a few weeks ago, I'm not sure we understand the implications for next season yet either.

You have to hope that this wasn't the case it would be far worse that the club simply didn't understand the regs rather than make some dubious decisions.

FFP is less of an issue next year but get's progressively tougher to manage the longer we are in the Championship.

The irony is that we can get relegated spend more on wages than we have this year (as mad as that sounds) get promoted retain the increased wage bill and increase it by an additional £7m.

[divinewind]

Personally, I believe it was a lack of understanding of FFP which was the major cause of our downfall last season.
Before FFP, it was possible to buy yourself out of a hole in January. It can't be a coincidence that all the relegated clubs & most close to relegation were established Premier League clubs up to the limits of their FFP allowances.

I believe there would have been cash available to spend on players, but FFP pushed us down the Daniel Sturridge route.

Following comments from Mark Jenkins, a few weeks ago, I'm not sure we understand the implications for next season yet either.

A very good point John, and very plausible.
A great number of successful businessmen have limited knowledge of the football world.
I too hope you are wrong.

[baggie82]

Lai has sanctioned spending levels greater than we have ever seen.

Of course he did, we had a bumper new TV deal with a much bigger budget as a result. Plus that was on the back of not spending much the year before and a higher league placing with more income than expected. No different to the Peace model. No outside investment but you can spend what comes in. Our spending last season was hardly as spectacular as some posters imply for a premier league team of seven years standing. I think our most expensive player was around £15m? Which doesn’t get you much these days. Our net spend was relatively high as we failed under Pulis to have any resellable talent. No prize youngster sold to a top size club for example like Southampton. This idea that Lai opened the floodgates with the transfers last season is a nonsense. What we did expect to see, James Quinn for £750k?

[Adder]

Of course he did, we had a bumper new TV deal with a much bigger budget as a result. Plus that was on the back of not spending much the year before and a higher league placing with more income than expected. No different to the Peace model. No outside investment but you can spend what comes in. Our spending last season was hardly as spectacular as some posters imply for a premier league team of seven years standing. I think our most expensive player was around £15m? Which doesn’t get you much these days. Our net spend was relatively high as we failed under Pulis to have any resellable talent. No prize youngster sold to a top size club for example like Southampton. This idea that Lai opened the floodgates with the transfers last season is a nonsense. What we did expect to see, James Quinn for £750k?

This idea of no resellable talent under Pulis...that's highly likely to be put to bed soon when Rondon, J-Rod and Evans move on and very possibly Livermore,  Chadli, maybe Gibbs, Phillips, Hegazi

[baggie82]

This idea of no resellable talent under Pulis...that's highly likely to be put to bed soon when Rondon, J-Rod and Evans move on and very possibly Livermore,  Chadli, maybe Gibbs, Phillips, Hegazi

 I think you’ve missed the point entirely. All players have a value. Question is what net profit have we made on them? Secondly does that profit even cover the additional cost of signing replacements given the inflation in the transfer market.

[Adder]

I didn't miss your general point but you did hint that no-one Pulis bought was resellable, which is a bit different to what your reply states. Whether we make profit remains to be seen and release clauses will affect that. We could have made 15m profit on Evans if we'd let him go and we could have got 30m plus for Rondon from the Chinese offer. It was probably more a case that the players from the pre-Pulis era were all ageing and had little resale value, Berahino aside.

[Mr Cynical]

This idea of no resellable talent under Pulis...that's highly likely to be put to bed soon when Rondon, J-Rod and Evans move on and very possibly Livermore,  Chadli, maybe Gibbs, Phillips, Hegazi

Have any of these players increased in value?  Hegazi maybe, coming from the unknown.  But the others, if they have gone up in value, its due to inflation in the market rather than improving a player.  I think the point is that, during the Pulis years (and probably before that too) we have not bought any players with a view to improving them and selling them for a profit.  The same can be said of developing our own players, with the exception of that fraud Berahino.

[Adder]

Have any of these players increased in value?  Hegazi maybe, coming from the unknown.  But the others, if they have gone up in value, its due to inflation in the market rather than improving a player.  I think the point is that, during the Pulis years (and probably before that too) we have not bought any players with a view to improving them and selling them for a profit.  The same can be said of developing our own players, with the exception of that fraud Berahino.

That wasn't the original point as the wording was 'failed to have any resellable talent under Pulis' (but well yes they have increased in value given the offers we had for Evans and Rondon - we chose not to let them go).....fair chance we'll get more for Rodriguez than we paid for him - is that just inflation - well that's a pretty arbitrary measure in the football world as we know.

[Dan87uk]

So, With Villa's implosion currently in full swing (which, of course, pleases me) I think we still need to try and temper our reaction and taunting (if you can stifle it); just for a couple of days; whilst we see what the bigger impact of the Chinese restrictions on cash flow movement outside of their country does on a wider scale.

The bottom line is that we are Chinese owned, so this does potentially have some impact for us too; though shouldn't be anywhere near Villa's level of problems as we've been fairly sensible with our contract flex downs and such for example.

[baggiejohn]

So, With Villa's implosion currently in full swing (which, of course, pleases me) I think we still need to try and temper our reaction and taunting (if you can stifle it); just for a couple of days; whilst we see what the bigger impact of the Chinese restrictions on cash flow movement outside of their country does on a wider scale.

The bottom line is that we are Chinese owned, so this does potentially have some impact for us too; though shouldn't be anywhere near Villa's level of problems as we've been fairly sensible with our contract flex downs and such for example.

The restrictions on capital leaving China have been in place since 2016.

On the other hand, allegedly Wanda were forced to sell a £40 million stake in Athletico Madrid, so it's not clear what the implications are for us.

As I understand it, it's speculative investment that's being frowned upon by the Chinese government, investment which relates to government policy (Hinkley Point for example) is approved.

From what I can gather, GL has used our academy model in the development of the Palm Eco Town projects, so you would think that his investment in WBA has the approval of the Chinese government.
That said, it may well be that, as a consequence, the focus will now be on developing players from the academy, as opposed to buying the finished product.

It's likely that Fosun will have similar difficulties taking capital from the internal Chinese economy, so it might not be just Villa that has problems.

[SmethDan]

The restrictions on capital leaving China have been in place since 2016.

On the other hand, allegedly Wanda were forced to sell a £40 million stake in Athletico Madrid, so it's not clear what the implications are for us.

As I understand it, it's speculative investment that's being frowned upon by the Chinese government, investment which relates to government policy (Hinkley Point for example) is approved.

From what I can gather, GL has used our academy model in the development of the Palm Eco Town projects, so you would think that his investment in WBA has the approval of the Chinese government.
That said, it may well be that, as a consequence, the focus will now be on developing players from the academy, as opposed to buying the finished product.

It's likely that Fosun will have similar difficulties taking capital from the internal Chinese economy, so it might not be just Villa that has problems.

I'm no financial expert and don't understand their inner workings, but Fosun appear to have taken steps regarding their dealings on the Chinese mainland and the provision of capital. Wolves are currently a small part of a wealthy empire (sorry Dings, but it's true) and I believe Fosun to be far more street wise than Dr Broke. As such I'd imagine they're better equipped to manouvre funds when/where appropriate. They've got their fingers in an awful lot of pies and appear to really know their onions.

http://www.macaubusiness.com/fosun-international-cashing-subsidiaries-mainland-china/

[paulosull]

With the vile up the creak It doesn't look likely that we will spend much cash and will probably cash in on assets. Give it a few days and Jenkins will issue statement similar to one he made after he arrived that's my thinking anyway

[paulosull]

Just breaking vile could be taken over by new York yankies minority owner, are these the same people who wanted to buy us?

[Barrington]

With the vile up the creak It doesn't look likely that we will spend much cash and will probably cash in on assets. Give it a few days and Jenkins will issue statement similar to one he made after he arrived that's my thinking anyway

Finally allowing us to cement our natural place in the middle of the Championship, but at least we won't go into administration 

[iwastherein68]

In the name of Football, the most clueless person every to be associated with this great club.

[royhan]

In the name of Football, the most clueless person every to be associated with this great club.

He made JP a very rich man but has left the rest of us tearing our hair out with frustration at his total lack of knowledge of British football. It’s time for him to cut his losses and sell to someone prepared to invest in the club. Lai hasn’t invested anything to my knowledge

[WBAinDEVON]

Looks like hes going to get most of his purchase money back, you can have your scarf back if you want

[NathWBA]

He made JP a very rich man but has left the rest of us tearing our hair out with frustration at his total lack of knowledge of British football. It’s time for him to cut his losses and sell to someone prepared to invest in the club. Lai hasn’t invested anything to my knowledge

£8mill on Zhang Yuning

[overseas baggie]

Looks like hes going to get most of his purchase money back, you can have your scarf back if you want

I do laugh when I see comments like this,

Some facts:

1. This is a company, not a club. Company law applies.

2. Under company law, money can only be stripped out (a) by repaying debt owed to him by the club, of which we have none or next to none, or (b) our if distributable reserves, of which we none or next to none.

3. He bought the club from Peace, and that’s where his money went, not to the club, and Peace won’t be giving it back.

4. To get his £200m back it would take him 5 years of making profits of £40m a year.  We weren’t making £40m a year profit in the PL, and we certainly aren’t going to making big profits in the Championship.

5. There are external shareholders who own 12% of the holding company.  For Lao to strip out any profits as dividends, then all of the shareholders would need to also be paid.

[AlbionBest]

Lai turning out to be a pathetic owner who just seems clueless - only winner out of all is Peace !

[AlbionBest]

He made JP a very rich man but has left the rest of us tearing our hair out with frustration at his total lack of knowledge of British football. It’s time for him to cut his losses and sell to someone prepared to invest in the club. Lai hasn’t invested anything to my knowledge

The big question I wanted answering when he bought the club was whether he would invest and try and move the club on.
Can't be any sign of any beneficial investment so far and seems so clueless that he could run us into the ground if we sell all the prize assets and recruit garbage to add some garbage we already have left.

[wba_1996]

I do laugh when I see comments like this,

Some facts:

1. This is a company, not a club. Company law applies.

2. Under company law, money can only be stripped out (a) by repaying debt owed to him by the club, of which we have none or next to none, or (b) our if distributable reserves, of which we none or next to none.

3. He bought the club from Peace, and that’s where his money went, not to the club, and Peace won’t be giving it back.

4. To get his £200m back it would take him 5 years of making profits of £40m a year.  We weren’t making £40m a year profit in the PL, and we certainly aren’t going to making big profits in the Championship.

5. There are external shareholders who own 12% of the holding company.  For Lao to strip out any profits as dividends, then all of the shareholders would need to also be paid.

I don't, it's every single transfer window and always from the same posters. Every window someone replies with the facts like you've done and they are never capable of taking information on board. I guarantee we'll have the same "chairman is taking money from the club" posts from the same posters in January, and again next summer, despite the fact that it is against the law and has not and almost certainly will not happen.

[Slimbo]

"despite the fact that it is against the law" - why is it against the law to take dividends from a profitable company ?