In the news today....

A few football headlines have made the papers in New Zealand today, all of which I found highly interesting.

John Terry verdict: Not sure what the prosecutors would have seen as an ideal outcome here, and am thinking is was blown out of proportion. Did he say those things, was there any malice, and what does it really matter? Who thinks the FA will take any further action??

The state of Scottish football: So we have a similar punishment for totally different reasons as to what happened in Italy a few years ago. Who would have thought Rangers in division three? Guess that does mean that you should really pay the tax man his cut. What will that mean for Scottish football and football in general. Without the TV rights, what will that mean for Rangers and their fans. If you are a Rangers fan, what are your thoughts? Will we see an exodus of players and coaching staff, or are the players committed to working up the ladder again?

Man U IPO is flat as a pancake: Given they are arguably one of the one of the most recognised brands on the planet, why has the IPO not found favour with investors. Is it the level of debt now inherent in the club, the business model employed by the brothers Glazers, or is it because they failed to win the EPL last year? My gran (who lives in Sussex) is a lifelong Man U fan.

Thoughts, comments and differences of opinion welcome!

John Terry is a prick - and the English FA too. From a Liverpool fan's point of view I feel extremely unjust for Suarez - receiving an 8-match ban from the FA based on simply Patrice Evra's word while John Terry was caught on camera and got away scot free.

I have no comments for the other two pieces of news...

Glen, Terry can still receive a ban he was found innocent by the court not by the English FA. The FA is now able to investigate now the legal stuff has ended.

i think you missed one of the news about Portsmouth getting punished again with -10 points before start of season.

Last season they got relegated thanks to the -10, and when they were in premier league it was also the case the -10 got their relegation.

It's stupid and disgusting how they punish the fans the players and the coaching staff that work so hard and do their best, and then the fucking idiots with suites who take the money fuck up the finances and the players and the fans and the football gets punished.

I mean why another penalty? they already got one yesterday.

I hate this, why don't they punish the board? make them pay for it, not the team it self. destroying a team and football.

#57850 Kiwi : Man U IPO is flat as a pancake: Given they are arguably one of the one of the most recognised brands on the planet, why has the IPO not found favour with investors. Is it the level of debt now inherent in the club, the business model employed by the brothers Glazers, or is it because they failed to win the EPL last year? My gran (who lives in Sussex) is a lifelong Man U fan.

From what I remember, the reason Manchester has had such a bad IPO is because, a) it's in Singapore. This allowed them to have a two-tier stockholder program where no person who buys stock at the IPO has any control over the company whatsoever, because they are tier two stockholders. An IPO is usually a success only when investors buy a boatload of stocks so that they can have some sort of stake/say in board meetings. If they allow a whole bunch of people to buy stocks, but don't allow them to even show up to stockholder meetings, then the investors won't buy the stocks, as they have no control over the company. In this fashion, the Glazers still hold 100% of the power, but can steal the money from investors... and, because investors - contrary to popular belief - are not complete idiots, it didn't work. IPO's don't earn money from people like your grandmother... small stockholders, but rather from large investment groups, and they basically turned all of those away by their two-tier system.

For example, Arsenal have a regular, 1-tier stockholder system, however it is not public. This means that that one Ukrainian chap has to go from stock-holder to stock-holder and try to pay them enough money to give him their stock, to increase his stake. However, even by doing as he's doing (I think he's at like, 20, 30%) he is still allowed to go to board meetings (in fact, he is a board member) and vote on things such as club policy and whatnot. The other stockholders don't like him very much, so they just shut them out. HOWEVER, he is getting pretty close to the magical 50.1%, what with Rangers selling him their three stocks in Arsenal... When that happens, you can expect a much spend-happier Arsenal...

RedArmy20, I've just looked it up and it didn't make any of the papers here from what I can see.

Reading the Yahoo link, it sounds like they are stuffed for the next five years - start in League One, with a rather stiff competition penalty and five years worth of financial restrictions, so it'd take them at least four years to make it back to top flight, but more than likely ten, depending on the terms that the FA have imposed.

It puzzled me though, if they were punished last year and had to open their books....take the punishment and that surely would be the end of it. Unless the first audit didn't uncover the extent of the issue. Then isn't it a case of bad auditing?

We have had it here (and I am sure it happens everywhere) with other sports teams, where there is a salary cap involved, and my local league team were stripped comp points one year, that was the end of it though. Another team, where the breach was more severe, lost all comp points, were stripped of titles, had to release players and the Board were sacked. Similarly with finance companies that have gone bust in the last couple of years, Mum and Dad investors have in some instances lost there shirts, directors of said companies by in large, skip out scott free. There has been the odd case were they are doing time.

It must be extremely hard to be a fan of Pompey (and Rangers) right now, you know you will lose your best talent and coaches and be stuck in the lower levels for the foreseeable future. But, as you suggest RedArmy, you would be well angry at the Board for getting into the situation in the first place.

#57882 RedArmy20 : i think you missed one of the news about Portsmouth getting punished again with -10 points before start of season.

Last season they got relegated thanks to the -10, and when they were in premier league it was also the case the -10 got their relegation.

It's stupid and disgusting how they punish the fans the players and the coaching staff that work so hard and do their best, and then the fucking idiots with suites who take the money fuck up the finances and the players and the fans and the football gets punished.

I mean why another penalty? they already got one yesterday.

I hate this, why don't they punish the board? make them pay for it, not the team it self. destroying a team and football.

I for one do think that John Terry will get a lengthy spell courtesy of the FA. If there was enough evidence for the CPS to prosecute, then there must be something there.

Particularly if the FA are focused on stamping out the racial slurs.

Football isn't big in this country, and the only parallel I can draw is really from an Aussie cricket game vs Indian involving Messers Singh and Symonds involving the term "monkey", where Singh was found guilty of using a racial slur and banned. Transpired later that there is a similar sounding word, which is effectively at the top end of bad language, so ban for racism was revoked and he was fined for bringing the game into disrepute.

Would there be any point fining Terry?

#57860 OliverAUFC : Glen, Terry can still receive a ban he was found innocent by the court not by the English FA. The FA is now able to investigate now the legal stuff has ended.

It's being listed on the New York Stock Exchange because of the restrictions other exchanges have with the dual voting share structure, so in essence the "class B" shares have ten times the voting rights as "Class A" - and it is the "Class A" which is listed.

Granted the Glaisers are American, but a New York listing also lets them take advantage of legislation affectionately as the "Jobs Act" which grants exemptions from some Stock Exchange requirements surrounding reporting and Board makeup (listed companies require majority independent directors).

Investors buy shares for one of two reasons; strong dividend yield and regular income, or strong growth prospects and likelihood of capital growth. With the Facebook IPO falling flat, I can't see any strong demand driving the share price up, but nor, with a balance sheet that highly leveraged I can presume there would be an absence of a dividend.

#57903 tbendis : #57850
From what I remember, the reason Manchester has had such a bad IPO is because, a) it's in Singapore. This allowed them to have a two-tier stockholder program where no person who buys stock at the IPO has any control over the company whatsoever, because they are tier two stockholders. An IPO is usually a success only when investors buy a boatload of stocks so that they can have some sort of stake/say in board meetings. If they allow a whole bunch of people to buy stocks, but don't allow them to even show up to stockholder meetings, then the investors won't buy the stocks, as they have no control over the company. In this fashion, the Glazers still hold 100% of the power, but can steal the money from investors... and, because investors - contrary to popular belief - are not complete idiots, it didn't work. IPO's don't earn money from people like your grandmother... small stockholders, but rather from large investment groups, and they basically turned all of those away by their two-tier system.

For example, Arsenal have a regular, 1-tier stockholder system, however it is not public. This means that that one Ukrainian chap has to go from stock-holder to stock-holder and try to pay them enough money to give him their stock, to increase his stake. However, even by doing as he's doing (I think he's at like, 20, 30%) he is still allowed to go to board meetings (in fact, he is a board member) and vote on things such as club policy and whatnot. The other stockholders don't like him very much, so they just shut them out. HOWEVER, he is getting pretty close to the magical 50.1%, what with Rangers selling him their three stocks in Arsenal... When that happens, you can expect a much spend-happier Arsenal...