Time for Norman Smurthwaite to put a genuine price tag on the club and go

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Long-standing Port Vale fan Malcolm Hirst thinks recent events show that it’s time for Norman Smurthwaite to sell the club at a realistic price. Malcolm Hirst writes… The time is...

 

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[robf]

Can I recommend this to all as a must-read. It is a hundred times better than my effort yesterday.

 

To Malcolm all I can add is thanks for the opinion piece and...

 

[Family Stand Terrier]

Great piece, agree with every word.

[valeparklife]

Very good piece, echoes the thoughts of the majority of us.

 

I often think about what we've been through as a club over the last 15 years and I honestly think that if Hollywood made a film about us people would think "that's too far fetched and would never happen".

[Woakesy]

Spot on. If Norman genuinely cares for Port Vale and wants us to be better off after his tenure, he would sell at a realistic price. Lets be honest, 2m for the club is optimistic. Probably 1.5m - 2m is the right and fair price.

 

Norman asking people to pay for the money he has put in is akin to me selling my house and expecting someone to pay extra to cover my charges whilst I lived there.

 

Sadly I don't think Norman will ever do this and we'll lurch from one crises to another until we're a total laughing stock. We'll see.

[robf]

With regards to reducing the asking price. I think we've all seen the comments about never making a loss.

 

But just looking at one episode - the Ribeiro move and the player purchases. That was presumably financed by Norman. He has admitted it was a mistake publicly.

 

I realise it was a costly mistake but I'm afraid that's not the buyers fault. By including that loan in the asking price, isn't he just asking a buyer to effectively repay him for an expensive mistake?

 

And if all those mistakes were excluded wouldn't the price be considerably lower?

 

In turn if a local company can apparently afford a £7m asking price but has to get a loan for addditional running costs would it not be reasonable to assume that if the asking price was reduced to say £4m then the local company could invest £3m of their money earmarked for the original asking price to running costs, thus making the sale to a local company possible...

[pjg1876]

Spot on. If Norman genuinely cares for Port Vale and wants us to be better off after his tenure, he would sell at a realistic price. Lets be honest, 2m for the club is optimistic. Probably 1.5m - 2m is the right and fair price.

 

Sadly I don't think Norman will ever do this and we'll lurch from one crises to another until we're a total laughing stock. We'll see.

 

Spot on but it seems to me that we are already a laughing stock because of him

[stupers]

Agreed Rob. Norman is the one who has to pay for his mistakes. He's severely limiting the number of interested parties with his asking price. As I said on another thread, he has to reduce his asking price, take a hit and walk away knowing he got the right people to take the club forward. If he doesn't do that then he's either going to sell it to the wrong people or have to keep hold of the club when he clearly doesn't want to anymore.

[stupers]

Spot on but it seems to me that we are already a laughing stock because of him

 

To be fair, the national press haven't really cottoned on to all this farcical behaviour. We've managed to contain being a laughing stock to a smaller geographical area.

[Essex Vale]

I am just back from two weeks holiday in the sun and have caught up with the stories and on going antics of our chairman with utter incredulity. Has the thought not occurred to him that the reason the local company reduced their offer after looking at the books was because of the story told in the books?

 

There is so much that could be said but we need to move on. The Norwegian planning assumptions are utterly ludicrous and show that they are not fit people to buy they have no idea about what they are proposing to buy.

 

The Chairman needs to appoint a proper business agent to actively market the club and take the best offer he can get from a person or organisation with a viable business plan based on realistic planning assumptions. Planning for us to have an average crowd of close to 20K is utter muppetry and should disbar the Norwegians for ever. There is so much I could write!

[Fosse69]

I am just back from two weeks holiday in the sun and have caught up with the stories and on going antics of our chairman with utter incredulity. Has the thought not occurred to him that the reason the local company reduced their offer after looking at the books was because of the story told in the books?

 

There is so much that could be said but we need to move on. The Norwegian planning assumptions are utterly ludicrous and show that they are not fit people to buy they have no idea about what they are proposing to buy.

 

The Chairman needs to appoint a proper business agent to actively market the club and take the best offer he can get from a person or organisation with a viable business plan based on realistic planning assumptions. Planning for us to have an average crowd of close to 20K is utter muppetry and should disbar the Norwegians for ever. There is so much I could write!

I only wish he would take your advise, he may well have made his fortune in property, but marketing/selling a football club is different.

[steauavaliant]

 

An Administrator?

[mbycars]

To be fair, the national press haven't really cottoned on to all this farcical behaviour. We've managed to contain being a laughing stock to a smaller geographical area.

 

Smallthorne?

[Essex Vale]

I only wish he would take your advise, he may well have made his fortune in property, but marketing/selling a football club is different.

 

Sadly I think you are right. I would urge our Chairman to recognise that the best way to protect his investment and to get at least some return on it is to take what is available from the right source before administration looms.

 

His £3.7 Million pounds of directors loans have given us a result on the pitch that put us in a worse position then when he started. At least at that point the administrators had a team that was paying their way, winning games and well on the way to promotion. It beggars belief that he has thrown away almost £1 Million a year since then for what? He needs to understand that he lost that money and go for the best return he can. No one in their right mind would pay in the order of £6 Million that I think he is looking for. We are a club that has gone backwards on the pitch at a cost of £1 Million pa. Chairman put your losses.

[stupers]

Smallthorne?

 

Brown Edge last time I heard. They'll need a carrier pigeon to spread it any further though. Someone invented the wheel up there last week.