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Notts C up for sale

Already, What about Sven!

Comments

  • This Takeover lark is not all it's cracked up to be. :-)
  • This is exactly the reason I'm happy we have RM steering our ship rather than selling to anyone.
  • Portsmouth's takeover isn't exactly going well, and neither is QPR's.
  • I was in Bahrain Airport yesterday, plenty of QPR shirts on sale (sponsored by Gulf Air!), in fact it was kind of weird seeing their shirts and not Barcelona or Man U like you see at most airports
  • edited December 2009
    Well we knew all was not well when Sol Campbell walked out. He only went there for the money.
  • The sad thing about this is there support must have thought they were back only to be smacked in the face.
    Remember the joy of Zeebel well it could of been us.
  • [cite]Posted By: CAFCBourne[/cite]The sad thing about this is there support must have thought they were back only to be smacked in the face.
    Remember the joy of Zeebel well it could of been us.

    I believe the Club was owned by the Notts County Supporters' Trust previously so even more of a smack in the teeth after all the hard work of rescuing the Club only to be hoodwinked by a bunch of shysters (allegedly).
  • Notts County's new manager has quit after just 7 weeks in charge
  • It just shows the mentality of alot of foreign owners , in it for a bit then as soon as they realise how hard it can be and money isnt the awnser to it they are out before you can say sven gorran erricson.
    It could of been us.
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  • Their dream of Championship football within five years seemed fanciful, but the recruitment of Sven-Goran Eriksson as director of football gave it some credence.

    It's only six months since those heady July days and owners Munto Finance, their previous frontman Peter Trembling and Eriksson have all departed.

    The League Two club are challenging for promotion, it's true, but they are also £3.9m in debt and have a High Court date with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs pending.

    Eriksson and Trembling had big plans but wre unable to bring them to fruition

    New owner Ray Trew, who bought County for £1 on Thursday, is confident he can settle the club's tax bill and HMRC's winding-up order, but he admits they could still go into administration if more debts are uncovered.

    When you consider that debts increased by £1m during the four weeks Trew was negotiating to buy the club alone, this is a worrying prospect.

    How did the heady optimism of July turn so quickly into the devastation of today?

    No-one's better placed to answer that than Trembling, the former executive chairman of the club who was once the frontman and defender of Munto Finance.

    He claims he was hoodwinked by father and son Nathan and Peter Willett and Russell King, the men who made up Munto, the "acquisition vehicle" formed to buy County.

    Trembling says he has ploughed half a million of his own money into the club and feels "bitter" about the last six months.

    The trio claimed they had links to the Bahrain royal family and gave a guarantee they would invest a minimum of £5m in the club but instead put in just £50,000, he insists.

    "I plan to sue them for leaving the club in the lurch," he told me. "It's about the things they haven't honoured, contracts they haven't honoured. I had a big contract and Sven has even more reason to be unhappy."

    The former England manager has kept a dignified silence in recent weeks but is due to release a statement about his time at County, according to his agent Athol Still.

    Trembling says he has tried to phone and email the Willetts and King, but "they seem to have disappeared".

    He still believes "the project and plan" for County were "perfect", adding "if only they had had the money to do it", which does seem a rather large caveat.

    And Trembling wasn't the only person who bought into the improbable dream.

    The Supporters Trust, which owned 60% of the club after helping it out of administration with a £170,000 loan in 2003, voted overwhelmingly to give its shareholding to Munto Finance for nothing.

    Their willingness to believe in the promises of a white knight might seem misguided now, but with the club £1m in debt at the time and Munto providing a guarantee of funds, it was perhaps understandable at the time.

    As it is, the aims of County's new owners are now rather more modest than those of their predecessors.

    "The Premier League, that's not really part of our plans," new chief executive Jim Rodwell told BBC Sport.

    "We are talking more about sustainability and taking the club forward. What came before, that was a pipedream."
  • Sven-Goran Eriksson has written off £2.5m owed to him by Notts County, BBC Sport understands.

    Eriksson, who resigned as the club's director of football on Thursday, was due to be paid for the remaining four-and-half years on his contract.

    His gesture should help County in their bid to clear debts of almost £4m.

    But, a day after buying the League Two outfit for £1, new owner Ray Trew said County may yet go into administration if further liabilities are uncovered.

    "In the period in which I have been in discussions with Notts, which is about three or four weeks the debts have risen by £1m," he told the Nottingham Evening Post.

    "It was disclosed to me on Monday they stood at £3.9m but there might be other skeletons in the cupboard, so I have got accountants going into the club today.

    "If the debt remains as it was disclosed to me we will ride the storm. If it is greater I will have to re-evaluate, but administration will be a last resort."

    County are faced with a wind-up petition from HM Revenue and Customs over an unpaid tax bill for £324,000.

    SIMON AUSTIN BLOG
    How did the heady optimism of July turn so quickly into the devastation of today?

    Their priority, according to Trew, is to pay that off by Friday 19 February and then take Notts County into the Championship within three years.

    "Our short-term plans are to bring some stability to the club," he explained. "I will make cuts where I can, I certainly believe the administration staff is over-manned. I'm not prepared to discuss my personal finances.

    "But I will support the club and put it on a sustainable financial footing. Notts County has got to live in the real world, unfortunately it hasn't been. There is going to be investment, we're not going in there to asset strip.

    "Our ambition is to get promoted this season and to get the club into the Championship. I think we can get there in three years, four maximum, and that is not pie in the sky, that is an achievable target.

    "The club's debts didn't put me off. Don't get me wrong there is a big job ahead. The biggest problem is on the football side because we have a transfer embargo because of the insolvency proceedings."

    Trew purchased County from chairman Peter Trembling on Thursday and Eriksson has taken up an offer to continue in a non-active role as joint life president.

    The former England manager came in after Middle Eastern consortium Munto Finance took over the club last summer with promises of a five-year plan to take County to the Premier League.

    Sol Campbell was the biggest signing as a host of new players joined the club but the new backers pulled out and Trembling took over in December.

    New chief executive Jim Rodwell said Eriksson's post would not be filled in the short to medium term but he praised to the Swede's contribution.
  • Know a few County fans. They haven't been in any way surprised by anything that's happened since Munto came in. Deep down they expected it all to go tits up eventually, like, as they say, everything associated with Notts County in the past. Seriously. I met one for the first time about a week after Sol Campbell signed and he told me he was really excited, but joked that Campbell would probably be gone by Christmas.

    I don't believe Trembling. I think there's a lot more to the story than he's saying, and he came out with a lot of empty promises even since Munto left.
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