He did state this even in the last fans forum, however, he claimed it had cost £50 million to build the whole thing complex and this would need to be paid off - no idea where this figure came from."Kernow Yellow" wrote:Well, people might have expected Kassam to put some of the money that he made indirectly out of the club back into it - ie from hotels and leisure businesses built on the back of the stadium planning permission. Didn't he vaguely imply that this would happen when he took over?"Mally" wrote:I'm not sure what people mean when they talk about investment then. I have never expected or known an owner of Oxford United to give money to the club that they don't expect to get back with interest or some sort of profit. Isn't that how our capitalist free market society functions?
Presumably this is how clubs like Wigan and, closer to home, Reading have progressed in recent years.
REading and Wigan are where they are because their chairmen give millions to the club every year, if they pulled out both teams would be playing at least one level then they are. So since Kassam has been in charge we have made a profit of about £100,000 a season - most of which came in the last year. Before he took over we would on average see transfer profit of about £500,000 a season. Lending money to the club when it was secured against his own buisness meant we wouldn't go bust and he would only get the money back if someone was silly enough to pay off all the money he has leant the club whilst not getting the stadium as part of it.