>>I don’t recall saying anyone is out to get us, did I? I said WE don’t do the business very well. << Who's WE? The entitity that is Leeds United? The business that's had four owners in as many years? Sure, Ridsdale was inept. The prof was out of his depth,and so was Krasner. But Bates' strategy hasn't played through yet. I've always believed the only way out of Risible's mess was administration and eradication of historic debts to bondholders etc. Don't let your distaste for the man get in the way. He clearly has a plan and it's not finished yet. >>My belief is that valuation is based, at least in part on marketing strategy to create demand and doing everything possible to put yourself in the strongest possible bargaining position, to get the best price possible. If and when that still doesn’t work then so be it; however, don’t stack the deck against yourself from the start.. Simple as that. << But it just doesn't work that way. You can't "market" players. How do you know that Bates and Fayed hadn't done a deal for Healy months ago? >>There are, as you, rightly say other factors involved, some of which are beyond a club’s control.. All the more reason to control the parts you can control. If Healey still fetches only 1.5 million while lesser lights around him are fetching more, then there’s no room for argument but to do yourself no favours from the start and then say we got all we could is a bit disingenuous. …<< You think Nugent and Bent are "lesser lights" than Healy? So why weren't Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp in for him? >>Your claim was that the way Bates’ does business was, somehow a plus in your eyes.. << I never said that. But after the cavalcade of idiots running the club over the past decade, I'd rather have a hard-nosed b*stard like Bates in charge, regardless of the collateral damage to Bob and his disco. >>I pointed out that while he may have found a way to cheat several people out of money, he owed and may, yet get away with it, his general running of the club was obviously not very successful on any level, as he’d amassed more debt at a time when he claimed to be reducing it << Depends if you believe admin was caused by general ineptitude, or was a construct to erase long-term debt. >> and that he did not, for all his words and promises have a very good record in the transfer market.. << Does he really not have a decent record in the transfer market? He's signed the players his managers have wanted, and mostly on loans or short-term deals. He's made a profit of £850k on Healy too - we paid £650k for him. >>Why does that make me a dreamer and unable to grasp the real world of business.<< Because you keep raising unrealistic ethical and moral demands on the way the club is run under Bates. Demands that were not an issue under previous boards. >> He continually criticizes the leeches of the business but his behaviour ranks he himself as one of the major parasites..<< Never said he was a saint. >>So the company you supplied went into administration, having misappropriated their VAT collections and accrued massive mysterious debts, owed to mysterious off-shore companies with whom the owner had had strong ties, which then mysteriously dissolved just prior to administration. Their administration lasted just 20 minutes and was not actually announced until the owner had bought back the business, for a ludicrously low offer, with those self same debtors claiming to have waved their debts and vowing to block any other bid, whatever the amount?... Now that sounds like an everyday occurrence to me, well at least in your own fantasy world… Yes companies have problems and use the tool of administration to help them through a bad time. That’s not the issue. It is the circumstances of the individual case.<< There you go with your moral stance again. Administration is not a nice process but it exists within the rule of law, and KPMG knows how to work the law. >>You are correct in your assertion that many businesses and likewise numerous football clubs (did I mention accountants and administrators?) are run by less than ethical and sometime crooked people. What’s your point… When we see it, or more to the point when the authorities see it, we/they should stand by and let it happen? Or only when it is OUR club involved? Does that make me some sort of moral guardian or spoilsport? There are plenty of people, who know me would roll around in fits of laughter to hear me described that way.. << Don't you just want the club restored to health ASAP? Is it more important that Bates is somehow "found out" than Leeds United recovers swiftly? Mark
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