SIMON JORDAN, 39, is the former mobile-phone tycoon turned chairman and owner of Crystal Palace Football Club.
He made his fortune from the Pocket Phone Shop, which he set up with Andrew Briggs in 1994. The business flourished by undercutting rivals and selling phones for as little as 99p. It was sold to One-2-One, now known as T-Mobile, for £73m in 2000.
At the age of 32, Jordan used the proceeds to buy Crystal Palace, which was in danger of being taken into administration because of financial troubles. He has supported the club since his childhood – not least because his father played for the team in the 1950s.
Earlier this year he appeared in ITV’s Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway alongside Jacqueline Gold, the managing director of Ann Summers, and the former Conservative MP and novelist Jeffrey Archer.
Jordan is financing a British film about music producer Joe Meek entitled “Telstar”, featuring Kevin Spacey and Ralph Little.
Jordan, whose girlfriend is the former model Suzi Walker, lives in Marbella, although he regularly flies back to Britain.
How much money do you have in your wallet? I have £800 on me at the moment, which is actually a little less than I would carry normally. Usually I have a couple of thousand.
I carry the money because I’m a huge tipper. When I was younger, I struggled and ended up waiting tables, and I remember what it was like to be on that side of the business.
Whenever I go out, I tip generously. My average tip is always 35% to 40% of the bill. That usually works out at about £100.
If I park my car I usually tip about £50, not because I’m being flash but because I know that next time they’ll look after me. The largest tip I gave was £1,000 at the Waterside Inn at Bray in Berkshire.
Do you have any credit cards? I have a gold Mastercard with a £250,000 limit which I’ve reached and gone over a few times. I also have a platinum Visa, a gold Visa and a platinum Morgan Stanley card.
I use them for pretty much everything, from buying cars to grocery shopping. I think the combined credit limit is something like £750,000.
The most I’ve spent on a single item is probably about £75,000. It was for a watch or a car, I can’t remember exactly.
My normal credit-card spend is about £50,000 to £60,000 a month. I don’t always pay off the bills so interest charges can be quite high, although not so high that they are difficult to manage.
Are you a saver or a spender? A spender, or rather a consistent and persistent investor. Everything I do in life is based upon investing in something: opening restaurants; financing movies; buying a football club; flying my dad around the world.
Every year I ask my father where he would like to go on holiday and then I pay for him and an old army colleague of his to go there. My father is a very fit man and a former footballer who is 59 but acts like he’s 10 years younger.
This year he went to Peru. The year before that he went to Germany to watch all the World Cup games from first to last.
How much did you earn last year? Not quite £10m, but getting there.
I’m funding a movie and I’ve also recently bought and invested in a chain of bars called Club Bar & Dining in the West End of London. I also have a property company in Spain where I’ve invested £10m. I built 25 villas with that in Marbella.
The money I make from Crystal Palace goes straight back into the club.
Have you ever been really hard up? In my early twenties, before I set up Pocket Phone Shop, I started a mobile-phone business which didn’t work out. I fell out with my business partner at the time and ended up in a lot of financial trouble so I moved to America to start again.
I survived by waiting on tables in New York, earning something like $500 a week. At my worst point, I was living in a hotel on 116th Street in Spanish Harlem. The hotel had one bathroom between 18 bedrooms. I lived there for about six months but eventually sold my gold bracelet to get a flight back to London.
What is the most lucrative work you have ever done? Did you use the fee for something special? Selling my mobile-phone business for £73m. Andrew Briggs and I started it by investing £15,000 each. We split the profits when we sold it, so we got about £36m each.
I used £11m of the proceeds to buy Crystal Palace and I’ve spent another £24m on the club since.
Do you own a property? Apart from the Spanish properties, which are more of a business, I have a home in Marbella. The nine-bedroom villa cost me about £6m in 2001. It has a six-car garage, a tennis court, a full sized football pitch, an olympic-sized swimming pool and a cinema room. I recently sold my three-bedroom penthouse in Chelsea overlooking Battersea Park for £2.5m. I’m in the process of looking to buy somewhere else, either in Malibu in California, where I might be doing some business, or somewhere else in London.
When I’m in London I stay at the Grosvenor hotel where I’ve had a permanent suite for the past seven years. It costs a couple of hundred thousand a year.
Do you invest in shares? I invest in people’s businesses as well as the stock market. Last year I probably had about £1m in shares, mostly in technology firms. Currently I have about £750,000 in the stock market. I use stockbrokers such as Charles Stanley and am agreeing a deal with Hargreaves Hale. I tend to allow them to make decisions about what shares to buy.
Do you have any Isas? Nope. I don’t feel I need them.
Do you have a pension or other retirement plan? I’m not a huge fan of pensions. I think I’ll probably manage on the money that I have already.
What has been your worst investment? If you’re talking purely in terms of finance, I would have to say the football club. Even though I’m making money from it, I still haven’t recovered my £35m investment. From an emotional standpoint, however, it’s been my best as well.
What aspect of our taxation system would you change? I think there needs to be some reform of inheritance tax, which I see as a completely soulless, immoral tax. It’s punishing people who have worked hard all their lives.
What is your financial priority? I don’t feel I have one other than wanting my investments to work. I especially want this movie that I’m working on to be successful. I’m the first British producer to sole-fund a movie in 35 years. I’m doing it simply because I enjoy and believe in it.
Do you have a money weakness? I invest in a lot of people but they’re not always the right people to help. I once lent a friend £2m. He didn’t pay me back. It’s a long story but, needless to say, he’s not my friend anymore. It has made me slightly more cynical but not so much that I’m not willing to take some risks.
What is the most extravagant thing you have ever bought? A football club is quite an extravagant purchase. Apart from the costs in running it, I’ve bought some extras such as a Boodles & Dunthorne diamond ring for £100,000 to celebrate when we reached the Premiership last year.
I also have 15 cars. Nine are in Spain and six in London. My favourite is the titanium silver Aston Martin Vanquish. I bought that a couple of years ago for £200,000. I also have a McLaren SLR, a Mercedes SL65 AMG, a Jaguar XJ, a Porsche Carrera, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Ferrari 612 and a Ferrari 660. I also have a yacht moored in Marbella. I bought it nine months ago for £3m. It costs £150,000 a year to berth it, £60,000 a year to clean it and about £200,000 a year just to take it out – all good fun.
Do you play the lottery? What would you do if you won? I don’t agree with it. I think money is something you have to earn through hard work. If I won, I’d give it to charity – maybe something that helped disadvantaged kids.
What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money? Money is one of the least important things. Don’t do things for money; do things for success.
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]Maybe not a moron, perhaps "imbecile" would be more appropriate, but how much of this could he repeat after yesterdays events ?
I bet he comes out of this with his money, more or less, intact. I can't stand him but you can't blame him for not wanting to spunk any more of his money on Palace.
EDIT: Actually having read another thread, perhaps he will lose all his money. Now that would make me gloat.
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]How much money do you have in your wallet? I have £800 on me at the moment, which is actually a little less than I would carry normally. Usually I have a couple of thousand. I carry the money because I’m a huge knob jockey.
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]I use them for pretty much everything, from buying cars to grocery shopping. I think the combined credit limit is something like £750,000.
These quotes are just hilarious... I think i've had £80 in my wallet once or twice and my credit limit is £500!
I don't agree with everything he says and he comes across as a bit flash (but then why should I judge people unless they are acting in a way that is disrespectful to others) but on the whole I have nothing but respect for the man.
He made his own money. A lot of it. No help from family inheritance or posh Etonian connections. Did not make his money being paid obscene amounts of money by banks for taking obscene risks with other people's money by trading in derivatives and other junk that contributes absolutely nothing to the economy or society only to be bailed out by the tax payer when it goes wrong.
He likes spending money on super model girl friends, big houses, flash cars and sending his dad on expensive holidays every year. Pretty sure everyone on here would do the same if they had his money and were single.
He invests a large chunk of his own money in saving the club he supports and trys to get them back to the premiership. How many people on here would love to be in a position to invest £35 million into Charlton? How many would if they were?
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]
The most I’ve spent on a single item is probably about £75,000. It was for a watch or a car, I can’t remember exactly.
I’ve bought some extras such as a Boodles & Dunthorne diamond ring for £100,000 to celebrate when we reached the Premiership last year.
I also have 15 cars. Nine are in Spain and six in London. My favourite is the titanium silver Aston Martin Vanquish. I bought that a couple of years ago for £200,000. I also have a McLaren SLR, a Mercedes SL65 AMG, a Jaguar XJ, a Porsche Carrera, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Ferrari 612 and a Ferrari 660. I also have a yacht moored in Marbella. I bought it nine months ago for £3m.
So if the most he spent on an item was 75k, how did he then buy a 100k ring and all those cars?
[cite]Posted By: Red_in_SE8[/cite]I don't agree with everything he says and he comes across as a bit flash (but then why should I judge people unless they are acting in a way that is disrespectful to others) but on the whole I have nothing but respect for the man.
He made his own money. A lot of it. No help from family inheritance or posh Etonian connections. Did not make his money being paid obscene amounts of money by banks for taking obscene risks with other people's money by trading in derivatives and other junk that contributes absolutely nothing to the economy or society only to be bailed out by the tax payer when it goes wrong.
He likes spending money on super model girl friends, big houses, flash cars and sending his dad on expensive holidays every year. Pretty sure everyone on here would do the same if they had his money and were single.
He invests a large chunk of his own money in saving the club he supports and trys to get them back to the premiership. How many people on here would love to be in a position to invest £35 million into Charlton? How many would if they were?
Put like that he seems a quite a nice chap.
May be he should have stayed a supporter and enjoyed his wealth and just dropped Palace a million or two when the mood took him.
Knowing very little myself about the day to day running and finacing of football, I would also say it has become quite clear niether did he.
[cite]Posted By: Red_in_SE8[/cite]I don't agree with everything he says and he comes across as a bit flash (but then why should I judge people unless they are acting in a way that is disrespectful to others) but on the whole I have nothing but respect for the man.
He made his own money. A lot of it. No help from family inheritance or posh Etonian connections. Did not make his money being paid obscene amounts of money by banks for taking obscene risks with other people's money by trading in derivatives and other junk that contributes absolutely nothing to the economy or society only to be bailed out by the tax payer when it goes wrong.
He likes spending money on super model girl friends, big houses, flash cars and sending his dad on expensive holidays every year. Pretty sure everyone on here would do the same if they had his money and were single.
He invests a large chunk of his own money in saving the club he supports and trys to get them back to the premiership. How many people on here would love to be in a position to invest £35 million into Charlton? How many would if they were?
You are Max Clifford and I claim my £5.
He was lucky. Pure and simple. Shame how he can't talk about his bankrupt past in the USA. He was even a crap waiter.
Save your respect for someone like Richard Murray, who has done what he's done without shouting it from the rooftops and probably put just as much of his own money into a football club he loves - except he WILL leave a legacy. Just look round the ground we own on Saturday.
Jordan's mess is his own mess - and I couldn't be happier.
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]How much money do you have in your wallet? I have £800 on me at the moment, which is actually a little less than I would carry normally. Usually I have a couple of thousand. I carry the money because I’m a huge knob jockey.
[cite]Posted By: No.1 in South London[/cite]I use them for pretty much everything, from buying cars to grocery shopping. I think the combined credit limit is something like £750,000.
These quotes are just hilarious... I think i've had £80 in my wallet once or twice and my credit limit is £500!
Hardly mentions money at all does he?!
That's because he is was "considerably richer than yew!" With apologies to Harry Enfield.
I have always had, and still do, enormous respect for Richard Murray.
Don't see how you can dismiss Jordan's achievements in the business world as pure luck.
He certainly was not lucky with the managers/coaches he appointed at Palace.
The Charlton owners were lucky to have the services of Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley which advanced the club tremendously. If Jordan had that kind of luck with his managerial appointments they would not be in the mess they are in now.
[cite]Posted By: Red_in_SE8[/cite]I have always had, and still do, enormous respect for Richard Murray.
Don't see how you can dismiss Jordan's achievements in the business world as pure luck.
He certainly was not lucky with the managers/coaches he appointed at Palace.
The Charlton owners were lucky to have the services of Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley which advanced the club tremendously. If Jordan had that kind of luck with his managerial appointments they would not be in the mess they are in now.
Warnock is a decent manager and has proved that for Palace.
I reckon Jordan still has £40-50M in the bank. He was no longer prepared to fork out £5M every 6 months to keep Palace afloat. I'm sure he would have dipped into his pocket again if the business was profitable. He should have sold some players to balance the books. That's what happens when you go chasing the golden nugget of EPL status.
I don't have a problem with him having been bankrupt before. I think its laudable to invest your own £30M in the club you support. If I had that sort of money, I would probably do the same.
My main issue with him is all the Billy Bigbollocks stuff. He really isn't the great entrepreneur and business guru that he tries to make out.
He lectured others about the way they ran their clubs yet he has run his into the ground. He lacked experience in running a football club to the extend that he asked for advice from Charlton to handle his attack on other chairmen.
His personality, it seems to me, has mean't that he doesn't take advice very easily. True leadership to me means surrounding yourself with people who challenge what you are about, not just yes men.
One of the biggest problems for Palace has been they didn't own the freehold. He claimed to bought it but he hadn't. In concluding a deal with the new owners, he lumbered the club with a much higher rent than the original arrangement.
I don't know whether he kept the rest of his fortune in tact by running the club into trouble. I doubt that. I suppose we'll find out in due course.
The guy just oozes an utter lack of class, an over inflated ego and a worryingly poor understanding of business principles. Dangerous qualities if you ask me!
- Attacks RM and CAFC yet had asked us for advice over several issues only months before. I understand that both Varney and Murray were furious as they'd given up their own time to talk to him and give him advice on the issues he asked about. Hence the remarks following the game in 2005.
- Attacks football agents yet at the same time owned shares in a football agency firm.
- Brags about how big and successful he is, yet throws his money into the Spanish property blackhole which was highly overextended as it was.
- Brags that he had "got one over on Ron Noades" and had returned Selhurst Park to the Palace fans, yet had done nothing of the sort, and ended up by paying more in rent than he had been doing previously.
- Agrees to selling 5yr season tickets to plug a gap in the revenue, yet doesn't see the long term revenue loss this will create.
How some Palace fans still back him is utterly beyond me.
I know we've knocked our board for some of the mistakes made in the run up to relegation, but whilst they may have been misplaced in their decision making, they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing (at the time).
Jordan's tenure at Palace has been a train wreck waiting to happen for quite some time and now, due to his inability to deliver any real stability and change, they're quite possibly in a much, much more precarious position than they were in 2000.
[cite]Posted By: Red_in_SE8[/cite]I have always had, and still do, enormous respect for Richard Murray.
Don't see how you can dismiss Jordan's achievements in the business world as pure luck.
He certainly was not lucky with the managers/coaches he appointed at Palace.
The Charlton owners were lucky to have the services of Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley which advanced the club tremendously. If Jordan had that kind of luck with his managerial appointments they would not be in the mess they are in now.
[cite]Posted By: Red_in_SE8[/cite]I have always had, and still do, enormous respect for Richard Murray.
Don't see how you can dismiss Jordan's achievements in the business world as pure luck.
He certainly was not lucky with the managers/coaches he appointed at Palace.
The Charlton owners were lucky to have the services of Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley which advanced the club tremendously. If Jordan had that kind of luck with his managerial appointments they would not be in the mess they are in now.
Warnock is a decent manager and has proved that for Palace.
I reckon Jordan still has £40-50M in the bank. He was no longer prepared to fork out £5M every 6 months to keep Palace afloat. I'm sure he would have dipped into his pocket again if the business was profitable. He should have sold some players to balance the books. That's what happens when you go chasing the golden nugget of EPL status.
You think Jordan has 40/50 mil in the bank....you're having a laugh mate! He never had 'anyhing' like that, even in his hey day.
He's nigh on skint(well in tycoon terms that is)....put a whole wedge(indeed the vast majority of his dough) into Spanish property development....do I need to tell you how that's gone?
Finally, if he had that sort of money 'sloshing around' don't you think he'd stump up some more(a relatively small amount in those terms), to save Palarse....of course he would.
Where do you get the idea that he's got that sort of money.......I'm completely baffled?
Just goes to show any ballsy businessman like Chris Evans or Jordan can make undeserved millions from being on the right side of a stupid LBO. I'd very much doubt if he has significant ammounts of money lying around the boy probably finances everything he does similarly to how he has done for Palace. Recession happens and any assets he has are more than likely less than he owes. Still good luck to him it's something I wouldn't have the stomach for.
Personally all it shows to me is if you have 35 million then don't bother putting it into a football club. Only worth putting money into Man U or Arsenal a few years back or any club at the start of the prem. After that Ron Noades and anyone else is taking you for a mug.
Comments
He made his fortune from the Pocket Phone Shop, which he set up with Andrew Briggs in 1994. The business flourished by undercutting rivals and selling phones for as little as 99p. It was sold to One-2-One, now known as T-Mobile, for £73m in 2000.
At the age of 32, Jordan used the proceeds to buy Crystal Palace, which was in danger of being taken into administration because of financial troubles. He has supported the club since his childhood – not least because his father played for the team in the 1950s.
Earlier this year he appeared in ITV’s Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway alongside Jacqueline Gold, the managing director of Ann Summers, and the former Conservative MP and novelist Jeffrey Archer.
Jordan is financing a British film about music producer Joe Meek entitled “Telstar”, featuring Kevin Spacey and Ralph Little.
Jordan, whose girlfriend is the former model Suzi Walker, lives in Marbella, although he regularly flies back to Britain.
How much money do you have in your wallet? I have £800 on me at the moment, which is actually a little less than I would carry normally. Usually I have a couple of thousand.
I carry the money because I’m a huge tipper. When I was younger, I struggled and ended up waiting tables, and I remember what it was like to be on that side of the business.
Whenever I go out, I tip generously. My average tip is always 35% to 40% of the bill. That usually works out at about £100.
If I park my car I usually tip about £50, not because I’m being flash but because I know that next time they’ll look after me. The largest tip I gave was £1,000 at the Waterside Inn at Bray in Berkshire.
Do you have any credit cards? I have a gold Mastercard with a £250,000 limit which I’ve reached and gone over a few times. I also have a platinum Visa, a gold Visa and a platinum Morgan Stanley card.
I use them for pretty much everything, from buying cars to grocery shopping. I think the combined credit limit is something like £750,000.
The most I’ve spent on a single item is probably about £75,000. It was for a watch or a car, I can’t remember exactly.
My normal credit-card spend is about £50,000 to £60,000 a month. I don’t always pay off the bills so interest charges can be quite high, although not so high that they are difficult to manage.
Are you a saver or a spender? A spender, or rather a consistent and persistent investor. Everything I do in life is based upon investing in something: opening restaurants; financing movies; buying a football club; flying my dad around the world.
Every year I ask my father where he would like to go on holiday and then I pay for him and an old army colleague of his to go there. My father is a very fit man and a former footballer who is 59 but acts like he’s 10 years younger.
This year he went to Peru. The year before that he went to Germany to watch all the World Cup games from first to last.
How much did you earn last year? Not quite £10m, but getting there.
I’m funding a movie and I’ve also recently bought and invested in a chain of bars called Club Bar & Dining in the West End of London. I also have a property company in Spain where I’ve invested £10m. I built 25 villas with that in Marbella.
The money I make from Crystal Palace goes straight back into the club.
Have you ever been really hard up? In my early twenties, before I set up Pocket Phone Shop, I started a mobile-phone business which didn’t work out. I fell out with my business partner at the time and ended up in a lot of financial trouble so I moved to America to start again.
I survived by waiting on tables in New York, earning something like $500 a week. At my worst point, I was living in a hotel on 116th Street in Spanish Harlem. The hotel had one bathroom between 18 bedrooms. I lived there for about six months but eventually sold my gold bracelet to get a flight back to London.
What is the most lucrative work you have ever done? Did you use the fee for something special? Selling my mobile-phone business for £73m. Andrew Briggs and I started it by investing £15,000 each. We split the profits when we sold it, so we got about £36m each.
I used £11m of the proceeds to buy Crystal Palace and I’ve spent another £24m on the club since.
Do you own a property? Apart from the Spanish properties, which are more of a business, I have a home in Marbella. The nine-bedroom villa cost me about £6m in 2001. It has a six-car garage, a tennis court, a full sized football pitch, an olympic-sized swimming pool and a cinema room. I recently sold my three-bedroom penthouse in Chelsea overlooking Battersea Park for £2.5m. I’m in the process of looking to buy somewhere else, either in Malibu in California, where I might be doing some business, or somewhere else in London.
When I’m in London I stay at the Grosvenor hotel where I’ve had a permanent suite for the past seven years. It costs a couple of hundred thousand a year.
Do you invest in shares? I invest in people’s businesses as well as the stock market. Last year I probably had about £1m in shares, mostly in technology firms. Currently I have about £750,000 in the stock market. I use stockbrokers such as Charles Stanley and am agreeing a deal with Hargreaves Hale. I tend to allow them to make decisions about what shares to buy.
Do you have any Isas? Nope. I don’t feel I need them.
Do you have a pension or other retirement plan? I’m not a huge fan of pensions. I think I’ll probably manage on the money that I have already.
What has been your worst investment? If you’re talking purely in terms of finance, I would have to say the football club. Even though I’m making money from it, I still haven’t recovered my £35m investment. From an emotional standpoint, however, it’s been my best as well.
What aspect of our taxation system would you change? I think there needs to be some reform of inheritance tax, which I see as a completely soulless, immoral tax. It’s punishing people who have worked hard all their lives.
What is your financial priority? I don’t feel I have one other than wanting my investments to work. I especially want this movie that I’m working on to be successful. I’m the first British producer to sole-fund a movie in 35 years. I’m doing it simply because I enjoy and believe in it.
Do you have a money weakness? I invest in a lot of people but they’re not always the right people to help. I once lent a friend £2m. He didn’t pay me back. It’s a long story but, needless to say, he’s not my friend anymore. It has made me slightly more cynical but not so much that I’m not willing to take some risks.
What is the most extravagant thing you have ever bought? A football club is quite an extravagant purchase. Apart from the costs in running it, I’ve bought some extras such as a Boodles & Dunthorne diamond ring for £100,000 to celebrate when we reached the Premiership last year.
I also have 15 cars. Nine are in Spain and six in London. My favourite is the titanium silver Aston Martin Vanquish. I bought that a couple of years ago for £200,000. I also have a McLaren SLR, a Mercedes SL65 AMG, a Jaguar XJ, a Porsche Carrera, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Ferrari 612 and a Ferrari 660. I also have a yacht moored in Marbella. I bought it nine months ago for £3m. It costs £150,000 a year to berth it, £60,000 a year to clean it and about £200,000 a year just to take it out – all good fun.
Do you play the lottery? What would you do if you won? I don’t agree with it. I think money is something you have to earn through hard work. If I won, I’d give it to charity – maybe something that helped disadvantaged kids.
What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money? Money is one of the least important things. Don’t do things for money; do things for success.
I bet he comes out of this with his money, more or less, intact. I can't stand him but you can't blame him for not wanting to spunk any more of his money on Palace.
EDIT: Actually having read another thread, perhaps he will lose all his money. Now that would make me gloat.
Simona
Ian Walker
Suzy Walker certainly likes a rich c*nt with a fetching hairdo
You'd never know from that interview that he's a got a few bob.
These quotes are just hilarious... I think i've had £80 in my wallet once or twice and my credit limit is £500!
Hardly mentions money at all does he?!
He made his own money. A lot of it. No help from family inheritance or posh Etonian connections. Did not make his money being paid obscene amounts of money by banks for taking obscene risks with other people's money by trading in derivatives and other junk that contributes absolutely nothing to the economy or society only to be bailed out by the tax payer when it goes wrong.
He likes spending money on super model girl friends, big houses, flash cars and sending his dad on expensive holidays every year. Pretty sure everyone on here would do the same if they had his money and were single.
He invests a large chunk of his own money in saving the club he supports and trys to get them back to the premiership. How many people on here would love to be in a position to invest £35 million into Charlton? How many would if they were?
So if the most he spent on an item was 75k, how did he then buy a 100k ring and all those cars?
Put like that he seems a quite a nice chap.
May be he should have stayed a supporter and enjoyed his wealth and just dropped Palace a million or two when the mood took him.
Knowing very little myself about the day to day running and finacing of football, I would also say it has become quite clear niether did he.
You are Max Clifford and I claim my £5.
He was lucky. Pure and simple. Shame how he can't talk about his bankrupt past in the USA. He was even a crap waiter.
Save your respect for someone like Richard Murray, who has done what he's done without shouting it from the rooftops and probably put just as much of his own money into a football club he loves - except he WILL leave a legacy. Just look round the ground we own on Saturday.
Jordan's mess is his own mess - and I couldn't be happier.
That's because he is was "considerably richer than yew!" With apologies to Harry Enfield.
Don't see how you can dismiss Jordan's achievements in the business world as pure luck.
He certainly was not lucky with the managers/coaches he appointed at Palace.
The Charlton owners were lucky to have the services of Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley which advanced the club tremendously. If Jordan had that kind of luck with his managerial appointments they would not be in the mess they are in now.
Warnock is a decent manager and has proved that for Palace.
I reckon Jordan still has £40-50M in the bank. He was no longer prepared to fork out £5M every 6 months to keep Palace afloat. I'm sure he would have dipped into his pocket again if the business was profitable. He should have sold some players to balance the books. That's what happens when you go chasing the golden nugget of EPL status.
My main issue with him is all the Billy Bigbollocks stuff. He really isn't the great entrepreneur and business guru that he tries to make out.
He lectured others about the way they ran their clubs yet he has run his into the ground. He lacked experience in running a football club to the extend that he asked for advice from Charlton to handle his attack on other chairmen.
His personality, it seems to me, has mean't that he doesn't take advice very easily. True leadership to me means surrounding yourself with people who challenge what you are about, not just yes men.
One of the biggest problems for Palace has been they didn't own the freehold. He claimed to bought it but he hadn't. In concluding a deal with the new owners, he lumbered the club with a much higher rent than the original arrangement.
I don't know whether he kept the rest of his fortune in tact by running the club into trouble. I doubt that. I suppose we'll find out in due course.
- Attacks RM and CAFC yet had asked us for advice over several issues only months before. I understand that both Varney and Murray were furious as they'd given up their own time to talk to him and give him advice on the issues he asked about. Hence the remarks following the game in 2005.
- Attacks football agents yet at the same time owned shares in a football agency firm.
- Brags about how big and successful he is, yet throws his money into the Spanish property blackhole which was highly overextended as it was.
- Brags that he had "got one over on Ron Noades" and had returned Selhurst Park to the Palace fans, yet had done nothing of the sort, and ended up by paying more in rent than he had been doing previously.
- Agrees to selling 5yr season tickets to plug a gap in the revenue, yet doesn't see the long term revenue loss this will create.
How some Palace fans still back him is utterly beyond me.
I know we've knocked our board for some of the mistakes made in the run up to relegation, but whilst they may have been misplaced in their decision making, they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing (at the time).
Jordan's tenure at Palace has been a train wreck waiting to happen for quite some time and now, due to his inability to deliver any real stability and change, they're quite possibly in a much, much more precarious position than they were in 2000.
and uses a PR company with a line in football agency to take care of his own interests!
and RedSE8 stop trying to spoil our fun :-)
You think Jordan has 40/50 mil in the bank....you're having a laugh mate! He never had 'anyhing' like that, even in his hey day.
He's nigh on skint(well in tycoon terms that is)....put a whole wedge(indeed the vast majority of his dough) into Spanish property development....do I need to tell you how that's gone?
Finally, if he had that sort of money 'sloshing around' don't you think he'd stump up some more(a relatively small amount in those terms), to save Palarse....of course he would.
Where do you get the idea that he's got that sort of money.......I'm completely baffled?
Personally all it shows to me is if you have 35 million then don't bother putting it into a football club. Only worth putting money into Man U or Arsenal a few years back or any club at the start of the prem. After that Ron Noades and anyone else is taking you for a mug.