Breaking News Today's Echo - Who owns the Blues? (2010 thread)

[canveyshrimper]

But would the relocation clause stuill come into play if they own everything, surely if they own lock stock and barrel, they can do what they want within reason.

I dont know how that would stand? if they owned sufc they could shut it down cos its such a big loss of money, maybe i just guessing??

In theory I'd say yes, but in practice I would say (hope) not. I don't think it is in Sainsbury's interest to a) own a football club and b) shut it down. The covenant remains in place that the club must be relocated before development could take place, however I am not that naive to think that these things cannot be changed. The only way that Sainsbury's would become the owners of SUFC is if RM defaults on his loans with them.

 

[Jay_Shrimper]

Typed up - For Exiles part 3

SUPERMARKET TAKES CONTROL TO SECURE FOSSETTS PLAN

Sainsbury's is stealthily taking control of the 100m FF stadium development for Southend United.
The supermarket giant has secured a crucial agreement with Prospects College, clearing the way for a superstore to be built on the football club's current Roots Hall site.
Prospects had refused to deal with Southend United and it's chairman RM, citing concern about the financial well being of Mr Martin's companies.
A detailed investigation by the Echo has uncovered the true extent of financial problems facing the club and Mr Martin's 12 UK companies, which we can reveal have combined debts of almost 22m.
These include parent UK company Martin Dawn Plc, which the taxman is trying to wind up over undisclosed debts.
Despite the economic storm, insiders at the club remain confident the Fossetts Farm project will go ahead. But the frustration of some fans at the lack of information coming out of Roots Hall is summed up by Charles Turner, of Metz Avenue, Canvey.
He said "Southend United have become a laughing stock, with the taxman continually on their case and Sainsbury's having to bail them out. Mr Martin refuses to come clean and I can see no light at the end of the tunnel. The fans deserve a lot better."
The echo can now reveal how financially reliant Mr Martin is on Sainsbury's, and how the retailer will take control of the club if the debts are not repaid.
The super-stadium dream has been kept alive only because Sainsbury's last week brokered a deal with Prospects College to buy up its site in Fairfax drive.
The college agreed to the deal provided Roots Hall Ltd - one of Mr Martin's firms - was not involved in any purchase.
Roots Hall and Sainsbury's previously planned to buy the site together. Prospects is key to the the Roots Hall development, as its land would form the access to the car park for the proposed Sainsbury's store.
Over the past two years, there have been three previous joint bids by Sainsbury's and Roots Hall to buy the site, which have all collapsed.
Prospects decided it would sell only to Sainsbury's after carrying out financial checks into Mr Martin's companies. A further bid by Sainsbury's, earlier this year was also shelved.
However, at a board meeting last Thursday, the college agreed to an undisclosed offer from Sainsbury's, subject to contract.
Neil Bates, chief executive of Prospects College, said "After the last purchase collapsed, we sought to market the site and got interest from a third party.
We also got a renewed interest from Sainsbury's and made it clear we would only sell if it was solely to Sainsbury's. We have agreed terms, but not yet exchanged contracts.
This is the fifth time we have reached this stage, so it is not yet certain, but I am optimistic it will go through within ten days."
When the Fossetts Farm dream began, Mr Martin's firms were supposed to acquire land needed for the developments.
Yet Roots Hall Ltd still has to buy other crucial sites, including Boots and Laces training ground, from Southend Council.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury's involvement in the project has steadily grown.
In April, it became joint applicant with Mr Martin for the Fossetts Farm development, agreeing to guarantee 3m of 7.7m Ron Martin's companies must pay Southend Council for regeneration elsewhere in the town as part of the overall Fossetts Farm deal.
Southend Council's development control committee was told work on the stadium project would start in July when it agreed to revise the timetable for the huge community investment.
It came as the retailer bailed out the football club for the second time over unpaid tax wind-up petitions from HMRC.
The echo sent Mr Martin questions about the findings of our investigation in mid-May, but he has declined to respond.
However, a source at the club has indicated a positive announcement will be made about the project within the next few weeks.

 

[devonexile]

One thing that worried me is that the Club's constitution has changed, allowing shareholders to sell shares without the board's consent. This could be worrying if Sainsburys do end up with the majority share they could sell the club to anyone regardless of whether they are viable for the club.

Having Sainsburys as majority shareholder would be infinitely preferable to Martin. I’m sure they would want the club off their hands PDQ, but they are a reputable organisation with a concern about public perception of their business, so would be likely to take a reasonable degree of care when selling on. In any case almost any buyer would be preferable to the continued ownership of our club by Martin.

 

[DTS]

its been the main crux of most fans arguments with all this. A 22,000 seater stadium is absolutely ridiculous. I'd rather have a 14-15,000 with the future proofing to make it 20-22,000 if needs be as and when.

So, so stupid.

Has it?

I think the bulk of fans understood the need for the club to grow and welcomed the capcaity. I personally can see very little point in all this upheavel only to increase our capacity by 3000 seats. Whilst we would have the income from extra commercial activities im pretty sure I read the cost od adding more seats at a later date rather than as part of the original build would be high.

 

[Jay_Shrimper]

I will post the others a bit later on. Enjoy.

 

[EastLondonShrimper]

This is all very interesting and thanks for posting the article :)

However, with all of these debts; how are we supposed to field a team this season? Even on the OS, if you click onto the 'first team' page, there are only 10 players on there, and from what i've read, alot of those are on their way out..

What can we do to get some truth from the club? Why, after all this, is the homepage still showing that ****ing ridiculously **** 'advert' video for the new kit. If anything, after watching that video, i wanted the new shirt LESS.

If the Echo put questions to RM back in May, then even if he decided to ignore them, he's had sufficient time to work on some bull statement.

Also, those that went to the Q&A; do any of Rons spiel, pie-charts or graphs match up with the Echo's story, or was this all lies also?

I don't understand what good RM thinks will come from him lying to his own clubs fans on such a regular basis. It's very sad.

 

[Onion_Bag_Dave]

Typed up - For Exiles part 3
The echo sent Mr Martin questions about the findings of our investigation in mid-May, but he has declined to respond.
However, a source at the club has indicated a positive announcement will be made about the project within the next few weeks.

I'd prefer a positive statement about signing players to be honest with you Rony boy!

 

[palexander]

Has it?

I think the bulk of fans understood the need for the club to grow and welcomed the capcaity. I personally can see very little point in all this upheavel only to increase our capacity by 3000 seats. Whilst we would have the income from extra commercial activities im pretty sure I read the cost od adding more seats at a later date rather than as part of the original build would be high.

We rarely have the need for more than 11-12,000 seats at present, only on the rare occassion of a big cup game.

We cannot (in my understanding) develop on Roots Hall to expand capacity, so building a new stadium with the implicit ability to increase the seating easily is surely the best solution.

A nice tight 14-15000 capacity stadium, which when we are on a good run would have 10-13,000 regularly inside would be far better than half filling a 22,000 seater and the associated costs that come with it, both financially and the lack of atmosphere it would produce.

All that aside, the fact it would bring development costs down considerably in the short term is surely far more important??

If we need the extra seats at a later date, then yes it may cost more (or do like MK have done and have the structure there, without the seating actually in place), but if we DO need those seats, then it indicates the club is in a healthy and successful state and more likely to be able to afford it.

I'm not sure where you are coming from.

 

[pickledseal]

I will post the others a bit later on. Enjoy.

Good effort mate - a big mission!

 

[blues_r_best]

So things are still happening with the stadium build, ie Prospects has now been bought, so that some good news.

 

[Beefy]

We rarely have the need for more than 11-12,000 seats at present, only on the rare occassion of a big cup game.

We cannot (in my understanding) develop on Roots Hall to expand capacity, so building a new stadium with the implicit ability to increase the seating easily is surely the best solution.

A nice tight 14-15000 capacity stadium, which when we are on a good run would have 10-13,000 regularly inside would be far better than half filling a 22,000 seater and the associated costs that come with it, both financially and the lack of atmosphere it would produce.

All that aside, the fact it would bring development costs down considerably in the short term is surely far more important??

If we need the extra seats at a later date, then yes it may cost more (or do like MK have done and have the structure there, without the seating actually in place), but if we DO need those seats, then it indicates the club is in a healthy and successful state and more likely to be able to afford it.

I'm not sure where you are coming from.

We have no evidence that if we'd gone for a smaller stadium we'd be on site by now. I doubt that a few thousand seats would make any significant difference to a development of this size.

 

[palexander]

We have no evidence that if we'd gone for a smaller stadium we'd be on site by now. I doubt that a few thousand seats would make any significant difference to a development of this size.

I wasnt saying that - I was more concerned with A) how stupid we'd look with a half-filled stadium - something most our fans mock other clubs for when we visit them - and B) I believe a 'cost per seat' figure was announced a year or two ago, so the difference between 22,000 and 15,000 would be fairly significant.

But its a moot point as by the look of it, we cannot finance a 1 seater stadium.

 

[DTS]

We rarely have the need for more than 11-12,000 seats at present, only on the rare occassion of a big cup game.

We cannot (in my understanding) develop on Roots Hall to expand capacity, so building a new stadium with the implicit ability to increase the seating easily is surely the best solution.

A nice tight 14-15000 capacity stadium, which when we are on a good run would have 10-13,000 regularly inside would be far better than half filling a 22,000 seater and the associated costs that come with it, both financially and the lack of atmosphere it would produce.

All that aside, the fact it would bring development costs down considerably in the short term is surely far more important??

If we need the extra seats at a later date, then yes it may cost more (or do like MK have done and have the structure there, without the seating actually in place), but if we DO need those seats, then it indicates the club is in a healthy and successful state and more likely to be able to afford it.

I'm not sure where you are coming from.

We have covered this to death on others threads so im not looking to re-hash it too much but as been proven in the past sides that move to a new stadium generally get a big increase in support. You will always get your Darlington arguement but for that there are many sides you could name that have had big increases in size as a result.

There would have been little point increasing the capacity by 3/4k as it does not give you much scope to grow. Roots Hall can in theory (but not in practice IMHO) hold 12,000 people. If your planning to become a championship club as we are then you need to have the ability to hold a decent capacity. A decent championship side can bring 2-3k to you for a start. If we had say 10k ourselves which is not unthinkable considering we can get 7-8k without any sort of away following then 15k is lookng a bit small.

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and the proposed 20+k capcacity I think was about right. I for one will probably have another two seats at the new stadium as the kids can come with me once the facilites are better.

We also had explained a number of times the costs of the extra seats etc was not that expensive in comparrison to the actual build.

Or we could do an Orient/Col U and build around 10k and always strive to be a fairly tin pot side. At the moment I would of course take their position over ours so its hard to knock them but I personally feel 20k plus should match the ambitions of the club....

 

[palexander]

We have covered this to death on others threads so im not looking to re-hash it too much but as been proven in the past sides that move to a new stadium generally get a big increase in support. You will always get your Darlington arguement but for that there are many sides you could name that have had big increases in size as a result.

There would have been little point increasing the capacity by 3/4k as it does not give you much scope to grow. Roots Hall can in theory (but not in practice IMHO) hold 12,000 people. If your planning to become a championship club as we are then you need to have the ability to hold a decent capacity. A decent championship side can bring 2-3k to you for a start. If we had say 10k ourselves which is not unthinkable considering we can get 7-8k without any sort of away following then 15k is lookng a bit small.

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and the proposed 20+k capcacity I think was about right. I for one will probably have another two seats at the new stadium as the kids can come with me once the facilites are better.

We also had explained a number of times the costs of the extra seats etc was not that expensive in comparrison to the actual build.

Or we could do an Orient/Col U and build around 10k and always strive to be a fairly tin pot side. At the moment I would of course take their position over ours so its hard to knock them but I personally feel 20k plus should match the ambitions of the club....

Yea, fair points... like you say, 'anything' would be better than where we find ourselves at the moment!

 

[IloveShrimp]

If there's a bright spot, the club have the covenant in place that they must have a home in the borough before Roots Hall can finally be developed. Therefore the whole FF development will be scaled back massively, and a stadium with a capacity of 12/16000 will be delivered eventually.

The most important thing for us is to ensure that Southend United is still alive to see that day.

Depends on how you determine 'a home in the borough'. This could be a shed in the middle of a field, unless specifics have been documented.

 

[Jam_Man]

Has it?

I think the bulk of fans understood the need for the club to grow and welcomed the capcaity. I personally can see very little point in all this upheavel only to increase our capacity by 3000 seats. Whilst we would have the income from extra commercial activities im pretty sure I read the cost od adding more seats at a later date rather than as part of the original build would be high.

No it hasnt you are right.

We were all surprised at 22k but most thought 18k would be right.

The original comment from the col U fan was that if we had gone down the same route as them we would have been fine. Thats wrong, we would still be skint, we cant afford a 20 million stadium either and we would be just as screwed as we are now with a 14,000 stadium in the pipeline.

Its not the size of the stadium thats caused the problem, itsthe fact we are going for a stadium at all.

However if we hadnt gone for it then Ron Martin wouldnt have bankrolled the club for the last 7 years.

So we were really in a no win situation and all we can hope for is that the ground stillhappens and someone comes in to buy him out now.

 

[TJC]

Depends on how you determine 'a home in the borough'. This could be a shed in the middle of a field, unless specifics have been documented.

Well, again; relying on Sainsburys reputation, I would hope, they wouldn't relish the headlines of driving a former league club to semi pro club just so they could build a new store.
Having said that, it would be quite easy (and justified) to shift the blame onto Ron Martin for our fall from grace.

Time will tell, and I suspect not much time will pass before we know our fate now.

 

[Jam_Man]

We have no evidence that if we'd gone for a smaller stadium we'd be on site by now. I doubt that a few thousand seats would make any significant difference to a development of this size.

Indeed. We cant afford to pay players and in the absence of credit following the recession I doubt we would have funded a smaller stadium.

The same issues would still have been there, getting caught out with tax and having to pay over 3 million unexpectedly etc

 

[colusponge22]

I see what ur saying jam man but from my understanding of it is that Ron Messiah Martin was struggling to get the finances put together, well surly it would have been easier to get the finances for the smaller stadium together than the larger one considering that the stadium is not the main money maker of the development but is likely to be the main financial cost on the site then surly reducing the cost of the stadium would have made it look a more inviting investment to the banks and other financial backers

 

[Mad Cyril]

and to think u lot laughed at us for having no ambition in only building a 10000 stadium.

To be fair there are Little Chefs on the A12 with a greater capacity than your ground.