Apologies that these notes are a little behind schedule.
Some of the info is a bit out of date, but hopefully there are still some useful things here.
PS When you click on the attachment, make sure that you save it as a Word document (eg forum.doc).
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Eleven first team squad players are out of contract at the end of the season, along with three ‘younger’ players.
Who are these?
1. The sale isn't really a sale. The club stil retains use of the assets for 25 years, the money paid is essentially a loan, with the rent the interest payment on the money loaned. There is nothing to stop the club renewing the lease in 25 years and continuing to pay the rent or interest or we can buy back the training ground at any point, essentially repaying the loan. Before the deal the training ground was a club asset, now the lease for the training ground is a club asset.
2. The question is, why didn't they just loan the money? One of the reasons is the source of the funds. Some of it came from the Sir Maurice Hatter foundation, a registered charity, and some came from what looks like Richard Murrays Pension fund. In both cases, in order for them to provide funds to the club, the transaction essentially had to be at "arms length" i.e. a deal that made commercial sense to the trustees of the charity and the pension fund. The directors currently defer the interest on the loans to the club, this is something that cannot be done on the rental
3. This could indicate that, in Sr Maurice's and Mr Murrays case, the well is running dry re their ability to pump funds into the club and this was the only way they could raise the capital. Or it could simply be that this is a very tax efficient way of funding their charity/ pension and help the club out at the same time. Lets all hope its the latter.