OxVox - Heritage Project Extension 'Stadium Signage'

[GodalmingYellow]

2 years ago!!! Really? Wow.

To be fair, this proposal had been live for some considerable time yet it was only when Firoz was presented with it recently, face-to-face, that 'he approved' it. Sorry for suggesting it was within the last six months Terry

Don't do it again or you'll be on the naughty step!! ;-)

[OUFC4eva]

As a member I have no objection to spending some
money on things like this. I remember the survey and voted in favour.

I also said that I thought a couple of club crests at the back of the East Stand
where flags/banners are hung would be a good place to put up some club branding.

I welcome what the trust has done and think it's good that
FK was clearly onside with it too.

[Eric Pollard]

Have no problem with what OxVox has done. I voted in favour as well.
Well done. But my God isn't progress slow.

How's the upcoming fixture board outside the ground coming along? That thing we talked about, what ,5 years ago? Basic advertising for the club.
As for the yellow seats well I guess we'll see them in 2035.

I sense this is the close season that Mr Lenagan finally started to lose interest in the club.
I hope I'm wrong, because if so, we are in the dou dou. (sic)

[Snake]

Having met with Firoz along with Mark only about 8 weeks ago I have to say he helped make this happen. He actually was pleased, even delighted, to support this and gave it his blessing. Relationship building is important you know.

Firoz did his job in saving a football club and clearing about £20m of debt that took up years of his life in various legal battles. Then a liar like Nick Merry pretending to be a rich local hero came along with a bunch of thugs in tow at the Bristol Rovers game and put FK’s family in danger and 99% of people thought that WPL were a better option so I don’t think you’ll ever get him properly involved again after that kind of hurt. I won’t name the ring leaders of that campaign as some were not #oufc people but the gullible followed. Shortly before that game the big breakthrough for Oxford United financial success was in the balance as local councillors were being presented with a proposal for a casino to be built underneath a new plush fourth stand while about a dozen protesters were outside the open windows of the debating chamber at the Town Hall endlessly chanting “Kassam Out”. I watched from my office window in despair on that dark afternoon.

Not surprisingly FK used his exit strategy and the rest is history.

[OUFC4eva]

Should it not have been a Kass-ino or Kash-ino.

That was never going to happen surely?

[Isaac]

Casino or bust for Kassam was it? A bit like it was Multiplex or bust back in the day? Kassam did pretty well out of the multiplex, I'm sure he'd have done pretty well out of the Casino too. All evidence suggests OUFC doing well out of the casino was significantly less likely.

I welcome the signs but it has taken a while hasn't it? Are we halfway through the lease yet?

[Matt D]

Thanks Matt.

I still don't think it is the right thing for OxVox to be spending money on, but there are obviously some that do.

Out of interest, how many respondents were there to that survey?

90 members for that one GY.

[Kernow Yellow]

Having met with Firoz along with Mark only about 8 weeks ago I have to say he helped make this happen. He actually was pleased, even delighted, to support this and gave it his blessing. Relationship building is important you know.

Firoz did his job in saving a football club and clearing about £20m of debt that took up years of his life in various legal battles. Then a liar like Nick Merry pretending to be a rich local hero came along with a bunch of thugs in tow at the Bristol Rovers game and put FK’s family in danger and 99% of people thought that WPL were a better option so I don’t think you’ll ever get him properly involved again after that kind of hurt. I won’t name the ring leaders of that campaign as some were not #oufc people but the gullible followed. Shortly before that game the big breakthrough for Oxford United financial success was in the balance as local councillors were being presented with a proposal for a casino to be built underneath a new plush fourth stand while about a dozen protesters were outside the open windows of the debating chamber at the Town Hall endlessly chanting “Kassam Out”. I watched from my office window in despair on that dark afternoon.

Not surprisingly FK used his exit strategy and the rest is history.

£20m debt? Are you sure it was that much? Anyway, Uncle Firoz didn't put 'years of his life in various legal battles' into saving OUFC, he did it for a land deal which he did very nicely out of. And he got his money back out of OUFC when he 'used his exit strategy' (ie sold the club without the ground, as he promised me and hundreds of others - in person, face-to-face - that he would NOT do only a few weeks earlier).

But he didn't use any of this profit to decorate the stadium (which he built and graciously named after himself) with OUFC club crests, or indeed doing anything to make it feel like the home of OUFC during his tenure. 'Allowing' us to do it now, when he doesn't have to spend a penny on it, is the least he can do quite frankly.

Don't get me wrong, it's obviously a good thing if OUFC and OxVox have good working relationships with Firoz Kassam, but there's no need to blow smoke up his arse about it.

[Snake]

Secured creditors - Lloyds Bank 1.5 million against an overdraft facility of 1.55 million. Corbett/Energy Holdings 1.5 Million. Robin Herd 2.3 Million,

Unsecured creditors 1.1 million.

Cost of land from OCC 1 million.

Payment to Les Wells for covenant lifting 1 million.

Nick Pentith, Morrells, OCC and other legal costs approx 1 million.

Cost of stadium build 12 million (though the original build cost was 22 million).

Benefits of a casino = decent 4th stand that joined the corners up with an agreement that x % of casino profits would go directly into club funds as part of the s106 agreement.

Hope those dozen or so protestors like looking at the fence and the westerly wind that howls over it some days

[Isaac]

Kassam is a clever man with clever lawyers. I would imagine a x% of profits would quickly turn into the square root of f'all. I'm not an accountant (suspect this will become obvious shortly), but I'd imagine it would be possible to lend the casino £20m to be built at a high interest rate. Then let the casino pay that off over many years. Could be a while before the casino saw a profit.

[Snake]

Kassam is a clever man with clever lawyers. I would imagine a x% of profits would quickly turn into the square root of f'all. I'm not an accountant (suspect this will become obvious shortly), but I'd imagine it would be possible to lend the casino £20m to be built at a high interest rate. Then let the casino pay that off over many years. Could be a while before the casino saw a profit.

I worked with some clever lawyers at the council for years so don’t write them off, though of course the argument is academic some ten years on from when it should have been built. Either way, when WPL’s 'five year plan' comes to fruition and #oufc are in the Championship I’m sure IL will be able to afford a windbreak. Or will OxVox be expected to cough up for that as well?

[Kernow Yellow]

So £6-£7m debt. The rest was investment for Kassam's own stadium that has NEVER been owned by OUFC. Even though he made £millions from selling our old ground.

I understand your point about some heavy-handed idiots effectively forcing FK to sell the club to people that proved less than perfect, but let's not repaint Firoz as some benefactor to whom we must be eternally grateful.

[GodalmingYellow]

Thanks Matt.

I still don't think it is the right thing for OxVox to be spending money on, but there are obviously some that do.

Out of interest, how many respondents were there to that survey?

90 members for that one GY.

OK thanks Matt.

I believe there are something in the region of 450 members give or take.

That would mean just 15% of the OxVox membership voted in favour of the signs then. Not quite the resounding success that the 75% stated statistic would suggest.

I also note from the OxVox minutes that Firoka has originally turned down the signage, so not quite the paragon of virtue being ascribed to Kassam.

http://www.oxvox.org.uk/pageContent.aspx?id=155

[Kairdiff Exile]

I believe there are something in the region of 450 members give or take.

That would mean just 15% of the OxVox membership voted in favour of the signs then. Not quite the resounding success that the 75% stated statistic would suggest.

GY, the world is run by the people who turn up. If 90 of 450(ish) members voted and the overwhelming majority were in favour, that seems like a representative enough sample. For those members who didn't vote (and I suspect I was one of them), the opportunity was there to have a say and that's all OxVox can do. We should all be thanking the OxVox committee for their hard work; we may not agree with every decision, but they're the ones giving up their time for free and if the rest of us think we could do a better job then the onus is on us to put ourselves forward.

So £6-£7m debt. The rest was investment for Kassam's own stadium that has NEVER been owned by OUFC. Even though he made £millions from selling our old ground.

I understand your point about some heavy-handed idiots effectively forcing FK to sell the club to people that proved less than perfect, but let's not repaint Firoz as some benefactor to whom we must be eternally grateful.

Quite. Snake's revisionism on this thread is breathtaking. Ka££am did very well out of Oxford United, thank you very much - and since he sold up, he has generally done next to nothing to help the club; GY pointed out above that he initially refused to allow these new signs to go up, but we could equally point to the poor maintenance of the pitch, the debacle over the Priory and any number of other things as well.

For the most part of his tenure, Ka££am cut every last budget he could at the club (scrapping the academy, no overnight stays for away trips; the players even had to buy their own orange squash at the training ground!) and the resultant slump on the pitch after a litany of cheap-but-useless managers (Rix, Talbot) or bizarre business setups (Jean-Marc Gorian, Ramon Diaz) was a surprise to no-one. And let us not forget, he lied to us all about not selling the club without the ground.

Maybe he would have built the fourth stand, and OUFC would have made billions from their share of casino profits. But I'd be sceptical of that, given that the one consistent thread running through every deal he did whilst in charge of OUFC had one other, more pressing, motive - lining the pockets of Firoz Ka££am. Just because we replaced one awful owner with another does not make the first one less awful.

[Brahma Bull]

I also note from the OxVox minutes that Firoka has originally turned down the signage, so not quite the paragon of virtue being ascribed to Kassam.

http://www.oxvox.org.uk/pageContent.aspx?id=155

Excellent spot.

We have had the signage turned down various times by different 'individuals' within the Firoka Group. Firoz as we know, employs middle managers to make some of his decisions and evidently it transpired that Firoz, when asked face-to-face during our meeting with him and one of his aides, claimed not to know or seen sight of our proposal. Within minutes of listening to a verbal explanation of it, he agreed on the spot and apologised for it having not been passed to him for his consideration. Moreover, we were invited in future, to go to the decision maker and not go through the red tape and spend our time being passed from one line manager to the next.

We are building a working relationship with him. Exactly what OxVox should be doing.