Hola Amigos, the WOA HQ are back in one piece (just) from Zambia and since I’ve been gone, not a lot had happened… until yesterday. Sp*rs lost to bottom club Pompey – an 11-1 odds before the game. It was a crazy game, 120 minutes of gruelling FA cup football at Wembley with a loss to the bottom club, it couldn’t be better… and to top it all off, United drew at Blackburn. This means a win against Sp*rs on Wednesday would see us leap frog Man United into second. Exciting prospects…
With Chelsea visiting Bolton tomorrow, it could be an even better day for us on Wednesday…
And that is why Nina Bracewell-Smith’s timing is so so so bad.
We all know Nina Bracewell-Smith (let’s call her NBS for short) wasn’t a very happy bunny after she was asked to step down from the board (or resigned by her own accord, something we don’t really know the truth of yet)… We all know that the day would come when she would want to sell her shares. But at a time when we’re within 3 points off the top of the table, and have a genuine chance of finishing top, NBS declared her intentions to sell her stake in the club – taking about timing!!!
NBS has 15.9% stake in the club and she has now appointed bankers Blackstone to sell her shares. With both Kroenke and Usmanov holding 29.9 and 26.3 percent respectively – if either of them were to purchase NBS’s shares then it would obviously take them above the 30% threshold that would trigger a complete takeover of the club.
Instead of concentrating on the next game, against Sp*rs on Wednesday, we will instead spend our Tuesday deliberating on the issues behind this decision by NBS and indeed, that is why the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Kroenke is the fans favourite – if a takeover did happen – and news coming out of the US today is that he has up til the end of Tuesday to agree the deal with entrepreneur Skahid Kahn for the purchase of NFL’s St. Louis Rams. The deal is worth $750m and that equates to £488m. Serious money and an interesting sale if he were to sell, suddenly Kroenke is the man with the money. Of course, we have doing well working within our own resources and have significantly reduced our own debts. And of course this raises the question of whether we need a fancy rich owner.
The answer being no.
But Kroenke isn’t a fancy rich owner, he is an investor and a lover of sport. He has already accumulated a lot of shares and unlike people like Hicks and Gillet and of course the Glazers – owners who have borrowed against the club, effectively putting the club into huge debts. Kroenke hasn’t done that and that’s a positive if he comes in. Usmanov on the other hand, seems to be a little more frivolous and more of a short term man.
God knows what will happen in the next couple of days, but somehow I wish this hadn’t happened right now, with 5 games to go – 5 winnable games and a title in sights…
Til tomorrow – and I hope I am talking about the Sp*rs game!
