Administration tomorrow apparently

[A-Ro]

if this was a marriage

I think you missed out &quotand I were a woman&quot

[recordmeister]

if this was a marriage

I think you missed out &quotand I were a woman&quot

Maybe I'm just longing for someone to be agressive in the box...

[x586]

One thing which is puzzling me about 'administration' is the question of who would institute the process. Would this be:

Kassam, for unpaid rent (and/or other debts)?

or

Merry/Lenegan for having the inability to pay rent/wages (and/or service other debts)?

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Kassam was an asset stripper who came in and did a fantastic job of what he does: seeing an opportunity and making a LOT of money out of it.

WPL are just a bunch of inept Walter Mitty characters who do have a passion for the sport (IL aside) but have fooled us all into thinking they have the wealth, power and influence to turn this club around.

A not unreasonable summing-up, I'd say.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Incidentally, has anybody else here read William Tenn's The Liberation of Earth? In which the planet is repeatedly liberated by one set of people or another, until they abandon it because it is almost completely destroyed?

[Mally]

In truth Firoz Kassam has been a disaster for Oxford United. Tying the future of the club to the future of such a ruthless and unpleasant individual was a hugely unwise thing to do and the consequences may well involve the end of the football club. There is quite a lot of effort made to obscure this, by people who do not want to face up to it, and there are a number of alibis that are put forward in that cause, of which the boardroom incident is one and the ineptitude of the present administration another. But I look at the league table when he started to be involved, I look at the appallign bind in which he deliberately left the club - and I am tired of these alibis and of the people who make them. These alibis were made for his predecessors as well - all of them. They were just as abject then.

Well if it was an unwise thing to do then let's not rewrite history - It was Robin Herd who did it. Nobody who comments on here had a choice in the matter. If you honestly think that the &quotGang of Four&quot were a credible alternative then you are completely deluded. They were 4 people with full time jobs and £1 million between them. Since then somewhere around £16 million has been put into the club/stadium over and above regular turnover.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

If you honestly think that the &quotGang of Four&quot were a credible alternative then you are completely deluded.

Ah, the invention of opinion.

[Matt D]

point taken, but i suspect that the point that mally's driving at (and my response) is that the wisdom of attaching the club's future to kassam rather depends on the other options around. if there were no viable alternatives, then would it have been wise to do anything else?

[Snake]

I donÔÇÖt see how a team of professional administrators could run Oxford United any worse than WPL, so as long the points penalty can be overcome IÔÇÖm all for it.

[Ascension Ox]

I don’t see how a team of professional administrators could run Oxford United any worse than WPL, so as long the points penalty can be overcome I’m all for it.

Where do they get their cash to trade with then?

[Snake]

I don’t see how a team of professional administrators could run Oxford United any worse than WPL, so as long the points penalty can be overcome I’m all for it.

Where do they get their cash to trade with then?

Assuming that WPL walk off with our season ticket money then we’d be left with the income from the supporters coming through the gates on matchdays as a very minimum (and there would be other sources). We may be down to less than 1300 pay-on-the-day customers but most clubs in the Conference would love to have that number of floating fans.

Part of the rent would need to be defered of course, and that would be their job to negotiate with FK.

And don’t forget how many turned up when Nick Merry “bought the club

[OUFC4eva]

An historic post from snake. A football fan wanting to see his club be put into Administration! Be careful what you wish for.

Exactly AO - who would fund the Administration for the next 90 days if that were the case. Normally an interested suitor would provide the cash
and then make an offer. The debts stay in the Administration and the club is effectively debt free when it exits usually by a C.V.A after the Administrator accepts an offer for the business and assets.

If you remember in 1999 - Kassam invested £1m in OUFC's C.V.A
and the old directors such as Nick Harris lost their money. IIRC Geoff Coppock invested money after talks with Herd/Keith Cox - and lost the lot
when the club became publically insolvent in 1998.

Herd escaped to Middlesborough and became very ill.

[scooter]

I do think it is easy to hate Kassam more than WPL.

Kassam was an asset stripper who came in and did a fantastic job of what he does: seeing an opportunity and making a LOT of money out of it.

WPL are just a bunch of inept Walter Mitty characters who do have a passion for the sport (IL aside) but have fooled us all into thinking they have the wealth, power and influence to turn this club around.

I'm not sure which is worse but i think, if this was a marriage I'd rather be married to the penniless buffon than the wife beater in the mansion...

But what about when it comes to the divorce.

[Baboo]

it's arguable that Kassam has actually been our best chairman since before Captain Bob.

In the sense that anything is arguable, yes, but in no other.
[/quote]

Of course it is arguable from the basis that he actually made the move to Minchery Farm when no one else was anywhere near close to pulling this off &amp when he handed over the debt had been stabilised &amp the club was breaking even year on year - okay I accept the penny pinching arguement. But when the pennies stopped being pinched and we got a permanent trainign ground, had overnight stops, brought in full time fitness coaches, goalkeeping coaches etc etc we just got bloody worse on the field.

Even with the rent given our income through the gates compared to our rivals we should have had the financial clout to have walked away with this league. Problem was the money was spent in a way that was wasteful in the extreme - we've spent big and just created teams that have got worse and worse. Meaning of course gates plummet &amp we're now in that vicious downward spiral. That is not FK's fault.
&quotStand up if you hate Kassam&quot is not going to help anyone, it just deflects the attention from Nick Merry &amp WPL. &quotDon't buy the pie&quot I can see some logic in.

Anyway, we keep going round and round the same old arguements and we're getting nowhere. I just fear for the future of my football club and it is to the current owners I now look, not an ex-owner.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

we should have had the financial clout to have walked away with this league.

We should, but then again we should not have been it, and most of the blame for that must rest with the person who was in charge when we fell towards it. And how did that happpen, if the club was in such good condition?

it is to the current owners I now look, not an ex-owner.

To a degree, but then again Kassam isn't all that &quotex&quot, is he? And that's a large part of the problem.

Saying it's WPL or Kassam doesn't help: both have played, and are playing, a large role, in different ways, in brigning the football club nearer to oblivion.